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A Question of Character

Is Trump a fascist? This seems to be the perennial question. But it is not the most important question. Time and again, I am struck by how, if you stop and think, the conflicts around Trump have nothing to do with ideology. It is important to not treat Trump as an ideolog. That isn’t to say that he isn’t racist and transphobic. It’s to say that his bigotry is not part of a cohesive set of arguments. It is his personal prejudices combined with what he thinks is politically salient at any one given time and place. His ideology is whatever he thinks it needs to be at that moment. If we can hold out any hope for the next four years it is that Trump has said he believes anything and promised to do anything that mobilizes his base in the moment. When it comes time to make good on those promises, it may prove harder than he thinks. More importantly, the time may come when he has to prove that he truly believes the things he has said he believes. It may become clear to those people whose ideas he has pledged loyalty to that he believes in nothing but his own desire for power.

People say they like Trump’s policies even as they don’t like his character. This is a cop out. Character is central to democracy. Actually, it’s impossible to have a properly functioning democracy when citizens and representatives lose sight of the fact that leaders in a democracy need to have certain moral characteristics. No amount of checks and balances will protect a democracy if an entire party, or half of the electorate, abdicate their responsibility to ensure they support someone who holds basic democratic values. This isn’t to, as they say, “blame the electorate.” It is to point out that something has gone fundamentally wrong with the way America selects its leaders. In our hyper-partisan environment, on both sides, character has taken a back seat to political litmus tests. People have come to care only about a handful of divisive issues and not the big picture–the person they are helping to elect. Political “nose holding” has become a way of life at the expense of American democracy.

What is at stake is just how screwed up the character of Trump and those that surround him really are. Take Hegseth, for instance. What is most relevant is not what philosophical approach he is going to take as Secretary of Defense. He is dangerous because he doesn’t have the character to serve his country. He faces serious allegations of rape, and, perhaps even more importantly, has supported armed service personnel convicted of war crimes. They can talk all they want, but in the end MAGA is a movement that cares nothing about the character of the people it sends to the government that is supposed to be serving the people. And that is just plain wrong. It is undemocratic. Since when did character not count?

When Will Climate Change Hit Home?

We have all seen the devastation–in the same place twice in two weeks. One member of a mobile home community–who is thinking of just picking up stakes and leaving–said it best, “Planet earth is really messed up right now.” Home insurance has sky-rockted. People who don’t live anywhere near a hurricane still have difficulty getting it at all, much less getting it at a price they can afford. FEMA is beginning to be stretched thin. It is having to pull people from other agencies because it doesn’t have enough people with the right expertise to handle not only back-to-back hurricanes but a host of climate related disasters.

And, it is not as if we do not know it is climate related. Scientist after scientist, climate model after climate model, not only predicted this would happen but can show how it is happening now.

And it is not as if hurricanes are the only evidence. I live in Iowa, quintessential rural Midwest, a place that is not supposed to be hit hard by climate change. But climate change has reached here, too, far away from hurricanes. My state has some of the most fertile soils in the world–and no rain to go with them.

My mother is, in some sense, a climate refugee. When my family moved into my childhood home in the very early 80’s there were some issues with flooding. The entire neighborhood sat in a floodplain. A dyke had been built. Later a dam was added. But over time flooding became a yearly or several times a year occurrence. We were having once-in-50-year-events every other year. The historic floods of 2008 were the last straw in what had been a series of catastrophic floods. Flood insurance simply no longer made sense. FEMA bought everybody out. The houses were torn down and Mother Nature took back what was her’s. It’s a green space now. Ours wasn’t the only neighborhood in my home town to meet this fate.

We all need, the world over, to start facing economic facts. It is estimated that the two recent hurricanes will cost $100 billion. We can’t afford it. Certainly we cannot afford it every other week. Difficult decisions about who can keep their homes will have to be made. Consequences will be felt. We cannot continue to delude ourselves into believing that climate change will not change our lives.

And, yet, in the middle of one of the tightest elections in recent memory, climate change is still not front and center. Not even with the devastation of back to back hurricanes has climate change become a top issue. Not that other issues are not important–reproductive rights, the war in Ukraine, the Middle East conflict. But as significant as these issues are, none pose so much an existential threat to the world as a whole as climate change.

So where are the intense debates about what to do next? Where are the prizes for scientific innovations that could get us to net zero faster? Where is holding corporate America to account? Where are the demands for systemic change? All of these exist. But they aren’t the first thing the candidates are talking about. Why?

Denial is a funny thing. Certainly there is the out and out denial that we are all used to. When it comes to some people, It is hard to think of any facts that they will ever accept. They are too fundamentally oriented to reject science. But there is a different, more insidious kind of denial. A belief that, “Yes, climate change may be important, but it is not as important as the cost of groceries and gas.”

This kind of denial can be seen in Boston’s “Innovation District”, which is soon to be an “Inundation District.” Boston has put $20 billion into seaport districts located on land built from landfill to just above high tide in the 19th century. Despite repeated problems with historic tidal flooding and storm surges the development goes on. More and more people are raising their voices, trying to convince their local government to accept the reality of climate change. Still, the building continues without regard to sea level rise; even as many residents can see the effects of climate change directly in front of them on a daily basis.

There is really only one answer, and that is to convince people that global warming will raise the price of groceries and gas. When worldwide food shortages spur inflation and the stores have no oranges because of climate-related citrus greening disease; when the cost of gas goes up because oil refineries flood during hurricanes even though they were built outside the 100-year floodplain–governments will be able to insulate the public from the effects of climate change only so long. Only by allowing people to feel the effects of climate change in their everyday lives can we make true progress. Now is that moment for governments to tell their people to connect the dots, to tell them in stark terms how climate change will and is affecting them personally, and not to shield them from it. It is a matter of there being a leader who has the moral courage to step forward and say it. It is a matter of what it will take for climate change to really hit home.

The Real Reason Joe Must Go

Let us start by saying that Joe Biden is a decent human being. He is full of empathy. He works hard and has developed the skills needed to be a great statesman. But after his disastrous debate performance, is it critical that he step aside now, and I mean today. That there is no one who could potentially step up to replace him is simply untrue. There are many people within the Democratic party who are capable of being a standard bearer even though they are much less well known. There is still time to introduce a candidate to the American people.

At this point, it is not simply a matter of age; it has become a matter of character. Joe Biden may be a decent guy, but even good people can be blinded by selfish pride. Joe Biden wouldn’t be acting the way that he is if he did not sincerely believe that he was the best man for the job, and that is exactly the problem. However good a person, he has succumbed to his selfish pride by convincing himself that he is best suited to take on Donald Trump. If he truly wanted to do what was right for the nation, he would accept that he is not the man for the job and bow out with grace. I am not suggesting in any way that Biden is selfishly holding onto power. I am saying that it is selfish of him to assume and to continually insist that he is the man to beat Trump. If he had more humility, he would admit that even if he can do the job, someone else could do it better.

He is minimizing his disastrous debate performance instead of it being a wake up call to himself and all involved that he simply has aged too much to commit to being able to carry out the office of the presidency for four more years. What he is going through is completely normal. Sometimes it is hard to breach the question “is this task harder for you than it once was?” It can seem insulting. We all know the story of adult children trying to convince their elderly parent that it’s time to turn in the car keys. This is what should be happening inside the Biden campaign. It’s hard. If Biden were even just 5 years younger I might feel differently, and there is nothing else to disqualify him as a candidate. It’s human. But with democracy at stake it is also wrong.

It is a sad way to end what should be remembered as an illustrious career. If he wins (which is now doubtful), he will not make it through his term as president. If he loses, he will be remembered as the man who wasn’t able to protect democracy, while the world braces for the horror of a second Trump term. Why not retire in dignity, accepting that he has served his nation the fullest of his capabilities?