When I was just out of high school I had a job as a bike messenger on Capitol Hill.
I was the in-house messenger for the Congressional Budget Office.
I would spend a good part of my day wandering the halls of the House and Senate Office buildings.
Back then, in 1989, there was no email and no cell phones.
No social media accounts for members of Congress, no desire to have clips go viral or make the evening cable news programs.
‘Meet The Press’ was about as good as it got for elected officials looking to become stars.
There was no ‘Tik Tok’ or podcasts and a lot less narcissism.
I would often pick up the latest H.R. congressional resolutions from the House Document Office in the rotunda of the Capitol itself and deliver them to various Reps or Senators offices or ride them across town to law firms and lobbyists on K Street.
It was not uncommon to run into a Lloyd Bentsen or a Ted Kennedy in the Senate halls.
I once even ran into none other than Bob Weir as he was on the Hill lobbying for aid on behalf of the Amazon rainforest. (I couldn’t speak and simply left whatever document I was delivering on an aide’s desk as I then slowly backed out of Kennedy’s office, while the bemused Grateful Dead singer and guitarist looked at me and smiled…)
It was different D.C. back then. Tip O’Neil once rolled down his car window while stopped at light on 17th Street, as we languished in the grass of Farragut Square on a break and said, ‘Hello boys!’ with a nod.
The mighty Jim McGovern was working in Rep. Joe Moakley’s office, learning his craft, so to speak, and honing the skills that would make him the effective and intelligent leader he is today. (One who seemingly spoke for a nation when he called out the spectacle and farce of GOP’s attempted impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas this week).
It was a Washington of serious and sober men and women. (Well, maybe not all that sober and certainly still under the sway of lobbyists and a certain number of the dry-cleaned and blow-dried partisans were nothing more than spokesmodels for the various industries they were there to represent but I digress…).
But there was an air of civility, mutual respect and cooperation despite ideological differences that seems like a distant memory now.
I was on ‘The Hill’ in 1990 when Nelson Mandela made his first trip to the U.S. after being released from prison where he was held for decades in apartheid-era South Africa.
I remember being on the sidewalk on Constitution Avenue as Mandela’s motorcade rolled down the hill towards the White House and how people lined up three deep on either side of the street and cheered and clapped as he made his way past us. He returned our collective and anonymous love with a smile and wave from inside his vehicle. The memory still brings a tear to my eye today because I can still recall the exact feeling of that moment.
Strangers applauding a legendary man who stood as a symbol of justice and perseverance and became an icon of freedom after decades of imprisonment and persecution.
Mandela was just one man but he represented the many, the thousands whose names we’ll never know, whose fates did not include happy endings.
Whose light was lost too soon.
He was on our soil now, and we cheered his arrival and welcomed him, not as Republicans or Democrats but as Americans.
We stood and cheered because we still stood for something.
Our nation was a beacon of freedom and equality, despite its flaws and myriad blind spots, we were on the path to better and we knew it.
Do we still?
We had the desire to bend towards justice and we celebrated Nelson Mandela’s visit as a symbol of what the world should be and will become.
Would he receive the same welcome today?
Would a people so divided still cheer a man who fought for equality and freedom or would he be viewed through the same binary, tribalistic ways most of our current discourse plays out?
Can you picture Marjorie Taylor Greene clapping for Nelson Mandela?
Or would she snarl and cackle and yell out an insult with that caustic voice that could kill mold.
Would men like Rand Paul or Ted Cruz even feign support for a man who would lead his people to topple their white supremacist government or would they have sided with the Afrikaners? We already know the answer if we are paying attention.
Just this week Tucker Carlson took his fascist podcast act on the road for a sit down interview with perhaps the world’s most reviled authoritarian, Vladimir Putin.
A man who directed Russia’s interference in the last two U.S. Presidential elections and has elected himself ruler for life in the former Soviet Union.
Singlehandedly destroying the progress and hope that once blew through that cold and complicated land around the same time as Mandela’s visit, only to be snuffed out through rampant corruption and jackbooted brutality when it comes to political opposition and a free press.
The fact that even a quasi-journalist like Carlson would visit and attempt to sanitize a leader as foul as Putin speak volumes about the rot at the idealogical core of conservative philosophy in this country. (To be fair it’s nothing new; Pat Buchanan comes to mind if we are staying with the early 90’s theme but it is hard to imagine even him pulling such a stunt.)
Especially at a time when Russia faces global sanctions for its illegal invasion of Ukraine and the myriad human rights violations in how it is prosecuting the war by attacking civilians and stealing children and bringing them back into Russia to be ‘adopted’.
Russian troops should be on trial in perpetuity for how they have behaved on the battlefield.
Vladimir Putin should be under arrest and being interviewed by prosecutors at the Hague.
Not sitting for some bow-tied, fish-sticks heir who is the product of Swiss boarding schools and Trinity College and has failed upwards his entire career.
Despite the fact that his entire operation consists of a bunch of interns trolling the internet for racist material to present to their listeners as another volley in the culture wars that paints mediocre white people as somehow the victims of a global conspiracy of ‘wokeism’.
Tucker Carlson is attempting to sanitize Putin’s evil for a dumb-downed audience that consumes far right media.
Which, including his former employer and the network that made him a star, Fox News, has essential become nothing more than ‘rage-farming’ operations.
Sean Hannity even broadcast a stunt this week where he had ‘Guardian Angels’ apprehend a ‘migrant’ on live television.
Of course the whole thing was a stunt and a potential hate crime taking place over the airwaves but crap like that sells to xenophobic Americans who have had their senses dulled by decades of deceit designed to turn their stupidity and innate prejudicious into big bucks for men like Tucker Carlson and Rupert Murdoch.
Of course the interview is being aired on X where Elon Musk has in recent days turned into the world’s biggest disseminator of racist, xenophobic talking points.
Tweeting out messages using words like ‘Illegals’ several times a day and claiming Biden is encouraging the crisis at the border to achieve electoral dominance by allowing ‘Illegals to vote’.
Itself a talking point being pushed by Russian disinformation operations online - along with talks of civil war.
The most bottom-feeder misinformation that spreads on Facebook and Twitter - and is repeated nightly on Fox News - is weaponized rhetoric designed to harm democracy and sow chaos in the United States BY Russian interests.
The GOP, Donald Trump and minions from Musk to Carlson repeat this vitriol and so seriously harm our republic while using human beings as pawns and causing untold misery and potential violence.
To say nothing of the plans drawn up by Stephen Miller and a promise by Trump to ‘deport millions’ if he is reelected; the specter of mass deportation given a theoretical exoskeleton in the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Project 2025’.
A comprehensive bipartisan border aid deal was just blocked in the U.S. Senate. (The bill was not only the result of months of hard work between both parties and the Biden Administration - it represented time we paid for, progress denied yet again on the tax-payers’ dime).
Who are we as a nation that it has come to this?
Donald Trump is NOT the current President of the United States.
The Speaker of the House, no matter how much of an ineffectual little toadstool, should not be taking orders from a retiree in Palm Beach facing 91 criminal indictments.
I don’t care how scandalous Speaker Johnson’s google search history probably is or what kind of kompromat Trump has on the rest of the GOP: what we witnessed is blatant interference in our democracy by a bad actor.
Trump has always aligned his interests with Vladimir Putin’s over the United States.
When Trump was president most of his decisions on the world stage either benefitted himself, MBS or Russia.
Trump is drawn to sadistic strongmen and the toxically masculine.
It’s always been part of his m.o. going back to his early NYC days hanging out with Five Families mafioso or the Hells Angels that were frequent guests at ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ after parties.
Along with of course his new found friends in the Russian mob that represented most of Trump Organization’s business interests for the decade or so before he became POTUS.
During his presidency he even pardoned a cold-blooded Navy SEAL killer, overturning the ruling of the Navy itself and inviting the deranged man to Mar-a-Lago over the Christmas holiday.
Trump likes to surround himself with sick people because it makes him feel better about his own damaged psyche.
Not that he possesses any sort of means of self-awareness - it’s just a point of observation.
So this broken personality is actively exerting its will on a GOP that has been defiled and seemingly pushed past the point of embarrassment while doing Trump’s bidding and blocking both border safety at home and supporting our allies abroad.
President Biden went around this clown car of a political party to make his case directly to the people.
The bill may have died but his messaging was effective and compelling-delivered in stark and blunt terms.
It illuminated this moment in the minds of the American people who were paying attention.
Are we gonna let the aberrant personality of one man determine who we are as a nation?
We are country of hard work, compassion and ingenuity at our best, let’s not fall under the sway of men who profit most when we are at our worst.
And the spineless flotsam that seeks a free ride on a broken and bitter wave.
President Biden is a man who has 50 years experience getting things done in Washington, D.C.
He was part of that earlier era I described before, he helped fashion it and was one of it stars.
Where power and clout came from the ability to get things done, to actually pass legislation through cajole and compromise.
True compromise comes in service of the greater good.
A man or woman who possesses empathy and moral decency understands the responsibilities of leadership.
What we saw this week from the GOP was dereliction of duty.
It was the polar opposite of true patriotism no matter how many flags they have outside of their office doors.
They sided with a man whose only interest in the presidency now is to hand himself a ‘get out of jail free’ card and seek revenge on his perceived enemies. And perhaps a little more pillaging of the U.S. Treasury and another round of tax cuts for his billionaire buddies should the unthinkable happen again.
The choice could not be clearer who we should all be voting for in this election year.
It reverberates well beyond the very specific and pressing issues we face.
It comes down to who we are as a people and who we want to become.
Let us move forward together.
Just getting caught up on some of your older posts and my observation is your writing is getting better and better and always but always informative and thought provoking. Never stop. Unfortunately, I feel we are in for the long haul. Even if Trump's voice was somehow silenced we would still be left with the ideology that permeates the right. I only hope that the sane right wing finally see the light and begin to drown the misfits out. They all are being duped and don't even realise it.
Every time you post something, I know it will be informative & perfectly written. You have a wide range of experiences, for certain. Thank you, for your writings. When you were writing about the various strategies of the MAGAt Repugs, it reminded me of the time when they were all carrying around pocket Constitutions, as if that meant anything other than they are all hypocrites. It was nothing more than performance art, b/c none of hem have read it, or even pretend now to care about what it says. This is a scary time, but I am holding out hope that the majority of Americans will rise above this charade.