Postal Service Reform is Necessary .... Sometime

It’s well past due for this country to reform the US Postal Service. A postal service is required in the U.S. Constitution, which says, “The Congress shall have the power] to establish Post Offices and Post Roads.” Article 1, Sec.8. But Benjamin Franklin, our first Postmaster General had established post offices before the Constitution was adopted. Nothing appears in the Constitution suggesting the Postal Service must be self-sustaining. Since the earliest days of our republic, news and information has been delivered to homes and post offices. As we spread west, postage was delivered by Pony Express, Well Fargo station wagons, and RFD (rural free delivery established in the 19th century) to postal boxes at the end of lanes heading up driveways to farms, homes, and estates. 

Meanwhile, post offices, large and small, were established in such a way that every Member of Congress maintained a vested interest in keeping employees and services at work in order to service voters throughout their districts. This has come to mean that every elected official has an interest in keeping the Postal Service, post offices, and postal employees. They constitute a working crowd now consisting of over 600,000 employees and costing $71 billion dollars, serving every home and office in the country. These people and the institutions all affect people who vote. The Postal Service has long been in need of a major overhaul, but not this way and not now!

President Trump has chosen to make massive changes, with no particular plan in mind, let alone on paper, describing what his goals are or how he wishes to achieve them. Rather than undertake the legislative process necessary to make rational and needed changes or to prepare the population for them, he has staked his possible (but not likely) re-election on disrupting the postal delivery service by sabotage and fiat rather than by negotiation and compromise, which might take years to achieve. He has sown distrust in a system which most Americans have trusted, used, and revered. 

The biggest change affecting how we receive and exchange information, goods,  services, as well as money is the advent of the digital information age and widespread use of the Internet. The Covid-19 Pandemic has not only accelerated the urgent need for rethinking our communications and delivery systems, but forced many Americans to rely ever more completely on some sort of integration between old-fashioned mail, and ubiquitous electronic communication. But, sadly, those able to avail themselves of widespread electronic and postal services are only those who live in areas dense enough to have provided nearly universal services or who are wealthy enough to assure their becoming a fully integral part of our daily lives.

 

Banking, bill paying, investing, Christmas cards and birthday cards, personal and business correspondence, advertising, and a plethora of other communications which once arrived by mail now come to us through a variety of digital devices, each of which is built into one or another digital device which have now become ubiquitous, but certainly not universal. Until electronic services are as available to nearly everyone today as postal service was by the end of the nineteenth century and electricity by the mid-twentieth century, major changes in the US Postal Service will remain impossible. 

Families living without access by cable or, at least, cell-tower still cannot access the internet. However, as of 2019, according to a Pew Research Center report, that percentage had only reached 85% in rural areas.

Until we can provide, at a reasonable cost, nearly 100% availability to the Internet in America’s rural areas, we cannot undertake extensive overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service. Even if in large parts of the country there will be redundant availability of access to computers and supplies to those needing to use them as an adjunct to schooling, the Postal Service can be fully accomplished. Now, just before a hotly contested election in the midst of a pandemic when the country is more divided than ever surely cannot be the right time to begin work on accomplishing this enormous and enormously expensive national goal. 

While the USPS is no longer the source of innumerable patronage jobs for members of Congress to dispense to constituents, there are still post offices in all but the smallest hamlets in the nation. Taking those small village post offices, which function to deliver the mail as well as being a place where neighbors cross paths on a regular basis, would become contentious for those running for office. Eliminating this widespread source of jobs and information could make the thorough re-imagination of distribution and reduction in size of the Postal Service costly to any politician.

Nevertheless, the ways we distribute goods and services, information, and entertainment have changed substantially in the last three decades or so. Changes in the scope and mission of the USPS in the face of these changes are inevitable and important. At the very least, such changes deserve thoughtful, considered decision-making and a full-fledged administrative and legislative cooperation. All this argues strongly against the immediate and politically oriented reduction to postal delivery we currently face. Finally, saving the postal system and integrating it properly will require striving for a level of consensus not currently existing in the country. It’s time to put such major changes on hold until more light and less heat is shed upon the many serious problems we face. 

 

The Heritage by Howard Bryant - Book Review

The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patiotism by Howard Bryant (Beacon Press, 2018, 288 pages, $26.95/18.99) begins and ends with Colin Kaepernick, the black American football player who, when he’d had enough, decided to take a knee during the playing of the national anthem before kickoff of his now former team, the San Francisco 48ers in protest against the treatment of young black men at the hands of police across the country. Between these bookends lies a rich history of the political and social involvement of black athletes from the 1920’s to he present. Bryant writes highly readable prose, supported by anecdote and statistics to show the evolution and devolution of the super-stars during three distinct periods. The book is persuasive and interesting. Many people who read it will nod as the book rushes by and cheer at the conclusions. Lots of readers, less inclined to hear and understand, won’t like what they read.

After introducing the problem and model represented by Kaepernick, Bryant takes the reader back to the mid-twentieth century by introducing one of my own musical and political heroes, Paul Robeson, who, as a black student at Rutgers in the 1920’s twice recognized as a consensus All-American football football player and class valedictorian, graduated from Columbia Law School and established himself as an actor, singer (Old Man River and Water Boy), flirted with Communism before being deprived of his passport by the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and became a hero of the civil rights movement before his death in the 1965.

Bryant recognizes black athletes as creating a heritage of advancement and courage in the face of pre-war Jim Crow America and the world of increased opportunity represented by their return to an America changed by World War II and Harry Truman’s elimination of racial discrimination in the armed services. There athletes, represented by the likes of Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Joe Lewis, Jim Brown, Kurt Flood, professor Harry Edwards, Muhammad Ali and others established the place of black athletes to play and to speak out. Many, like Kurt Flood, John Carlos, and Muhammed Ali all sacrificed years of their professional lives as the organized sport and public resistance shortened or ended their careers. Their sacrifices and successes served to pave the way for others.“We had to take care of each other,” former baseball player and manager Dusty Baker said. “There weren’t that many of us. You knew the game didn’t always want you. You had to pass on what you knew, like, prepare the ones that were coming. That was your responsibility.” While sports provided an entree to wealth and fame, black intelligence and thoughtfulness were denied or ignored.

The second era, characterized by Bryan as the period of “Shut up and play!” featured the emergence of superb athletes who were able to dominate their sport, but were, at the same time, willing and able to characterize themselves as virtually race-less. While obviously men of color, their demeanor and dominance of their sport occurred in a time where their salaries as players were dwarfed by their income from product endorsements and public appearances. Athletes like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, O,J. Simpson preferred to duck social issues, while living lavish lifestyles and not speaking out on social issues, despite the fact that many able and talented black athletes were not being rewarded in the ways that they the stars,were. Bryant argues, “that for all the money, the players were still black, and the minute any one of them ran afoul of the white mainstream public, either by decline in play or by specifically taking a political stand that advocated for African Americans, that same public would be quick to turn on him.”

Then, two commercial airliners were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 killing 2997 people and the world changed. Patriotism blossomed. The U.S. had eliminated compulsory military service in 1973, and all our armed services were staffed by volunteers. These two events ushered in a period of patriotic fervor eagerly promoted and paid for by professional sports. Policing that increasingly used military hardware and former members of the military to staff its force. Meanwhile, proliferating police illegal shootings and violence against the black community coincided with patriotic celebrations held in stadiums and on playing fields around the country. A new era of resistance to black issues came up against a new voice of African Americans with the money and the self-awareness to speak out on the issues confronting them as they became the majority of athletes in both the NFL and the NBA. Bryant characterizes this period as “The Awakening.” Black athletes’ voices were heard and their money was spent to help speak for them. LaBron James, Carmello Anthony, and, perhaps most visibly, Colin Kaepernick became symbols of the new willingness to speak out and contribute cash to causes. Bryant comments, “The real reclamation is when you decide to get on the bus. Where do you get on the bus? Where will you participate? The question will be, ‘What did you do for the people? What did you do with your wealth? Can I impact the life of a young person when it counts, not when it’s safe?”

Howard Bryant

Howard Bryant is a sports journalist and television personality appearing on both the radio and television. He often appears on the ESPN program The Sports Reporters as well as NPR’s Weekend Edtion. He has steadily risen from local beat to national prominence as a reporter and commentator. The Heritage is his fifth book.

Any white reader expecting The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patiotism by Howard Bryant (Beacon Press, 2018, 288 pages, $26.95/18.99) to provide comfort, should be warned. This book, read with an open and attentive mind will make you uncomfortable. Bryant’s narrative is compelling, his story-telling superb, his use of examples cogent and on-point, and the case he builds strong. The nexus of racism, changed definitions of patriotism, courage and avarice, and white complicity to silence the black athlete are difficult or impossible to deny. I highly recommend this book to any reader eager to understand the role of sport within today’s politics and divisions. I was provide the book as a pre-publication download by the publisher through Edelweiss. I read it on my Kindle app.

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Can It Happen Here? by Cass Sunstein - Book Review

The essays in Can it Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America (Dey Street Books, March 2018, 496 pages, $11.99/12.18) vary widely in accessibility, readability, and sense of audience. They represent a set of, largely academic papers that may raise more issues than they settle. Nevertheless, I came away, despite the pessimism of some of the essays, with the sense that if Americans act with courage and fortitude, our institutions will survive the Trump assault on them. Most of the writers, drawn from top, mostly American, universities suggest that, while there seems to be world-wide skepticism toward liberal democracy, we can weather the storm by relying on the checks and balances established in the Constitution, maintaining a free press, and the engagement of the electorate in the political process.

The title of the book is drawn from Sinclair Lewis’s satirical novel, It Can’t Happen Here, written in 1936, which followed the career of a fictional governor, much like Huey Long, the populist governor of Louisiana, who took a run against Franklin Delano Roosevelt before his assassination in 1936. Lewis’ autocratic, totalitarian character, perhaps modeled on Adolf Hitler is elected president on a platform of populism and traditional values. Sound familiar? The title of Lewis’ book is turned into a question, which each of the writers examine in their own fashion.

The writers aredrawn almost entirely from Academia and selected from elite institutions dominated by the Ivy League and the University of Chicago. Including editor Cass Sunstein, there were nineteen writers distributed thus: Harvard – 5, Chicago – 5, Yale – 2, NYU – 2, Columbia – 1, Princeton – 1, Cornell – 1, Duke – 1, George Mason – 1. In terms of specialties, they were distributed this way: Law – 11, Economics – 2, Diplomacy – 1, varied social sciences – 5. Several were described as being multi-disciplinary. Given these distributions of institutions and specialties, it’s little wonder that many of the entries were jargon-filled and somewhat repetitive. One of the contributors, Samantha Powers, also happens to be married to editor Sunstein, although I can see no reason why she doesn’t belong in this distinguished group.

Can It Happen Here? considers whether the inclinations and indications from the Trump administration can or will lead to the loss of our democracy and the imposition/acceptance of an authoritarian form of government in the United States. While, in his preface, Sunstein suggests that this dark vision of what America might become isn’t yet happening, those who can imagine such outcomes are writing and speaking about it. They belong to a long history of those who’ve written about an apocalyptic view of democracy and freedom.

The essays range from thoughtful and insightful analyses of Donald Trump’s mind and approach to stunningly difficult to read and interpret research studies written for an academic audience. They often are much in need of interpretation for even the intelligent lay reader. As such, it seems to be a book in search of an audience who can find enough sustenance to make it worth purchasing. It contains too much jargon and too many statistics to be useful to the general reader, and too little for the specialist.

The general tenor of this collection is to suggest that while Trump, his authoritarian vision and the alignment of his appointees towards the very forces he campaigned against, while deeply upsetting and destructive, is likely to fail as other efforts to exert control over the government and people of America have failed in the past. But the ride isn’t going to be pleasant and the destruction may take years to heal. Since there are few examples of authoritarian or anti-constitutional governance in this country, several of the writers depend on authoritarian influences in Hungary and Poland, which have pulled back from democracy. They also rely on the rise to power of historical figures like Louis Bonaparte in France, Hitler, and Mussolini, all of whom overthrew representative governments to install autocratic rule before failing.

Most of the essays strike a center-left middle ground, as one might expect from a group of writers dominated by men (only two women contributed chapters) trained in law who also teach it in elite settings. There’s a strong presumption that the principles enshrined in the Constitution and embodied in the checks and balances and the Bill of Rights, with special emphasis on the role of the press, whose voice is guaranteed by the First Amendment will prevail. Meanwhile, the concerns of the unruly extremes of both parties is under-emphasized as the writers place their faith in the good sense of the center.

Cass Sunstein

According to Amazon, “Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, where he is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is by far the most cited law professor in the United States. From 2009 to 2012 he served in the Obama administration as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He has testified before congressional committees, appeared on national television and radio shows, been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations, and written many articles and books, including Simpler: The Future of Government and Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter.”

Canit Happen Here?: Authoritarianismin America (DeyStreet Boois, March 2018, 496 pages, $11.99/12.18) edited by Cass Sunstein consists of seventeen essays edited and curated by Cass Sunstein examining the rise of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States and its possible outcomes. Relying on the history of several authoritarian rises and failures in world history as well as a social psychological approach to American predictions, the book speculates about the possible continued world-wide rise of authoritarian rule and its possibilities. With regard to the U.S., the essays hold out some optimism, assuming that Americans and our institutions stand tall and act bravely. The essays are uneven, but many deserve careful, thoughtful study. They are marred by their tone and the denseness of the prose in some. The book was provided to me by the publisher as a digital download through Edelweiss, and I read it on my Amazon Fire.

Coolidge by Amity Shlaes - Book Review

Amity Shlaes has written a nuanced and compassionate account of the life of our 30^th President called, simply, Coolidge (HarperCollins, 2013, 595 pages, available new and used, Kindle edition $8.99), touting what are often seen as his liabilities as strengths which brought dignity and acclaim to Coolidge in a difficult time of major changes in America and the world, as we recovered from World War I and adjusted to a country fraught with social, economic, political re-adjustment. Coolidge, while far from perfect, emerges as a model of probity, humility, and service which, given serious attention in today’s overheated political, technological, and media environment, provide a model for behavior and restraint. Often seen today as a “do-nothing” minor holder of our top office, belittled by the nickname Silent Cal, he is shown as intelligent, thoughtful, reserved, and, during his administration, both admired and liked.

Born into an influential but far from wealthy, family of Vermont farmers, small business proprietors, and political functionaries, his family history showed a strain of community mindedness, as his father, grandfather, and uncles had served as school board members, and in the local and state legislatures. Political action was viewed as a responsibility, not an ambition. Calvin Coolidge (born July 4, 1872, the only president born on Juy 4th) was physically slight, reserved, and, as he grew through school and began college at Amherst, unpromising. His lack of what today would be called charisma seems to have been a part of his effectiveness, though, and related to his always upward life path. He became noted as a listener and a quiet doer. People who befriended him found themselves drawn to him, despite (or maybe because of) his quiet, gentle demeanor.

Coolidge, having read the law in a local law office rather than attending a law school, was drawn to politics, but, in his quiet and unprepossessing fashion, sought lower level offices on boards and committees, which helped him to learn local issues as well as grow in his skills of negotiation and finding compromises which would leave multiple parties happy. Shlaes consistently makes reference to large economic, political, and social changes occurring nationally as the turn of the century rolls around. She points to the Spanish American war, the emergence of industrialism, immigration, and technology as Coolidge warns his father that he will be a man of the 20^th century, not the 19^th which will require new skills and perspectives. With each physical and intellectual move Coolidge makes, Shlaes always places it in a larger context, laying groundwork for the president he will become. Coolidge’s posture towards the battles that were continuing to rage between progressives and conservatives became that legislators should not be ideologues, but choose the path that serves the greater good in each setting. He sought a balance between labor and capital that would help corporations thrive while working people received ever higher living wages, leading to the advancement of both.

On the other hand, by refusing to compromise during the 1919 Boston police strike, to find middle ground between the police strikers and their duty as police officers, Coolidge established a line that broke the already crumbling strike. Unlike his usual strategy of bringing factions together to find acceptable middle ground, his position of firing the police and making no compromises with behavior that led to the riots, Coolidge established himself as a man who could be counted on to make a hard decision in a time great difficulty. His choice was met with local and national acclaim. Where President Wilson had hesitated, more interested in his national tour pushing the doomed League of Nations, to speak out, Coolidge, as governor of Massachusetts, had taken an uncompromising stand toward the strike which garnered national attention and the first inklings among political watchers that he might be presidential timber.

Selected by the Republicans to become Warren G. Harding’s running mate in the 1920 election, he was able to keep enough independence not to get caught up in the scandals (Teapot Dome and others) associated with Harding, thus succeeding to the presidency when Harding died in the second year of his term without being associated with Harding’s problems, while able to continue to pursue (at least in name) the policies of his predecessor. For the next six years, Coolidge managed to cut spending, reduce taxes, create a balanced budget, and reduce the national debt. By the time he reached the decision not to run again (“I do not choose to run!”) he was widely admired and even liked as a conservative and public spirited man working for the benefit of all. He maintained his posture that the government had no business in local issues in the face of national disasters growing out of disastrous flooding in the South and New England, always the consistent and even-handed administrator and leader.

Amity Shlaes

Amity Ruth Shlaes is an American author and newspaper and magazine columnist. Shlaes writes about politics and economics from a US libertarian perspective. Shlaes has authored a number of books, including three New York Times Bestsellers (Wikipedia profile)

As Coolidge ages too quickly in retirement, the value of his care with words, his holding back to allow the processes to work themselves through, emerges in public consciousness. In his columns, as in his speeches and interviews as President, Coolidge makes each precious word count for more by husbanding the total. The contrast between his approach to his role and celebrity presidents goes almost without saying. Playing his cardsc honestly, close to the vest, even with changes in communications and technology, clearly gives the president’s words more impact and influence. Amity Shlaes has presented a powerful picture of a man who in public and private life lived within the restraints of humility and service while accomplishing much. Coolidge offers a portrait more students of our history should seek to learn from and emulate. I bought the book and read it on my Kindle. 

Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World - Book Review

Louis Golambos’ new biography Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 296 pages, $23.65, 25.58) presents a picture of Dwight David Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth President of the United States, from the perspective his career as it prepared him for becoming Supreme Allied Commander of American forces in Europe during World War II, which propelled him into the presidency, succeeding Harry Truman in 1952 and serving as President until 1960. As a general, during World War II, he was widely, and justly, credited with having used superior organizational and political skills to coordinate allied efforts towards ultimate and complete victory, while garnering the recognition and popularity to achieve a huge electoral victory in 1952. As president, he again balanced a variety of national and international interests to lead America back towards peace while establishing the military might that staved off war with Soviet Russia. Furthermore, he coordinated efforts to bring the Korean conflict to its lingering conclusion, despite never being able to broker more than an armistice there. Most prominent in the biography is Golambos’ emphasis on Eisenhower’s preparation for and assumption of leadership, while his domestic and personal life is downplayed.

Golambos emphasizes the development of Eisenhower’s character growing up in relative poverty in Abilene, Kansas where his father was an angry, disappointed smart person who never achieved the social or economic position he thought he deserved, leading to an often violent approach to discipline with his six sons. Meanwhile his mother, Ida, was a deeply religious, warm, effective mother who dealt lovingly and thoughtfully with her developing sons. According to Golumbus, Ike’s early career at West Point and in the Army was dominated by the conflict between his two contrasting parents, leading to a strong and effective leadership style with his subordinates but to his having a difficult time dealing with authority at West Point and later which, in his early Army career, retarded his advancement.

His slow rise in the post war Army was worsened by his resistance to authority, often showing a temper he sought throughout his career to control. Early, he showed himself to be a prescient analyst of the future needs and directions of the Army, often rejected by superior officers trained in the pre-war environment of horses and then trench warfare. Eisenhower understood and promoted the importance of the tank as the coming major offensive weapon against the resistance of his superior officers, leading the retarding of his advancement. His assignments often emphasized training positions which also allowed him to coach football, but kept him as a staff officer. Meanwhile Douglas MacArthur and others who had earned combat stars, moved up the Army hierarchy.

He was lucky to be noticed by General Fox Connor who became his and Patton’s mentor. Conner mentored Ike as his Chief of Staff in Panama. He had the qualities to teach Ike how to manage the bureaucracy above him by attention to detail while developing confidence in his own ability to lead. He gained greater responsibility and was assigned to training tank troops under George S, Patton who was in Pershing’s command. Sent to train tank officers in Gettysburg, he continued to rise, but without distinction. He was deemed by his superiors to treat “others with respect and gave careful attention to their needs. He demanded discipline without being petty.” A pretty good description of the parenting he had received from his mother. Ike’s rise in the Army depended upon insights from two mentor/sponsors who recognized in him qualities not readily apparent to others. Fox Conner during the period between WWI and WWII and General George C. Marshall’s appointing him to be the top general in the planning for the invasion of Europe, which, at the time seemed to be a “stunning” move on Marshall’s part.

This book contains important lessons about leadership within a bureaucracy that rising or potential leaders should learn if they are to succeed. The book has significant relevance to those who would seek advanced leadership in any setting – business, schools, politics, or the military. The progress of Ike’s career and the Golumbus’ account of his weaknesses and strengths point to skills which should be emphasized in leadership programs in graduate school as well as learned by potential mentors and those seeking leadership themselves. Golumbus’ skill in relating these lessons to the historical herky-jerky prograss of Ike’s career is carefully structured and presented in such a way as to make it palatable to all the but the most heedless people who find themselves stymied in their ambitions.

At the close of the war Eisenhower accepted the presidency of Columbia University, a role he was totally unsuited for, while preparing for his run at the presidency. In assessing Ike’s role as president, Golumbos points to his achieving world peace and insuring American prosperity, while developing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to resist Soviet expansion in eastern Europe. Eisenhower’s entire career path had prepared him to use guile, charm, and power in equal proportions to maintain the U.S. at the top of world influence. He spent lavishly on retaining military strength while campaigning ceaselessly for peace, all with his world famous Eisenhower grin.

The book contains only one mention of Ike’s relationship to his driver Kay Summersby, but there’s a longer and more useful note that helps redress that oversight. Also, his deteriorating relationship with his wife, Mamie, who became a difficult alcoholic as she aged, is hardly discussed in the text, which focuses very successfully on Ike’s developing leadership skills, his ability to work across a wide range of personalities, organizational goals, and systems to achieve what Golambos calls a “middle way.”

Louis Golambos

Louis Golambos is professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University. He edited The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, a massive twenty-four volume collection.

Eisenhower is often seen as a plodder who emerged from a very long development period, rising to the demands of command during World War II and then rode his fame to two terms as President. He is revealed. Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World  (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 296 pages, $23.65, 25.58) in this very thorough account of his professional military and political life, as a talented leader, able to encourage subordinates to obtain the best from them with a vision far greater than he is often given credit for having. Almost one third of the text is devoted to references and extensive notes. Golumbos has made a substantial contribution to understanding of this important military and political leader of the second half of the twentieth century. I read the book as an electron pre-publication copy provided by the publisher by Edelwiess: Beyondthe Treeline. I read it on my Kindle app.

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Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic by David Frum - Book Review

David Frum has written an erudite, scholarly, entertaining, coruscating, and, ultimately, both deeply scary and hopeful book called Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic (HarperCollins, 2018, 320 pages, $25.99/12.99). Using elegant, nuanced writing and thoughtful analysis based on deep, and wide research, fully thirty percent of the text is taken up by footnotes, Frum carefully builds his argument using well-recognized sources from across the political, historical, and media spectrum. He presents a clear-eyed vision of Trump world from a Republican intellectual who wants him to do well and achieve the conservative goals his party has long felt powerless to achieve. Frum carefully uses what Trump says about his goals both as a candidate and as President, as well as a wide array of his allies, the media from Fox & Friends to Meet the Press, from Hugh Hewitt to Mark Levin. He’s careful, judicious, and, ultimately... damning.

David Frum

David Frum, born in Canada, has degrees from the University of Toronto, Yale University, and Harvard Law School. As he said in Newsweek, “I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.” He has been an American citizen since 2007, while having been active in American politics for most of his adult life.

Frum, who appears to be no admirer of Trump, nevertheless paints what seems to me to be an accurate and un-frenzied picture of how Trump uses real and imagined power along with blunt bullying and lying to force people not his natural allies to line up with him and do his bidding, while many of them have taken positions in the government which will allow them to create no end of un-doing a generations long pattern of increasing governmental oversight of their enterprises. Meanwhile, useful regulations and protections are thrown out with the bureaucratic overburden and there’s so much self-dealing the public becomes inured to it. He demonstrates how the use of language in the Trump administration masks the goals of those he’s appointed to make America a more dangerous, dirty, and divided country.

The structure of Trumpocracy lays out the ways in which Donald Trump behaves to bring maximum attention to himself while having limited interest in the history, laws, traditions, and structure of our country. He consistently acts in such a way as to increase his own power while not seeking advice or counsel from those who truly understand how the government works, especially with reference to our hallowed separation of powers and reliance upon them to come to reasonable governance for all. Frum writes that under Trump, “The government of the United States seems to have made common cause with the planet’s thugs, crooks, and dictators against its own ideals—and in fact to have imported the spirit of thuggery, crookedness, and dictatorship into the very core of the American state, into the most solemn symbolic oval center of its law and liberty.” He continues, “Trump’s hope was that an unconstrained America could grab more power for itself (and thereby for him). He never understood that America’s power arose not only from its own wealth and its own military force, but from its centrality to a network of friends and allies.” For Trump there is no win-win, he can only win if someone else loses, and he will never share his wins with anyone.

The author treats extensively the web of associations, betrayals, and the apparent idea that America itself must not only be first, but alone at the top. “Trump throws everyone under the bus in his eager embrace of...Himself! He seems totally unaware of the intensely interwoven mutual dependency that exists between the President and members of Congress in seeking to enact his agenda. As a man with no knowledge of how government works or the place of the Presidency in it, he continues to show no interest in policy, the rule of law, or political realities. Frum emphasizes his treatment of Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, and Senator Jeff Flake, from Arizona, as examples of people whose support he needed who he gleefully destroyed in his own interest. His cruel decision not to allow Sean Spicer to meet the Pope stands as a testimony to his willful nastiness. Trump’s insistence on flattery and abject adherence to his neediness is stomach turning. Frum details a televised cabinet meeting during which a round-table of cabinet secretaries vomited out flattering lies about the fine job Trump was doing. He contrasts that to George W. Bush’s deep skepticism to anything that smacked of flattery.

A major advantage of a book from a person like David Frum is that it steps back a little way from the day-to-day cascade of cable news, or even from the weekend talk shows to take a wider and more comprehensive portrait of Trump and the Trump administration. As such, it can be both nuanced and comprehensive. By battling against everything the press says that could be mildly seen as critical, Trump actively works to reduce the influence of the press at home and abroad. His and his surrogates, particularly at Fox News, encourage discrediting even the most reliable and honest reporters. Furthermore, he actively supported authoritarian leaders in other countries when abroad in their efforts to muzzle their own press.

 Frum argues that Trump’s negligence and laziness actually strengthens him through eliminating all normal checks and balances. He shows how Trump relience on outmoded and failed Republican ideology has replaced conservative thinking. However, Frum despairs at the ability of the incumbent to see or understand what that might be. Nevertheless, he concludes his very fine book on a note of hope generated from reactions to the negative affects of the Trump administration. David Frum’s Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic (HarperCollins, 2018, 320 pages, $25.99/12.99) stands as a sober, yet often frightening, at least to me, assessment of the Trump campaign and most of his first year. The book has earned the highest of recommendations I can give it. I received a free copy of Trumpocracy from the publisher as an electronic pre-publication through Edelweiss and read it on my Kindle App

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The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash - Book Review

Wiley Cash’s new novel The Last Ballad (William Morrow, 2017, 389 pages, $26.99/$12.99) tells the story of the largely failed 1929 strike at the Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina through the eyes of Ella May Wiggins, who became a heroine of the American labor movement after her death. Narrated as a detailed flashback by her grand daughter, and seen through the eyes of a number of fictional or fictionalized characters, whose lives in various elements of society brought them together at the mill during this fateful period of industrial vs. labor strife as well as during the beginnings of the civil rights struggle in its nascent years. Told in leisurely, often poetic, prose, Cash takes his time in revealing these stories as the roots of contemporary North Carolina, where the rifts still affect not only the local elements of this geographically and culturally crucial state, but the nation as a whole.

As Ella Mae sits in the back of a pickup truck with Pittsburgh-based labor organizer Sophia, her life history from Tennessee subsistence farming, to logging camps, to working in the mills mirrors the early history of North Carolina’s southern Piedmont as it moved from mid-nineteenth century rural bootlegging to an area using the region’s resources of running water, cotton, and available labor to build a burgeoning mill industry. The growth of mill culture as rural people heard the empty promises of recruiters offering the secure life of mill villages where, in fact, grinding poverty and constant debt kept them indentured in a manner not too different from the slaves, who had been released from bondage only a few decades before, using Gaston County, NC at the center.

Based on the actual happenings at the Loray Mill strike of 1929, representing an elemental moment in the development of the American labor movement, the story is intriguing, nuanced, and lyrically told through the eyes of a variety of participants. The novel brings to life the non-fiction book Linthead Stomp by Patrick Huber, which describes life and music in the mill towns of the early twentieth century. The strike and riots soon inspired a series of novels, now referred to as the “Gastonia Novels,” which extolled the virtues of class struggle and left wing politics.

Ella Mae Wiggins

As the story, told in vignettes from the perspective of people coming in contact with Ella May Wiggins unwinds, Cash captures the spirit of rural Gaston County, the rise of the mills, the influences on the development of the mill culture as the insatiable need for thread and cloth in rapidly industrializing America is fulfilled against the poverty of white and black workers. Names like evangelist Amy Semple McPherson, Belmont Abbey College, and towns like Lincolnton, Cherryville, Spartanburg, leading to Gastonia give the setting of labor unrest, the communist menace portrayed during the red scare, incipient deep-seated racial animus, and the fight against grinding poverty a living sense of reality. These elements come together in the struggle between the mill owners, their hired thugs, and the northern agitators eager to organize, free, and exploit the workers in a toxic, and ultimately tragic mix. Cash’s rich, lyrical language combines with lively portrayal of the characters who emerge to create a story that touches the imagination while portraying a reality built on facts and extending beyond them.

In two families, the McAdams and the Lytles, Cash describes another aspect of the duality of North Carolina’s aristocracy, pitting the lowland remnants of ante-bellum aristocracy against the post-war growth sparked by the industrialization of the South. Contrasting these two cultures of wealth and privilege to the white and black poverty of workers, Cash creates a rich soup of tension, distrust, and fear. Into this mix, racial, social, and economic politics help create a friction that still can be seen in the mystery that North Carolina presents to the country and the world. Slowly the lives of the characters cross and merge as the coming tragedy begins to take shape. The structure of the novel features a large range of characters from different walks of life – worker, factory owner, labor organizer, plantation owner, railroad porter, and others - whose lives come together in Gastonia, NC in the summer and fall of 1929.

Wiley Cash

Wiley Cash is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home. A native of North Carolina, he has held residency positions at Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. He and his wife live in Wilmington, North Carolina.

In The Last Ballad (William Morrow, 2017, 389 pages, $26.99/$12.99), Wiley Cash shows the ability to take characters who might easily become stereotyped, flesh them out, bring them to life, and place them in settings where their intersection with the other characters becomes believable while taking on a life of their own, leading inevitably to the playing out of The Last Ballad. While the story is a tragic one, it nevertheless points to a hopeful time where both conditions and relationships are improved, while the deep history of these events continues to influence the present. I was provided a digital edition of The Last Ballad by the publisher through Edelweiss and read it on my Kindle app. Highly recommended!

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