In Isolation

Let me tell you this: I don't understand my parents' relationship. And yet I'm supposed to, over the span of a campaign, understand the reasoning behind the presidential candidate's choice of mate and infer certain characteristics based on his choice. I think that's nearly impossible.
Jon Stewart. (GQ Magazine, October 2004.)

Apparently, this also includes a lack of a mate, as "GOP donors fret over Scott's single status," according to Axios. While this story is presented as a "scoop," I'm not sure that it even qualifies as a spoonful, given the paucity of actual information it contains. In short, anonymous sources report that "some conservative Republican donors" have concerns, "curiosity and apprehension" over the fact that Senator Tim Scott is not married, and he's keeping the identity of his girlfriend secret.

In other words, Conservative Republican donors are afraid that, since Senator Scott isn't obviously married, and thus can't trot out a wife to show what a "regular guy" he is, he might actually be uninterested in being married or (horror of horrors!) gay. But "Conservative Republican Donors Demand Public Displays of Their 'Family Values' in Return for Money," isn't a scoop, given that it's about as unexpected as "Water Makes Things Wet," and "The Sun Rose in the East This Morning." Is there a news story in there about the idea that Republican donors would have doubts about someone who doesn't openly follow the "Family Man" model of Conservative masculinity? Maybe. After all, given that Conservatism writ large is typically defined by concerning itself with wanting to halt the flow of social change, if not roll it back, this seems pretty much par for the course.

Given the fact that Donald Trump is able to raise plenty of money without needing to display any particular fealty, or even lip service, to Conservative values, I suspect that may actually be going on here is that donors have serious concerns about Senator Scott's prospects. Personally, I'm of the opinion that he's running to raise his profile ahead of a more serious 2028 run for the White House. There's almost no realistic chance that he'll win the Republican nomination. Now, I've noted how bad I am at predicting the future, so it would be unwise of me to say for certain that Senator Scott's days as a candidate for President in 2024 are numbered, even if I suspect that it's where the smart money is. Since donors, though, are all about smart money, I would not be surprised if these alleged worries about the Senator's relationship status are simply a smokescreen for more rational concerns about what their donations are actually going to be used for. A lot changes in politics in four years, and people who have no problem donating to him now might not want that to simply go into a "Scott in 2028" fund given that uncertainty.

Gossip and rumor passing for political news is becoming commonplace, as outlets seek to fill page space with whatever they think that someone might be interested in, without needing to expend much in the way of resources fleshing things out. And that's the case here, because their could be an interesting story here, either about a disconnect (intentional or otherwise) between the Conservative donor class and the public more broadly, or concerns over Senator Scott's long-term viability as a candidate. Taking two "anonymice" (as Slate's Jack Sheafer used to call them) and building a story around their leaks, using old stories and a brief history lesson to pad things out saves on costs. "News worthy of your time," has to also be worthy of some resources.

Other Side of the Tracks

The RV homeless encampment near where I work has grown slowly over the past several months. When I first noticed it there, it had three RVs in it. Now eight are parked in the area.

This time, I took a picture from the parking structure that was in the background of that first picture. It's easier to get all of the RVs into the frame than attempting to work from street level.

Vehicles have come and gone from the site over the months. For a while I thought that maybe the space would empty out entirely; perhaps the police had been leaning on the inhabitants. But not long after that. more campers found the space, and every few weeks, another RV would show up.

I can't image that it's pleasant living so close to an active rail yard, especially being so close to a grain terminal; those trains can be remarkable loud. It is, I suspect, why there's nothing in the way of residential in the immediate vicinity. Still people must make do with what they can get, and as the Seattle area's homeless population grows, the RVs, tents and (for the truly desperate) other makeshift shelters proliferate.

Mincing

Florida Governor, and (allegedly) Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis does have some sympathy for the Jacksonville community in which three people were killed in a shooting. Not that you would guess from looking at much of the news coverage of the event thus far. If Governor DeSantis is mentioned at all, the focus in on his macho condemnation of the shooter and his actions. To get to the part where the governor speaks to the community itself, one has to watch the video of his statement.

Governor DeSantis may have some of the responsibility for this; he does seem much more focused on demonstrating his disdain for the shooter than he does on speaking to the community. But he is, as they say, simply following the script. Statements like this are generally expected to be geared more towards expressing outrage and disgust over the act. Especially given that Governor DeSantis, who is very much the model of a modern Republican officeholder, couldn't take the sort of actions that gun-control advocates would call for. The shooter has to be the sole person at fault; as to imply otherwise would raise questions as to why nothing is being done. And the governor's well-known antipathy for all things "woke" (which, for many Black people, includes an awareness that things like this are simply part of life in the United States) doesn't lend him an air of caring about the concerns of Florida's Black population. Not to mention that Southern populism (and maybe Right-leaning populism more generally) tends to cast non-model minorities as enemy "others," favored and coddled by hateful "élites."

Be that as it may, Governor DeSantis didn't simply ignore the community. His comments seemed somewhat perfunctory, almost an afterthought, but he did offer condolences to the people impacted by the event. And that should also make it into the news coverage of the event. I can see why the macho posturing would be of interest, especially for Left-leaning news outlets looking to show how empty and banal that posturing is. And I can also see Right-leaning outlets placing their focus there, too; it makes the governor look tough. But, either way, it's not the complete picture.

I watched Governor DeSantis' video statement. I didn't expect to be impressed, and I wasn't. I understand, however, that something that would have impressed me in this would likely also have been a grievous act of political self-harm, if not suicide. For the governor to have been open and candid about why things like this happen, and the fact that he's not prepared, or not in a position to, really do anything about it would have made him the target of people's ire. The governor understands, correctly or not, that people's feelings about this situation are anger and sadness, in that order. Or, at least that more people are angry about what happened than are sad about what happened. (Although, personally, I suspect that the majority opinion on this is one of indifference.) And the timing of, and time spent on, words addressing those reflect that.

Reactions to violence in the United States are hampered by the fact that there are so many competing interest groups. The each have different goals, and there are pretty much no actions that can be taken that will please all of them. Indeed, any action that one group approves of will be met with dismay and anger from another. All of this is a barrier in situations in which the role of a chief executive, whether they be a governor, mayor or the President, is to "bring people together" after a tragedy. Thoughts, prayers and condolences are all expressions of an inability (or unwillingness) to do anything more substantive. And offering them has become understood to be a way of admitting that nothing more significant is in the offing. For those who understand that the fact that something should be done means that something can be done (for all that Immanuel Kant would have found their logic backwards), those words are hollow and insincere. The need to appear to be vigorous and active in the face of events that frighten people (even if they'll be forgotten before too long) means that the tough-sounding language has to lead, even when it's going to be seen as just talk. If it's all just talk, however, then none of it is particularly more newsworthy than the rest of it.

Holding Out For A Hero

About three weeks ago, I made the observation that part of the reason why Donald Trump appeared to be bulletproof in the face of mounting criminal cases was that many Republican voters "viewed him as vital enough to their interests that they'd be willing to overlook, excuse or explain away whatever they had to." Which I still think works as one of the reasons for his popularity, even though I don't think that it goes far enough.

I was attempting to make a parallel to a friend of mine between how people view Donald Trump and how we, as Americans, are taught to view George Washington. The attempt, it must be said, failed miserably, because my friend believed that for people to have similar views of Donald Trump and George Washington, that they needed to be similar people. People tend to understand their own views of reality as being objective to the point that other people share them (even if they don't admit it), and this can make it difficult to make the case that other people do, in fact, see things differently.

So rather than George Washington, I'm going to use the example of Robin Hood. Robin Hood, according to legend, robbed from the rich, and gave to the poor. And, if one is not reading a retelling of the stories about him that are aimed primarily at children, killed quite a few people in so doing. But people don't, generally speaking, see Robin Hood as someone who acted from a wanton disregard of the rule of law. Rather, it was King John's laws that were viewed as illegitimate. Once King Richard shows up on the scene, Robin is more than happy to become a loyal, and presumably law-abiding, subject. Because Robin is the hero of the story, other elements of the story are judged relative to him, rather than on their own merits. (And this was the point I was making about George Washington. We in the United States don't view him as someone who rebelled against lawful authority; rather the laws of Great Britain under King George III are seen as illegitimate, and most faults that us modern people might find with Mr. Washington are overlooked.)

If one imagines oneself as a needy peasant back in the (fictional) day, and Robin Hood shows up and drops a few shillings into one's lap, the expectation is that one would be grateful and appreciative of the largess, rather than questioning just how said shillings were obtained, or seeing oneself as the beneficiary of one or more open acts of criminality.

And it's the same with Donald Trump. For a large section of the Republican electorate, Donald Trump is the hero who goes out and steals from the unjustly rich to give to the deserving poor (namely themselves). And so the accusations, to say nothing of the legal proceedings, against him are illegitimate on their face. And in the same way that the fact that heroes often had a certain level of self-interest in things was ignored (Robin Hood was quite the poacher; many stories have the Merry Men living quite well for a bunch of people hiding out in the woods in mediaeval times.) Republican voters who understand that Donald Trump is fighting the good fight specifically to benefit them, and advance their interests, are unlikely to see him as being self-serving.

As an aside, this is why I tend to be skeptical of the Conservative/Libertarian idea that societies can work well with reputation-based (rather than formal regulatory) systems for enforcing common mores. They too easily devolve into popularity contests, with people's esteem being the basis for judging their actions, rather than vice versa.

Expectations that this civil suit or that indictment would give voters a reason to move away from Donald Trump presuppose that these proceedings, and the people bringing and/or overseeing them, are legitimate. And, perhaps more importantly, represent the standard people should use when determining their own relationships to others. But that's not how this works. It's not how it's consistently worked for centuries now.

Consider Hunter Biden, the current President's son. Despite Congressional Republicans having been hammering on this for years, with no evidence so far of any wrongdoing on the part of President Biden, House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been threatening impeachment proceedings against him, "based on questions about his son Hunter Biden's business dealings." This isn't happening because there is solid evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the President; it's happening because there's enough support for it among Republicans to make it something between politically expedient and politically necessary. Negative partisanship at work.

Right now, Donald Trump is the hero of many Republicans, and that status is unassailable. This is why there's no real contest of the Republican nomination for President. And it's why his supporters are going to stick with him regardless of any accusations leveled against him... even literally shooting someone on Fifth Avenue won't change that. Failing to recognize, or acknowledge, that won't make it go away.

Immaculate

I was listening to the audio version of the recent David Brooks article "How America Got Mean." It's somewhat typical for Mr. Brooks' work over the past few years, I think; an article that posits that the solution for a problem that plagues the present-day United States can be found in its past. Which I get, it's part of what Conservatism is about, the idea that halting, or sometimes reversing, social change is the best way to create a better society.

And just as this article seems to be a lot like other David Brooks articles that I've read and/or listened to, it seems to have the same blind spot. While Mr. Brooks is not averse to noting the problems of the past, he views them as entirely separate from what he understands to be the strengths of the past. And so he envisions society in which the manners and morals of, say, the 1930s can be restored, but the racism, homophobia, control freakishness et cetera of the time can be simply avoided. Taking the bad with the good is only something that people have to do because they insist on modern ways of behaving.

And this, as I see it, frees Mr. Brooks from having to answer one of the persistent questions of societal change: If the past was so wonderful, why didn't people stick with it? Why did people throw the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bathwater if the two were completely unconnected? While I've never encountered Mr. Brooks describing conservative values as "magical" (as Juan Williams has done) this idea that they have no downsides sets them apart from pretty much everything else on Earth. But I suppose that this is the appeal of ideology; it can somehow be perfect.