By Robert Koehler
If you want to play the game of politics, here’s step one: Reduce everything to a linear political viewpoint: “right” or “left.” No matter how deep and large and complex that viewpoint is, politicize it, turn it into something that’s either right or wrong. It’s all about winning or losing.
Did U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris lean too far left? Oh gosh. Neither Liz Cheney nor Taylor Swift could save her.
I’m still immersed in my own recovery process—recovery from the election, of course. And yes, I’m feeling pain because “my side” lost, but my emotions are complicated by the fact that I didn’t really have a side in the election. It wasn’t simply that I was frustrated with the campaigns and claims of both major parties (the only ones that mattered, right?). I’ve apparently reached a point in my life where the entire political game feels problematic; it minimizes our world in a way I can no longer tolerate.
How do we transcend our collective awareness beyond the artificial borders we’ve created? I ask this question not from some higher state of awareness, but from the middle of it all. How do we reach a collective state that isn’t competitive? How do we actually live our values rather than simply attempt to impose them—and in the process of doing so, oh so often, completely disregard and violate those values?
Suddenly I’m thinking about the good old Crusades, summarized thus by History.com: “The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions—varying in size, strength, and degree of success—occurred between 1096 and 1291. The costly, violent, and often ruthless conflicts enhanced the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East.”
Now it’s all just history, which is the story we tell about ourselves from one war to the next. But, come on: “violent and often ruthless” battles to reclaim, good God, holy sites? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Actually, that biblical quote sums up the cost of war pretty precisely. But the paradox sits there like an open wound. Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy—but first you’re going to have to kill him. And his children. Charge!
I’m not saying all this simply to point a moral finger at the political leaders of the world. Rather, I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing. Apparently, we can’t have a cause without an enemy, or at least an inconvenience (Palestinians, for example), which… uh, needs to be eliminated.
It always seems to come down to this: some glaring irritation that stands in the way of the good we want to do. And yes, there are many pushbacks against this mindset—many people who, in defiance of the cynics, believe in, practice and, indeed, create loving and courageous approaches to conflict resolution. But such approaches cannot be reduced to simple stories of good vs. evil, and thus lack large social resonance.
So here I am, dealing with my own frustrations in the present moment—the ongoing genocide in Palestine that the U.S. funds, the possibility of President-elect Donald Trump’s increased militarization of our southern border, the ever-intensifying climate crisis, the ongoing possibility of nuclear war… and oh my God, it gets ever more insane. For that reason, I bring back a story I wrote about a decade ago, which remains close to my heart. It’s a small story: a single incident in the midst of the brutal civil war going on in South Sudan.
It involves the international peacekeeping NGO, Nonviolent Peaceforce, which had several of its members in the country to help facilitate communication between the various sides in the conflict. They were unarmed, of course, which gave them credibility and trust among the warring sides. As I wrote at the time:
What happened was that armed men attacked a United Nations base on the perimeter of the city of Bor, where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Two Nonviolence Peaceforce representatives found themselves in the middle of the chaos and took refuge inside a mud hut, which was occupied as well by four women and nine children. On three separate occasions, I noted, armed men came and ordered the peacekeepers out so they could kill the women and kids. The peacekeepers refused, holding up their Nonviolent Peaceforce IDs and saying they were unarmed. They were there to protect civilians and would not leave. After the third time, the armed men left for good.
Some 60 people were killed in the assault, but 13 precious lives were saved. As one of the peacekeepers said afterward: “I think if we had a gun we would have been shot immediately.”
The peacekeepers had had intense training in nonviolence and were able to keep their cool. They didn’t panic.
And, crucially, Nonviolent Peaceforce had credibility in South Sudan. They stood beyond the conflict. “We also had a humanitarian mandate,” one of the peacekeepers said. Being unarmed “opens the doors to look for solutions. If we were armed peacekeepers, the solution is you shoot back. Because we were unarmed, we could find other ways.”
This story transcends the moment of its occurrence. I wish I could multiply it by a million. All I can do is repeat: Being unarmed opens the door to look for solutions.
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago Headline Club. He’s a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler considers himself a “peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago area.
Deborah Coffey says
“It always seems to come down to this: some glaring irritation that stands in the way of the good we want to do.” I respectfully disagree, Robert. My perspective is that it always seems to come down to this: the lies standing in the way of the truth and the hate standing in the way of love. Good vs. evil is not a “simple story” and if that battle between the two “lacks large social resonance,” then we as a people have become morally bankrupt and only a higher power will teach the lesson that needs to be learned.
You seem to think a second civil war may be on the horizon? It’s possible. But, right now, this is a spiritual war without weapons…Lies vs. Truth, Evil vs. Good, Hate vs. Love. It would be best if we could resolve our differences on this level as your story from South Sudan depicts. I hope we can. I know you do, too.
Sherry says
Thank you Deborah, an excellent comment as usual! Happy Holidays!
Deborah Coffey says
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Sherry.
Pogo says
@Money
Period.
Sherry says
Thanks Pogo. . . precisely on point! Happy Holidays!
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
These articles kill me, the only functional difference between the parties is rhetoric. They both act to protect capital over human lives.
Dont support rapists says
I don’t share any values with treasonous rapist conmen who actively sabatoge anything that helps actual people. I do not support their fascist agenda, nor do i support that hate and misinformation they spew. There’s no debating with magatards most cant even read and have an IQ of a nickel. Our chief convict sure fooled a bunch of you haha.
Ed P says
76,861,090 people voted for Trump. He totally flipped the script and gained new voters in nearly every group. Your name calling proved to be ineffective prior to the election and is even less effective now.
It would be helpful if you could actually verbalize why America handed down a mandate.
Was it a flawed democratic administration, candidate, policies, transient inflation, the forgotten American, open borders, trans issues, Gaza, DEI, or a number of other issues? Pick 1 or 100. Plenty to choose.
Trashing people is not constructive. Listen to people explain their everyday struggles and fears. The working poor couldn’t make ends meet. Really, very simple.
They are not magatards, uniformed or fascist. They read too.
Ray W, says
Hello Ed P.
I am intrigued by the inferred emphasis you place on the term “mandate.”
I looked up its meaning. According to Mirriam-Webster, mandate as a noun means:
1 : an authoritative command
especially : a formal order from a superior court or official to an inferior one
2 : an authorization to act given to a representative
3 a : an order or commission granted by the League of Nations to a member nation for the establishment of a responsible government over a former German colony or other conquered territory
b : a mandated territory
By this definition, I fully agree with you. President-elect Trump received a mandate from the voters to serve the country. So did every other candidate who was elected to the office of the president since George Washington.
I haven’t checked recently, but some 35 states have yet to certify final vote tallies, so the numbers keep rising. These states have statutorily set certification dates that have yet to come to pass.
I checked this, too. President-elect Trump has passed the 75 million vote mark, with a non-final tally of 77,025,030 votes. He possesses a 1.6% margin of victory in the overall vote, which suggests his mandate is not as strong as the mandate given to many of our other presidents. But it is still a mandate.
He has slipped under the 50% level as votes tallies keep coming in. He now sits at 49.9% of the overall vote, meaning he gained a plurality of the votes cast, not a majority. This too suggests a comparatively weak mandate from the voters.
I did find one interesting thing in the Mirriam-Webster definition. It asked when someone should use the term.
“Elections are often interpreted as mandates from the public for certain kinds of action. But since a politician is not just a symbol of certain policies but also an individual who might happen to have an awfully nice smile, it can be risky to interpret most elections as mandating anything at all.”
Ed P says
Ray W,
The concept of a mandate for me came not only from his ability to garner more total votes (than 2020) but primarily by making in roads with almost every politically defined voting block…young, old, Spanish, ect.
Regardless of anyone’s political affiliation, it was an unprecedented political comeback and he basically swept the battleground states. The confirmation of electoral votes should demonstrate that he did not “squeak” into office.
Hence, I view it as a mandate. Notice I did not infer a landslide.
If the post election consumer confidence bump and wall street’s euphoria is any indication, I’m in the majority and believe the Republican agenda is right for the country at this time.
Ray W, says
Thank you, Ed P.
I agree with you about the lack of an election landslide. Those who argue that position lose credibility.
I don’t disagree with you about the importance of Trump gaining votes over the past four years. But I look at the issue from a different perspective.
Every year, almost a million immigrants are naturalized. If many if not most of the nearly 4 million newly eligible voters actually registered to vote in the 2024, then I would expect the larger overall potential voter pool to possibly impact vote totals.
I am just not ready to say that two million more Trump votes really means all that much in real terms. Trump was a constant; his base wasn’t going anywhere.
The more relevant question to me is why Harris garnered fewer votes than Biden did? I don’t know the answer to that question, but there can be no question, but that Harris was not a constant between the two elections, she was a variable.
The only thing I do know is that I certainly would never be foolish enough to listen to anything JimboXYZ or Dennis C. Rathsam have to say on that point. They have been ignoring reality for the nearly four years I have been commenting on this site. I don’t expect them to stop ignoring reality now. Both Trump and Biden contributed to inflation. The proper term is Trudenflation.
I agree with you that Trump swept the battleground states in 2024. He won some and almost won the others in 2020, losing the three biggest ones by a combined 71,000 votes. I don’t see much of a change here, either.
I don’t agree with you that the 2024 presidential election win constituted anything meeting the definition of “unprecedented”. It has happened before. Hyperbole doesn’t become you. Reagan barely won in 1980. He then carried electoral college votes from 49 states in 1984. That might meet the definition of “unprecedented.”
For perspective, right now, the latest election results have Republicans down one total House seat and up four total Senate seats. In the presidential vote tally, Trump has 77,1oo,099 votes, with a slightly dwindling advantage, as Harris has been slowly gaining additional votes as more and more votes are counted. Trump’s 312 electoral college votes are certainly better than Biden’s 303, but not really that much better.
I have been thinking about the 2020 Bush-Gore election. The House split Republican 221, Democrat 212, and Independent 2. The Senate split 50-50. Bush carried 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266 and Gore won the popular vote by 543,895 ballots. The more things change, …
In the end, it was a Trump win, a partial Republican win, and most definitely not a landslide.
As an aside, my recollection is that a few Bush supporters called his 2020 election win a landslide. They were just as wrong then as those who now say Trump won by a landslide.
So, what does it all mean?
I expect Trump to govern as if he had a mandate, just as I would have expected Harris to govern as if she, too, had a mandate.
I don’t give much credence to commenters who complain that Biden didn’t govern like a Republican. Why should he have governed like a Republican? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of things he could have done differently, but his was not a Republican mandate.
Nor do I put too much stock in the idea of Trump “making inroads.” The vote happened as it happened. Every vote cycle has candidates making inroads. I am a Hegelian. I expect inroads and outroads to occur in every election, as each election is unique unto itself.
As for Wall Street’s euphoria, please. …
From August 5, 2024, to August 30, 2024, the Dow rose 2,859.85 points. From November 6, 2024, to November 27, 2024, the Dow gained 2,499.18 points. Was Biden’s larger market rise the result of euphoria, too? No! People invest on incoming business news.
As I recall, multiple positive economic reports came out in late July and early August, including a positive GDP report. The market snapped out of a correction.
I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying that corrections and market upswings happen all the time for all kinds of reasons.
If it makes you feel good to attribute the gains to Trump, OK.
As I recall, the Fed cut lending rates by .25 basis points two or three days after the election. That will drive a market rally every time. Investors had been waiting for the Fed to decide whether to lower lending rates a second time. That second rate cut was a biggie, from a market point of view.
My report-based explanation makes more sense than your emotionally satisfying explanation, but there is validity to your point. Some of the rise could have due to an emotional reaction to the Trump mandate.
Then again, some of the rise could have been due to the continuing spate of good news about a strong economy, separate and apart from the Fed announcement.
Oy, vey!
Ray W, says
Hello Ed P.
More on your thought about Wall Street Euphoria.
MarketWatch describes November as a “blockbuster” month for the stock market.
Here are some bullet points:
– “Both the S&P 500 and Dow finished November in record territory, notching their 53rd and 47th record closes of the year, according to Dow Jones Market Data.”
– “The Russell 2000 a popular index of small cap companies, advanced more that 10% in November, its best month since December 2023, while the S&P Mid Cap 400 rose 8.7%, its best showing since June 2023.
Make of this what you will.
Me? There just might be some form of Trump bump to the marketplace.
But if the S&P 500 hit its 53rd record close for the year, that suggests the existence of a Biden bump, too. After all, 53 record closes means once a week on average and the year isn’t out yet. Some of those might be Trump bumps, but others have to have been Biden bumps.
And, if the Dow hit its 47th record closing for the year, that means about one per week, since we have a month to go. That means there have been plenty of Biden bumps to go with the Trump bumps.
Since the Russell 2000 had its best month since December 2023, that means that December 2023’s increase was better than the November 2024 rise. Again, a Biden bump seems to have been just as good as or even better than a Trump bump.
And since the S&P Mid Cap’s month was its best since June 2023, that too means that June 2023’s rise was better than November 2024’s rise. Yes, the Biden bump seems to have been just as good as or even better than the Trump bump.
Who knew? I have for about two years been commenting on how both Trump and Biden bear some responsibility for the return of our economy to health. I call it Trudenomics. I recently added Chairman Powell to the list, but I have yet to find a way to fit Powell’s name into the moniker.
Once again, we have the strongest economy in the world. We were not destroyed. President-elect Trump is about to inherit an economy that is the “envy of the world.”
Your point remains valid, but it is getting weaker and weaker upon cautious reflection and the exercise of intellectual rigor.
Ray W, says
Hello Ed P.
Here’s some more on your “post election consumer confidence bump and wall street’s euphoria.”
For many, many years I have somewhat regularly looked up the Dow’s performance per president. Originally, I did it to keep perspective on what I was reading about the economy. In recent years, I looked up Dow performance more often because so many gullible FlaglerLive commenters prefer disseminating political lies over actually looking up what is really happening and then disseminating the factually accurate information.
Did you know that during the first 45 months of the Trump administration through October 31, 2020, the Dow rose 33.4%? And that in the month following Biden’s defeat of Trump, the Dow rose another 15.8%, which means the Dow rose 47.3% in the month after Trump’s loss.
And did you know that during the first 45 months of the Biden administration through October 31, 2020, the Dow rose 39.3%? And that in the month following Trump’s defeat of Harris, the Dow rose another 10.5%, which means the Dow rose 27% in the month after Trump’s loss.
I suppose we both know that the Dow rises and falls for a multitude of reasons. Maybe an election result is one of them. If you are right and there has been a Trump bump, then you have to concede that a 27% gain is far less than a 47.3% gain. If there was a Trump bump, was there appropriately a Biden near-double bump? Might it be better to call it a Trump confidence bump and a Biden euphoric leap?
I could see JimboXYZ and Dennis C. Rathsam claiming that 27% is greater than 47.3%. That is just their way if it makes their pestilential thinking erroneously “better”. But I don’t see you arguing the same.
As an aside, when you type that you are in the majority, are you forgetting that Trump has less than 50% of the overall vote? If so, you are in a plurality, not a majority. Exaggeration, however minor, demeans the strength of your point.
As a second aside, here are the Dow performance figures per the past seven presidents for the first 46 months of their administrations:
Clinton: 97.0% rise.
Obama: 62.8% rise.
Biden: 49.8% rise.
Trump: 49.2% rise.
GHW Bush: 41.1% rise.
Reagan: 25.5% rise.
GW Bush: -4.2 drop.
Make of this, too, what you will.
Me?
The economy was not destroyed during the Biden years. America has gained from the strongest rebound from the pandemic in the world. As the WSJ opined: Trump is about to inherit an economy that is “the envy of the world.”
Ed P says
Ray,
4 caveats when using the market to prove a point
1.the stock market at moments in time may not be indicative of the economy but is normally a leading indicator.
2. Percentages can be very misleading and I suspect they are in your examples.
3. The market only responds to 2 things.
Fear and greed.
4. The only sure thing is it will go up or down
Enjoy the Holidays…. Merry Christmas.
Ray W, says
Merry Christmas to you, too, Ed P.
I at least partially agree with all four of your points.
This is why I end most of my comments these days by suggesting each reader make of the points I list however they wish before I offer my own thoughts.
I accept your point that statistics can be misleading. Today’s rise in several of the leading stock indicators seems to be the response to the initial data releases about Black Friday consumer spending, which nearly matched expectations. A good economic holiday spending season beckons from the initial data. Who knows how it all will end?
You tried to link a recent statistical stock rise over a month to a presidential election to support your point of a Trump bump, which is probably too narrow of an indicator to fully explain a complex stock market. I considered a broader perspective, but my point might also have offered an explanation that, like yours, was not broad enough. Your narrow view might be right. It might be wrong. I think it was wrong, but then again, I think my point might have been wrong, too.
I am OK with presenting a less bad explanation than you did. Being less bad than you can still be thought of as a win, but how does one determine which view was less bad if both were bad?
My worldview has long been a good/better/best, bad/worse/worst form of reasoning. Seen from this perspective, your offering was almost certainly too narrow in scope, mine almost certainly not broad enough. Who was more wrong may never be answerable. Oy vey!
I am reminded of a Steelers’ tie with Atlanta some 20 years ago.
During the game, Michael Vick converted four plays of 20 yards or more on either third or fourth down. Atlanta, a big underdog, ended up in a tie.
As I walked away from the stadium with a friend, we passed group after group of disgruntled fans. Each group was debating a different reason why the Steelers had not won the game, convinced that their focus on one play was the only correct focus.
To me, none of them were completely right. None of them were completely wrong, either. Most football games involve at least a hundred plays. Any one of them could have changed the outcome of the game.
Each day, there might be multiple reasons why the stock market goes up or down.
Happy New Year, too!
Deborah Coffey says
There is NO MANDATE! Get out of the cult, Ed! Every American except for the oligarchs are about to love everything…their freedoms, their livelihoods, their homes, their life savings and you continually refuse to state the TRUTH.
Sherry says
Thank You Deborah!