August 21, 2020
Dear Interested Readers.
What A Week!
The post on Tuesday reviewed the first night of the Democratic Convention. The high point of the evening was the speech by Michelle Obama. Some of the commentators I heard suggested that it was the best convention speech that they could remember ever hearing. In retrospect, it may have been even better than they suggested because she captured the gravity of our situation at this moment of uncertainty, and offered us a window into the possibility that we do not need to accept things as they are, but if we want a different world, different possibilities, and the repair of what frustrates and limits us, we need to return to a greater sense of community and follow a leader who has demonstrated over a long career an ability to be both effective and compassionate. Through her depiction of the trajectory of Joe Biden’s life, and her own personal experience with him, she effectively endorsed him as the right choice for president at this moment of transition. She left little doubt that his life demonstrates a respect for the presidency and a knowledge of ,and a willingness to be adherent to, the political “norms” that we have previously expected all presidents to respect as they make protecting the nation their highest priority.
At the end of my note I expressed some vague disappointment with the fact that I had heard so little about healthcare other than its secondary position to the critical deficiencies demonstrated by the pandemic. I wrote:
Other than multiple references to the sacrifices of essential healthcare professionals and other workers, to the frequent inference that we must overcome the social and economic inequities that the pandemic has revealed, and to the president’s incompetent management of the pandemic, there were no direct references to healthcare as a political issue. I think that it is a foregone conclusion in the minds of most voters that healthcare is a settled issue. If the Democrats win, we will continue to advance efforts toward universal coverage. You and I know that underneath access there are the other issues of assured quality and equity. Why debate that with an opposing candidate who is devoid of empathy and who has been actively undermining all attempts to improve the lives of the less fortunate and underserved among us who have borne a heavier load during the pandemic?
A politician with the skill of the former vice president knows that a better future for us in regard to every issue, whether it is raising the minimum wage, protecting the environment, making higher education affordable for all, or ensuring access to healthcare for all, will require the hard work of educating, negotiating, and accepting compromise that produces incremental progress that slowly leads to greater justice and equity. Those who would have instant change must be willing to force their ideas on those who are not ready for change. Autocratic force from the left is just as illiberal as force from the right.
Most people don’t read or think much about a party’s platform, but I think platforms are an effective way of looking inside the internal differences in the party that must be negotiated if there is to be a coordinated effort that supports gaining the opportunity to work for change. A political party needs to have a foundation or platform that can be the basis of the efforts of its candidates for every position that is up for election, up and down the ticket . The platform is not a certain promise, but it tells us a lot about what the consensus intent of the party is on all of the important issues of the day.
The Democratic Party’s platform for 2020 has been influenced by the progressive wing of the party, but it is also a document that was designed to offer progress by gaining the wider support that would come from taking progressive ideas into a more compelling centrist position. It is built on the reality that it is better not to force the voters who would describe themselves as in the political center, or even a little right of center, to accept or reject positions that seem to them at this time to be extreme. The New York Times has published a useful analysis of the platform written by Sydney Ember and Matt Stevens that says a lot in its title: “What the Democratic Party Platform Actually Says: It’s a largely symbolic document that broadly outlines the party’s agenda. It doesn’t make everyone happy.” In the article they list the various “planks” of the platform and describe the negotiations that led to the outcome.
The article presents an overview of the process that could be a model for how we begin to bridge the gaps between us. I think that it is safe to say that if one party in a negotiation gets everything it wants, then it was not an effective negotiation. Last change can’t be driven by ignoring the need for effective compromise.The part of the title of the article that says “It doesn’t make everyone happy” is the realistic outcome of the long discussions that produced the platform with all of its compromises.
Here is the process that was followed:
A largely symbolic document, the party platform does not contain specific legislation or binding commitments. Taken as a whole, however, it provides a broad look at the party’s agenda and the principles and values that Democrats, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., embrace.
The platform was written by a drafting committee that included members from the party’s progressive and more moderate wings. The Democratic National Committee’s platform committee then voted on the platform before sending it to all of the delegates who voted remotely on whether to approve it.
Last month in a parallel process, six Biden-Sanders “unity” task forces gave their own broad policy recommendations to the platform committee. The recommendations amounted to a collection of broadly accepted liberal policy proposals — much like the new platform.
The article goes on to describe the “planks” of the platform from a high level, but useful viewpoint. I will present them to you as bullet points:
- The coronavirus pandemic: The Democrats signaled in their platform that responding to the coronavirus crisis is a top concern. It is the first full policy section of the platform… Many of the proposals are broadly consistent with what Democrats have so far supported, including increasing funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and providing more aid to state and local governments for initiatives specific to Covid-19, such as contact tracing. Democrats also support free coronavirus testing and treatment for everyone, as well as free vaccines when they become available. And they want to expand paid sick leave and unemployment insurance to help workers impacted by the health crisis.
- Health care: The section on health care…outlines Democrats’ desire to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, reduce health care costs and improve the quality of care. While it nods to Medicare for all, it stops far short of backing it. But perhaps the most interesting part of the party’s stance on health care is how exactly it plans to expand coverage. Borrowing language from Mr. Sanders, the platform asserts that “healthcare is a right for all.” But it seeks to secure universal health care through a public option, not Medicare for all. “Democrats believe we need to protect, strengthen and build upon our bedrock health care programs, including the Affordable Care Act,” the platform reads. “Private insurers need real competition to ensure they have incentive to provide affordable, quality coverage to every American.”
- The economy: The economic platform blends and borrows ideas from across the party’s ideological spectrum…There are echoes of Mr. Sanders (“The U.S. economy is rigged against the American people”) and wonky subsections that address “Curbing Wall Street Abuses” and “Tackling Runaway Corporate Concentration” — issues highlighted repeatedly by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts…Democrats…support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026, a policy already widely backed across the party. They want to invest in infrastructure, including high-speed rail.Democrats also support aggressive steps to encourage homeownership by increasing affordable housing and by giving a $15,000 tax credit to first-time home buyers, among other initiatives.Perhaps most notably, the platform promises to “reject every effort to cut, privatize or weaken Social Security.” The pledge is particularly relevant following President Trump’s push to cut payroll taxes, which Democrats said could jeopardize the funding stream for the popular government program.
- Climate change: The party’s platform sets aggressive goals of eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for all new buildings by 2030, with the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But the platform makes no mention of the “Green New Deal,” a sweeping congressional resolution to combat climate change that is widely supported by the party’s progressive wing. It also does not call for an end to fossil fuel subsidies — an omission that has frustrated activists — although Mr. Biden’s plan does.
- Statehood for Washington, D.C., and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants: …Democrats want to “fast-track this process for those workers who have been essential to the pandemic response and recovery efforts.” The party also wants to end for-profit detention centers and instead “prioritize investments in more effective and cost-efficient community-based alternatives to detention.
- Criminal justice and racial justice: Democrats want to “overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom.” But notably, the platform does not include support for defunding the police, which has become a rallying cry for some activists amid the nationwide reckoning over racial justice and police brutality. Instead, Democrats support “national standards governing the use of force” like banning chokeholds. The party also wants to eliminate cash bail. Democrats support decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing its medical use. But the platform advocates for leaving it up to the states to determine whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use — a position that disappoints many progressives.
- Education: Democrats support making public colleges and universities tuition-free for students whose families earn less than $125,000. The proposal does not go as far as the plan proposed by Mr. Sanders, which stipulates tuition-free public colleges and universities for everyone. The platform, however, does support making community colleges and trade schools tuition-free for all students. Democrats also want to “ban for-profit private charter schools from receiving federal funding.”
- Foreign policy: Democrats support a two-state solution that would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Democrats also believe Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel. Some activists have expressed disappointment with the platform because it does not criticize Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine.
As you read through the issues and the negotiated positions, it is clear that the party has made a strategic decision. It must achieve a level of unity that allows enough people to come together under a “large tent” of agreement to be able to win in November. It is a reality that such an inclusive position is also an advantage if Democrats get an opportunity at doing the real work of turning ideas into legislation. Unless there is a Democratic landslide up and down the ticket and across the country that includes gaining a dozen seats in the Senate nothing will become law without some bipartisan consensus. The only alternative would be to take the step of outlawing the filibuster in the Senate. That can be done by a simple majority vote, but up to now neither party has been willing to give up the defensive negotiating power that the filibuster offers to the party out power. Under President Obama Democrats turned the judicial confirmation process into an up or down majority vote, and the result has been the confirmation of many conservative judges to lifetime appointments including Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
What is emerging as the attitudes of choice or the common beliefs within the party can be gleaned from the speech on Tuesday night by former President Obama, and from speeches on Wednesday by Senator Elizabeth Warren and by Senator Bernie Sanders. All three speeches described both the threat of deeper divisiveness, the immediate actions-to vote and work for if we are to have fair election- and the yield of benefit to everyone that could occur if we set aside enough of the current strife to elect a leader on the basis of his demonstrated ability to respect people of different opinions. David Brooks provided some meat to these bones in his column yesterday that was entitled: The Democrats Who Rose to the Moment: A nation’s soldiers in a time of crisis. He begins with a sweeping statement, the likes of which I wish that I could write:
Some people speak from their depths, and some speak from their shallows. Some speak to make a name in some political game they’re playing. But others speak from wells of a moral conviction. Their words are not applause lines; they endure.
What follows captures the tone of President Obama’s speech with just as much power:
Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic convention from his depths. His speech was not just meant to help the Democrats win an election; it was to identify a historical crisis and address a spiritual need. The former law professor spoke from his deep love for our Constitution, the whole intellectual and moral regime that has been built around it and the way it is now being betrayed by a self-indulgent narcissist.
His speech was fiercely pro-American and fiercely anti-Trump, showing that, in fact, to be fiercely pro-American you have to be fiercely anti-Trump.
Brooks did not stop with his celebration of President Obama’s wisdom and courage. He moved on to equally credit Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
His speech was not the only act of devotion at the Democratic convention this week. Bernie Sanders has served his version of socialism for 50 years. For several weeks last winter, it looked as if he would be the nominee and this convention would be his. That was snatched from him.
But he put his love of country above his dream and laid it all at the feet of Joe Biden. In his words, you could hear an old man’s awareness of this crisis of the moment and his surrender of self to the larger purpose. That was an impressive moral act.
I think that what we are seeing once again in Bernie Sanders is that soldiers and seekers of a better world always put the larger issue ahead of personal gain. Unfortunately, the process of change is often not completed in their time. They start a movement, cause a change of direction, and live for a day that others will enjoy. That was true for Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and it’s true even in healthcare. I am thinking of Robert Ebert, Don Berwick, and many of the other contributors that I have tried to celebrate in these notes.
I was particularly moved by Brooks’ comments about Elizabeth Warren. She was my choice for president. In the new calculus of virtual political conventions President Obama got a little more than 19 minutes, Bernie Sanders got nine minutes, and Elizabeth Warren got slightly less than six. That’s not much time, which makes her contribution even more remarkable. Brooks writes:
Elizabeth Warren loves her plans, but in her speech you heard not a wonk’s delight in technocracy, but the emotional power of a thousand wrenching life stories told to her through tears on the campaign trail — of mothers defeated by the impossible demands of work and child care, of young men eviscerated by the self-doubt borne from joblessness. No politician is as good at translating the arcana of policy to the language of pain, suffering and relief.
In retrospect it was Senator Warren’s humanity, as much as her immense expertise, that drew me to her. I would love to live in a world where good efforts and ideas could not be discounted by comments that were hurled at her about being too shrill or too wonky. She was genuine, and any ambition she had was not directed at being important, but rather at making a difference for people who needed an advocate and a better chance.
Brooks was writing before Joe Biden spoke, and probably before we heard from Kamala Harris. Both of them in their speeches revealed the competence and the empathy necessary for the high offices for which they were nominated. I was impressed by Senator Harris’ willingness back when she was a candidate to shape her position on healthcare in a way that constituted a plausible pathway from the gains of the ACA to the potential benefit of “Medicare For All.” We may yet see those ideas in action. She comes from an impressive family. Her mother was a UC Berkeley trained biologist who did basic research studying receptor sites in breast cancer, and her father is a Professor Emeritus in Economics at Stanford.
Personal stories do make a difference in understanding the candidate in front of us. Everything about Joe Biden’s personal story from the job insecurity of his father to the tragic losses he has experienced as a husband and father are as important to his candidacy as his expertise in the passage of significant legislation and his experience in foreign affairs. We have the scars and open wounds that come from being led by a president who appears to have little empathy or the power to love much more than himself, power and money.
Brooks saw Biden in his own way which at first doesn’t sound so good, but then comes across as a ringing endorsement that is a natural progression of what he was emphasizing in the characters of Obama, Sanders, and Warren.
And this is where I put the Bidens. One way to see Joe Biden is as the Hubert Humphrey of our day, a party fixture and a conventional pol. But that’s not quite right. The better way to see Biden is as a regular person who entered into politics but never quite got the game, who is goofy, heartfelt, unpolished, undisciplined, incapable of being manipulative. The way a lot of regular people actually are. Jill in a classroom. Joe on the train.
Some think Biden isn’t smart enough to handle the complexities of the presidency, or is too old and has lost a step. But this convention, the presidency, and life in general, reveal depths or lack of depths.
Don’t underestimate the importance of the depth of Biden’s family values, the depth of his working-class roots, the fact that he is a person who did not emerge from the valley of grief with empty hands. Don’t underestimate the capacities of a person who does not see populations in the mass, or subjects in some study, but each person one by one.
When your democracy is in crisis, you don’t need cleverness above all or dexterity at playing the game. You need someone with the ability to stick himself down and hold fiercely onto what is precious.
Some young activists give the impression that they invented the struggle for justice and that everything that came before them is rotten. But the struggle is as old as America — 1776, 1860, 1965, 1989. Biden offers a return to normalcy, but in America the struggle is normalcy.
There was much much more. I was deeply touched by the presentation of Brayden Harrington, the thirteen year old boy with a speech impediment whom Joe Biden encouraged with his own story of his personal struggle with the same disability. Bryden is right, he said we all need a world where we can feel better. I hope that what happened this week in the virtual world of the Democratic Convention will encourage a fresh start in November toward that better world where we can all feel better. A world of racial harmony where it is clear that black lives do matter. A world where we see programs evolving that will lead to real improvement in the social determinants of health. A world that understands the importance of protecting our planet. A world where the sense of the Triple Aim is understood, and effective efforts to make it a reality are beginning. We have been going the wrong way for almost four years. It’s time to turn around and get back on a path that leads toward the full meaning of “these truths.”
I Live At the End of the Rainbow, and I Can Prove It!
We had a brief shower on Monday evening a little after 6PM that drove my wife and my off of our deck and into our living room where I began to watch the evening news. The storm was brief. It was probably a rapidly moving “front,” but while it lasted things darkened noticeably. Abruptly, even before the rain had completely stopped, the sky lightened as if someone had suddenly turned on a huge lamp. The sun was already on its descent into the west, and the light was shining across the lake more than from above the late. All photographers know that the late afternoon sun offers some special effects.
My wife was sitting where she had to look to the left to see the television. Facing straight ahead she was looking directly at the lake through the sliders leading to the deck. I was startled by her exclamation that there was the sudden appearance of a rainbow. The abrupt change in light did indeed produce a magnificent rainbow that seemed to dive into our lake about a few hundred yards off our shore. She grabbed her iPhone and dashed onto the deck to snap the picture that is today’s header. What was equally amazing to the unexpected appearance of the rainbow was its sudden departure. Before I could find my phone so that I could catch my own picture, the sky darkened once again. The rainbow faded and was gone in less than a minute.
Rainbows represent hope and promise. In Genesis 9: 9-16, God says that it is a symbol of the “everlasting covenant” that he is making between Noah “and with your seed after you,” I assume that means every person then and for evermore, who would follow Noah. Things were starting over.
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
Harold Arlen wrote “Over the Rainbow” for Judy Garland to sing in “The Wizard of Oz” which came out in 1939 as the misery of the lingering Great Depression was morphing into World War II. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1,1939. For me the song’s original lyrics express Dorothy’s expectation that someday she will be in a better place, somewhere free from trouble and worry, somewhere beyond the rainbow.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me.
“Over the Rainbow” has been a favorite song of mine for as long as I can remember, but it was not until I heard the version of the great Hawaiian artist “IZ”, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole (You must click here and listen to IZ) that I realized that making it a wish for an individual was limiting the “vision.” IZ added some words that make it a vision of a better world for everyone. He stresses diversity, love, and seeing hope in the face of a child. There is unlikely to be a more diverse and a more beautiful place on earth than Hawaii.
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people passing by
I see friends shakin’ hands saying, “How’s it? How you?”
They’re really saying, “I love you”
I hear babies cry and I’d watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than we’ll know
And I think to myself
Oh, what a wonderful world
I think to myself, yes
What a wonderful world
I think to myself, yeah
What a wonderful world
I guess that getting over the rainbow is not quite the same as getting to the “end of the rainbow” where Irish legends suggest there is a pot of gold. A literalist would say that I need a mask and flippers to dive into the lake and get the pot of gold, but I would prefer to think that the rainbow we saw is just further evidence that where I am in space and time is a good place, a place where I am meant to be. It is my wish that something even better could be a universal reality, not somewhere far away over the rainbow, but right here, and the sooner the better.
What I enjoyed most about the convention this week was that it was mostly aspirational. It looked forward to an inclusive world. It imagined a healthy world without inequity, without racism, without gun violence, and without scarcity. It envisioned a world of growing opportunity, and not a world where we shunned our sisters and brothers coming with their children from “shit hole countries.” Would it not be wise, or at least charitable, to view them as future contributing neighbors rather than invading hordes who have criminal intent? Furthermore, we should not diminish our humanity in a bias driven process to sort winners from losers in a climate of “American carnage.”
There is a tension between the vision presented last week and our experience of the last three and a half years. Making progress toward the better vision is possible, but not guaranteed. It will be a choice between focusing on inclusion and community, or self interest and walls. It will be interesting to hear what the president and his supporters will offer us this coming week at their convention. In the meantime, I am just going to think about the promises of rainbows, and enjoy the good vibes and the sense of future possibilities that were renewed for me this week.
Be well! Have a great late summer weekend! The number of summer weekends we have left is dwindling fast. Stay safe near home. When you are out and about, wear your mask and practice social distancing as best you can. Don’t try to outguess the virus.Think about the America you want for yourself and others. Prepare to demand leadership that is empathetic, thoughtful, truthful, capable, and inclusive. Look for opportunities to be a good neighbor. Let me hear from you. I would love to know how you what you are thinking in these very unusual times!
Gene
