Healing the wound of election denial

So what to do about election denialism, the widespread claims that the election was stolen? If polls are right, something like 50 million fellow citizens, almost all of them Republicans, believe the election was stolen. That’s a lot of healing to do. Will polls show that Biden’s passionate and convincing plea in his inaugural address […]

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February 1, 2021 – 6:10 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

How big is Trump’s army?

Newspaper stories, TV and online sources have had little on the size of the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th or the crowd outside and what there is seems wildly varied and unreliable. A recent AP story on inauguration security says “.. thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol…” I […]

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January 14, 2021 – 2:43 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Cape Trump enablers bear responsibility

What a thing: the president himself, turned instigator-in-chief, siccing a mob on the nation’s capitol. Running real time on TV. As coup d’etats go it was pretty pathetic and ragtag. more notable for the inadequacy of the police who allowed it than for what it was. Reporters and the besieged lawmakers of both parties called […]

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January 12, 2021 – 3:37 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Cross-country road trip a source of comfort in a divided nation

In the Deming, New Mexico, La Quinta motel on I -10 the friendly young woman behind the main desk was named Paris. When my wife asked her whether she had ever been to Paris, she replied that actually, she had. “And it smelled like pee.” Try to figure out the politics of that. In early […]

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January 8, 2021 – 8:07 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

How do Trump supporters read the traditional Christmas stories?

During the holiday season in a typical presidential election year we are, those of both parties, getting used to the idea of a new presidency, of being, if grudgingly, united in the acceptance of the person we’ve democratically elected to head the country for the next four years. This year,of course, it’s the opposite. The […]

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December 24, 2020 – 3:24 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Common ground and the self-evident truths of democracy

“We are not enemies, we are Americans.” In president-elect Biden’s passionate plea for healing he suggests that simply being Americans should be the common ground on which we can all come together. But given the circumstances, we Americans being so harshly divided on so many things, perhaps we could get a little less vague. In […]

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December 17, 2020 – 3:34 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The ironies of an Outer Cape Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks that in this difficult year of 2020, 400 years after European arrival on this peninsula, more of us than ever before, or so it seems, are inclined to be thoughtful about the ironies of that arrival and this very contradictory holiday. Which is the real Thanksgiving story: stalwart Europeans celebrating their […]

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November 27, 2020 – 12:37 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

ELECTION REVEALS THE SORT OF COUNTRY WE ARE

Four and a half million votes is a substantial margin of victory. And yet it is also true to say that if over half the country is feeling great relief, roughly half the country not so much. If it had been a landslide it would have been easier to believe that the last four years […]

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November 12, 2020 – 5:36 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

SHORT TAKES On Our Current Situation

1/WHO GETS TO REPORT THE ELECTION RESULTS? Was there an actual difference in the network announcements (including Fox News) of Biden’s victory? Or was it just context that made me hear them differently, an awareness that for the first time this standard announcement was being made in the era of “fake news”? Trump has declared […]

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November 11, 2020 – 6:53 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

MAGA versus voting the way forward

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion and MAGA—MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN– has been a powerful weapon for Trump and his forces. But of course it doesn’t hold up under more than two seconds’ scrutiny. Just when was that great America we want to go back to? That great period energized, for some anyway, by the pursuit […]

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October 29, 2020 – 2:30 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)