A Dangerous Message

My wife and I were watching the local weather report the other morning when the commercial popped up on the screen. The product being offered was not too surprising---your very own AR-15 rifle. The message was unnerving.

The company making the offer boasts a name that sounds as though it might be an official government-based entity. According to the off-screen narrator, one purpose of making AR-15s available is to guarantee ‘‘freedom.” To guard against “tyranny” is another goal.

On the company’s website, I found the following mission statement (capitalization included):

OUR MISSION IS TO MAXIMIZE FREEDOM, NOT OUR PROFITS. WE WANT TO SELL AS MANY AR-15 AND AK-47 RIFLES AS WE CAN AND PUT THEM INTO COMMON USE IN AMERICA TODAY. OUR FOCUS ISN'T TO MAKE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY BUT TO SPREAD FREEDOM AS FAR AND WIDE AS POSSIBLE. OUR LEGACY WILL NOT BE ABOUT MONEY; WE WANT OUR LEGACY TO BE ABOUT MAXIMIZING AMERICAN FREEDOM. AND WE WORK EVERY DAY TO DO JUST THAT. WE MAKE HIGH-QUALITY FIREARMS AT AFFORDABLE PRICES FOR EVERYONE! THEN WE BACK THEM WITH A FULL LIFETIME WARRANTY.

A more detailed explanation of the company’s objective indicates the desire to take advantage of a US Supreme Court reference to the “in common use” standard relative to firearms covered by the Second Amendment. According to that criteria, originally stated in United States v. Miller (1939), the Second Amendment right to bear arms extents to any firearm found to be “in common use.” By aggressively expanding the availability of A-15s, a semi-automatic rifle that easily can be converted to automatic operation, the company intends to cement legal access to this deadly weapon.   

This arms manufacturer is turning the First Amendment on its head. Giving to our citizens the right to freedom of speech was considered by the Founding Fathers to be a means of protecting, even promoting, democracy which requires open debate combined with fair elections. Cynically offering AR-15s to protect “freedom” begs the question: freedom from what? The annoying opinions and wishes of people who disagree with us?

Such a strategy is not only at odds with democracy, but it is especially disturbing, even dangerous, in today’s America.

In the past year, anger over the deaths of some African Americans at the hands of police has led to widespread protests in several American cities. One reliable source has identified more than 7,000 Black Lives Matter protests across the US between May and August of this year. Those protests have been met with counter protests, frequently involving armed white supremacists.

Donald J. Trump has inflamed the situation further by labelling BMU protesters “anarchists” and “terrorists” and by praising would-be vigilantes like 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse. Last August, the teenager killed two men during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Armed with an AR-15, Rittenhouse showed up in Kenosha without authorization from local law enforcement officers. He is not even a resident of Wisconsin.

Trump also deployed federal agents during the protests in Portland, Oregon, against the wishes of Oregon authorities. He threatened to use federal forces in other cities where protests occur, but apparently ran into opposition within his own administration to such a step.

During the presidential campaign Trump made endless unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and accused election officials and other unknown parties of rigging the voting process to his disadvantage. He is now engaged in an effort to persuade Republican state legislators to replace popularly elected presidential electors with those committed to him, an undemocratic act if not an unconstitutional one.

Only a few GOP members of the US Congress have distanced themselves from Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and electoral machinations, abetting Trump in his refusal to cooperate with President-Elect Joe Biden. Trump’s intransigence is obviously at attempt to thwart the will of the American people and de-legitimize our election process. It also puts at risk effective implementation of the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in the midst of a pandemic that has already taken nearly 275,000 American lives.

In many parts of America, the country is a tinder box. Paramilitary groups encouraged by Trump’s endorsement have blatantly sought to intimidate critics of the president. When armed opponents of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order invaded the Michigan legislature in May, Trump praised them and tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN.” Later in October, the FBI uncovered a plot to kidnap the Michigan chief executive and revealed there was a similar plan to seize the governor of Virginia.   

Mankind has wrestled for many centuries with the almost universal problem of how to regulate the use of weapons. Whether for purposes of defense or to conquer and subdue an enemy, weapons have been viewed as necessary. Maintaining order and security, domestically or internationally, requires weapons of various types and levels of destructive capability.

Generally speaking, the destructive capability needed domestically is assumed to be considerably less than that required in the international arena. In neither setting is it viewed as wise to allow unfettered availability or use of any and all weapons. At some point, restraint is essential.

The US Supreme Court has wrestled with how to interpret the Second Amendment for many years. Thus far, it has not denied government at any level the authority to place reasonable limits on access to certain types of firearms, especially those frequently used to the detriment of public safety. Specious advertising seeking to manipulate court decisions for personal profit is not healthy for the future of our democracy.

Is It Over?

Ordinarily, the approach of Election Day would be greeted with excitement and anticipation, perhaps moderated to some degree by a dose of realism about your candidate’s prospects for winning. In 2020, it’s different.

In this election the focus has been too much on fear. Fear of the coronavirus, fear of foreign interference in our electoral process, fear of voter fraud or counting irregularities, and fear of not being able to making our government work again.

Fear is the primary tool of Donald Trump in trying to make a convincing case for re-election. And it is reinforced by his propensity to lie or exaggerate at every opportunity. Sadly, the core of his supporters seems oblivious to his cavalier disregard for truth or accuracy in talking about the public’s business.

Not only does Trump inflate the accomplishments of his own administration, but he denigrates his opponent Joe Biden, trying to paint the former vice president as corrupt and inept. He has encouraged Attorney General Barr and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to find something criminal in Biden’s history.

Trump does not limit his verbal assaults to opponents. He castigates members of his own administration when they do not provide unquestioning support for his outrageous rhetoric. He attacks Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, because the doctor refuses to endorse the White House laissez-faire attitude towards the coronavirus.

Even as health workers labor mightily to care for the more than 9,000,000 Americans infected by the coronavirus Trump scorns them. He accuses doctors and hospitals of manipulating the pandemic’s spread in order to generate more income for themselves, telling his rallies, "Our doctors get more money if someone dies from COVID. You know that, right?”

Trump uses the Black Lives Matter movement to stoke fear and to signal not so subtle racism. Demonstrators against suspected police abuse are assailed as anarchists and mayors and governors trying to maintain order are denounced for not cracking down harshly on the generally peaceable protesters. Social media and television have been awash with campaign ads that magnify the limited violence.

Trump and Republican candidates for Congress are attempting to make law and order an issue, claiming Democrats want to “de-fund” the police. The claim is blatantly false. Some law enforcement officers have been cajoled into participating in campaign appeals for Republican candidates. This is inappropriate. Law enforcement must be applied in a nonpartisan manner.

The response of Trump and the Senate Republicans to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is another blow to the idea of an independent judiciary in today’s America. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Lindsey Graham pledged support for Trump’s nominee to replace Ginsburg before the candidate was announced. It was obvious that Graham viewed the proceedings as a platform for his re-election campaign. He even begged for campaign contributions when discussing hearings with the news media in the Hart Senate Office Building, a violation of Congressional ethics.

Amy Coney Barratt may prove to be an impartial jurist in the future, but neither the appointment process nor the subsequent hearings provided any meaningful evidence of what we can expect. Before 1925, the Senate Judiciary Committee did not invite court nominees to appear in a public hearing. Maybe it is time to stop wasting the public’s time and return to that practice.

Another disturbing aspect of this year’s election is the obscene amount of money being spent--- more than $14 billion dollars by the two parties, about half in the presidential campaigns. Some of the money has made its way to the two US senate battles in the Carolinas. Both senate races have received over $250 million.

The unfortunate thing is small donors ($200 and under) are providing less than 25 percent of the money. Campaign finance laws are a sieve thanks to Mitch McConnell and the US Supreme Court. Whenever there is talk about activist judges, think Citizens’ United, the 2010 decision that opened the floodgates for corporate political contributions and declared there is no evidence that money necessarily corrupts politics.

Thanks to the Super PACs encouraged by Citizens’ United, big donors have acquired outsized influence. Sheldon Adelson has given Trump’s re-election effort $180 million while Michael Bloomberg has pledged at least $100 million to support Joe Biden. I find little comfort in the fact that Democrats are winning the money race this election cycle. Money seldom develops any long term loyalty.

Finally, Election Day may turn out to be just the beginning of a long nightmare. Both parties are lawyered up. Even as state officials sought to develop voting rules, there has been constant litigation with the parties maneuvering for advantage at the ballot box and after.

How will absentee ballots be treated? How long for early voting and where are voting sites going to be? When must absentee ballot be postmarked and when can voting officials start counting them?

Politicians in a democracy should be able to work our election processes to protect everyone’s right to vote.  Everyone, regardless of party, should be able to find agreement on process. Haggling for weeks after the election over whether an absentee ballot can be count if received three days or six days after Election Day is ludicrous in a democracy.

If you can’t win with the voters, seek to control the count of the ballots---a disastrous policy for a democracy.  It is as if we fear our fellow American more than any external enemy.

Election Turmoil

I have been voting since 1960. I have voted in North Carolina. I have voted in South Carolina, and I have voted absentee while in the military, first in Alabama and then in Vietnam.

I have voted for Democrats. I have voted for Republicans, and I have vote for candidates who belonged to neither of the two major parties.

I have been a poll worker. I have been a poll watcher. I was the voting officer for my Army unit, and I have been an unsuccessful candidate.

In all those years, in casting all those votes, and in participating in the electoral process in various ways, I have always felt that my vote was secure. My candidate did not win in every case, but I never doubted that my vote had been counted.

In 2020, that sense of security has been undermined.

Now I am not so naïve as to believe that every voters in the Carolinas in the 1960s felt the same as I did at the time. African Americans were still subject to all sorts of voter suppression tactics.

The country began to address that problem in 1965 with passage of the Voting Rights Act. It required preclearance by the US Department of Justice of any regulation, policy or law which might impact access to the ballot in states with a long history of discrimination against minorities. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, in the twenty years following passage of the act the disparity in registration rates between white and black voters dropped from nearly 30 percent to only eight.

Despite the obvious evidence of the act’s success in combating discrimination, in 2013 the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled the preclearance requirement was unconstitutional because data on discrimination had not been updated. The defect cited in Shelby v. Holder can be repaired quickly through legislation, but Republicans in the US Congress have resisted any such measures.

As a result, in state after state, Republican state legislatures have implemented new laws and strategies targeting specific groups, generally those that tend to vote for Democrats. Voter rolls have been purged under dubious circumstances, photo id requirements have been imposed with deliberate intent to exclude certain citizens, efforts to gerrymander election districts have been intensified and a raft of other low level inconveniences have been implemented, such as moving or closing polling places in neighborhoods with significant minority residents and limiting time and places for registration drives, for early voting, and for mail-in voting.

A notable example of the extremes to which Republican governors have been willing to go, the Texas chief executive, Greg Abbott has limited mail-in drop boxes to one per county, regardless of population. This represents a significant hardship for voters in the state’s most populous counties, which are mostly Democratic. That his action has been upheld by the US Fifth Circuit Court reflects the effectiveness of the collusion between Trump and GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in remaking the federal judiciary.

Added to the assault on voter rights, has been Donald Trump’s persistent ranting about voter fraud and “rigged” elections. Without any evidence of meaningful violations in previous elections and without any sympathy for voter fears about the pandemic, he has labeled anticipated mail-in voting this year a “disaster” and “a whole big scam.” Trump also has encouraged mail-in voters to go to polling places on Election Day and cast an in-person ballot if poll workers cannot confirm their mail-in ballot has been received. Even after being warned there are laws against voting twice, he continues to offer that advice.

The new postmaster general, a wealthy Trump supporter, tried to complicate the mail-in voting issue by imposing drastic budget restrictions on the US Postal Service, raising questions about its capacity to handle the likely increase in mail-in voting. In addition, the US Department of Justice, under William Barr, has already begun investigating possible election fraud cases. There is no indication DOJ is pursuing any cases of discrimination under the remnants of the Voting Rights Act.  

With characteristic bombast Trump also has assailed peaceful protesters as “thugs” and “anarchists,” and given a greenlight to private militia groups, like the “Proud Boys.”  Trump’s rhetoric and his unwillingness to condemn violence and unlawful behavior by his supporters is heightening the danger that mayhem could occur during the 2020 campaign and afterwards. His refusal to state a willingness to concede peaceably if he loses November’s election simply adds fuel to the fire he’s laid.  

It’s not only Democrats who are concerned about the atmosphere in which the 2020 election is being held. Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a recently retired attorney with a long track record of representing Republican Party groups, wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post in September stating:

The president’s rhetoric has put my party in the position of a firefighter who deliberately sets fires to look like a hero putting them out. Republicans need to take a hard look before advocating laws that actually do limit the franchise of otherwise qualified voters. Calling elections “fraudulent” and results “rigged” with almost nonexistent evidence is antithetical to being the “rule of law” party.

I will still vote in this year’s election, but not by absentee as I originally intended in view of the pandemic and my age. Instead, I will take advantage of early voting to insure that my vote will not be endangered by mail problems or the continuing changes related to absentee voting.

It’s regrettable that our nation’s current leadership has created an environment in which respect for my right to vote, and yours, is in doubt. Democracy cannot survive under those conditions.

 

Importance of Court Overblown

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death has roiled America’s politics in midst of a presidential election, setting up yet another fight over control of the nation’s highest court. Ironically, conservatives already have a 5-3 majority on the US Supreme Court and nothing is likely to prevent Donald Trump and Senate Republicans from enhancing that margin.

What are the stakes here? Is the future of the republic truly at risk?

Obviously, Trump is claiming the Ginsberg vacancy has created the chance to secure conservative dominance of the judiciary for the foreseeable future and he has been crucial to that opportunity. Unmentioned by Trump, but clear to all is that the Ginsberg vacancy offers a means for him to shift the focus of the presidential campaign from his administration’s shortcomings with regards to the pandemic and the economy. More than 209,000 deaths and more than 30 million people unemployed do not make a strong case for re-election.

Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Ginsberg has all the usual credentials Republican judicial appointees have possessed during the past three decades. Amy Coney Barrett is openly anti-abortion and appears to have strongly conservative views on most issues, including healthcare, consumer protections and workers’ rights. She has little experience in private practice, having spent most of her legal career as an academic, primarily on the law faculty of her alma mater, Notre Dame.

Barrett currently sits on the Seventh Circuit of the US Court of Appeals. She was nominated by Trump and confirmed by the US Senate in October 2017. This is her sole experience as a judge. Barrett calls herself an “originalist.” She clerked for and is an admirer of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Despite the thinness of her credentials, Barrett is likely to be confirmed since Republican Leader Mitch McConnell exercises iron control over his GOP majority.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (SC) even said last week that all committee Republicans will vote for the president’s nominee—not waiting to learn who that nominee was. So much for the “separation of powers.”

Graham, like several other GOP senators facing re-election, may also view the upcoming hearing as an opportunity to reboot his campaign. It has been tough to defend chaotic responses to the pandemic and its economic fallout by Trump and Senate Republicans. Allowing federal relief aid to expire is difficult to justify in face of the hardships weighing down millions of Americans.

What should be the public’s reaction to this sham process?

First, we must recognize the addition of another conservative Republican to the Court is a done deal. Barrett will be confirmed. She may not be your choice, but Senate Republicans have the votes and no apparent inclination to change their collective mind.

Democratic senators should also recognize this fact. Launching into lengthy soliloquies about the injustice of it all or trying to bully the nominee into revealing her suspected bias will not derail the train. Such tactics will merely allow Graham and his GOP colleagues to drag out the hearing and distract voters from the campaign at hand.

Second, just how much does it matter that the GOP will have such dominance on the Court? Having an outsize majority of justices appointed by one party has happened before.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed office in 1933, the Court was more divided.  Seven justices had been appointed by four Republican presidents and only two by a Democratic one. And in view of complaints that Ginsberg’s death allows Trump to appoint three to the Court, note FDR’s predecessor, Herbert Hoover, also named three justices during his single term. 

The conservatively oriented Court in the 1930s caused FDR some grief during his first term, but the resistant justices became more agreeable to the New Deal after he won a landslide re-election in 1936, sixty-one percent of the popular vote and ninety-eight-point five percent in the Electoral College. Of course, his threat to “pack” the Court may have helped.

Fact is the framers of the US Constitution did not intend the Court to be an initiator of policy. It was to step in only when one of the other branches or a state had moved out of bounds. In No. 78 of The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “…the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.” He went on to assert, “…the judiciary…has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever.”

In recent years the Court has assumed a more prominent role than anticipated because of the failure of the executive and legislative branches to effectively seize the initiative in addressing the needs and concerns of the American people. For some thirty years now gridlock seems to be the preferred mode of operation in Washington. And while most of the difficulty may be attributed to Republicans, the Democrats are not blameless.

Finally, it is noteworthy that Trump and the Senate Republicans are acting with great urgency in processing Barrett’s nomination. This is in stark contrast to how vacancies in many key federal agencies have been allowed to linger.

For example, the agency charged with protecting workers’ right to organize, the National Labor Relations Board, did not have a quorum (four) to function for more than six months between December 2019 and July 2020. The board is supposed to have five members. It still only has four, and three are Republicans.

And the six-member Federal Election Commission which enforces campaign finance laws has lacked a quorum (four) for most of Trump’s term. For only one month since August 2019 has the commission had four members. Currently, it has three with one, a Republican, nominated. His confirmation will leave the commission likely deadlocked.

Effective governance seems elusive in Washington today.  

What's Changed?

There are advantages to being old.

One is that you were there when some of the history younger folk talk about was taking place. It’s easier to understand and appreciate changes that have occurred during your lifetime. You have a lot more information to work with.

Take for example our Vietnam saga and its subsequent impact on American politics and our nation’s security.

In my recently published memoir, Joint Ventures, I write about spending time in Vietnam as a young Army officer between March 1962 and March 1963. US involvement in the fighting at that point was limited. In an administrative role, I was not in grave danger, but I did realize we faced a serious challenge. When I left the military in spring 1963 and began a journalistic career, I tried to inform the public about Vietnam, but Americans were not yet tuned in.

Things started to change after the 1964 election. Primary focus in that contest was on civil rights. Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 initiated the shift in the Solid South from Democratic to Republican. It was ironic since a higher percentage of GOP members of congress had voted for the act than Democratic members.

As for Vietnam, LBJ was the candidate of reason in that race. Although disturbed by Barry Goldwater’s remarks about how to use the military in Vietnam, I voted for him. I still hoped it possible to introduce party competition into South Carolina; less optimistic about that today.

Only a few months after the election, Johnson began escalation. In February 1965, bombing of North Vietnam began and in March, two US Marine battalions landed at Danang. At the end of 1965 there were 200,000 US servicemen in Vietnam.

In fall of 1964, inspired by my experiences in Vietnam, I began graduate study at USC Columbia in international studies. What I learned made me skeptical about LBJ’s course of action. Did our national interest in Vietnam justify the allocation of the required resources?

Over the next few years, I vacillated between journalism and academia as career possibilities. Rejecting a Yale fellowship to study Vietnam in spring 1966, I returned to television news. When invited to participate in a Taiwan research project in summer 1967, I switched again. Fortuitously, WBTW agreed to send me and a camera to Vietnam to interview Carolina servicemen in the warzone. What I saw and heard confirmed my skepticism about our goals.

Serious setbacks continued to plague us in Vietnam over the next six months. Despite the persistent buildup of US military forces, the Viet Cong and its patron North Vietnam were gaining ground. In 1967 an average of 31 Americans servicemen were killed every day.

The Tet Offensive in January 1968 was the decisive blow. Eventually, the surprise attack against cities and small towns in Vietnam was beaten back, but confidence in a US military victory was dashed. During 1968 US military forces suffered almost 17,000 deaths, an average of 46 per day.

Throughout the escalation of our military involvement in Vietnam, I noted the willingness of Democratic US senators to challenge policies of a Democratic president. Two Democratic senators, Wayne Morse (OR) and Ernest Gruening (AK) even opposed the modest Gulf of Tonkin resolution. In 1966 Democratic Sen. William Fulbright (AR), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held hearings on US policies in Asia, inviting respected scholars to share their expertise regarding the wisdom of LBJ’s strategy.

By winter of 1968, two Democratic US senators, Eugene McCarthy (MN) and Robert Kennedy (NY) were contesting LBJ’s re-election. Their challenge likely factored into Johnson’s decision to withdraw his re-election bid. At the time US personnel deaths had reached approximately 30,000.

The courage of those senators willing to take on a president of their own party impressed me. LBJ was a formidable politician. His domestic policies had been well received, especially by the traditional Democratic coalition formed under FDR. That there were senators who would put their own political future on the line to confront LBJ spoke highly of their character.

I am reminded of the courage those Democratic senators demonstrated when I consider our current circumstances. America has been traumatized for nearly a year now by a raging pandemic. The country is approaching 200,000 lives lost in less than a year, our economy had been brought to a standstill, our schools and higher education institutions crippled, and our health care system overwhelmed. More than 30 million jobs have been lost.

The president has admitted deliberately misleading the American people about the dangers of the pandemic. Yet he has done little to organize and lead a coherent response to the threat. Whatever his motives, he has failed to protect the nation’s health and prosperity.

Inexplicably, among the Republicans serving in the US Senate only Mitt Romney has dared to criticize the president’s performance. His voice was easily drowned out when his colleagues rallied to the president’s defense after evidence revealed the nation’s chief executive had used the powers of his office to seek personal political advantage. The president’s response to that support has been to wreak vengeance against any dissidents within the administration.

Following the lead of Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (KY), GOP senators have doubled down on their support of the president by refusing to provide meaningful relief to Americans currently suffering serious economic distress because of the pandemic. Unconcerned earlier about the impact on the nation’s deficit of a $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and rich individuals, Republicans in the US Senate have suddenly discovered the need for fiscal restraint.

Many years have passed since the US ended its involvement in the Vietnam war. Democratic US senators were vital to bringing about that needed policy change. Responding to the current pandemic, which has already killed more than three times as many Americans as the Vietnam war, requires similar courage. The question is where are the courageous US senators in the GOP willing to challenge the errant president of their party?

Broader Focus Needed in Campaigns

The presidential campaigns are cranking up in earnest, but the issues being discussed are too narrowly focused. Overcoming the pandemic and addressing racial unrest are clearly important challenges, but there are other problems that deserve attention.

Donald Trump is maybe the worst US president in modern times, and Joe Biden is not everybody’s first choice. But the election should be about more than the personalities of the candidates. Their views on a broad array of critical issues need to be carefully scrutinized.

Major attention must be given to the issue of the nation’s foreign policy because few of the challenges the country faces can resolved unilaterally. Unfortunately, America’s relations with the rest of world today are almost uniformly bad, and their future trajectory does not look any better.

Robert M. Gates, a former secretary of defense and director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has recently published an unfavorable assessment of US foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. In his book entitled, Exercise of Power, Gates claims that when the Cold War ended “the United States dominated the world militarily, economically, politically, and culturally---in every dimension of power. Not since the apogee of the Roman Empire had one country been in that position.”

But things have not gone well for the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A member of the National Security Council in four administrations, Gates places part of the blame on the failure of both executive and Congressional leaders “to recognize, resource, and use the arsenal of nonmilitary assets that proved of critical importance in the long contest with the Soviet Union.” He contends that “our place in the world…will depend for certain on a strong military but also on reimagining and rebuilding those nonmilitary tools.”

Among the nonmilitary tools Gates cites are trade, development and humanitarian assistance, cyber, and strategic communications. The last he describes as essential to our ability to capitalize on the successes resulting from exercise of the other instruments of power. Cyber warfare he labels as the most powerful weapon in a nation’s arsenal today, allowing the perpetrator to inflict great damage on military and civilian infrastructure while maintaining deniability.

As for America’s economic power, Gates is concerned that trade and other economic tools are being deployed principally in a punitive manner. Sanctions are never successful without broad international cooperation. Tariffs are more likely to cause damage to domestic producers than they are to change foreign behavior. 

China is seen by Gates as the major threat to American interests. Impressed with China’s accomplishments, he calls it “a multidimensional power eager to challenge the US in every sphere.” Since both sides apparently recognize military conflict between the two would be horrendous, the competition is likely to be conducted with largely nonmilitary tools, and China has been far more diligent about enhancing these instruments of power than has the US over the last twenty-five or thirty years. Managing our relationship with China will require a willingness to work with an international coalition.

Critical of budget cuts that have been imposed on the US State Department and other areas of civilian expertise relative to our foreign policy objectives, Gates also faults the failure to tap the talent available at America’s colleges and universities for economic and political development assistance. He suggests as well that it is a mistake to allocate so much aid money to the Defense Department instead of to other nonmilitary agencies

Although a Republican, Gates is bipartisan in his criticism. The errors he writes about have occurred under Democratic and Republican administrations. He is not interested in assigning blame. Instead, Gates urges the crafting of a comprehensive foreign policy strategy less reliant on military force and more innovative in the deployment of the country’s nonmilitary instruments of power.

Clearly, the capacity to develop and implement an effective foreign policy must be a major requirement in 2020. It is fortunate that both major party candidates this year have a known record relative to their skills in setting priorities, managing government and conducting international communications and negotiations, so it is possible to have a reasonable understanding of what may be expected from each.

Furthermore, the analyses contained in Exercise of Power can be useful for voters trying to determine how well a candidate can meet the overall responsibilities of the American presidency in these stressful times. Overcoming the pandemic will ultimately require an orderly strategy, inspirational leadership and a willingness to work with other interested parties. The same is true in addressing the racial unrest in America. Recognition of previous mistakes is necessary, but neither fear nor denial will be useful in moving us towards reconciliation.

What it boils down to is which candidate has the knowledge and temperament to appreciate the complexities of the world; which candidate is willing to and capable of working collaboratively with the diverse personalities that have an interest in addressing our common problems; and which candidate is capable of inspiring confidence in our collective efforts?

Where Is Harry?

As the dangers of a war approach in 1941, Harry Truman, then US Senator from Missouri, proposed creation of a committee to oversee the defense expenditures being made by the federal government. Although at first viewed skeptically by President Franklin Roosevelt, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program was soon uncovering a variety of unsavory abuses: shoddy camp construction, bad planning and sloppy administration in allocation of vital raw materials, willful misconduct in production of ships and planes, and divided loyalties among dollar-a-year men put in charge of elements of the defense effort while keeping financial ties to their corporations.   

Quickly labelled the “Truman Committee” it would continue to function throughout the war and save billions in defense spending. Truman remained chair until nominated as FDR’s running mate in 1944.

Based on recent news coming out of Washington concerning the pharmaceutical industry’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the country would benefit from another Harry Truman. Maybe everybody is chomping at the bit to know more about the FBI scheming to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, but it just might be that how the drug barons are taking advantage of the health crisis and why our government has planned so poorly for a pandemic would be more relevant to the nation’s future.

Let’s look at the planning issue first.

Given the persistent occurrence of major health threats over the past fifty years---AID, HiNi flu, SARS, MERS, etc.---more attention to being prepared for a major pandemic could have been expected. Instead, Congress and administrations under both parties were asleep at the switch.

As early as 2009 the New York Times was reporting that outsourcing of drugs was a cause for concern. Critical ingredients for most antibiotics were being produced primarily in China and India as well as most generic drugs. Applications related to generic drugs mentioned nearly 1200 pharmaceutical plants, but only 13 percent were in the US. Forty-three percent were in China and 39 percent were in India.

Despite the inadequacy of domestic supply, appropriate additions to the Strategic National Stockpile were not made, nor did the federal government insist that hospitals take steps to create a reasonable reserve of PPE. Faced with using over and over the same N95 mask for multiple shifts, a Charleston nurse declared, “Our lives are disposable.”

The Trump administration has attempted to prompt American companies to bring production back to the US, but with little success. America’s for-profit health care industry considers the bottom line above all else.

In another planning miscue, apparently no one gave any thought to how to deal with the economic fallout from a pandemic. The country’s unemployment insurance system is premised on the idea that a quick infusion of money into the pockets of consumers will remedy any economic downturn and workers can expect to be back on the job in short order. But when a health threat is responsible for the economic downturn, the situation is different. Normal economic activity, either on the part of workers or consumers, is not restored until the health threat is gone. With unemployed workers numbering over 30 million, finding a well-paying full-time job to replace unemployment benefits, much less to match earlier earnings, will be nigh impossible

Dealing with the current pandemic is similar to preparing for war. The difference is there is no one you can negotiate a truce or peace treaty with. Only by finding a vaccine to wipe out the virus can the pandemic be ended, but this effort has opened the door to abuse and even criminality normally identified with war.

The Trump administration initiated Operation Warp Speed (OWS) in April with $10 billion provided by Congress to accelerate the process of producing an effective vaccine. At first they announced 14 companies would participate in the program. Since then, the federal government has expanded its funding activities to include several other biotech entities with associated missions. Corporate management has not hesitated to take advantage of the speculation surrounding the chosen companies.

For example, Vaxart, a San Francisco-based outfit with no track record in vaccine development and only 15 employees, announced in late June that its vaccine had been selected for preliminary funding by OWS and its shares began to soar. By the time the New York Times reported in late July that Vaxart had not been selected for funding in the last round at OWS, the hedge fund that owns much of the company had collected nearly $200 million in stock profits.

One of the core companies in OWS, Moderna, also has the distinction of not having brought a vaccine to market. Apparently, it is making some progress in its effort to produce an effective vaccine, but insiders at Moderna have not waited to take their profits, cashing in nearly $250 million since January.   

In late July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Kodak, not known as a drug company, had won a $765 million government loan to assist in expediting domestic production of drugs to treat several medical conditions and to reduce US reliance on foreign countries such as China and India. The loan was to be the first of its kind provided under the Defense Production Act, but two weeks later the loan was on hold. Bloomberg reported that questions arose about purchases of additional shares by Kodak board members shortly before the loan announcement.

The litany of abuses by greedy corporate managers and their financial enablers goes on. Just as in wartime, during this pandemic we need the vigilant attention of government officials committed to the public interest ready to protect the public treasury.

Where is our Harry Truman?