As of Monday morning, Ladbrokes, the largest betting parlor in England, was offering the tantalizing odds that President-elect Donald Trump would leave office “via impeachment or resignation before end of 1st term:” 3/1. And that’s where I’m putting my money, though, given my betting history, I wouldn’t advise anyone to join me.
I was pretty smug two days before the 2016 presidential election when I bet my younger son $20 that Hillary Clinton would win the election. Mind you, I gave him a chance and pointed out that the pollsters and English bookmakers had all pegged Hillary as a shoo-in.
“Wait till the election,” he growled in a low, determined voice. And it was at that point that I decided he needed to be taught a lesson: Just because your gut says something is true doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true.
After the 2016 tally, I found myself up to my elbows in the same embarrassment experienced by The Washington Post, which, in 1948, had preprinted a number of newspapers announcing Thomas Dewey had won the presidency. When President Harry Truman was returned to Washington on Nov. 5, 1948, the Post hung out a banner on the front of its building. It read, “Mr. President, we are ready to eat crow whenever you are ready to serve it.”
Likewise, I ate crow and gave my son his $20. I wasn’t happy about it, but I did it and then returned to the task of trying to soothe the 2016 rug burn that seemed to permeate my being. I watched the TV and listened to the radio and none of it seemed to work very well. I was a jackass – read ’em and weep.
And yet drip by drop, other realizations joined the fray. During the same time frame in which Donald Trump had won and a sense of being rug-burned all over arose, there were other things I considered more compelling.
For example, Janet Reno, the first woman attorney general of the United States, died Nov. 7 at 78. A big, horsy, tough woman, she seemed capable of angering both sides of whatever issue she took on between 1993 and 2001.
Yet for all the pushback she could ignite, even her enemies were often willing to grant her the one word that hardly touched the presidential election of 2016: “Integrity.” Janet Reno stood for the law. Period. Once, at a press conference, as she was badgered by reporters, Reno issued four words I would have paid money to hear in 2016: “I don’t do spin.”
“I don’t do spin.” Coming from anyone else, it might be hot air. Coming from Janet Reno, a sense of healing and decency sprang up in me, however misplaced it may be. How I wish the latest candidates might have said the same and had the chops to prove it and made my heart soar a little.
Also within the Trump’s victorious bomb zone, writer and musician Leonard Cohen died Nov. 7 at 82. His words and music accomplished something very much like Janet Reno – an integrity and beauty that made my heart soar a little … and a lot.
Reno did something.
Cohen did something.
It is still possible for the heart to soar.
Doing takes courage. Not-doing – and instead relying on what can be criticized – takes self-importance and the willingness to claim you are right. For example, for six years, Republicans have criticized the national health coverage called “Obamacare.” In all of those years, no replacement has been provided, debated or voted on.
If repealing Obamacare without a replacement is the goal, then 20 million people stand to lose all health coverage. Insurance companies gain. The little guy takes it on the chin. Twenty million little guys. So what courage is a Republican-dominated Washington willing to display?
Or consider the loss of coal-mining jobs. Those jobs were lost in part because of advancing technology, but they were most compellingly lost because the cost of natural gas makes coal mining less attractive to those who hope to make money. Will there be enough courage to admit this without spin?
Yes, coal miners got shafted economically but is there really a way to re-employ and unshaft them? If reeducation is the answer, where is the money to make that possible? Will more taxes be necessary? But wait, Republicans like to say they dislike taxes. So which is it going to be, assuming anyone has the courage to do something?
And don’t get me started on Veterans Day in the midst of an ongoing, never-ending state of war that Congress has not declared even as each member relies on it for re-election.
I don’t really have any answers, but I do know that feeling rug-burned all over makes me seek solace in those who have managed a bit of doing, a bit of integrity, a bit of life without spin.
It may be early to bet that Donald Trump is just Kim Kardashian in disguise – another saddle without the horse – but at least it makes me smile.
Adam Fisher, of Northampton, is a regular contributor. He can be reached at genkakukigen@aol.com.