The Name Game

Three days before the 2020 Presidential Election, I wanted to write about politics.  I wanted to state my support for the candidate I hope will win the election and be our leader for the next four years.  But I could not think of what to say.  We have been so inundated with ads, articles and news stories that I feared anything I might say, has already been said and repeated over and over again.

So, I decided to write about names.  My name is Joseph.  It was my father’s name and his father’s name.  My father was Joseph, Jr., and I sometimes regretted that despite having the same name as my father, I was not Joseph, III, which seemed cool and kind of classy to me as a young boy.  But my parents gave me a middle name, Michael, which did not match my father’s, so I was simply Joseph M. 

My father had strong opinions about names.  His parents were immigrants from what is now Slovakia, who learned to speak heavily accented English.  His children would have solid American names to blend into America’s melting pot.  When my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother, a neighbor suggested that they should name the baby Sean if it turned out to be another boy. 

“Sean?” my father responded.  “I wouldn’t name a dog Sean.”  His boys were Bill, Joe, Rich, Ron, and Bob.  He did not deviate from that line of thinking when it came to middle names – Joseph, Michael, Anthony, James, David – all Biblical and all strongly American names.  No one could taunt his boys because of names that were unusual or oddly ethnic.

Not surprisingly, his opinions carried over to his grandchildren.  “Maura?  I never heard of that name,” he said of his first granddaughter.  But he was willing to give more latitude to girl’s names – Maura, Kristin, and Rachael.  He didn’t live to see Bethany, but I’m sure he would have approved.

And Anna, my daughter’s name?  In Slovak families, girls were either named Mary or Anna.  Between my wife, who is half Slovak and me (fully Slovak), three grandmothers were named Anna, and there were at least three aunts named Mary.  In my mother’s family, both Mary and Anna were taken by older siblings, so she was named Ilona, which she Americanized to Eleanor.  Thus, Anna Ilona was pretty much a home run when we named our daughter.

My father’s grandsons were Nick, Rick, Michael, Joe, Andy, Stephen and Samuel.  Samuel, my son, had the only name my father wasn’t sure about.  A little too ethnic, he thought.  Just be sure to call him Samuel and not Sam, and especially not Sammy, my father recommended.  Of course, attaching Joseph as Samuel’s middle name gave my father reason enough to like it.

I have always liked the name given to me by my parents.  When I first learned that names have meanings, I looked up Joseph and discovered it meant, “he shall add.”  I was somewhat disappointed that the meaning was not more heroic.  It sounded like I would be a mathematician.  But over time, I realized that it meant I might add something to the lives of friends, family and perhaps, the world beyond.  Whether I did that in my thirty years as a lawyer is open to question.  I’ve tried to make up for it during my retired years by volunteering and by writing, which includes this blog.  I hope this blog has added a smile, an escape, or perhaps, something to think about to my loyal readers.

But to return briefly to politics, I am pleased that one of the candidates for President is named Joe.  As common as it is, this country has never had a President with that name.  We have had an Abraham, a Ulysses, a Grover, a Woodrow and even a Barack, but no Joseph. 

That may be reason enough to get my vote if we were playing a name game.  But I feel strongly that this Joseph will add what this country so desperately needs at this time – competence, honesty, compassion, civility – traits sorely lacking in the current White House occupant. 

That is why I cast my vote for a man named Joe.

Politics 2020

I think about politics a lot, but I don’t often write about it on my blog.  I like to think my blog is about bringing people together – not driving them apart. True, my views tend to be on the progressive side of the spectrum.  But my objective is to persuade those who are open to persuasion on issues I believe to be important.  These include climate change and health care.

Not so long ago, many conservative voices recognized the reality of climate change and agreed with the
overwhelming majority of scientists that human activity was driving that change.  Their disagreement with progressives was over the appropriate mechanism for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.  Conservatives preferred market-based approaches, such as cap and trade, which use economic incentives to reduce carbon emissions.  Progressives preferred the regulatory approach which would impose increasingly stringent emission limits.

Then, around twenty years ago, some in the conservative community adopted a different approach, questioning the science of climate change.  As time went by, those voices became louder culminating in the election of a president who denied what scientists were saying and called climate change a hoax.  As a result, now it is nearly impossible to find a conservative who supports any steps whatsoever to address the impending climate crisis. 

In the 2020 campaign for president, Donald Trump has given no indication that he has changed his mind about climate change being a hoax.  While a National Geographic article states emphatically, “Climate change exacerbates the factors that create perfect fire conditions,” candidate Trump blames raging West coast wildfires on poor management, including the failure to rake leaves in the forest.  In contrast, Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, is proposing a detailed plan “to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”

As with climate change, universal health care coverage was at one time a bipartisan goal.  The main disagreement was over the role of the government in providing that coverage.  In 2006, under Republican Governor Mitt Romney, Massachusetts passed a health care program that provided coverage to nearly all citizens of that Commonwealth.  The Massachusetts program, later dubbed, “Romneycare,” is often cited as the model for the federal Affordable Care Act enacted under President Barack Obama in 2010.  Despite strenuous efforts by Obama to obtain bipartisan support for the ACA, not a single Republican voted for the law’s passage.  Instead, Republicans have tried for a decade since its passage to repeal it.  President Trump is currently asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the law in its entirety.

Among its most popular provisions, the ACA prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to applicants who have a pre-existing condition.  It also provides that young adults can stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26. Prior to the ACA, young adults were cast off their parents’ insurance as soon as they ceased to be full time students, which could be as early as 18.  The ACA also eliminated yearly and lifetime coverage limits which allowed insurers to refuse to pay claims after a certain dollar amount was exceeded.

Joe Biden has a plan to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act.  Among other things, Biden wants to provide a public insurance option, like Medicare, to compete with coverage being offered by private insurance companies. 

Donald Trump has been teasing the public for nearly four years that he has a health care program far better than what is provided by the ACA.  The Trump plan is always a few days or a few weeks away, but it never seems to arrive.  Whether a Trump health care plan exists is questionable.

There are many reasons to vote for Joe Biden to be our next President rather than re-electing Donald Trump.  Honesty, decency, temperament, and competence quickly come to mind.  But if you want to take positive steps to save the planet from a climate crisis, you must vote for Biden.  And if you care about Americans having access to affordable health care, especially when millions are getting infected and hundreds of thousands are dying from a global pandemic, then you must vote for Joe Biden. 

I am happy to say I have already cast my vote for Joe, and I have received confirmation from my County’s voter services office that my ballot has been received.  If you feel the same way, please vote.  This year there are plenty of options in Pennsylvania and they are described at votespa.com.

I don’t much like to write about politics, but at this juncture, silence is simply not an option.

Fear Itself

Four score and seven years ago, on March 4, 1933 to be exact, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said the following in his first inaugural address:  “[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . ..” 

America was in the throes of the Great Depression and was looking to Roosevelt for leadership.  FDR
responded by introducing 15 major pieces of legislation during the first 100 days of his administration.  Those legislative proposals were designed to calm the nation’s financial panic and begin the process of economic recovery.

On September 10, 2020, Donald J. Trump invoked FDR’s words to justify lying to the American public about the severity of the novel corona virus.  (Business Insider, September 11, 2020.)  In a recorded interview with investigative reporter and author, Bob Woodward, Trump acknowledged on February 7, 2020 that this virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”  Then, three days later, according to a timeline published by ABC News, Trump spoke at a political rally in New Hampshire insisting that the virus would “miraculously go away” in April, “when it gets a little warmer.” 

As the virus spread and the death count increased, Trump continued to downplay the nature and severity of the virus, bullying governors to ease lifesaving restrictions. As early as mid-April, when lockdown measures were starting to show progress against the spread of the virus, Trump was sending tweets of “Liberate” to pressure states to open their economies.

Just a few months later, on August 5^th when the COVID death toll was nearly 157,000, the President was pressuring states to open the schools while formulating another outright lie so Americans would “Keep Calm and Carry On.”*  He falsely assured America that “[C]hildren are almost – and I would say almost definitely – but almost immune from this disease . . ..”

Many states and school districts succumbed to this additional pressure from President Trump and opened schools for in-person instruction only to see another surge in cases from this highly contagious disease. 

Now Trump would have us believe that the reason he has downplayed the severity of the virus time and time again is because he does not want Americans to be afraid – to panic.  Yet, ever since he first became involved in politics, Trump has used fear as a tool convince Americans to support him.  Examples include:

• ·       Fear Mexican immigrants, about whom Trump said:  “They’re bringing drugs.  They’re bringing crime.  They’re rapists.”  (Time Magazine, August 31, 2016.)
• ·       Fear Muslims, about whom Trump said:  “You have people coming out of mosques with hatred and death in their eyes.”  (Medium, April 19, 2018.)
• ·       Fear African Americans, especially those in the Black Lives Matter movement, about whom Trump has said:  Black Lives Matter is “a symbol of hate.”  (Politico, July 1, 2020.)
• ·       Fear Low Income Housing:  Trump tweeted that suburban voters will “no longer be bothered or financially hurt” by having low-income housing in their neighborhood after his administration revoked a fair housing rule adopted by the Obama Administration.  (Fox News, July 29, 2020.)
• ·       Fear the Democrats and Joe Biden:  A Trump campaign ad incorrectly stated, “Joe Biden’s supporters are fighting to defund police departments. Violent crime has exploded. You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.” (Washington Post, July 14, 2020.)

The death toll from the corona virus pandemic in America now exceeds 210,000 and shows no signs of abating.  The things Trump suggests we should fear have resulted, at most, in a smattering of injuries and a handful of deaths. 

Four score and seven years ago, FDR described the fear that we should be afraid of – “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” This is exactly the kind of fear that Trump has used his entire political career to get where he is today.  Americans should heed FDR’s warning and reject the fearmongering that Donald Trump is using to garner support for another term.  The only thing we have to fear is four more years of Donald Trump.

 

*Trump quoted this British WWII slogan, during his September 10^th rally to attempt to justify his downplaying of the corona virus threat.