I was going to write a blog last week about the amazing victories Democrats had, but didn’t get around to it.  And I think it makes more sense and is more realistic to include this week, which saw the recent end of the shutdown because eight Democrats agreed to it.

     Politics is, after all, the art of the possible and that’s where we are now.  Last week’s victories were astounding, both because of their extent and their reach into red states.  Two female governors were elected, one in Virginia, which was expected; the other in New Jersey, which wasn’t.  A redistricting win in California, which was expected; others in Georgia, Mississippi, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which weren’t.  It’s rare that everything I wanted to have happen did!

     On the other hand, the defection of a few Democrats over the shutdown makes sense, both because Trump continued to withhold SNAP payments, so many were going hungry, and because of the approaching holidays, when limits on airline flights would inconvenience many.  I’ve already received a few proposals asking that these Democrats be censured or expelled from the party.  I don’t agree with that at all.  Instead I subscribe to the New York Times correspondent Ezra Kline’s position that the party must be a “Big Tent” with sufficient room for competing opinions.  We’ve seen what happens in the Republican party when every member agrees, whether out of belief or fear.  It certainly makes comparisons to fascism more believable.  I think the nation will hold Republicans primarily responsible for the shutdown. Democrats should continue to focus on how healthcare will increase under the Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill.

     Trump has not helped his party.  Tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a giant ballroom, giving extravagant parties while others were deprived of basic foods, refusing to obey court orders, while planning to mint a new coin with his face on both sides will not add to the Republicans’ popularity.

     If I were a Republican member of congress, I’d be running scared.  Elections to the House happen in a year.  A number of Republicans are already planning not to run.  I think others will join them.  When the House re-convenes, Speaker Johnson is going to have to seat Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, whose state is already suing for this. She will provide the final vote to open the Epstein files.  I and others have been surprised that this is the issue that provides Trump’s party with a crisis, but it has.  In recent months, Republicans have not met with their constituents, because when they do, the receptions are hostile.  People boo, come dressed as chickens, or don’t attend at all. 

     In addition, before the mid-term elections –- and I sincerely believe those elections will happen -– there will be at least one more large demonstration against Trump’s government.  Hands Off last spring attracted 3,000,000 participants; No Kings 1, 5,000,000; No Kings 2, 7,000,000.  The next could well be even larger.

     So I still have hope for a better future and will continue to work for it.  I believe many others will do the same.

     One of the four medieval temperaments, “sanguine” means optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation.  (The others are choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic and these categories supposedly encompassed all people.)  I am sanguine by nature and I’ve found it especially helpful nowadays.  In recent weeks, Republicans have passed an outrageous anti-abortion law in Texas, which forbids any procedure after six weeks, when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant, has no exceptions for rape or incest, and empowers any citizen to arrest a woman or doctor and receive a $10,000 bounty.  A number of Republican state legislatures are severely limiting voting rights, in the hope of disenfranchising black and brown citizens – part of the “Make America Great Again” agenda, which only benefits whites.  And Republicans in Congress are currently refusing to raise the debt ceiling, as they did many times under the Trump presidency, which threatens that the U.S. government will go bankrupt – a major national calamity. 

     In the face of all this, most people are dismayed and discouraged.  I’m not.  I think that the Republicans have created a losing strategy.  Being anti-voting and anti-woman, as well as disagreeing to a standard parliamentary maneuver to fund the government (whose deficit they added considerably to with the Trump tax cuts, especially for rich people) seems to me a good way to lose elections.  I’m joined in this opinion by the eminent professor of history at Boston College, Heather Cox Richardson, who publishes a daily column called “Letter from an American.”   She argued on October 5 that Republicans under Mitch McConnell will force the Democrats to end the filibuster, a move that would tremendously help Biden’s agenda.

     Personally, I think the Republicans will lose big in 2022.  And I don’t think I’m being unduly unrealistic.  Whether that happens or not, it’s much pleasanter to live as an optimist than a pessimist.  In this, I think back to the seventeenth-century philosopher, Blaise Pascal.  In his so-called “wager,” he argued that it makes more sense to believe in God than not.  If you believe, and God exists, you win big.  If he doesn’t, you don’t lose much.  If you don’t believe in God, and he exists, you lose big.  If you don’t believe and God does not exist, nothing is lost or gained.

     A major objection to this argument, then and now, is that people are unable to will themselves into belief or disbelief.  But this premise does not hold.  Psychology argues convincingly that people can change their basic beliefs.  In this case, I think that living optimistically is not only a much more pleasant way to exist, but it also can aid political decisions.  Try it out!

For me, it began during the presidential campaign when Trump mocked and imitated a disabled reporter. I thought, “How could anyone vote for him after this?” It continued during the debates, when he stalked Hillary, tromping around the stage and looming over her. Although she was a weak candidate, I was shocked when he won and depressed that so many Americans voted for him. Yet again, I deplored that the Electoral College gave the election to someone who had lost the popular vote.

Crazy Town continued during one of his early cabinet meetings, when everyone in the room, led by Mike Pence, groveled and tried to outdo each other in sycophantic praise for Trump. I had never witnessed anything like it. Despite this, seemingly endless firings and replacements followed over the next two years, with one hireling after another running afoul of an irrational power freak. As George Packer wrote in the September 24th New Yorker, “A coarse and feckless viciousness is the operating procedure of his White House, and the poison spreads to everyone. Only snakes and sycophants survive.”

My dismay has increased as it has become clear that the Republican Party, in both the House and the Senate, has followed this corrupt lead, betraying its long-held values. A balanced budget? Let the deficit sky-rocket as we give more tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. Suspicion of Russia? Let it disappear as the president meets privately with Putin and praises him to the point that many of us consider treasonous. And now, the Supreme Court. The hypocritical claim of “Let the people decide” used in an unprecedented blocking of Pres. Obama’s right to appoint a justice, has now been trashed. Attempting to rush Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation through before the November elections, the scant Republican majority in the Senate allowed less than 10% of his papers released, dismissed any objections to his evasive answers, and now seems not to have done its basic homework. Three and perhaps four women have come forward claiming he sexually harassed them. All have asked for FBI investigations of their charges, something they would be extremely unlikely to do if they were just trying to “smear” him, as he claims.

Do I believe them? You bet I do. I worked as a rape crisis counselor at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village for fourteen years. In all that time, we had only one false claimant — a con-woman who went from city to city and was easily caught. We even had a pamphlet titled “I Never Told Anyone,” since this was so common. Look at the harassment Christine Blasey Ford, the first accuser, has experienced: death threats to her and her family, hacking of her email, etc., etc. It remains far more difficult for women to come forward with charges than for men to deny them.

And now the eleven Republican men on the Judiciary Committee are pondering whether to question her themselves or to hire a female attorney to present a better picture. She of course is not allowed to have her attorney present, nor to bring in corroborating witnesses. The echoes of the Senate’s base treatment of Anita Hill many years ago are deafening. And the context for all this is Trump’s own boasts about “pussy grabbing,” his infidelities, and his own sexual harassment of women. If you elect a clown, expect a circus.