Teachers union costs the Dems in Virginia

Have you ever known anyone with the last name "McAuliffe?" You might remember the crew member of the ill-fated "Challenger," the shuttle that had its disaster on my birthday, January 28. She was Christa.

The surname has been in the news recently with the Democratic Party struggles in Virginia. Terry McAuliffe let down the Democratic Party with his stumbles. He was a political veteran and should have known better. 

Politicians can develop a blind spot with their special allegiances. McAuliffe "stepped in it" with a bond that was much too close with the teachers union, of course. Teachers don't like the term, as they would prefer "professional association." 

Terry McAuliffe is seasoned enough as a politician that he once wrote a book, "What a Party!" about his Democratic Party. Any politician can get stale by "being at the dance" too long. Experience in government should not be a detriment. Our leaders simply need wisdom. 

McAuliffe might have felt he was picking up strength by being bonded with the unions or professional associations or whatever you want to call them. I'll call them "professional associations" if that's really what the teachers want. I believe in showing some courtesy to my adversaries. 

I believe in a two-party political system in which there is some mutual respect. No party needs to undertake "scorched earth." Would anyone dispute me, seriously, if I were to suggest that Republicans of our current times are "scorched earth" with their approach? 

We expect politically attuned people to be passionate. The passion for Barry Goldwater never bothered me. Everyone knew he would lose from the get-go. But he soldiered on in the political arena with a healthy zeal. 

Stephanie Miller

Goldwater ran with William Miller whose memory is being kept alive by his lively daughter Stephanie Miller who has a radio show/podcast that is very progressive. The show is entertaining too, because the nice thing about progressives is that we have a sense of humor. It is being tested. 

The laser focus of the GOP on establishing something like an oligarchy - Fascism? - might change the very nature of political discussions in America. Everyone knows this is happening. Maybe in the back of our minds, we see it but don't want to believe it. 

The GOP assertiveness now feeds the news cycle with mountains of preposterous stuff every day. It is an embarrassment of riches for the commercial media, which at one time was highly concentrated, today has fragmented like the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. Maybe the problem is that we have not fully seen the consequences of this. Where would Stephanie Miller be without the absurdities, growing to a comic level, not only of the Trump presidency but the aftermath of the Trump presidency. Amazingly, the latter has been just as bountiful for the news and entertainment media as the former. 

"SNL" cannot lift its focus from Trump. The danger is when this mother lode for media/entertainment spills over into a real threat to the future of our nation. Or of the world? We laugh. But we fail to seriously reckon with our president from 2016-2020 who pondered: "We have all these nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" And then our top military people had to deal with the real prospect of this happening. And we countenanced this with our votes in the 2016 election. Oh wait, the Democrat was the winner of the popular vote in 2016. 

If we were to be coming to our senses, we would insist that more Democrats be elected just for the sake of checks and balances. The filibuster in the U.S. Senate prevents the Democrats from exercising their majority. A bipartisan committee on the January 6 disorder was called for. Instead we see the Republican Party get to assert itself way too much. 

And now we see the failure of the Democrats to win a governorship that should have been theirs, in Virginia. The Republican Party had not won a statewide race in Virginia since 2009. 

I remember a letter writer in the Star Tribune expressing exasperation about what the writer felt was one pressing problem within each of the parties. For the Republicans, it was opposing gay rights. For the Democrats, it was too much closeness with teachers unions. I remember the letter because it was so spot-on. The writer was not transfixed by either political party. It was a woman, I recall, and she was not blinded by political allegiance either way. (I must point that out in this age of blinders being so common.) 

A progressive today, I feel the need regularly to remind that I have no problem appreciating the essence of conservative political ideology. I understand its merits at many junctures of our political development. So I seek to weigh in a dispassionate way, the ebb and flow of politics with unreasonableness on both sides sometimes. 

And with the Democrats, this business of being bonded with teachers unions is hair-pulling. 

Do you ever notice re. well-known people, "household names" as it were, as they make missteps, the irony of how you yourself would never make certain missteps? So there's gubernatorial aspirant Terry McAuliffe on his final day of campaigning, and by his side is Randi Weingarten. She's famous too: president of the American Federation of Teachers. 

Ronna McDaniel, once known as Ronna Romney-McDaniel, accused McAuliffe of "wanting parents to shut up and stay at home." And in this case, McDaniel, who "The Onion" humor site has suggested is a "prissy s--thead," is right, in my view. Oh, she excised the Romney part of her name because Mitt Romney had not gone in with full loyalty to Trump. I thought blood was thicker than water. Not for the GOP today. 

And to think that Mitt Romney was actually the GOP nominee for president once. Oh, and John McCain! Can you believe it? 

The cacophony of media voices will keep "mining" the dysfunction of today's GOP to get eyeballs. This will maybe keep you amused a while longer. You'll pay attention to it like you'd pay attention to a crazy uncle. Then you'll move on to your own affairs. And this will continue until, maybe, we have a full-fledged Fascist government instituted in 2025. With a president who seriously considers using nuclear weapons. 

The German people as a whole are not stupid. I do not believe them as a whole to be evil. But look what happened in Germany in the mid-20th Century. Sinclair Lewis wrote a book, "It Can't Happen Here," his point being that it can. He was from Sauk Centre in case you need reminding of that. 

So Terry McAuliffe fell on his face. The Republican resurgence has begun, not that they ever lost much traction. The filibuster in the U.S. Senate has guaranteed that, along with recalcitrant Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Synema who have the reactionary Kool-Aid in their system. 

We have churches all over our Stevens County where people drink the Kool-Aid. Be careful what you wish for? 

Dick McAuliffe

So I ask: Have you ever known anyone with the "McAuliffe" last name? I grew up following the Detroit Tigers who had Dick McAuliffe as an infielder for many years. He was one of those players with an unusual batting stance. Batting stances are actually just cosmetic, maybe even reflecting superstition. Because when a pitch arrives at the plate, proper technique has to take over for all batters. 

Remember how our Tony Oliva would sweep the bat down low just before the pitch was delivered? He learned that "trick" from Vic Power. The idea was to get the pitcher thinking that the batter wanted the pitch down low. Of course the batter didn't want it there at all! They wanted it in their sweet spot for hitting! 

A large majority of churches in Stevens County have congregations that I'm sure voted 100 percent for Donald Trump. Heaven help us all. Some of these people seem to want to put Trump at a level with God and Jesus. Didn't Pat Robertson talk in that vein once? My ELCA is an outlier. It is hard to keep the faith.

 

Addendum: It was a WWII general with last name of McAuliffe who gave the famous reply "Nuts" to a German demand for surrender during the Battle of the Bulge. It was Gen. Anthony McAuliffe. Today as we hear speeches for Veterans Day and likewise for Memorial Day in May, we might forget that WWII had its controversies for Americans. A big one was how we fell into the defensive for the Battle of the Bulge which cost many lives. The Germans surprised us at a time when it seemed they should be on their heels. Today we can be led into the illusion that WWII was all about glory and success, the triumph over evil, those "evil" Germans etc. War is really hell, as General Sherman said.

 

Addendum No. 2: Make no mistake, the Democrats didn't lose in Virginia because of being too "liberal." They lost because of closeness to the teacher unions. That's it - game, set, match. Don't misinterpret the results. 

So, the Dems' proposals are too "expensive?" Really? Well, what did the 20-year war in Afghanistan cost, the war undertaken by Republican president George W. Bush? And if Trump is so smart, why couldn't he hire a general who could win in Afghanistan? He had four years. We lost the war just like we lost in Vietnam. And, the USA used chemical weapons in Vietnam. Today we are friendly with the very people we fought in Vietnam. 

A sensible person might ask: was "winning" ever possible in either Afghanistan or Vietnam? Or was it a case of "let Daddy do his work," the line from "Austin Powers?" In other words, the U.S. must simply undertake a war every so often. We always need a new generation of men who can give sanctimonious speeches at school auditoriums on Veterans Day or Memorial Day.

 

Final addendum: Remember the tasteless "Christa McAuliffe jokes" that made the rounds? "Where did Christa McAuliffe spend her vacation?" Answer: "All over Florida."

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com