"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"
What would Benjamin Franklin say about a government shutdown that's gone on for a month? Then again, what would he have said about letting a city drown?
I just finished reading an extraordinary book. Five Days at Memorial, by Sheri Fink, the New York Times reporter who won the 2010 Pulitzer for her reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans.1 Let me just give you the spoiler alert now: this isn’t one of those books you finish and feel satisfied when it’s done. It more or less leaves questions about euthanasia and “mercy killing” open — describing in almost unbearable detail the horror and the hardships the staff had to go through at Memorial Hospital during and following Hurricane Katrina.
I strongly recommend this book.
For me, it brought back some memories from the summer of 2005. I had been mad at the inept administration of George W. Bush for around five years at that point. Hurricane Katrina ignited something, and I used my (now-defunct) blog to write about it.
But rather than just stew about the miserable, embarrassing, horrific failures of the George W. Bush presidency, it got me thinking about the role of government — the federal government, more specifically — in our lives.
The hard truth is, the federal government has let us down. A lot.
It has been something like one month since the government shut down.
There are some glimmers of hope. But I’m not sure ol’ Benjamin Franklin would be holding his breath.
If there’s anyone who knew how to get things done, it was Ben Franklin.
I think we are entering a new phase in politics, one I would very much welcome. It is the era of people who can do things — who can really get things done — versus those who, well, cannot.
And if we’re being honest, we’ve had a lot of leadership, on both sides of the aisle, out of Washington that has been in the cannot camp. Ross Douthat noted that one of the reasons Trump’s base keeps coming back to him is that he is doing something. We may not like it, it may be ugly, it may even push the boundaries of what is legal. But the conservative opinion columnist at the New York Times, writing about Trump’s dumb ballroom, was right. He said something that I think gets to this point quite succinctly:
It’s [building the ballroom] just a small example of why Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach appeals; the president’s eagerness to pre-empt objections and just do something that seems necessary is part of why voters find him attractive.
Say what you will about the ballroom — say what you will about Trump, for that matter — it’s hard to argue with this logic. People just want something done.
I know what you’re going to say: didn’t a lot of people, including me, make a case that Joe Biden did a lot? Yes, few recent presidents have been as legislatively accomplished as Biden. But passing, say, the CHIPS and Science Act is one thing — Americans actually feeling it and seeing the results with their own eyes, is another.
As Democrats try to define themselves as an opposition party worthy of votes, they might do well to coalesce around a message of new leadership that will deliver measurable, visible results. Maybe that’s a way towards winning elections. And keeping a Republic.
I have not yet watched the Apple TV show based on the book yet, but it’s on my list. I’ve heard it’s pretty good. https://tv.apple.com/us/show/five-days-at-memorial/umc.cmc.50agn5zbvuj7z70teq1p0pixn