Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in June 2024

Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life

The distance was a bit of dissonance in this case. I attended a book signing and speaking event for an author who lives just a few miles north of where I do. But the book in question had reach around the globe, and the story opened with a scene in Congo - where the author was on board a rickety plane that looked to be about to crash.

He is Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and for years before that a for4eign correspondent for the newspaper. Obviously he survived the rough landing and, just afterward, he pulled out his satellite phone and called his wife. The idea was to tell her he was okay, but when she came on the line, he decided otherwise: The story was best told in person.

Except, that soon afterward his wife got a call from the home office in New York which included the comment that people there were happy Nick had survived. Oops. The lesson after that, Kristof recounted, was: Immediate transparency about important events is helpful in a marriage.

Kristof's memoir, Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life, is packed with stories about things learned in the field. He's Harvard and Oxford-educated, but much of what he recounts here - and a lot of the book is devoted to the practical work of researching and writing about places around the world, many remote and some of them extremely dangerous - which plainly constitutes its own form of grad school.

Some of that relates to how to get the work done (how, for example, you get past checkpoints filled with armed soldiers when you're in the4 country illegally). Some of it relates to how people live in places extremely different from the United States (the hazards of introducing himself in certain locales) by his nickname).

But some of it too comes from what you learn when you're on the ground and can see for yourself - which can look a lot different than it does from a distance. That applies not only to distance places in Africa and Asia but even to his home town area around Yamhill, where many of the problems facing parts of rural America can come into sharp focus.

There are plenty of reporter memoirs out, and many of them make for lively reading. (In the last few years, I especially liked Seymour Hersh's.) None I've seen, though, has been livelier, or covers more ground, than this one. He talks in detail about life growing up in small-town Oregon, about his time in universities and freelancing articles about places around the globe - an achievement that seemed to me as remarkable as anything else he has done - and dealing with deadly threats, from illness to being in a crowd fire upon by Chinese troops at Tiananmen Square (then frantically running on foot miles back to his residence to send the story so the paper would have its own version).

There's plenty of solid fact and earned wisdom here. And if you're in the mood for an adventure story, you can find a while pile of them between these covers.

Photo/World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2010, CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

Doing the impossible

The single most useful political lesson in Idaho from last month’s primary elections may have come not from a congressional or legislative race, but from a school bond election in small-town Salmon.

The lessons weren’t immediately obvious, because they came not from the end result but from the way that result was achieved.

I’m leaning heavily here on an extensive account of this small-district, far-from-metro-area election in the excellent Idaho Ed News, which took the trouble to explain not just what happened, but also how and why. And the how and why are important.

Here’s the background.

As in many rural Idaho communities, the school district has been scrambling for funds for years. Money for operations, much of which comes from the state, has kept the schools running, but building needs have become severe. Those needs center on Pioneer Elementary School, built in 1959 and now close to a disaster area. As the Ed News explained, “the school’s foundation is crumbling, creating ripples in the floor that trip up the tiny feet of its students. Custodial staff crawl through raw sewage to fix backed up lines. Drainage on the site is poor and runoff leaks into the building. Bathrooms and the cafeteria are inaccessible to students with disabilities.” Among other things.

None of this is in dispute or unknown to the community (and the elementary school isn’t the only problem area). The school district board and administrators years ago proposed a bond issue to replace the school. It failed. Then it proposed another. It failed too. And the cycle repeated through 12 bond proposals and 12 failures. The last of them pulled 59% favorable, but that still wasn’t enough, since a two-thirds affirmative was needed.

Many people probably considered the situation hopeless.

And yet on May 21, they passed the bond, as voter turnout surged and 72% of voters signed off.

How did that happen?

First, different people got behind it, in the main not school administrators. That left space for others to jump in, and a core of about 30 volunteers started meeting, month after month, to consider the problem. Some had children in the schools, others were concerned about the community.

After months of work, the group went public and held a series of sessions aimed at both soliciting and answering questions. They also brought opposition arguments into sharper focus. The concerns covered such ideas as, “If we could see a plan and what our money is buying, then maybe we can support it;” “As long as it’s not fancy;” “We don’t need the Taj Mahal.” These were addressed.

On complaints about tax levels, the sessions finally brought a sense of where the break line was, defining the acceptable and unacceptable: Up to $20 million, most people could see their way to support, but not if it shot beyond that. (The proposal that passed was for $20 million.) Donations and alternative finance, and cost savings, were worked out as well.

That was just the beginning. The volunteer group - with help from school officials - conducted a media blitz and an intense public conversation through the local newspaper, online and wherever else was available. Nor was that all, as the Ed News said: “A few days before the election, committee leaders were confident the bond measure would pass, as if they had already tallied each vote — and they nearly had. Early in the bond campaign, the volunteers held a strategy session, where they read through the names of Salmon School District’s 4,999 registered voters and assigned a committee member to canvas for their ‘yes’ votes.”

After more than a  year and a half of organizing, it worked.

The lessons? People in the community should lead efforts like this. They should plan on working very intensively for a long time. They should run media communications, but not rely on that: Nothing beats face to face communication, between the more people, the better.

It’s hard work. But then, real democracy is.

 

Idaho GOP on the Trump conviction

Forget about Nikki Haley coming out of the woodwork at the Republican National Convention to rescue the party from a bad situation.

Donald Trump is doing fine with his 34 felony convictions, and Republicans couldn’t be happier. They are acting as if Trump were handed his ticket to a second term in the White House, courtesy of President Biden’s judicial department. Of course, there’s no evidence that Biden had anything to do with the New York City trial. But if Republicans say it enough, then people will start believing it.

In the meantime, the former president is heading into the July convention with momentum and galvanized support, with the word “conviction” becoming a drinking game of sorts. Say it 34 times and that brings in about $50 million to his campaign coffers.

Three of the four members of Idaho’s congressional delegation – Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Congressman Mike Simpson – wasted little time making comments on social media. They blasted the judge, prosecutors and, yes, Biden’s justice department, for what they viewed as a disgusting spectacle. Historically, this was the first time that a former president received a felony conviction, let alone 34. To Republicans, it might as well be 34 Olympic gold medals.

Dave Leroy, a former Idaho attorney general and longtime politico, had plenty of thoughts about the convictions. What he saw during Trump’s trial was on the level of Keystone Cops, branding the exercise as a farce.

The mighty has fallen, and I’m not just talking about the defendant (Trump), but the system has taken a mighty blow,” Leroy told me. “The convictions represent a national tragedy and makes the American judicial system a laughingstock. The people of the state of New York suffer greater injury from a single unprosecuted shoplifting case than they did from 34 business entries made seven years ago.”

The idea, Leroy says, was to prove that Trump was involved in election interference. In the end, it was the judge and prosecutors who were doing the interfering.

They collectively devised this conviction against the leading presidential candidate five months before the November date on which the national leadership will be decided,” Leroy said. “The problem will not go away this week, or in July, but it will be a national scar for at least the next 24 months when these decisions wander through the New York appeals process and maybe to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

For now, put aside issues such as border control, the economy and national security. This election is about whether voters want a president who has 34 felony convictions, or if Trump was a victim in a scam trial. As Leroy sees it, that’s how prosecutors wanted it to play out.

There can be no good result here for the American public, or for American democracy during this coming election cycle and well into the next presidential period,” he said. “Our system is not broken, but the weakness has been glaringly exposed.”

The next phase comes on July 11 when the judge imposes his sentence – and that’s four days before the start of the GOP convention. Leroy says the trial flaws likely will be exposed during the sentencing.

There probably is, in the traditional sense, no appropriate sentence that the judge can render that does not further underscore the mockery of this case,” he said. “Technically, when somebody is convicted of 34 felonies, they are headed to a penal facility for a significant period of years. Anything less confirms this case is a farce and a mere exercise of politics.”

As grave as those 34 felony convictions seem, I can think of worse things Trump has done. My list starts with what Trump did, or didn’t do, during every waking moment on Jan. 6. A close second was his call to the Georgia secretary of state, demanding that he flip the election results in that state.

Your premise is correct,” Leroy says, agreeing there are more serious matters to consider in relation to the former president. Yet, the cast that gets the national spotlight in the one that involves a former porn star.

Gov. Brad Little and others (including Trump) say the voters in this election will be the ultimate jury, and they’re probably right. It’s too bad that the campaign has degraded to court drama, opposed to the issues that people should really care about.

Chuck Malloy is a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com

Note: In last week’s column, former congressional candidate Bryan Smith’s role with the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee was misrepresented. He is not part of the group nor has he been a part of the group for some time.

(image/release from Fulton County, Georgia, Sheriff's Office)

The system works

So, he's been convicted.  Sentencing to follow July 11.
 
Those nine words sum up Donald Trump's future at the moment.  
 
Convicted 34 times on 34 felony counts.  The New York judge will have that basis to work with as he makes sentencing decisions.  
 
Then, regardless how this drama plays out, there'll be more court cases on other charges - both state and federal.  Trump's a long way from a jail cell.  If ever.  But, he's likely to spend the next several years at the defendant's table in several trials.  And, his legal bills will mount with each appearance.
 
There's been a lot of discussion about how this conviction would affect the nation.  Conviction of a former President coming on the heels of national upset at the U.S. Supreme Court with Justice Alito - his questionable flag flying and Clarence Thomas's various indiscretions.
 
Then, there's the Congress which - of late - has been in continuous turmoil.  
 
All of us have been taught from birth there are three branches of government - the three-legged stool example.  Legislative.  Judicial.  Executive.  All working together to form the backbone of our nation.
 
Now, for the first time, all three of those entities are in turmoil at the same time.  Each wrestling with its own demons.  
 
The Alito-Thomas problems are internal to SCOTUS.  Whatever cleaning up of the court - if any - will be done internally.  Failing a code of conduct/ethics for the court, it's hard to imagine whatever is done will have lasting effects.
 
As for Trump, he escapes one travail after another.  Though he faces still more trouble in other courts, it's doubtful he'll ultimately become a ward of the state.  
 
Prior to his conviction, he predicted Americans would stage national protests.  But, nothing's happened.  Now, he says, if he's jailed, the nation "won't stand for it" and "there'll be rioting in the streets."   We'll see.  Most people I know seem O.K. with the idea of jail time..
 
A "rump" group of eight Republican Senators has vowed to deep-six any Democrat-sponsored bills.  Speaker Johnson has vowed "vengeance" in the House - whatever that means.  
 
So, we're assured more gridlock - more grandstanding by Republican members.  Action on "the people's business" coming to a stop.
 
Possibly the most disappointing and alarming reactions - from people who should know better - involve threatened attacks on our national justice system.  Vows are being made to "overhaul" it.  Again, whatever that means.
 
Since the conviction, many in the GOP have responded like spoiled children.  Ignoring the criminal acts that Trump has committed, while heaping scorn on the courts, is hardly the reaction you'd expect from right-thinking adults.  But, it is what it is.  To our shame.
 
Trump was tried and convicted according to the laws of New York State.  He will be sentenced under those same laws.  All legal.  All in the public eye.  All based on sound evidence.
 
Republicans attacking the system and threatening retribution would be better off keeping their peace and accepting a jury's verdict and an honorable judge's sentencing.  
 
The system works.  

The urgent need for election reform

Once again, the results of the Republican primary election graphically demonstrate how the closed primary, together with massive amounts of out-of-state dark money, ensures minority-controlled government in Idaho. It is no wonder that Dorothy Moon’s extremist branch of the GOP is doing everything possible to stop election reform. If Idaho voters approve the Open Primaries Initiative on November 5, the stranglehold she and her extremist allies have over the Republican Party will be forever broken. The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) will lose its grip on the Legislature. Reasonable, pragmatic Republicans will oust the divisive GOP culture warriors from positions of power. Every Idahoan will have an equal voice in choosing their leaders.

Ever since far-right extremists closed the Republican primary in 2011, they have been able to tighten their grip on seats in the Legislature. That’s why we see librarians, teachers, doctors, pregnant women needing emergency care, LGBTQ folks and others disliked by the extremists under nearly constant attack. Using hard-edged tactics and tainted campaign cash, they have been able to defeat traditional Republicans in the low-turnout primary, virtually ensuring success in the general election.

The culture warriors who won their primary with just a small percentage of the registered voters in their district foretell another 2 years of frightening legislation. Dan Foreman, who supports private armed militias parading in public and who wants to deny abortions to rape and incest victims, won his race for the District 6 Senate seat with just 11.5% of the registered voters. In 2022 he won his seat with only 8.8%.

Christy Zito took the District 8 Senate seat from Geoff Schroeder, a remarkable Senator, with just 16.8% of registered voters. Zito is a Christian nationalist who supports library bans and guns in schools..

Scott Syme, who had a distinguished 32-year military career, was beaten by Brandon Shippy for the District 9 Senate seat with 15.8% of the registered voters. Shippy, who had the support of the IFF and other far-right groups would deny abortions to rape and incest victims. He supports subordination of wives to their husbands.

Julie Yamamoto, who stood tall for public education and against using taxpayer money for private and religious schooling, lost her House 11A seat to Kent Marmon after a brutal election campaign. Marmon did it with just 9.5% of the registered vote. Marmon is a favorite of the IFF and its fellow-traveling extremist groups. He supports tax money being used to pay for private and parochial schooling.

Brian Lenney, an IFF-supported culture warrior, retained his Senate seat in District 13 with just 10.8% of the registered vote. This was the second time he bested Jeff Agenbroad, who served as a well-regarded and effective Senator from 2016 to 2022. Lenney won the seat in 2022 with 12.7% of the vote. Lenney is a supporter of using taxpayer money for private and religious schooling and seems to believe that women should be kept in their place.

Josh Keyser beat Senate leader Chuck Winder with 10.2% of the registered vote. Keyser had the support of the IFF and a number of other far-right groups. Winder, who has been unwilling to put up with the IFF’s antics, was heavily targeted by out-of-state dark money and underhanded negative campaigning.

Unless and until Idaho is able to get rid of the closed Republican primary, we will see a repeat of this election pattern long into the future. GOP extremists cleverly engineered a hostile takeover of the GOP in 2011 by closing their primary election. Since then, they have pushed the party farther to the right with every passing year. They will not stop, but the voters can call them up short in November by voting to approve the Open Primaries Initiative. That will allow traditional Republicans and independents to have a real say in who represents them in important public offices.

(image/U.S. Air Force image)

Easing up on the ideology

Oregon’s highest-profile primary elections did not appear to carry strong messages: Voters sporadically showed what they wanted or didn’t.

But there were exceptions. Two examples in particular, both on the county level in Multnomah and Yamhill counties, were notably clear in demanding a change of direction from what had been endorsed before. The message in both was unmistakable: Extremes in experiments and ideological projects are unwelcome, and what’s wanted is a government that works.

The race for Multnomah County district attorney concerned maybe the most embattled political figure in Oregon so far this decade: Mike Schmidt.

Schmidt had prosecutor and policy experience when he was elected Multnomah DA in 2020 in a landslide. He ran clearly as one of several “reform” big-city prosecutors around the country. On election night that year, he said: “The message from Multnomah County voters was loud and clear: They are ready for major reform in our criminal justice system.”

Problems multiplied fast even before he started and by the time his predecessor resigned. That was the summer of George Floyd demonstrations in Portland, of long-running rioting and vandalism, and in the months to come of increased homelessness and open drug usage in the wake of passage of Initiative 110. Schmidt’s professed approach, moving away from harsh enforcement, became much less popular. Several eventual statements from Schmidt calling for a crackdown on violence and vandalism didn’t land well.

His standing was damaged, too, by accusations of weak management. But the core complaint against Schmidt, reflecting widespread polling in Portland over the last four years, is that public safety conditions needed strong improvement, quickly and decisively.

Schmidt’s opponent this year, Nathan Vasquez, who has been a prosecutor for 25 years, ran with the implicit call for a return to something like what Portlanders grew to expect during the three decades it was run by Mike Schrunk, who made gradual reforms along the way but operated in a mostly quiet and non-controversial but professionally effective, and politically popular way.

The law and order message was so clear that it reached the White House. The website Politico reported, “The defeat of a liberal Portland prosecutor at the hands of a tough-on-crime challenger has hardened a view among top White House officials that Democrats need to further distance themselves from their left flank on law-and-order issues.”

Local Republicans may take notice, too, especially of the areas of Multnomah that voted most strongly for Vasquez, on the east side around Gresham but also in parts of the west Portland area.

A comparable message on competence and professionalism, with a very different background, emerged a few miles to the west in Yamhill County, in a race for county commissioner.

The incumbent was Lindsay Berschauer, a media consultant who was elected to the Yamhill County Commission in 2020. With close ties to the county’s effective Republican organization, she won a four-year term and aligned on the commission, generally, with Mary Starrett, a former Constitution Party candidate for governor in 2006.

Berschauer, now chair of the commission, became contentious enough to become the target of a recall attempt just two years later; she won that by about the same percentage she had in 2020, around 52% to 48%. Berschauer did not adopt a cautious approach, however. She faced more controversy, with culture war issues and the commission’s rejection of a proposed rail to trail project that cost the county $2 million.

An editorial in the McMinnville News-Register said this year, “Berschauer seems to relish being a lightning rod. A professional political consultant by trade, primarily in the Portland metro area, she publicly ripped members of the county staff in her first meeting.”

Her main opponent this year, David “Bubba” King, presented himself as an unaligned and nonpartisan contender, in opposition to ideologically driven anger and roiling local government battles. He engaged in efforts to tamp down some of those activities in his home Newberg area, such as in his local school district, and turned his attention to Berschauer late in 2023.

In a three-person primary race, King fell short by only a handful of votes from winning outright, but Bertschauer’s take of the vote dropped to about 44%. She is likely to fall short in the November runoff.

The result was widely seen as a shift on what a majority of Yamhill’s voters are willing to tolerate. The county is well to the right of Multnomah, but the core message from the voters was similar: Pay attention to the county’s work and put ideology to the side.

If there’s any similarity in attitude around the country this fall, that message could be meaningful in the upcoming general elections.

This column appeared originally in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

The appeal of authoritarians

(NOTE: This column was filed before a New York City jury on Thursday returned guilty verdicts on 34 felony charges against Donald Trump.)

Well, it isn’t as though we haven’t been warned.

Some of us, believing that common sense — even common decency — would ultimately prevail, continue to expect the best in the face of the worst. The good old USA has been through a whole lot, they say, and we’ll get through this.

Others, believing their political opponents are always wrong and seething with anger at the changing faces of their country, talk of “derangement syndrome.” They are willing to pass off former President Donald Trump’s vulgar threats to judges, insults to women, “Muslim bans,” “Mexican rapists” and unhinged suggestions that a gulp of bleach could end a deadly pandemic. His boast that a third term, the Constitution notwithstanding, is part of his plan doesn’t faze them.

Still others believe our courts will enforce the rule of law against our authoritarian and his lawless acolytes, even as he stood outside his courtroom mouthing the endless lies of a lifelong con man who promises to pardon the men and women convicted of mounting an insurrection to overturn an election he lost. He knows democracy works on the honor system and he has none.

Some contend the old man in the White House is the problem. President Joe Biden is too feeble, too liberal, a destroyer of some idealized vision of America that never was and never will be. It’s all about the economy, they say. But after a prolonged pandemic that our authoritarian mishandled with deadly consequences, the U.S. economy is doing quite well.

As The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell notes: “In reality, the U.S. economy has been growing consistently for nearly two years, even after accounting for inflation. By virtually every benchmark, in fact, we’re exceeding growth expectations. The U.S. economy has been outperforming other advanced economies. We’re also doing better than pre-pandemic forecasts had situated us by now, both in terms of gross domestic product and the number of jobs out there. This generally isn’t true elsewhere in the world.”

But those are facts, not the hard liquor of grievance that powers authoritarian politics.

It’s not as though Trump hasn’t told us he plans to be a dictator — only for a day he confidently proclaims — and such talk is easy for some to dismiss, but only if you don’t listen to the detailed plans for his second term. He’s really not going to destroy the nonpartisan civil service, is he? Those mass deportations and internment camps are just campaign season talk, aren’t they? Withdrawal from NATO: Can he do that? Wholesale pardons? Surely not.

Sure he provides a platform for white nationalist racism and posts a video saying all liberals will die when he’s back in power, but that’s just the way he talks, right? Claims of total immunity? Not to worry. The courts won’t let anything really, really bad happen, will they?

He talks of “human scum” and tells supporters he will deport all the pro-Palestinian protesters while courting Wall Street and Big Oil with promises of more tax cuts and more warming of the climate. But he was good for business, wasn’t he? At least his tax cuts worked for the people who frequent his golf courses.

Trump has outsourced his plans for another term, such as they are, to the Heritage Foundation, which has produced “Project 2025,” an ultra-right-wing manifesto that proposes to be the playbook for an authoritarian American state: Eliminate public education, white Christian Nationalism, further restrict abortion, deport millions and institute a loyalty test for anyone in the federal government. The “project” is our “Mein Kampf” for the 21st century.

Of course, it’s not like he has any real plan to improve anything. But that’s not the point, is it? He makes some of us feel really good by saying outrageous things and giving a middle finger to all the old complications of democracy. He speaks for me, some say, when he speaks of hatred and revenge and attacks a “crooked” legal system that strangely is best exemplified by his Supreme Court, which reeks of the entitlement, arrogance and elitism that his supporters believe he’ll eviscerate.

After promising to destroy 50 years of established law concerning abortion, he now has no straight answer about whether he’d support a national ban or how he feels about contraception. Testimony at his recent trial confirmed he didn’t wear a condom with the porn star, so perhaps we have his views on the subject.

As Marianne Levine wrote in The Washington Post: “In under 48 hours this week, Donald Trump’s social media account promoted a video featuring a term frequently associated with Nazi Germany and later removed it. He suggested he was open to states restricting access to contraceptives and then walked that back. He falsely accused President Biden of being ‘locked & loaded’ to ‘take me out.’ And in between, he was in court as his legal team rested its case in his ongoing criminal trial.”

It isn’t as though we haven’t been warned.

“His campaign speeches these days ring with Nazi rhetoric,” The Guardian’s Margaret Sullivan wrote this week, “as he claims that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and that his political opponents are ‘vermin.’ ”

Trump recently posted a video calling for a “unified Reich.” This language isn’t any longer a mere dog whistle, it is a blaring claxon. And it is working with many of his followers who willingly embrace his brand of American fascism.

To understand the appeal of what has happened one must understand the history of authoritarian movements, as the great British journalist and writer George Orwell understood them in the 1930s and later.

In his famous 1940 review of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto — the aforementioned “Mein Kampf” — Orwell wrote: “The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon.”

The appeal of the authoritarian is visceral and very personal, Orwell said, for “Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of ‘Mein Kampf,’ and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. … The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs … a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way, it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself.”

Our authoritarian has, of course, repeatedly compared himself to Jesus.

It isn’t as though we haven’t been warned.