THE 2026 ELECTION: SURPRISES, MESSAGES, AND RESOLUTIONS

     All of the final results of the 2026 midterm elections are not in and will not be in for several days or even weeks.  But the undecided elections will not alter the fact that Democrats have achieved a remarkable victory by regaining control of both the House and the Senate.  (I do not consider in this blog the many governorships, legislatures, and other state offices which have gone Democratic.)  The enormous Democratic vote, with its wide winning margins in many races and narrow winning margins in races in which Republicans had long prevailed or Trump had won by large percentages, was only one of many surprises.

Three are notable, though niggling by comparison to that really big surprise.  One was the absence of claims of voter fraud or election rigging.  The number of elections were so many, and the size of the votes which saw Democrats prevail across the country, even in traditional red states, were so large, that they made it impossible for Trump to make his usual mendacious claims about stolen elections.  A second was the absence of any attempts to obstruct voting or intimidate voters.  Again, the size of the turnout everywhere and precautionary efforts by pro-democracy organizations deterred perverted federal law enforcement agencies from intervening.  The third was the ineffectuality of large sums of money deployed by trillionaire Elon Musk and assorted billionaires.  He, the most odious man in America, contributed nearly $500 million to Republican campaigns, including about $180 million, to support Ken Paxton, one of Trump’s chosen candidates;  Paxton lost by double digits and other Trump-selected candidates also lost.

 

One really big message is the repudiation of the Republican Party with its MAGA cult.  The Party will continue to survive because it has one trillionaire and many billionaires to prop it up.  Although the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech, it has not ruled that money is votes.  It appears that the more money which Republican moguls spent on campaigns, the less return on their investment they got.  They might invest more diversely by spending more on Democrats to redeem themselves or deflect their wrath, or spending less altogether as a poor investment.  Just as Democrats were pleased that Trump inserted himself into the campaign, they might be pleased if these titans of industry continue to spend lavishly on Republican candidates because much of the electorate hates them for trying to buy elections.  It is even possible that these 21^st-century robber barons have changed the polarity of elections, from Republican versus Democrat to the rich versus the rest of us.  Or, as Texas Senator-elect James Talarico puts it, “The real fight in this country is not left versus right.  It is top versus bottom.”

 

Another really big message of the vote is the repudiation of Trump himself.  His big mistake, one which he cannot admit to himself, was to invite voters to think of him as being on the ballot.  He cannot imagine that most of the country loathes him as a malignant—autocratic, avaricious, bigoted, cruel, erratic, incurious, indecent, ignorant, impetuous, vulgar—narcissist.  People will support the undoing of Trump’s vanity projects.  They will approve the return to pre-Trump terminology—no Gulf of America, no Lake America—and the restoration of the architectural status quo—reconstruction of the East Wing, renovation of the Kennedy Center, revitalization of the East Potomac Golf Links on Haines Point, and repair of the Reflecting Pool.  I believe that the courts will prevent construction of the Triumphal Arch.  However, the complete repudiation of Trump will take years, perhaps decades, in America’s recovery from the moral and political damage which Trump has done to America, its people, and its reputation.

 

And to Congress, the Constitution’s Article I branch of government.  Democratic control of the House and the Senate presents Democrats with a unique opportunity to restore the authority of Congress by redressing the electorate’s grievances and reforming the defects in government, many of which have been identified by Trump’s, and, more generally, Republicans’, abuses of government purposes, policies, programs, and power.  This control must be focused and guided by leaders with the grit to get the job done without fear or favor, and without the fact or the appearance of ties to the establishment.  Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are not those leaders.  They lack the temperament to marshal the Democrats’ energy to advance legislation to address these objectives.  The new leaders elected by their peers should be clear about how to proceed to revitalize Congress with proposed legislation to serve the peoples’ and the country’s needs.

 

First, Congressional Democrats should regard both Trump and Congressional Republicans as resolute foes.  Republicans have worked to control government by gerrymandering and imposing election restrictions mainly affecting Democratic-leaning demographics, especially minorities and students.  They have demonized and smeared the Left—liberals, Democrats, Progressives—as extremists, socialists, communists, terrorists, and the like (or worse).  They will have no more a change of heart after this election defeat than white Southerners had after their defeat in the Civil War.  They might disguise their hostility and purport to work on a bipartisan basis, but they should not be trusted.  Their record of silence throughout Trump’s second reign is evidence more of consent and complicity than cowardice.

 

Second, Democrats should act uncompromisingly to legislate what they believe is right.  They should eschew bipartisanship except in the direst circumstances because Republicans will use the leverage which bipartisanship provides to dilute the impact of Democratic bills.  They should eliminate the undemocratic filibuster in the Senate; the majority should be able to pass its legislation and take the consequences for doing so in elections, not allow the minority to reject it with impunity.  Otherwise, they should let Trump and Republicans decide whether to support legislation which serves peoples’ needs or, if they reject it, take the political consequences, which Democrats should stress at the time and repeat in continuing political advertising.

 

Third, Congressional Democrats should realize that they can do two things at once: propose legislation to redress the electorate’s grievances and pursue accountability of officials who have broken their oaths of office, broken laws, or abused power in their performance of their duties.  In the political context defined by the 2028 presidential election, they should show that Congress is responsive and responsible.

 

·      Democrats should immediately revoke tariffs and pass legislation to restore federal funding to assistance programs for food, healthcare, health insurance, and education, among other social or economic welfare programs.

 

·      They should act to end the war in Iran and use the House’s power of the purse to defund it.  They should increase military assistance to Ukraine and re-impose sanctions on Russia.  They should limit military assistance to Israel to defensive weaponry only.

 

·      They should pass legislation for a sensible immigration policy and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, legal and long-resident illegal; they should curtail abusive efforts to control immigration, apprehend illegal immigrants, and imprison detainees.

 

·      Democrats should act to bring the Department of Justice, the jugular vein of American democracy, into compliance with the law, long-established standards of enforcement, and norms of justice.

 

·      They should establish a uniform system of requirements for conducting and voting in federal elections and pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

 

·      They should investigate Trump, members of his family, their friends, and administration officials for corruption and abuse of power.  Democrats should investigate not only well-known figures like Jared Kushner, Elon Musk, Todd Blanche, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, Kristi Noem, and Kash Patel, but also lesser-known administration officials like OMB Director Russell Vought, primary author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and Brendon Carr, Chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

 

In all of their efforts to deal with the administration, Democrats should make use of the House of Representatives’ power of the purse by targeting specific budget items for defunding for non-compliance with Congressional directives and subpoenas during the budget year.

 

Finally, given the diversity of newly elected Democrats to state and federal government offices—not to mention the diversity of the population—, Democrats should make the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness the policy of the federal government.  As El-Sayed said, “They [Republicans] want an America that is too small for some of us.  We know that America is big enough for all of us.”  It is and should be recognized as such.

DISRESPECTING REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS AND DEPLORING THEIR POLICIES

I did not acquire my disrespect for Republican politicians and policies from my parents.  (My mother was a liberal Democrat; my father, a moderate Republican.). I did not acquire it eight years later, when I first became interested in politics during the 1948 Truman-Dewey presidential campaign.  Before my parents left for an election night party at the country club, they instructed me to keep track of the results posted on the radio.  Every so often, they called me for the latest news, and, just as often, I reported that Truman was leading.  We were puzzled because Thomas Dewey, the New York governor, was widely predicted to win.  Indeed, before all the votes had been counted, in anticipation of his victory, The Chicago Daily Tribune came out with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”—a famous gaffe.  I knew nothing then about Republican politicians and their policies; it took only a few years for me to acquire my disrespect for them.

 

It arose in the early 1950s in response to Senator Joseph McCarthy and his reckless claims of communists in government agencies, the military, universities, and Hollywood; and his smears of individuals in and out of government.  He was assisted by Roy Cohn, a lawyer who twenty years later became Donald Trump’s consigliere.  Some regard Cohn “as a principal ideological architect of modern right-wing populist politics, built on institutional distrust, public grievance, and media combativeness” (AI).  During four years of McCarthyism, almost a prologue to their similar conduct today, Republican senators, fearing attacks from McCarthy, did nothing to curtail him.  The Army’s chief lawyer challenged his tactics and deplored his lack of decency; his testimony stirred the public and prompted the Senate to finally censure him.  The Republican Party has changed for the worse in seventy years.  Today, even when prompted by Democratic colleagues, Congressional Republicans have lacked both the convictions and, of course, the courage to censure or repudiate Trump.

 

The core of my disrespect for Republican politicians was not their rabid anti-communism, but their innate racism.  Most Congressional Republicans never earned my respect.  Democratic race-baiting senators like South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms became Republicans in 1964 and 1970, respectively.  The instigator of the worst in Republican conduct since 1994 was House Majority Leader Republican Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich, who set the standard for abrasive and abusive politics.  Senate Majority Leader Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell lowered the standard by vowing to resist from day one all legislation proposed by America’s first black president, by rigging the confirmation of Supreme Court nominees politically conservative and racist instead of judicially impartial in their orientation, and by ensuring the confirmation of cabinet secretaries qualified only by their loyalty to Trump, not competency.

 

The only Republican president in my lifetime whom I at all respected, racist though I suspect him to have been, was Dwight D. Eisenhower, especially for calling in the 101st Airborne Division (“Screaming Eagles”) to support integration in Little Rock in 1957.  I respected no subsequent Republican presidents or presidential candidates.  In accepting the GOP nomination in 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater appealed to the Republican Party’s racism when he denounced the passage of the Civil Rights Act.  (In the years thereafter, the Party eliminated from its ranks those northern and western liberal and moderate Republicans who had supported that law.)  In 1968, former Vice President Richard Nixon used a “Southern [read: racist] strategy” to win the White House, which strategy changed racist Democrats to racist Republicans in Dixie.  In 1980, California Governor Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign near Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the murder of three civil rights workers, and allowed racism and resentment to fester in the Republican Party thereafter.  Presidents George Bush, father and son, did nothing to quell these corrosive, un-American tendencies.  President Donald Trump—well, much of what he does, like attacks on voting rights, immigrants, and Latinos or Muslims and their countries, has a racist motive, and much of what he says uses racist language and tropes.

 

The modern Republican Party’s racism directly opposes the foundational principle of American democracy that “all men are created equal” and is embedded in its economic and political policies.  Since Republicans believe that all men are unequal, they believe that that inequality justifies the unequal distribution and accumulation of economic goods and services.  Thus, they emphasize property over people—an emphasis at odds with America’s foundational documents.  An important editorial change to the drafts of the Declaration of Independence signifies radically different party priorities: from “life, liberty, and property” (Republican) to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Democratic).  Moreover, the Preamble of the Constitution prioritizes “We the People” and the “general welfare”; neither it nor the body of the Constitution mentions businesses, companies, or corporations.  It mentions commerce only twice, in regulating it with foreign nations or between states.  So the Republican claim, famously stated by President Calvin Coolidge, that “the business of government is business” is a lie.

 

Traditional Republican policies—small government, minimal regulation, low taxes, states’ rights—are compatible with or promote the interests of property, not people.  The goal of small government and minimal regulation is to diminish the power of democratic government to promote the general welfare, that is, the people’s interests compared to business interests.  The goal of low taxes is to shrink government, minimize funding of a social safety net, and enable the accumulation of wealth by the already wealthy.  Thus, Republicans favor regressive flat taxes and oppose progressive tax rates.  Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill gives large tax cuts to the rich and smaller tax cuts to the rest.  The goal of states’ rights, a rationale of the Confederate rebellion, is to give relatively more power to businesses vis-a-vis state and federal governments.

 

Republican officials supporting erratic or self-serving policies and practices further erode my respect for them.  With respect to small government, the Trump administration is doing two things at once: reducing its administrative size but increasing its powers under the theory of the unitary executive branch.  This theory is a rationale for expanded and aggressive presidential power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government and of state governments, the Constitution, the rule of law, civil rights, and democracy itself.  They invoke the theory for the Trump administration but will revoke or oppose it for a succeeding Democratic one, just as Republican administrations expand the federal deficit to pass their budgets, then react to the enlarged national debt as a national crisis requiring a reduction of budgets under Democratic administrations.  They support deregulation because it directly increases corporate profits by reducing business costs at the expense of adverse health, societal, and environmental effects.  The Trump administration supports states’ rights only so far as they do not thwart its interests.  Thus, it impedes local and state police investigations of murders in Minnesota by ICE officers and tries to intervene in state elections to help Republican candidates.  The Trump administration has shown that traditional Republican policies are contingent commitments, not constitutive convictions, even if indefensible from a democratic perspective.

 

I confess that my attitude toward Republican politicians and their policies influences my attitude toward those who vote for Republicans.  In addition to supporting unsatisfactory policies, Republican politicians tout good character, lofty moral standards, and family values—what are they, really?—but do so hypocritically.  For instance, Republican politicians more often than Democratic politicians commit adultery or are complicit in sex trafficking and sexual abuse (Epstein).  Their misogynistic view of women sees them as objects, property, to be used, not as people to be respected.  Trump is notorious for pathological lying, foul and insulting language, sexual misconduct, cruel and malicious policies, revengeful legal actions, and corrupt financial dealings which exploit presidential power for personal gain.  He manifests no decorum, decency, or dedication to public service, only the rapacious egocentricity of the malignant narcissist.  Republican politicians are not outraged by such gross misconduct and do nothing about it.  Republicans tolerate this misconduct as necessary to keep this deplorable president and their party in power.

 

Even if they are dissatisfied with Trump’s economic (tariffs) and military (Iran war) actions, and disturbed by his blatant bigotry, gross vulgarity, and overt sadism, tens of millions of Americans ignore his lack of character and tolerate his corruption and incompetence.  They are again casting votes for this president who, by any reasonable, civilized standards, is a degenerate, despicable, even evil, human being, one who seeks to supplant democracy with his dictatorship without, of course, “the consent of the governed.”  What are they for?  And why? What are they against?  And why?  To adopt a phrase, they vote for him, they own him.  If they resent people who look down on them for supporting a despotic cult leader, they should know that they have earned their contempt.

RESTORING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AFTER THE ROUT OF REPUBLICANS

      My title reflects the happy, pre-election talk by all sorts of Democrats, Progressive, liberals—in a word, the Left—and sympathetic media.  Two weeks before the midterm elections, they imagine a blue wave which will sweep large numbers of Leftist representatives into the House and a smaller number of Leftist senators into the Senate—enough in both chambers to effect significant changes in the government.  Talking heads and think-tank savants have detailed lists of steps to be taken to recover from the damage which Trump and his administration have done to the country and the federal government.  The sum of all such lists is exhaustive in its scope: pre-Trump personnel, departments and agencies, relationships with the states and their governments, and relationships with foreign governments.  Their aim is nothing less than to restore the federal government to the effective functioning of its public services and to the delivery of the necessary benefits to its constituencies.

One of these steps, perhaps the first one, is accountability.  The number of administration personnel, from the heads of agencies and departments down to the many staff who have violated federal laws and court orders is enormous.  Trump is likely to pardon many but not all of them.  But pardons in large numbers are likely to be challenged, and it is possible that the Supreme Court might rule that presidential pardons extend to individuals but not groups.  We shall see.  Whatever, many who have violated federal law but been pardoned might have violated state laws and might be liable to states’ legal and judicial processes.

 

Leftist commentators elaborate their suggestions for accountability with varying degrees of ingenuity and intensity but with little awareness of the difficulties and problems involved.  Presidential pardons aside, some suggestions are tinged with vindictiveness, understandable but unsuitable to the restoration which is desired.  For instance, Glenn Kirschner routinely speaks passionately about accountability.  But, as befits a former government prosecutor, he stresses restraint in legal and judicial procedures to achieve accountability.  I agree, but it will be difficult to persuade MAGA Republicans and friendly media that accountability pursued by a reformed, revitalized Department of Justice is not just reverse weaponization.

 

Moreover, the greater problem is likely to be the reluctance of the public to tolerate, much less support, the necessary steps of accountability to restore government.  First, the public will want Congress to address the issues which figured largely in the midterms: inflation and affordability generally; gas and diesel prices, food prices, health care and health care insurance costs, and housing costs and availability, with a nod to data centers and immigration reform, namely, the curtailment of the Department of Homeland Security and its subordinate and out-of-control agencies, ICE and CBP.  The Left will be under great pressure to produce results, but whether Congress can develop effective legislation and override likely vetoes is unknowable because Trump is erratic and irascible.

 

Second, the public is likely to be divided into two camps about any widespread, in-depth, or long-lasting efforts of Congressional accountability.  After the stress and tension of the past two years, one camp of many people is likely to want to put the unpleasantness of it all behind them and to move on.  They will invoke the example of Ford’s pardon of Nixon—which example some maintain taught would-be dictators that there was no punishment for attempting autocracy.  The other camp of many people will want to address one problem important in the midterms which I did not mention above: corruption.  They will want to see the corrupt punished and as much ill-gotten money as possible clawed back and properly distributed.  It is a close call which side prevails; it might be that the public quarrels about which approach serves the country better.

 

Still, it does seem hard to imagine that the public and politicians on the Left will not want to punish those who have done so much damage to the country: the people, public institutions, the economy, the rule of law, the Constitution.  I cannot imagine that there are many who believe that Pete Hegseth, Pamela Bondi, Todd Blanche, Robert Kennedy, Kristi Noem, Markwayne Mullin, Howard Lutnick, Russell Vought, and Kash Patel should be able to leave the government without punishment for their misconduct in office.  (Let us not forget satellite figures Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner.  I wonder about Melania Trump’s immigration paperwork.)  Likewise, government lawyers who served in violation of legal ethics; state disbarment is the proper penalty.  And many others at lower levels.  Indeed, it might be necessary as well as desirable to discharge with prejudice any federal employee hired during the Trump administration, especially employees of DHS, ICE, and CPB.  Such personnel should receive public notice in the media near their residences and be barred from federal employment and federal contracts.

 

So far as I know, neither Leftist politicians nor any commentators have talked about holding Republicans in Congress accountable for enabling Trump.  But they should, and they should do something about those who supported Trump whether out of conviction or cowardice.  Their motives do not matter; their betrayal of the country does.  One possibility: the Left might refuse to seat the worst of them—i.e., the members of the Freedom Caucus—on committees.

 

There is a further concern; the persistent resentment of the losers.  The defeat of Dixie in 1865 was almost immediately followed by the birth of the Ku Klux Klan, the reign of Jim Crow laws, and the transformation of the Republican Party from an anti-slavery into a racist political party.  It has bided its time and carefully prepared to seize power ever since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Goldwater and Nixon candidacies, and the Gingrich-inspired revolution.  The MAGA crowd now imbibes the heady spirits of white Christian nationalism; it will not sober up from the hallucination of another election “stolen” by hordes of illegal immigrants.  With millions provided by wealthy oligarchs, it will continue its efforts to neutralize its political enemies and undermine democracy.  All the while, the winners will become increasingly smug about their midterm victory.  They may remain potent through the 2028 election, for Trump will still be in office (unless succeeded beforehand by his political soulmate J.D. Vance) and energize opposition to him.  But thereafter comes the great snooze and a startling awakening to a renewed thrust from fascists to overturn democracy.

 

After the midterms, many will sing happy days are here again—but for how long?

THE SORRY STATE OF A SORRY STATE

     While writing this blog, I recalled James Wright’s famous and much-anthologized poem, “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.”

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,

Asleep on the black trunk,

Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.

Down the ravine behind the empty house,

The cowbells follow one another

Into the distances of the afternoon.

To my right,

In a field of sunlight between two pines,

The droppings of last year’s horses

Blaze up into golden stones.

I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.

A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.

I have wasted my life.

 

The last line is arresting.  How does one get to it from the preceding twelve lines?  I invite my readers to offer their explanations (maximum word count: 250 words); no prize, only praise, for the most interesting but sensible ones.  Have at it.  (AI interpretations do not qualify.)

 

•      •      •      •      •

 

Much of what is now New Mexico had been, until about 600 years ago, an area populated by separate pueblos and isolated villages eking out a generally subsistence existence.  Their poverty protected them from surrounding tribes.  It was readily conquered and harshly ruled by Spaniards until 1680.  In that year, the pueblos united in the Pueblo Revolt to expel them.  But pueblo unity failed within a dozen years; in 1692 the Spanish returned and in 1693 reconquered the area.  The general population has never since united to alleviate its conditions of economic depression and political oppression.  New Mexico maintains this historical legacy of poverty and its culture of submission.  So here we are, and here, it seems to me, we shall remain.

 

I have lived in Las Cruces for nearly two decades and, for most of that time, have written fortnightly columns for the Sun-News or blogs emailed to my distribution list or posted on my website.  I have covered topics on education, politics, religion, and foreign policy, among others.  I have given much attention to public education and public safety as well as democracy, abortion, race, and sex/gender.  I have never expected my views to become a blueprint for action; instead, I hoped that they might prompt discussion and proposals for improving conditions in Las Cruces and New Mexico.  But I have learned slowly and reluctantly that New Mexicans do not want improved conditions; they want to endure what is endurable in order to avoid the discomfort of efforts to reform adverse conditions.  Their elected officials know how to avoid reforms, allow adverse but endurable conditions to persist, yet preserve their positions of power and prestige.

 

New Mexico, if it were a foreign country, would be one of Trump’s “shithole countries.”  Its third-world-type economy rests almost entirely on extractive industries: gas and oil, and pecans and pistachios.  Its two national laboratories, Los Alamos and Sandia, have not attracted high-tech start-ups; its three national universities—University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology—, have also failed to attract them.  The only high-tech firm in New Mexico of any size is Intel.  The largest employers in the state are federal and state government agencies and installations, healthcare organizations, and public schools.  The purpose of the latter is employment more than education—which explains why New Mexico has more institutions of higher education per capita than Massachusetts—yet, by employing many mediocrities, has ranked last or near last in national rankings for decades.  Its schools graduate large numbers of poorly educated students who constitute a workforce unattractive to mid- to high-tech firms.  The state imagines that its economy can thrive by relying on tourism—selling scenery or artifacts of indigenous people—or by being an outdoor studio for the film industry.  A culture of poverty permeates the state: no- or low-skill jobs with low wages, relatively high unemployment, inadequate nutrition, poor healthcare, insufficient housing, and poor schooling, along with widespread crime and widespread violence, domestic and otherwise.

 

Meanwhile, elected officials at the local, county, and state level address these deficiencies with expensive or piecemeal remedies, or reckless gambles in their political show of concern.  For instance, state legislators approved across-the-board teacher salary increases which have done nothing to improve teacher quality or student academic performance.  For another, Dona Ana county commissioners approved a data center as a “silver bullet” to boost employment, with little public input and less due diligence; they knew little about the firms to build and operate the facility, and less about its various economic, environmental, and societal effects.  Any number of local governments operate in disregard of the Open Meetings Act.  Given a politically inert, if not submissive, electorate, their officials know that they can make decisions affecting the public in secret, without, to them, the inconvenience of democratic processes.

 

The Democratic Party, which exploits this electorate and prevails in the state, is successful only in winning elections.  Otherwise, it accomplishes virtually nothing of effective and enduring results to ameliorate adverse conditions throughout the state.  I suspect that the Progressive Voters Alliance in Las Cruces is typical of other Progressive, Democratic, or liberal groups in the state in its dedication mostly to congeniality, mutual congratulation, and two-minute soundbites.  It has never enlisted its members to engage in a concerted effort to address any issue of concern.  The closest it came was approval of a Common Cause plan to rig elections for Democrats by using taxpayer dollars to fund the campaigns of candidates—everyone knew that they would be Democrats—who would commit to refusing outside funding.  Despite advocates’ vigorous and dissembling efforts, the plan was so defective that it failed to persuade a Democrat-dominated City Council to adopt it.  One opponent was targeted for slurs and shunning.  This aborted PVA effort shows that local leftists are not more tolerant of debate and dissent than other political partisans.  It also shows that Republican politicians are not the only ones who try to use public money for partisan purposes and to subvert democratic processes to win elections.

 

I end almost as I began.  I have addressed many important issues, especially those of public education and public safety, by talking with or writing to many officials, elected and appointed.  My efforts have achieved less than nothing.  The perversity of a City Council nominating a crooked City Clerk who cost Las Cruces about $150,000 for a statewide honor says it all: officials relish their corruption, and—because?—the media and public do not care.  But I care, though I know that I should not; I believe that I should not care more about the city, county, and state than my fellow citizens do.  Notwithstanding, I shall continue to address at least some of the issues which deserve attention for one reason: I was raised to serve others and the public good and to use my abilities to that end.  Would that those with whom I have communicated had been raised similarly.

HIGH ABOVE CORNELL, THERE’S AN AWFUL SMELL

    I derive my title from the local ditty “High above Cayuga’s waters, there’s an awful smell.  Some say it’s Cayuga’s waters; others say Cornell.”

I am a third-generation Cornellian; my daughter is a fourth.  I attended Cornell from 1958 through 1964 and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees.  I was a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.  I am ashamed of both the university and the fraternity.  I am outraged and pained that Jane Doe has been so grievously abused in so many ways.  I hope that judicial proceedings will bring some relief to her pain.  And I hope that the full disclosure of this horrific episode will prompt an examination of the conditions which made it possible; I hope that it will prompt all of us to determine what we—each of us in our private lives—can do to prevent other such episodes.  At the very least, we must teach boys to grow up to be men, not misfits or misogynists.

 

For various reasons, I severed my connection with the university many years ago.  For good reason, I severed my connection with the fraternity in 2018.  The reason: a gross incident, as described in an AI overview: “Cornell University placed its Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) fraternity chapter on a two-year probation in February 2018 following an investigation into a secret 2017 sex competition dubbed a ‘pig roast.’ … The Competition: New members (pledges) of the Zeta Beta Tau chapter at Cornell allegedly earned points by having sexual intercourse with women without their knowledge or consent regarding the game.  The Rules: Additional bonus points or tiebreakers were awarded to the member who had sex with the woman who weighed the most.”  When I resigned, I wrote that I no longer wanted to be associated in any way with a fraternity which had members capable of such disgusting conduct.

 

A contemporary of mine wrote to a friend that Cornell had a curfew for women in our day.  His implication was that the curfew prevented “date rape,” a phrase then unknown.  I doubt it.  Although I heard nothing about sexual misconduct, I have no reason to doubt that it occurred.  Silence or, at most, whispers prevailed in those years.  Even then and certainly now, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

Which brings me to the present moment, as another obscene episode is receiving national attention.  Because the facts reported have changed by the day or even by the hour, just now no one can know the whole truth about the episode.  However, the trends bend toward clearing the victim of voluntary participation, darkening the “Cornell Seven” perpetrators, and discrediting the campus, the campus and city police, and the district attorney.  The decision of New York Governor Kathy Hochul to appoint New York Attorney General Latitia James as a special prosecutor with unfettered authority to investigate this episode is a wise one.

 

Appalled as I am by what has occurred not for the first time at my alma mater, I am even more appalled by what it implies about the men involved and their upbringing by their parents.  I can readily imagine that, in many families, the response to youthful male misbehavior is that old maxim “boys will be boys.”  The truth of that maxim is precisely that outcome, no matter what age such misbehaving males attain.  Fade to the still-protected perpetrators in the Epstein case.

 

I think that there are more boys today.  Societies change (I do not say evolve).  Perhaps with the exception of the Roaring Twenties, society had both explicit and implicit rules of social and sexual conduct, and personal respectability meant more, in the first half of the twentieth century.  Occupational and residential mobility—no roots, no connections—eroded those rules after 1945.  The Greatest Generation, which withstood the Great Depression and won the Second World War, were very imperfect parents.  They spoiled the generation of Boomers by giving their children what they had not received, and the Boomers gave their children what they had received.  This parental indulgence created their children’s sense of entitlement, including the right to do as they please.  The relaxation of social rules meant the relaxation of restraints in sexual relations.  I think it quaint that, in my day, talk about virginity was commonplace; the burning question was whether a man should marry, or a woman should be, a virgin on the occasion.  By then, many had answered it: who cares?

 

More generally, changes in social and sexual mores resulted from the post-WWII flourishing of tolerance, a good thing, and moral relativism encouraging non-judgmentalism, a bad thing.  Indeed, it is common today for one person to reproach another for being judgmental, as if being judgmental is a bad thing (of course, the reproach expresses a judgment).  The result has been an erosion of a concern for moral character and moral guidance.  Changes have also reflected changes in technology.  The pill greatly reduced fears of undesired consequences of intercourse between unmarried “copulators.”  The relaxation of the Hays (no relation) code, a set of guidelines about suitable language and conduct in Hollywood films from the early 1930s through the late 1960s, allowed and thus modeled in theaters and on television behavior previously frowned upon.  Computers and iPhones expanded access to the raunchy through pornography, which dehumanizes and objectifies both men and women.  “Research consistently shows a positive association between pornography consumption—particularly violent or degrading content—and attitudes supporting sexual aggression, as well as the actual perpetration of sexual abuse and harassment against women.” (AI). In this period of liberation—“rules are meant to be broken,” so some say—, parental authority has been undermined, and many parents are confused or uncertain about what moral standards remain valid or how to instill and enforce them.  The conditions for episodes like the current one at Cornell exist throughout much of America.

 

Nevertheless, a consensus maintains that the control of these conditions is the responsibility of both institutions and individuals.  Many campuses have codes of conduct and rules of procedure for dealing with sex-based offenses.  The challenge is to enforce them.  In the present episode, Cornell officers and its campus police failed to handle Jane Doe’s complaints in an appropriate, effective manner.  Depending on what the AG James’s investigation learns, what actions it takes, and what recommendations it makes, Cornell will have another opportunity to create a safe environment for women on campus.  It must do better.  And other campuses might well incorporate lessons learned from this episode.

 

Individuals—parents, other family members, and friends—can and must help as well.  The right way, however difficult it might be, is to counsel children from their earliest days to respect others, and to correct them when they fail.  I can speak only from my experience in raising my daughter and my son, with advice given to both throughout their minority, to respect all others.  As a rising high-school senior, my daughter caught the eye of a rising Naval Academy senior.  Before a first date—a movie, a snack, and goodnight—, my wife and I insisted on meeting him, setting a curfew, and implying our expectations.  In advance of a second date, I cautioned my sensible, strong, but relatively inexperienced daughter that the cadet was far more experienced than she was.  Trusting her, I gave her clear guidance: first line of resistance, the neck; last line, the waist.  She expressed her embarrassment; I replied, better embarrassed than pregnant.  She returned early from the date, strode to her room, and slammed the door.  She never said a word about the date, but I knew that her response to his advances was “no,” that her dad would kill her.  My talk with my son is what the cadet’s father should have been with his son.  By the time he reached puberty, he knew the facts of life without a talk about the birds and the bees.  We had a different talk; well, “we” is too generous; I did the talking.  The gist of it was that he must never take advantage of any woman and must accept that “no” means “no,” whether he thinks that she means it or not.  (The old joke—if a lady says “no,” she means “maybe”; if she says “maybe,” she means “yes”; if she says “yes,” she is no lady—is not an OK guide to boy/girl conduct.)

 

Many parents—I think mainly of fathers—do not teach such lessons to their sons, perhaps because doing as they say does not fit comfortably with doing as they had done or were still doing.  Clearly, what the Cornell Seven did in Ithaca they did not learn at home not to do anywhere.  Though they are not entirely responsible for what their older teenage or young adult children do—peer pressure and others become increasingly influential in their lives—parents must do what they can from the start or they might not like the finish.  Despite light being shined on Cornell and Chi Phi as well as other colleges and universities, and their fraternities, much more light needs to be shined on the moral guidance and example provided or not by parents.  A concern for moral character must be resurrected even in these problematic times when current politics is demonstrating how its absence can be so destructive of decency and democracy.

IRAN: THE ONLY WINNING MOVE

 At the end of the movie War Games, the protagonist, played by Matthew Broderick, teaches a computer gaining control of the ICBM launch codes that any game from tic-tac-toe to Global Thermonuclear War ends in defeat.  The computer learns and flashes up a final message: “The only winning move is not to play.”

There is no going back to the day before Trump decided to launch his war of choice against Iran.  There is no undoing 8 months’ worth of deaths to thousands of Irani civilians and damage to countless homes and businesses, as well as Irani political leaders, military personnel, and military installations.  And there are no continuing attacks and threats of attacks to achieve any of the war’s shifting objectives.  There is only quitting the war.

 

That is the only option on the table; end the war by quitting it.  Quitting it means that Trump’s hubris in starting the war requires America’s humiliation in ending it.  But quitting it is not as bad as continuing it, for the longer Trump wages war on Iran, the greater its cost to America’s and the world’s economic well-being, its political influence in international affairs, and its military standing.

 

Of course, Trump will not quit.  He who cannot admit a mistake will not abase himself by doing so.  Instead, he will continue the war in one way or another short of all-out hostilities while he searches for something, anything, which he can claim is a win.  The most which he can now hope for is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, although, with Irani/Omani tolls, that reopening will not restore the status quo ante.  American and Israeli ships will probably be denied passage.  But even that reopening with restrictions might be enough for him to claim a win as if it were one of his original objectives.  But he will be reminded of this faux success any time he raises the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, which is likely to be accelerated.  (Update: he must also hope for the opening of the Houthi-controlled Bab al-Mandab Strait.)

 

After the interlude of Trump's second presidency, Democrats will have their work cut out for them to make America great again, as we nearly were before Trump descended his escalator.

 

Militarily, the Pentagon must learn how to fight modern, evolving wars.  Whatever might be said about the performance of its military forces in bombing Iranian targets, elementary schools included, they have failed to subdue Iranian leadership to Trump’s demands.  After intensive American bombing with advanced weaponry, Iran has lost many of its senior leaders.  But they have been replaced by leaders even more repressive of a suffering population and even more hostile to and defiant of America.  The country has rallied in understandable nationalistic support and has survived to resist American aggression.  America has not learned from the Vietnam War that it cannot bomb an enemy into submission.

 

Indeed, Iran has inflicted serious damage on American military forces and on America’s Arab allies in the region.  The plight of personnel on the USS Abraham Lincoln led to the discovery of problems not only with that aircraft carrier, but also with associated naval warships and facilities.  Some of those problems reflect the damage done to a major American logistical center which has led to shortages of munitions and necessities like food and water.  Iran needed few missiles and many drones to inflict this damage and to close the Strait.

 

More ominously, the failure of America’s reckless campaign against Iran, which reflects both political dementia and military debilities, has called into question the value of American security guarantees and capabilities.  The damage to American bases, not to mention facilities in allied countries, and the revelation of weaknesses in war-fighting and logistical means to support that fighting suggest that the American shield against Iranian (and Houthi) aggression is not as strong as it had seemed.  The result will be that allies will pursue other means to protect themselves which are less reliant on America.  The Pentagon must rethink its entire approach to modern warfare—Trump’s push for battleships will be nothing more than a waste of resources diverted from more effective weaponry—and to do so in ways which enable it to support America’s international interests and political objectives.  Otherwise, it will fail to restore military power as an effective agent of America’s political influence.

 

To make America great again in international affairs and keep it safe at home will require more brains and brawn than Trump and Hegseth can muster.  Their foolishness has jeopardized American interests and influence not only in the Middle East, but also in the Far East.  And their closing of counter-intelligence agencies and their dismissal of experienced intelligence analysts and military leaders make America more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.  America is less capable of detecting and preventing another major terrorist attack and less capable of identifying and responding effectively to its attackers.  The likelihood of such attacks will increase with a prolongation of the war against Iran.  Quitting that war will make America safer, if not greater.  If “the only winning move is not to play,” the next best move is to stop playing.

DO VASQUEZ AND CUNNINGHAM HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE?

       The political season begins semi-officially today, Labor Day.  Joe Monahan, New Mexico’s primary political commentator, has already characterized the Congressional race in District 3 between the Democratic incumbent Gabe Vasquez and Republican challenger Greg Cunningham as a tight one.  Other media have more recently reached the same conclusion.  I am not interested in the race, only in a comparison of the candidates, with a particular interest in their positions and record on public safety, that is, police operations.  So I visited their websites.

Vasquez lists the following ten issues of concern:

 

Making life more affordable for working New Mexicans

Protecting public lands

Improving public safety

Expanding access to healthcare

Real immigration reform

Reforming Washington

Protecting reproductive healthcare

Supporting our veterans

Respecting tribal sovereignty and investing in Native American communities

Free and fair elections

 

The phrasing of some of these issues is infelicitous.  “Real” as opposed to unreal immigration reform?  “Reforming Washington” as Trump is reforming it or as reforming some or all of the federal government?  “Our veterans” as opposed to their veterans?  Five issues conspicuously missing: strengthening public education, supporting small businesses, assisting agriculture and ranching, protecting the environment, and ensuring water supplies for residential, commercial, agricultural, ranching, and mining uses.  Still, his discussions of his ten issues outline his positions in some detail and with only a few cliches and slogans.

 

Cunningham lists the following six issues of concern:

 

Keep the border secure

Develop American energy

Protect our New Mexico way of life

Build a stronger economy

Invest in New Mexico children

Make New Mexico safe

 

There is some infelicitous phrasing of these issues.  By contrast with Vasquez’s “Improving public safety,” Cunningham’s “Make New Mexico safe” implies that the state is generally unsafe and that most residents fear for their lives.  Worse, Cunningham provides no discussion of issues.  The phrases are open-ended; their vagueness might allow them to mean whatever readers want or imagine them to mean and to include or exclude numerous issues not specified.  Because he indicates his allegiance to President Trump, readers might interpret the phrases in light of Trump’s decisions affecting them.  For instance, “develop American energy” might mean both encouraging companies to drill for more oil and gas, and discouraging them from installing solar and wind power.  “Keep the border secure” might mean more abuses of citizens and immigrants, legal or illegal, by ICE and CBP.  A Trump-aligned congressman seeking to “Protect our New Mexico way of life” might support federal heavy-handedness in defining and making the state’s way of life to be less diverse, equitable, and inclusive than it is—not a good fit for the state.  Cunningham’s vagueness is a con-man’s modus operandi.  At this point, we have had enough Republican efforts to defraud Americans.

 

The transparency and accountability arise in the relationship between each candidate and his previous experience in public safety, specifically, with the police.  Vasquez claims to have “worked with law enforcement on the Las Cruces Council to increase their police budget by $3.8 million.”  A nit: no law enforcement served on City Council, only elected counselors, with whom he could have worked.  However, he did work with law enforcement officials when he served on the City Council’s secret Public Safety Select Committee (PSSC) for about one year, from December 2020 until he resigned from office in late 2021.  Voters should ask Vasquez to explain why he participated in a secret committee which operated contrary to the Open Meetings Act (OMA) and whether his participation indicates a lack of commitment to open government, and to specify what he did on that committee and what public-safety measures he supported or rejected .  In view of a complaint about the PSSC’s violation of the OMA, he should support transparency and accountability by urging the New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) to reopen that complaint, one which it seems determined to suppress in order to protect him from personal embarrassment and his campaign from political damage, and to thereby assist his campaign for reelection.  Otherwise, he implies his desperate need for NMDOJ to support his reelection.

 

Cunningham touts his work in the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), as an officer in which he “took on cartels, gangs, and violent crime, dedicating himself to protecting New Mexican families and ensuring safer neighborhoods.  His years in law enforcement earned him a reputation as a man who never backed down from tough challenges and always put the well-being of others first.”  For years, the APD has been under scrutiny for its abuses by its police officers, so any officer must be under some suspicion.  To me, in 2026, his talk is a little too hyper-masculine, a little too much of the kind of talk by which an ICE or CBP officer might characterize his or her conduct.  So, in support of transparency and accountability, he should request that his entire file with the APD be released so that the public can decide whether his conduct as an APD police officer conformed to professional standards, legal requirements, and constitutional norms.  Any refusal suggests a tacit admission of discreditable conduct.

 

 

A concluding note: Only one of the two major political parties in America is striving to suppress voting by imposing difficult voter registration or voter identification requirements, shortening periods for early voting, limiting voting sites or ballot drop-off boxes, USPS shenanigans, among other administrative, election-subversive means.  That party is the Republican Party.  Which raises the question, why vote for any candidate of a party which wants to erode the right to vote and to constrict the means to exercise it—your right to vote, whether you are a Democrat, an Independent, or even a Republican.  The appropriate response to reject such efforts is to vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.  In 2026, make the vote too big to rig, too real to steal.