SUMMERTIME IN THE CITY

 

Our summer was capped off with an end of August trip to the New York City theater district. My nephew’s wedding took place in nearby New Jersey. It was a short drive through the Lincoln Tunnel to our Times Square hotel. Yes, the parking was $50.00 a day, but we avoided flying into La Guardia from Pittsburgh and the two expensive cab rides.

The late summer energy in and around Midtown Manhattan was a marvel to behold. The beautiful weather and influx of foreign tourists made the four blocks in every direction from Times Square a sea of exhilarated humanity. In order to check Google Maps, we needed to duck behind a lamp post to avoid being swept away.

Almost everyone we met was from some other country with an interesting story to tell. The local waiters and retail clerks always greeted us with a smile. They would not hesitate to leave their posts to guide us around a corner to point out our destination. Those who label “the city” cold and dangerous are missing out on the excitement of America’s 24/7 global epicenter of culture, finance, and human diversity.

Our focus on this excursion was Broadway. Some performances on our bucket list had just closed (Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Ragtime) and the new fall offerings had not yet opened (Galileo and Other Desert Cities). However, our five choices did not disappoint. We came to summarize our viewing experience as “three gunshots and two large bangs.”

The initial play, on the evening of our arrival, was Oh Mary! This irreverent 80 minute, one-act drama provided our first gunshot.  The play satirizes the life of Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater. My guess is that this dark comedy will not be making the rounds in local community theaters anytime soon.

The play portrays Mary as an unhinged and raging alcoholic trapped in an unhappy marriage to a gay, closeted Abraham Lincoln. It mixes 19th-century historical figures with absurdist fiction, musical medleys, and biting camp humor.  

Initially, the show’s creator, Cole Escola, did not envision casting anyone besides himself to play Mary for what he thought would be a limited run. After the play became a runaway hit, nine actors have now played Mary in this very challenging performance.

Our second gunshot was from the famous duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton that ended the title character’s life. Hamilton has been on Broadway for over ten years. I thought our viewing would be a bit stale and anticlimactic. I was wrong. Hamilton was one of the most entertaining theater experiences of my life. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s combination of hip-hop score and his African American take on American history was a joy to behold.

The third gunshot was from a small, off Broadway, production of The Play That Goes Wrong. This offering was a fast-paced physical comedy and a “play within a play.” It tells the story of a college drama society’s disastrous opening night where everything goes wrong, bringing chaos to the stage and laughs from the audience. At the end of the play, the villain is shot and the entire set collapses on the actors. Great fun, with the cast often going off script to interact with the patrons.

Our first large bang (in fact, many big booms) occurred in the over-the-top production of The Lost Boys. This musical is a major theatrical spectacle with incredible special effects, first rate acting, and memorable songs. This year, The Lost Boys won four Tonys including best performance by an actor and actress in a featured role.

The plot involves a mother and her two teenage sons. Looking for a fresh start, they move to the fictional boardwalk town of Santa Carla, California. Instead, they find a “band” of teenage vampires. The script uses some of the scenes from the 1987 cult film starring Kiefer Sutherland, but revises the roles of the female characters, giving them more agency.

For over two hours the action is nonstop. After the final song, “If We Make It Through the Night” there is a dramatic loud boom and a sudden drop to pitch darkness.

Our last selection, Operation Mincemeat, won high praise in London and made its way to Broadway in March of 2025. It has become a major commercial success and gained critical acclaim.

The musical depicts the true story of a 1943 British military deception plan during World War II. British Intelligence used a dead body with fake papers to trick Nazi Germany into expecting an invasion of Greece and Sardinia instead of Sicily. Hitler believed the fake papers and moved his troops to Greece and the Balkans, allowing the Allies to capture Sicily with far less resistance.

While the film by the same name was a drama starring Colin Firth, the musical is straight comedy pulled off by five actors, each playing dozens of roles. Our final theatrical “bang” was the high-energy, theatrical climax—the explosive final number of the show.

In addition to our theater selections, museums were high on our list. New exhibits at the Met were outstanding. We were particularly blown away by the recent renovations to and art installations at the Henry Clay Frick Mansion (now museum) facing Central Park.

Summertime in the city was an experience that will provide us with many pleasant, year-round memories.

 

 

HOW WILL TRUMP’S ODYSSEY END?

 

The year 2026 will be remembered for the celebration of America’s 250th birthday. The events of this year will be compared with those in other milestone celebration years and used to chronical the ebb and flow of American history.

I believe that one of the most widely discussed events from this year will be the manner in which Homer’s The Odyssey left an indelible impression on the cultural and political life of America. Odessey mania is sweeping the country following the release of Christopher Nolan’s epic movie, staring Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway. Prior to the movie’s release, a new highly regarded translation of Homer’s The Odyssey, was released by Daniel Mendelsohn.

My wife and I felt that Nolan’s creation was timely and enthralling cinema. The movie has influenced American society by igniting online culture-war debates over casting and interpretations. (Many scholars trained in the classics take issue with Nolan’s approach.)

The movie triggered widespread public reflection on national identity, misapplied military conflict, and the modern relevance of classical myth. Reviewers of the movie have noted that the sensory-heavy, large-format cinematic production compels audiences to feel the brutal physical toll of the hero’s journey rather than romanticizing the adventure of one man trying to reunite with his family.

The film has sent thousands of new readers back to Homer's original text as depicted in Mendelsohn’s and other modern translations.  According to the Guardian, “The movie’s most significant accomplishment might be turning a nearly 2,700-year-old epic poem into the most sought-after book in America.”  It was reported that in this country sales increased by roughly 76% and by an astounding 700% in the UK.

The popularity of The Odyssey has led many commentators to consider Donald Trump and his presidency through the lens of Homer’s epic works. There are many interesting parallels that come to mind.

Ironically, exactly ten years ago, in August of 2016, when Trump was first running for president, I wrote a commentary for this newspaper titled “Donald Trump as Homeric Hero.” After reading the excellent book, Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicolson, I had an epiphany that “Trump was staging a Homeric hero quest.”

I explained my analysis as, “the dichotomy between the warriors ‘outside the walls’ who view the civilized class ‘within the walls’ as too soft, corrupt, and dysfunctional. The quest is for the people of the ‘earth’ and ‘sword’ for whom action is everything and words have no meaning to tear down and replace the existing structure.”

I went on to say, “The hero’s goal is to crush what has come before and to take life back to a simpler time. The Homeric tradition sings the praises of a powerful leader who is able to meld uncooperative bands of miscreants into a coherent force to conquer what was thought to be the essence of the civilized world.”

Ten years ago, I reasoned that, “Trump may be the newest manifestation of the Homeric myth. The Homeric view of the world centers on revenge and conflict, not consensus or compromise.  Power is something to be fought for, not passed peacefully from one political elite to the next.  The Homeric warrior who can reach the pinnacle of power without the aid of other politicians or institutions owes nothing to the order that came before.  He controls his destiny.”

To prove my point, in a recent wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, Trump claimed that his power as commander-in-chief is limited only by his own morality and judgment, not by international treaties or laws.

My conclusion was that, “for those of you, who think I am giving Donald Trump too much credit, remember that Agamemnon, the Greek leader, was also called psychopathic.  In the Iliad he murders his daughter to gain a favorable wind to Troy and later steals Achilles’ woman, Briseis, thereby angering his greatest asset against the Trojans. Are Trump’s public acts those of a narcissistic madman or of an Alpha Greek warrior in the Homeric tradition?”

As the Trump presidency has unwound over six years, other Homeric similarities, not my own, have been widely discussed. First, Trump is called a “trickster” in the classical tradition as practiced by Ulysses. He employs no set strategy and instead is unpredictable and breaks conventional rules to outmaneuver opponents. Unfortunately, these tactics have not succeeded in Iran.

 

Second, Trump’s unstructured and repetitious political speeches are described as similar to the Greek oral tradition. He is fond of using catchy epithets (“crooked Hillary” instead of “swift footed Achilles”) to captivate a crowd from memory, not a teleprompter.

Third, Trump presents himself as the “lone warrior” and often remarks that “I alone can fix it.” This mirrors Ulysses in the Odyssey, the ultimate individualist who would rather do things his way than to follow the gods. 

How will Trump’s odyssey end? A core theme of Homer’s epic is xenia, the sacred Greek law of hospitality toward strangers and travelers. The Greek version is unlike the interpretation in Nolan’s movie, where the hospitality seems to be based on the Judeo-Christian, golden rule. In the classical version, you were kind to strangers because they could be gods in disguise.

Nevertheless, Trump’s actions with his brutal policies toward immigrants, disregard for those in need, and attacks on foreign dignitaries seems to directly violate xenia. Disobeying this policy (also known as Zeus’s Law) always brought ruin to Greek epic characters.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS ARE GOOD FOR AMERICA

The Swarthmore Bulletin is a quarterly magazine mailed to all alumni of the college. Normally, I turn to the final pages and read the class notes to catch up on the news of those who graduated with me. Then I return to the front of the magazine to review the books written by Swarthmore graduates over the past three months. Lastly, I skim the articles for interesting topics.

The current summer issue was unique. On the cover was a photograph of four students from foreign countries that were attending Swarthmore. The title of the issue was A Global Community. I eagerly read the articles covering this topic and was struck by the importance of foreign students to the college. Moreover, as Swarthmore graduates from other countries entered the workforce in all manner of professions, their contributions to our nation and to the world was astounding.

The editor of the Swarthmore Bulletin sets the stage with the following introduction: “Swarthmore’s global community is a snapshot of everything that lends to the cause of celebration in the U.S.---our diversity and our commitment to social equity and the pursuit of and access to knowledge. This unfolds in landscapes near and far.”

One article focuses on a project called “THE 1875.”  The projectname honors the year the first known international student came to Swarthmore. It traces the history of Swarthmore’s international students and how they enriched the fabric of the college. The project addressed important questions. What was it like to be an international student 50 years ago?  What about now? How does the college continue to grow and strengthen thisimportant community?

Since 1875, students from 133 countries have been admitted. The project documents the generations of international students that have forged lifelong friendships, overcame obstacles, and left their mark on the world. Their stories are a testament to the resilience, adaptability, and contributions of Swarthmore’s global community. The goal is to strengthen the ties between international students and the college as a whole, fostering a sense of belonging that extends beyond graduation.

A second article titled, “A Story of Welcome,” goes back in time to document a 1942 endeavor sponsored by PhiladelphiaQuakers and Swarthmore. John Nasson, then Swarthmore president, led an effort to relocate young, college-aged Japanese from West Coast internment camps and to place them in East Coast academic institutions. The effort removed almost 5,000 students from the camps and helped them gain a degree from prestigious institutions.

Among the Japanese admitted to Swarthmore were three members of the Inouye family. After the war, two became physicians and one a physics researcher.

Lastly, an article titled, “A Full Circle Moment,” tells the story of recent Swarthmore graduate Narangarav Enkhtaivan, a native of Mongolia. She arrived in 2023 through the Mongolian Young Scholars initiative and now helps run the program. Her goal is to repair the Mongolian education system which suffers because of underfunding and the fact that one third of Mongolian families are nomadic herders.

While Swarthmore celebrates its foreign students, throughout the nation other institutions that recruit international applicantshave been devastated by the Trump administration. Larger public and research universities rely on federal dollars to fund labs, employ staff, and to innovate with private companies. In these cases, federal funds can make up over 40% of total revenue. Even Harvard University, with its massive endowment, depends on federal dollars for 11% of its yearly operating costs and for 66% of its annual research budget.

When president Trump resumed office in 2025, foreign students became an immediate target. Using unfounded rationalizations concerning national security and the threat to the employment of American citizens, Trump sought to restrict legal immigration of students. This policy dovetailed with Trump’s plans to pressure elite universities on political and ideological issues.

The Trump State Department has revoked student visas for foreign-born individuals who participated in campus demonstrations. At our most elite universities, including Harvard, the Trump administration has moved to withdraw foreign student enrollment certificates. 

A new rule issued by The Department of Homeland Security(DHS) places a strict four-year admissions cap on students to discourage them from seeking employment in the U.S. The post graduate departure date has been shortened from 60 days to 30 days. In late July, DHS announced a rule that will add strict time limits to student visas. It will restrict student transfers from one program to another and/or changes to study plans.

In Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University is an important research center with many Ph.D. programs that are longer than four years. It has a large number of international students that will be affected by the new rules. The school administration announced plans for a town hall for the upcoming fall semester. It stated in part, “Changes can cause uncertainty and anxiety. We want students to know that we are here to support you.”

Even a small private college like Swarthmore, with little federal funding, is affected. The new federal restrictions on international students threaten the college's diverse campus community, creates administrative burdens for foreign enrollment, and challenges the school's core institutional values.

International students are good for America. Most pay full tuition, which helps fund university budgets at a time when domestic student populations are dropping. These students provide diverse viewpoints and unique life experiences to help prepare our domestic students for living in a multicultural world.

 

OUR RETIREMENT SYSTEM IS BROKEN

 

Baby Boomers in the United States are currently 62 to 80 years old. My wife and I will both be 75 in September. In many ways, our retirement has been all we expected. It would be easy for us to assume that the American retirement system is working well and protecting older folks now and into the future.

This assumption would be a mistake.  Those experts who make a living analyzing the aging population have reached the opposite conclusion. America’s retirement system is broken.

A study in 2024 found that one in 10 (10.2%), or 5.9 million adults ages 65 and older, had incomes below the official poverty level. Without Social Security, 22 million more adults and children would live in poverty. If Congress does not act by 2032, Social Security will only collect enough revenue to pay 78% of scheduled retirement benefits.

To exasperate the financing of the aging problem, an average boomer who is currently 65 years old can expect to live another 18 to 20 years. (For someone born in the United States in 1930 the average life expectancy was about 59.7 years.)

This commentary will review some basic history of our retirement system. I will then turn to several recent books that have documented the “aging class” in America. These experts explain the financial problems of the growing older population and offer some plans for “rescuing retirement.”

Until the late 1800s, agriculture dominated the economy. Older Americans owned their own farms and passed them on to their children. My own family provides an example. At the turn of the century, my N.J. grandmother received one of six farms divided among her siblings. That farm passed to my father’s older brother who worked the land until his death in the late 1960s.

The needs of farm hands were covered by the broader community. Women stayed on the farm and cared for elderly family members. Life spans were relatively short.

The fate of older people changed dramatically as workers left the farms and women entered the labor market. Along with new immigrants, they poured into city offices, factories, and mines. There were no longer insular communities, or farm assets help the elderly. The majority of Americans had to continue working until they dropped. Secure retirements did not exist.

In the early 1900s, European countries faced up to the industrial revolution and began establishing government-run pension systems. The US waited until 1935 to establish Social Security benefits.  There were more dramatic changes after WWII. Company sponsored pensions were designed to attract and keep workers in tight labor markets. By the 1960s, more than 40% of American workers had a private pension in addition to Social Security. As a result, a third of the elderly population no longer lived in poverty.

What has become of this remarkable public/private retirement system to shield the elderly from financial hardship? Unfortunately, earlier gains have been reversed with lower-income workers hurt more than others.

The British historian, Robin Blackburn, explained the dilemma in his excellent 2007 book, Age Shock. Blackburn found that “Many elderly will be forced to take jobs in their later years that are too demanding and will be unable to afford needed health care, as life spans increase and costs rise.” Blackburn concluded that there was little political interest in the problem of old age poverty as other topics dominated the public debate.

Two more recent books explain the problem well.  Teresa Ghilarducci is a labor economist and nationally recognized expert in retirement security. Her book, Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy, presents evidence that the system benefits private interests and exploits the most vulnerable people. She tells the stories of elderly Americans locked into jobs—not because they love to work but because they must.

Ghilarducci documents that while 50% of Americans age 62-70 are retired, their living standards have diminished significantly since they stopped working. Another 28% are still working and cannot afford to stop. She points to 1) inadequate savings, 2) insufficient Social Security payments, and 3) risky defined-contribution pensions like 401(k)s, that have supplanted traditional defined-benefit pensions paid by employers.

Ghilarducci is a progressive economist who believes that coercive corporate elites have replaced “working more hours” from the Gilded Age with “longer working lifespans” today. This policy deflates wages and reduces business costs by increasing the labor pool.

The second book Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age was written by James Chappel, an historian at Duke University. He is affiliated with the Duke Aging Center which focuses on aging research.

Chappel also traces the history of old age as a distinctive “stage of life.” He points out the many contradictions in old age policy as longer lifespans and spiraling health care costs have produced more instability, not an improved system. He believes the original, post-war model has crumbled. Instead of more security, older people are forced back into the workforce.

How could our retirement system be made better? Chappel urges Baby Boomers of all stripes to view themselves as a common social group. To borrow a popular phrase from the 1960s, Boomers need a “class consciousness,” predicated on inclusion and diversity.

Tribal partisan politics have inexplicitly moved us old folks away from being unified. Pro-business policymakers have seized this opportunity to push the burdens of aging back onto older Americans and their families.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALL SUFFED UP AT THE BENEDUM

 

We were recently gifted tickets to see the Broadway musical Suffs at the Pittsburgh CLO Benedum Center. The theme is the story of the American women who organized, marched, and who were brutally jailed to procure a constitutional amendment so that women could vote. The slogan for the musical is “Behind Every Powerful Woman Are More Powerful Women.” The production was first class, and it was clear why it had won several Tony awards and been crowned best new musical by the Outer Critics’ Circle.

Suffs was written by Shaina Taub, artist-in-residence at New York City’s Public Theater. She single-handedly created the show's book, music, and lyrics. The musical has an all-female and non-binary cast that plays every character. This includes not only the historical female activists, but also all of the male historical figures such as President Woodrow Wilson and his chief aide Dudley Malone.

The Benedum was packed to the rafters with women of every age—from elementary school students to those with nose piercings and tattoos to ladies with walkers and wheelchairs. The scattering of men who accompanied the females could only admire and join in on their enthusiasm.

It reminded me of a Taylor Swift concert for women of all ages. Suffs was a celebration of womanhood and what it took to achieve the right to vote for half of America’s growing population.

While the suffrage movement shares many parallels with the Black civil rights movement, there were also major differences. Up until the beginning of the twentieth century, society viewed men as responsible for the public and political world, while women were expected to focus on the home and family. Some critics warned that permitting women to vote would lead to neglected children and the destruction of family values. Others argued that politics was a blood sport, too corrupt and immoral for women. Under this theory, women were kept away from politics for their own protection. Lastly, there was the widely held view that since a husband represented his entire family, the wife and daughters would never vote independently to express their own opinions.

It is difficult to imagine that only 100 years ago these perceptions were widely held. How could women be excluded from exercising the most basic right in a democratic constitutional republic?

Today, The League of Women Voters website proclaims: “We believe in the power of women to create a more perfect democracy. That’s been our vision since 1920, when the League was founded by leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. Women are more likely to vote than men. When women vote, organize, and engage in public life, they influence the direction of policies that affect millions of people nationwide.”

The suffragists’ battle was a seven-decade campaign of activism until the right to vote was achieved. The movement started in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in upper New York state. Approximately 300 people, women and men, attended the two-day event at a local church. The African American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass was in attendance. Black men would win the right to vote well before any woman could cast a ballot.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott are considered the founders of the suffrage movement. For the convention, Stanton wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” that would become known as the Women’s Declaration of Independence.

Sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed the final document calling for many societal changes to ensure equality for women. The document begins by asserting the equality of all men and women. It reiterates that both genders are endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It argues that women are oppressed by the government and the patriarchal society of which they are apart. The most controversial provision was the vote for women.

Several years ago, my spouse and I spent a day in the beautiful town of Seneca Falls. The main attraction is the Women’s Rights National Historical Park. There is an excellent visitor’s center and several historical buildings. We returned home with multiple copies of the Declaration of Sentiments. Each time a female family member or friend started her career, we framed a copy for her first work space.

After Seneca Falls, Susan B, Anthony joined the movement and was the face of women’s suffrage until her death in 1906. The musical Suffs covers the years 1913 to 1920. It focuses on the final seven-year fight leading up to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

One of the final scenes in Suffs is a true event with high drama.  Tennessee state Representative Harry Burns receives an emotional letter from his mother, compelling him to think about equality as it affects the women in his family.  Burns cast the tie breaking vote, making Tennessee the 36^th and final state to ratify the 19^th Amendment.  National Secretary of State, Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever.

Initially, the turnout of women voters was lower than men’s. It would take decades for women to become equal in the electoral process. Suffs ends with a scene where the struggle for women’s rights is passed from the older suffrage movement to the younger members of the National Organization of Women (NOW).

The recent “Me Too” movement, focusing on sexual abuse and harassment, demonstrates that there is still work to be done.

 

 

THE PROPOSED SAVE ACT WOULD SUPPRESS VOTING

 

For months, President Trump and his administration have been fixated on one issue. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with ending the war in Iran or with the affordability of groceries and gasoline.

Trump’s primary goal this spring and summer has been the passage of the SAVE Act and its expanded version, the SAVE America Act (the Act). Trump is apparently convinced that these voter suppression measures would prevent some citizens likely to cast ballots for Democrats from exercising their right to vote in the November midterms. The proposed voter suppression law is intended to stem the tide of a blue Democratic wave that is poised to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress.

Trump is afraid that a Democratic landslide in the November midterms would mark the end of his unchallenged authoritarian rule. Moreover, if Democrats are in the majority and in control of Congressional committees, they would immediately begin investigations into Trump’s illegalities. This would include the blatant corruption of the Trump family and members of his inner circle.

For decades, mostly at the state level, a central tenet of Republican politics has been to win elections by making it difficult for their opponents to vote. Through enactment of laws that disproportionately burden minority voters (those requiring photo identification, restricting early voting, limiting registration opportunities, and purging voter rolls), Republicans have consistently sought to carve out of the electorate those that don’t support them. 

In 2016, North Carolina Republican lawmakers requested data on various voting practices, broken down by race. They then passed laws that restricted voting and registration in many ways that disproportionately affected African Americans, including cutting back on early voting. According to the ACLU, between 2008 and 2012, 70% of African American voters voted early in North Carolina.  After cuts to early voting, African American turnout in early voting was down by 8.7% (around 66,000 votes). The Fourth Circuit Appeals Court overturned this limitation on early voting.

Several states controlled by Republicans have attempted to suppress voting by requiring voter identification at polling places. It is common for states that have enacted these laws to demand forms of ID that are more often carried by white voters than minority ones, like drivers’ and gun licenses. Moreover, student IDs are often not permitted to lower the Democratic advantage in towns with colleges and universities.

Republicans have learned that they can suppress unwanted voters by intentionally causing long lines at voting places favored by Democrats. This is accomplished by limiting the number of voting machines or by excessively challenging voters to slow down voting in certain wards.

The purging of voter registration lists is a flawed process used to remove unwanted voters. The procedure is notorious for deleting valid voters. Purged eligible voters who recently got married or moved show up to vote on Election Day and find that they can’t cast a regular ballot.

Since Trump lost the presidency in 2016, MAGA election denial groups have been challenging voters’ eligibility on a massive scale. The groups pressure officials to investigate large numbers of voters based on unreliable information and conspiracy theories.

The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress took notice of the above suppression actions introduced by Republican state legislators. The original SAVE legislation was drafted by the ultraconservatives Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). While the Act has so far failed to gain traction, Trump refuses to give up on its passage.

Finally, on July 21, House Republicans voted to attach the SAVE America Act to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027. This is a last-ditch effort before the midterms to pass unpopular and dangerous voter suppression measures by shoehorning it into unrelated legislation.

How will this Act suppress voting? 1) Under the bill, voters wouldn’t be able to register to vote with their driver's license alone because licenses generally do not indicate citizenship. Instead, they would need a harder to obtain form of documentation, like a U.S. passport or birth certificate. 

2) The Act would implement a national voter ID requirement that is more burdensome than current state voter ID laws. 

3) The bill would severely threaten mail registration and require online registration systems to be overhauled to fit the bill’s requirements. During Senate floor debate, the President filed a now included amendment to significantly restrict Americans’ ability to vote by mail.

4) The Act mandates that states conduct frequent voter purges, even those based on faulty data. In addition, every state would be required to submit its voter registration list to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comparison to the agency’s error ridden data base.

5) There is a provision that election workers could go to prison for up to five years if they help to register somebody without the correct documents, even if the registered voter is a citizen.

In March of this year, Trump told a group of Republican lawmakers that passing the Acts would “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans. The bottom line is that there is no proof of the types of fraud Trump has cited to justify the legislation. The only justification for passing the Act is to prevent eligible Democrats from voting.

The SAVE America Act is currently in the U.S. Senate. Concerned voters should immediately contact our Pennsylvania Senators and voice opposition to this flagrant attempt to impose voter suppression.

 

 

 

 

 

  

THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL SATIRE

 

When a president is elected with whom you vehemently disagree, a four-year term can seem like a lifetime of pain and anguish. Thankfully, there is a bright spot when one’s political views are on the wrong side of an election outcome.

There is the constant stream of political satire against the party in power that has always been an important check and balance. The biting criticisms and humor against the elected officials you do not support can be uplifting. They provide a daily smile, and even thoughts of “I told you so.” Political satire provides entertainment while making a point.

Since the last national election, social media and newspaper op-ed pages have ceased satirizing a “demented” Joe Biden or a “crazy” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both of whom I hold in high regard. Today, the latest occupant of the White House and his minions have given those who specialize in political satire plenty of ammunition with which to ply their trade.

This commentary will explore two topics that seem to have little in common, but which are now forever joined at the hip. First, what does it mean to be political, and how did this side of human nature come to be the focus of unrelenting attack and ridicule? Second, what is the history of political satire and how did it develop into a full-time pursuit for so many journalists, comedians and cartoonists?

From a civics class perspective, the political world is something to admire, not ridicule. “Political” describes anything related to government and how it operates. It broadly refers to how decisions, laws, and policies are made within societies, from democratic nations to authoritarian ones.

In describing the concept of “political”, a distinction is usually made between a “political system” and “political rights.” The former refers to how a country is officially managed and the latter refers to the level of freedoms citizens have to participate in their government.

For those that are interested in understanding the evolution of political institutions, the two books to read are The Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay, by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time, Frances Fukuyama. By the conclusion of the second book, the reader comes away with an understanding of the chronological development of political order and of our choices now and for the future.

When I attend a family or social gathering and receive instructions to “not discuss anything political” it seems like an odd request. In my mind everything is political. All aspects of daily life are influenced by resource allocation, regulations and societal power dynamics that determine how we live.

Conversations about the weather are cloaked in the politics of climate change. Discussions on cultural matters including art, books, films and television all come with political opinions. Recently, even sports topics have crossed the line and now entail political debate.

The political realm does not receive the decorum and respect afforded to other broad human endeavors such as religion and science. Politics has been hijacked from being an important process of collective human problem solving into a zero-sum battleground.

In modern America politics, there is a tribal, all-out-fight for cultural dominance through the use of social media engagement. The goal is partisan political supremacy. Unlike religion and science, nothing is sacred or above reproach.  It has become more difficult for citizens to separate respect for the institutional authority of government from the actions of individual politicians.

This brings me to the subject of political satire which has a long and fascinating history. The book that helped me understand it all is State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature, by Dan Sperrin. The author traces the history of political satire through the timeline of English literature. This includes the work of Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Charles Dickens.

For centuries English satire has dedicated itself to the recurring subjects of the legitimacy of rule, the succession of dynasties, the ambition of prime ministers, and the administration of government. The further back in time that a piece of satire was published, the more likely that the writing “goes about exposing the world’s political imbecility in indirect ways.” After all, the goal of each author was to get a point across while staying out of prison, or worse.

I enjoyed the approach in Sperrin’s book of describing each political period in full before turning to the satirists who entered the fray. What surprised me is that some early satirists pulled no punches. Thomas Nashe, from the Elizabethan period called himself the “evil angel” and hated Puritans.  Nashe articulated his take on satire: “Who feeds revenge hath found an endless Muse.”

The discussion on Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift is excellent. Swift’s imagination generated a satire on the entire human species. He had an unmatched command of irony and could create fictional personas that reflected his moral outrage against insincerity. He did this without lecturing the reader directly.

In the end, the connection between “the political” and “satire” becomes clearer. Satire hates corruption, ambition, arrogance, stupidity, depravity, futility and above all, hypocrisy. Unfortunately, politicians continuously supply examples of all of the above.

We need satire to continue to point out the ways in which political vices degrade the rest of human life. We can then work to bring respect back to the ‘political.”