Win Some, Lose Some

 As usual, things are changing so fast that the blogs I start to write are obsolete before I finish them. Life is like that.

I started to write about the wreckage that was once the Republican Party, and why it’s important for political parties to actually stand for something, not just pledge allegiance to one person.

I was enjoying a fantasy about replacing the American Flag with a Trump 2020 flag, but, well, too much water had gone under that particular bridge.

Then I started on a blog about the Senate finally seizing its last, best chance to shake off the legacy of Donald Trump - you know, watching Republicans finally get out from their deal with the devil - and you saw what happened there.

Also tried to explain the inevitability of it all, how every political party will win some elections and lose some elections. But I Iooked at the 2020 Congressional vote again and saw the Democrats managed to do both at the same time.

You may have noticed the last four paragraphs you’ve read each contain an old saying, one that has become a cliche. That’s because they still work.

I know some people who need to take powerful drugs to control pain, then taper off and have some really bad side effects. A deal with the devil, they say.

Win some, lose some is so common that people no longer remember when it was first used, although baseball and gambling are the two most likely sources.

Water under the bridge? It seems like just about any position Ted Cruz takes, then changes a few weeks later. That was water under the bridge. To be fair, he has to keep up with the opinions of Donald Trump, which can’t be easy.

Which brings me to my new, mature reflection on the modern GOP, a party that agreed to take in a whole batch of crazies in order to win one last national election. The party is still slowly waking up to the fact that Donald Trump is not really gone, and they may never have the ability to get rid of him and his family. Certainly not when he can raise so much money by just hinting he isn’t through with politics.

And how could that Law and Order party ever give up its support from the Boogaloo Bois, the QAnon believers, the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters or the Wolverine Watchmen?

Well, one more old saying - never say never. Who knows what might happen when some loyal Republican officeholders decide they would like to run for some federal office with more responsibility than being a copy machine?

Now, the final old saying. Win the battle, lose the war. That’s what the Republicans seem to have done. The party took in a lot of Trump’s die-hard supporters - you’ve probably seen them marching and shouting - and it gave them the bump needed for him to win the election four years ago.

But, they also chased away people in the Republican Party who didn’t share their enthusiasm for all things Trumpian. The GOP’s initial response seemed to be “who cares.” Later, it changed to “we don’t want you if you don’t want him.”

So, the support for Trump among registered Republicans has never gone down. In fact, it is bigger than when he started. And, the number of voters in the party keeps shrinking. Which is really bad when you realize how many Republicans are over 65.

You could say the GOP won its battle against Hillary Clinton, and they lost the war - the one for the popular vote, for support among the general public and for a meaningful future roll in our federal government.

Oh, there will still be some victories for them. Nothing in politics is a straight line. Some of Joe Biden’s programs won’t get passed, or get changed so much they will be just a pale shadow of what he wanted.

Some of his judicial appointments won’t get approved. Some of his tax plans won’t pass, either.

You might say he will win some and lose some. Just like every other president the country has had, going back to George Washington, who famously warned our nation not to create political parties for fear it would create divisions in our new nation. He also warned us not to get involved with the affairs in Europe, which lasted for well over a century. World War I marked an end to that idea.

It raises a question - if every President wins some things and loses some others, how do we rate them?

Well, the only Hall of Fame we seem to have for Presidents is in South Dakota. That’s Mount Rushmore, where 60-foot high faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were carved into the Black Hills between 1927 and 1941.

No face of Kennedy, Reagan, Nixon or Trump, even though that last ex-president thought he should join the group.

There actually may be some other Presidents who deserve to be considered among our greatest and best. You could make a good argument for Roosevelt or Truman or Lyndon Johnson. Throw in Dwight Eisenhower in as well. 

After all, Eisenhower expanded Social Security, quietly opposed Joseph McCarthy, signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act and sent Army troops into Arkansas to integrate schools in Little Rock after federal courts ordered it. And, when his term was over, he went back to his farm in Pennsylvania.

 

You might also create a Hall of Shame wing for past presidents like Herbert Hoover, just like the Baseball Hall of Fame could create a Hall of Shame wing for steroid users and other bad behavior. I could think of another one, too.

Maybe the baseball idea of win some, lose some has to be looked at differently. I think we should be asking “what did you win, and what did you lose?”

Roosevelt gets credit for working to stop Adolph Hitler, and Truman desegregated the armed forces and led the recovery after World War II. You might add stopping Soviet expansion during the Cold War. Johnson gave us the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Trump has managed to make some very rich people a lot richer, by increasing the divide in our country between the rich and poor. Don’t send me nasty notes about how the super-rich earned it by their hard work and inventiveness, unless you first explain how not having to pay taxes qualifies as hard work and inventiveness.

So, let Congress fight over the economic relief and stimulation plan, let Republicans and Democrats fight over political appointments and the Green New Deal, and let weather and international problems and the re-opening of our economy continue to grab our attention.

This blog, at least, should be current for at least a couple of more weeks.

(Footnote - The faces carved on Mt. Rushmore violate a peace treaty with the Lakota Sioux, that promised them undisturbed use and occupation of the Black Hills, which the tribe considers sacred land.

The treaty was broken after gold was discovered and settlers moved in. General William Tecumseh Sherman signed the treaty in 1866.

You know how it goes. Win some, lose some.