Thinking-out-loud department:
• Donna Crane’s recent column about women in government in America got me to thinking deep thoughts. Here’s one thought to explain why there are such low numbers of women in government.
Sociologically, the United States is stuck in the 19th Century. Men ruled the roost, and women knew their place which was, as the Germans used to say, kuche, kirchen, und kinder, that is to say, kitchen, church, and children. There has been progress on some fronts, but not on all fronts. The western part of the country is still of a frontier mindset by which the men are cowboys and the women are commodities and “law-and-order” is the six-gun and the noose.
The resurgence of white supremacy/nationalism in these United States is indicative of this failure to break the old cultural molds. Women are being assaulted physically and sexually left, right, and center, and their assaulters are punished by a slap on the wrist. Worse, the victims who dare to speak out become the guilty parties and are vilified left, right, and center.
• Another problem area is the rise to economic dominance on the world stage by the so-called “People’s Republic of China.” Government officials, the press, and the economists who are woefully ignorant of history, and that is most of them, insist upon referring to that country as “Communist China” when it is no such thing. Communism in China died when Mao Zedong died in 1976, and his successors embarked upon a different path. If there is socialism in that country, it is the national socialism of Nazi Germany wherein everything is tightly controlled and only favored individuals are free of restraints. China embraced capitalism with a vengeance, and it is buying its way across the globe to be the new economic giant, just as the U.S. once did.
The reason that China is pursuing this course is because of its cultural history. Once upon a time, during the imperial era, the Chinese referred to their territory as the “Middle Kingdom.” This had nothing to do with geography, but with ideology. They believed that they were at the center of the world and that the rest of humanity were barbarians who needed their “guidance.” Anyone who attempted to invade their territory were either defeated or assimilated. This notion was turned on its head with the intrusion by Europeans and later by Americans. These invaders could not be defeated or assimilated, and the Chinese had to bear this insult with as much equipoise as they could muster. And so they bided their time, plotted their revenge on the West, and implemented various methods when they decided the time was right. So far, they have succeeded.
• By the time you read these words, dear reader, the U.S. will be agog with impeachment doings. In all likelihood, the Democrats in the House of Representatives will present articles of impeachment to the Republicans in the Senate, and it is anybody’s guess what will happen there. As it stands, the Democrats need 20 Republicans to buck their party and convict The Donald of high crimes and misdemeanors.
I can tell you that those GOP senators are between a rock and a hard place, particularly if they are up for re-election next year, which by no mean coincidence number 20!. If they choose to convict the president, his loyalists will storm the barricades (as it were) and quash all re-election bids; if, on the other hand, the 20 choose to stand shoulder to shoulder in support of the president, they risk a backlash by large swaths of citizens, many of whom have not voted in a long time, who will quash those re-election bids.
There is a third scenario. Those GOP senators who have announced their retirement or their desire not to stand for re-election (for “personal reasons”) possibly could flip Trump the bird and take him down with them. They have nothing to lose, and they will punish our accidental president for making a mockery of all that America once stood for.
Just a thought.