Maine Moves Further Left

Behind our house in Maine

When I moved to Maine from Massachusetts in 1977, Democrats ran things. As the new Director of Special Education for the Fryeburg School District SAD 72, I traveled around the state to attend workshops and meet with state officials trying to bring Maine into compliance with federal law under the new US Department of Education just forming in the Carter Administration. 

Joe Brennan

With longish hair, beard, and Irish surname, Maine officials correctly assumed I was a fellow-traveling Democrat and tried to enlist my help go elect Joe Brennan governor. In Maine, as in Massachusetts where I grew up, Irish Americans took naturally to politics — nearly all of them Democrats. At our dinner table growing up, politics were discussed nearly every evening. It was in my blood.

But I’d had enough of electoral politics by 1977. My work with John Kerry’s unsuccessful 1972 congressional campaign had soured me. He spent more money than any other candidate for Congress in the entire country. I had rubbed elbows with lots of deep-pocketed lobbyists and supportive celebrities at fundraisers and it all left a bad taste in my mouth. All my previous experience had been in state and local races, but the Kerry campaign gave me a feel for big-time Democrat politics. I didn’t like it.

I still paid attention by reading the Boston Globe, watching WGBH, and listening to NPR, but my worldview was well left of those outlets at the time. I consumed every detail of the Watergate Scandal as it unfolded and voted for Carter in 1976. I worked on a community newspaper with Saul Alinsky radicals transplanted from Cambridge to Lowell, but I longed to move away from an increasingly urbanized Greater Boston and head to northern New England.

With job offers from Brunswick, Augusta, and Fryeburg, I chose the latter because mountains captivated me more than the coast. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my personal politics were changing. I was slowly modifying my world view in a push/pull process. The Democrat Party and public education were both moving leftward while conservative explanations of how the world functioned seemed less hard-hearted and more realistic compared to liberal narratives. 

As I crossed what might be called the “moderate middle” sometime in the early to mid-nineties, my movement rightward accelerated and I voted Republican from 1996 onward. Regular readers of this column will be surprised to learn that Saul Alinsky’s actually made sense to me forty years ago. I can hardly believe it myself. In 2019 Maine Democrats are where I was in 1974 — on the radical left.

Democrats who took over Maine last November are quite different from the comparatively moderate, Joe Brennan Democrats of the 1970s. Last summer they were outraged when Senator Susan Collins cast the deciding vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. Some opened a crowdfunding campaign to which millions were pledged and would go to a candidate challenging her in 2020. By October the fund surpassed $3.5 million, “… not an insignificant amount for a political race in a state with one of the smallest populations in the country (1.3 million),” said the Washington Post. Then last week, a headline in the Washington Free Beacon caught my eye: “‘Queer Feminist Mermaid’ Surfaces to Challenge Susan Collins.”

I wish I were kidding but I’m not. US Senate candidate Bre Kidman was: “politically mobilized by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight,” according to the Free Beacon, and “hopes to be the first gender nonbinary queer elected to the U.S. Senate… On Facebook, Kidman is described as a ‘criminal defense attorney by day and radical fat queer/performance artist/model/musician/activist most other times.’” So far, she’s the only declared Democrat candidate.

Bre Kidman

Since 1992, Republicans were in control only during 2011 and 2012. Every other year, Democrats controlled the House and often also the Senate and the Blaine House as well. For nine years over that span, Democrats controlled all three. For another eight, the allegedly Independent Angus King was governor but behaved as a liberal Democrat — just as he does now in the US Senate.

In complete control again in 2019, Democrats want taxpayers to fund abortions and allow nurse practitioners and midwives to perform them. They want a forty-cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline, kerosene, and home heating oil to pressure Mainers to reduce consumption, but outraged citizens filled the hearing room and an overflow room objecting. The bill failed and a study will be done instead but expect another vote on it next session.

Democrats also want to renew state reimbursement for General Assistance welfare benefits paid to non-citizens that Governor Lepage squashed. A respite from Democrat control was brief under LePage, but Democrats are back and more “progressive” than ever.

Trump Derangement Syndrome Persists

Platform or personality? When deciding for whom to vote, how much weight does each carry in voters’ minds? Is it more important to agree with candidates than to like them? What if you like them but you don’t concur on the issues? As I’ve listened to people in the four years since Donald Trump first announced his candidacy for president it has become evident among his detractors that hatred for him as a man far outweighs whatever his performance has been as president. Trump’s supporters, however, care more about what he does than about what he says or tweets.

Trump supporters cringed when he said he got the most electoral votes since Ronald Reagan because a quick search reveals that he didn’t. His egotism is so enormous that the presidency with its all its ego-stroking perks cannot satisfy it, but his favorability ratings climb nonetheless. Trump’s base is satisfied because he’s doing what he said he would do, like appointing conservative judges to the courts, cracking down on illegal immigration, and reining in China’s illegal trade practices.

That drives the left and the media — which Trump supporters see as conjoined twins — absolutely bonkers because they not only hate Trump, they also disagree with him on the issues. Rather than criticize his policy positions though, they fire ad hominem salvos — continuously. Trump is racist, sexist, xenophobic, they insist, and so are those who voted for him. Leftist politicians and media have done little else throughout Trump’s presidency, but the effect has been the opposite of what they intend. Rather than drive them apart, relentless criticism of both the president and his base drives them closer together.

Some Trump supporters wish he would consult with staff before talking or tweeting. If he didn’t trip over his own tongue so much he could have implemented more of his agenda by now, they believe, and who could argue? Others say they held their nose voting for him in 2016 but have since grown to like him in spite of the dumb things he says. As Senator and former opponent, Lindsay Graham said last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC): “We have a lot in common; I like him and he likes him.”

The Mueller report is due any time now but many are beginning to realize that it will have no evidence of Trump collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. However, Democrats won a majority in the US House last November and with that comes control of key committees, so Democrat chairmen are using subpoena power to scrutinize Trump on many fronts. Will they find anything with which to impeach the president?

It’s hard to believe they will considering that media coverage of Trump has been more than 90% negative and they’ve been looking everywhere for negative things to report. The two-year Mueller investigation has probed so many areas far afield from its original charge of investigating Russian collusion that we have to wonder what’s left to investigate. It seems clear now that removing Trump from office is the goal for Democrats and if there’s no Russian collusion, they’ll look for something else.

Meanwhile, Democrats who want to run against him are voluminous and more announce almost every day. They’re promising the moon: free tuition, free medical care, government jobs for everyone, money for those unwilling to work, reparations for descendants of slaves and Indians, and rebuilding every single structure in the whole country. When asked how to pay for all that, they say they’ll tax the rich and print money.

Meanwhile, the national debt has reached $22 trillion, eclipsing annual GDP — Gross Domestic Product — the sum total of all economic activity in the country. Some of us remember that twenty years ago President Clinton and a Republican Congress worked together to balance the federal budget and even talked about spending the surplus to actually pay down the national debt rather than keep adding to it every year.

Trump’s tax cuts have stimulated the economy and government revenues are rising, but government is expanding even faster and so is the annual deficit. It’s growing at about $1 trillion a year again. This used to used to be a big issue for Republicans though doesn’t seem to be anymore ever since Trump took office. Americans paid $523 billion interest on the debt in 2018 and that will keep rising. How long can this go on?

All of us know how much we make and how much we spend — what happens when we spend more than we make. There’s a limit to how much debt we can sustain before it seriously cramps our lifestyle. We don’t need degrees in political science or economics to understand the same is true for our country no matter what part of the political spectrum we occupy.

Courage From a Boy and a Priest

Father Peter Shaba

America sent many missionaries to Africa. Now Africa is sending them to us because the Catholic faith is growing there but has atrophied here. One such is Father Peter Shaba from Nigeria who said 10:30 mass last Sunday at Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fryeburg, Maine. His homily on abortion was only the third I’ve heard in thirty years of attending mass nearly every week all over New England.

“If the mission of Jesus is to save life,” said Father Shaba in reference to Sunday’s mass readings, “for us his followers, our mission is to save and protect life as well. Yes, to save and protect life no matter how young or old that life is, especially the most vulnerable, the unborn. But is that the world mission today? Especially [for] those [who] call themselves Christians — good Catholics? Brothers and sisters, good Catholics don’t support the killing of innocent children — never.”

“We [all]watched what just happened in New York — the passing of the abortion law legalizing abortion up until birth, the Reproductive Health Act which was called ‘a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values…’ Are we progressing as humans in matters of life or are we retrogressing?” asked Father Shaba. “When we can kill babies who are very vulnerable, who should be cared for and protected since they cannot do that for themselves — but instead of doing that, we are happy and joyous that a law signing their death warrant has just been passed?”

He was referring to all the Catholic legislators who celebrated as Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on the 46th anniversary of Roe V Wade. As Fox News reported it: “Cuomo directed the 408-foot spire on the One World Trade Center, the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany to be lit pink to ‘celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.’” 

Father Shaba continued: “I watched with sadness the man who signed this law [and] the women who were with him, other men and women present there especially those close to him — how happy they were, cheering him on, the grandmother who sat close to him, happy, laughing, cheering evil and thinking that all is well? These people should be crying and wailing. Brothers and sisters, I am telling you today: all is not well. We need to pray for our nation.”

Catholics, including lay people, priests, and a few American bishops are calling on their fellow bishops to censure Governor Cuomo — either excommunicate him or at least to deny him the Eucharist in his home parish. Is anything stirring? On Saturday, Bishop of Albany Edward Scharfenberger wrote to Governor Cuomo, according to according to Fox News: “Your advocacy of extreme abortion legislation is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church.”

Cuomo knows what he’s doing: making an ass of his bishop. So what now Bishop Scharfenberger? Another strong letter to follow? Only days before signing this sinful bill, Governor Cuomo “touted his Catholic faith during the State of the State address,” according to Fox News. Ordinary Catholics want their bishops to do something and we’re gravely disappointed with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for refusing to uphold, or even practice Catholic teachings. How can they now allow Cuomo to peddle his Catholicism for political purposes and days later publicly defy the church to which he claims to belong? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of Canon Law: “The diocesan bishop governs with legislative, executive, and judicial powers according to the norms of law.” Do your job, bishop!

Nick Sandmann, Bishop Foy

And speaking of cowardly bishops, what did Covington, Kentucky Bishop do last week after a Covington Catholic High School boy was pilloried in the pro-abortion media for marching against abortion? Did he defend the boy? No. The bishop threatened him with expulsion! As LifeSiteNews reported: “Bishop Roger Joseph Foy of Covington, Kentucky, along with the Covington Catholic High School administration succumbed to the mainstream media's leftist spin of the Friday, January 19 altercation.”

When our bishops lack the courage of a sixteen-year-old high school junior in the face of political and media pressure, what are we to think? Do they really believe in the teachings of the church they pretend to lead? It’s no wonder pews are emptying and churches are closing in America and Europe. Too few priests and bishops believe strongly enough in church teachings to champion them.

It takes a boy and a priest from Africa to show us what courage looks like, to shine the light on what America has become when “progressive” Catholics celebrate the slaughtering of our unborn children while calling it “Reproductive Health Care.”

Leaning Windward

What the old man said about me was accurate. He’s been dead a while now and I’d forgotten about it, but his words have been popping back into my head a lot lately. “You have the character of the tiller,” he told me.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“You know when someone stretches way out over the windward gunnel when a sailboat leans too far? He’s trying to bring the mast upright lest the boat capsize.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve seen that.”

“That’s what you try to do in your writing.” 

He was a liberal, but more of a classical liberal than a leftist or a “progressive” as they call themselves today. He was willing to consider any idea on its merit and wasn’t dubious because it might be conservative. If he didn’t agree he would argue logically, not acrimoniously. Together we formed a political discussion group, an old-fashioned salon. For the first few years it was all men, many of them WWII vets and all somewhat left of center, I was too — then. I was the youngest member at a time when my own perspective started moving right. We met every two weeks in a library the old man had built in part of his barn.

The old man

During the ten or so years of my involvement I was still a Democrat, but the party’s movement left was accelerating. The old man saw me trying to counteract that in my writing even before I did. I had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, but was dismayed by what he was doing and considered resigning from the Democrat Party, but the old man urged me to work from within. Our group started moving left also as new members came in and railed against Clinton’s impeachment. I began to skip meetings and eventually stopped attending altogether. Not long after, the group disbanded.

My movement right continued. I registered Republican but I was still feeling isolated as the education establishment was moving harder left along with all of New England, including Maine’s Republican Party. Some in the community began assuming that I was inculcating students with the same conservative views I expressed in my columns. I was “poisoning young minds,” they claimed. They pressured my district’s administrators, the school board, and Maine’s teacher licensing agency to discipline me and worse. My administrators knew their charges were baseless but had to respond to their complaints with an investigation. I was cleared, but being an out-of-the-closet conservative in public schools got increasingly difficult. Other leftists came after me too, which is the subject of a book I’m still working on.

Antifa

Nationwide now, acrimony dominates left-right debate and is increasing to dangerous levels — even to violent attacks by far-left "Antifa" goons on college campuses and in the streets. That’s bad enough, but what is perhaps worst of all is something The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol wrote last week:

For young Americans today, Donald Trump is the face of Republicanism and conservatism.

They don't like that face. And the danger, of course, is that they'll decide their judgment of Trump should carry over to the Republican party that nominated him and the conservative movement that mostly supports him. If he is indeed permitted to embody the party and the movement without challenge, the fortunes of both will be at the mercy of President Trump's own fortunes.

Trump’s fortunes are tanking. That scares me because I think Kristol’s analysis is on the mark. At the 41st annual convention of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists last weekend, I sat in the audience as Maureen Dowd delivered a devastatingly effective diatribe against Trump. The smart-ass Irish wit in her DNA was on full display. On Ms. Dowd’s bad side isn’t a safe place for anyone to be. Earlier that day, Manchester Union Leader publisher Joe McQuaid, a conservative, also displayed his disdain for Trump in just a couple of short remarks.

Trump and McQuaid

With majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans cannot unite behind Trump and, so far, Trump isn’t a good enough leader to bring them together. Has he got it in him to become one? I hope so, but I’m not optimistic. At this point, I’m afraid of how much more damage he’ll do to the conservative movement if he doesn’t.

In Bill Kristol, I see myself as the old man saw me thirty years ago. He’s been leaning far out over the gunnel too, trying to steer his party away from Trump. He has a bigger megaphone and might persuade more people to join him.

I’m a small-time columnist and he’s the founder and editor of a widely respected, national, conservative magazine. Can he prevent the conservative Republican ship of state from capsizing? Can he bring the mast up straight? I don't know. We’ll see.

Don't Do It

Never judge a book by its cover, they say, but sometimes I can’t help myself. What’s the first thing you notice about Donald Trump? The hair, right? For a long time, I couldn’t get past it and dismissed him from serious consideration. Who would go out in public with that coiffure, I asked myself. Think of the time it takes every day to make his hair look like that. It was hard to see it as anything but a vanity flag.

When I wrote about this before the election, several enthusiastic Trump supporters emailed me to express dismay. They saw what I saw, but to them his hair indicated he didn’t care what people thought. It was a sign of confidence and they liked that. They believed Donald Trump alone had the gumption to go to Washington, DC and turn things upside down, and that’s exactly what they wanted him to do. I knew I’d vote for him if he won the nomination but I hoped he wouldn’t. Neither did I expect him to win the general election, but he did.

Betsy DeVos

It’s only been a month, but I have to admit I really like what he's doing so far. The people he’s appointing are terrific. As a career teacher with strong opinions about how to improve education, I applaud his appointment of Betsy DeVos. The best way to improve public schools is to break the teachers’ union stranglehold over them. The best way to do that would be fostering voucher programs in our states and local districts — and the best person to do that is Betsy DeVos. She is a longtime champion of vouchers in her home state and supported with her own money. Vouchers would empower real innovation in education by breaking the public school monopoly and allowing private citizens to form their own, decentralized schools. Local control of education will bring real change, unlike that bastion of entrenched special interests and stifling bureaucracy that is Washington, DC.

I might have violated that “never judge” dictum in the case of another New Yorker — the writer, Tom Wolfe — but I never got the chance. If I’d seen Wolfe on the covers of Time and Newsweek dressed like a dandy courtier for Louis XVI, it is likely I would never have picked up Bonfire of the Vanities, the first of his books I read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I was somewhat shocked afterward when I saw what he looked like. I was also surprised that it was his first novel. He was a successful writer of non-fiction up to that time and the move to novel writing seemed effortless. After Bonfire, I enjoyed A Man in Full, I Am Charlotte Simmons, and Back To Blood.

Language is Wolfe’s stock in trade, and he believes it a uniquely human ability that did not evolve from lower animals. Just a few months ago, he published Kingdom of Speech in which he ridicules two sacred cows of the secular left: Darwinism and Chomskyism. He claims Charles Darwin stole ideas from an obscure researcher named Alfred Russell Wallace and published them as his own. He also portrays MIT linguist and leftist demigod Noam Chomsky as vile and vindictive toward anyone who questions him. Anthropologist Daniel Everett’s work on the language of the obscure Piraha tribe of the Amazon is outlined in the bestselling Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes. It casts doubt on Chomsky’s long insistence that humans evolved with a “language organ” in our brains even if neurosurgeons have never found one. The language organ explains “universal grammar” in all language, Chomsky maintains. Piraha language, however, not only lacks “universal grammar,” it lacks tense. There is no future, no past, only eternal present. There are no numbers or colors either.

Piraha and Everett

Wolfe’s Kingdom of Speech enrages the left, but it cannot be attacked as religious hocus-pocus. While Daniel Everett is an evangelical Christian, he doesn’t argue from there. Rather, he bases his case on scientific observation while living with the Piraha for decades. And, Tom Wolfe is an atheist. He endorses Everett’s ideas from a logical standpoint and teases both Chomsky and Darwin for their pomposity. Typical of the left, neither Chomsky nor his defenders have any sense of humor which makes teasing them so much fun for Wolfe.

Wolfe has been cranking out books that are windows on American culture for a long time while Trump is just beginning his career in government. He could still screw up, but he seems to have already taken over the presidency. He’s leading us while Obama is yelling, “Hey! I’m still here! Look at me and my legacy!”

There’s a lesson for me in all this. From now on, I won’t judge people with facial metal, neck tattoos, or purple hair. I’m going to look past those things… I think.