America the Beautiful

                               America the Beautiful

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 7/15/18

            When America was discovered with forests so replete, old William Bradford and others with the Indians did meet.  Of course they weren’t really Indians, we later on did learn.  We called them that because Columbus’ ship had made an erroneous turn.

            It was Christopher C. who started it all in 1492, but a hundred and fifteen years would pass before the first colony grew. But anyhow when Pilgrims came, departing their native land, awaiting them were snakes and bears and the elements on every hand.  Conditions grave deterred them not, though disease and death did reign.  To achieve their goal of freedom, they gladly endured the pain.  Thousands more from the Old World came to escape a duke or a king, and the price they paid could not compare to the sound of freedom’s ring.   

            Dismiss if you must the hand of God in preparing a place for the free, but Washington, Adams, and Madison, too, would strongly disagree.  “Man was not made for chains,” they said, as they mapped out a new way of life, and their document done, they sang in the sun that freedom would now be rife.

            Inconsistent were they and evil too, to place black men in chains, but who but those who dwell in the past would say that slavery still reigns?  Good will? I see it daily twixt Americans of every bent.  Let’s all remember we twice elected a young, black president.

            Our family feud was sorrowful, where brother against brother did fight.  The thousands slain, the enmity that reigned created a four-year night.  But Mr. Lincoln’s steadfast honor was clear for all to see, and it was matched, as we all know, by the character of Robert E. Lee.  So tear Lee down, and Stone Mountain, too, you cultural cleansers all, but when you do, the healing we need, your actions will forestall.

            There was little talk of healing during WW I and II.  Our minds were on the Kaisers and Hitler, and the Japanese emperor too.  But both wars led America to the heights of influence and power.  America’s doughboys and Churchill were the heroes of the hour.  Two of my older brothers dear fought in Belgium’s theater.  They both came home to tell us God was everybody’s Creator.  For late in the War in’45 even before troops were mixed, at Ludendorff Bridge whites fought with blacks as racial bigotry was nixed.  When you fight beside a new black friend and see Death shroud his face, you realize that you were taught wrong things back home about race.

            My father was our textbook for the Depression years, I swear.  Tidbits of info on it at every meal he’d share.  Now a sack of flour cost thus and such and things were scarce, he said, but after a while the struggles of life are not a thing to dread.  They shore us up; they teach us well to smile through times of need.  If only what my father said more Americans today would heed.

            In Vietnam we lost our way for victory was not our goal.  Our sons and daughters all came home, as murderers, or so they were told.  On college campuses throughout the land, effete collegians sang.  At Woodstock, Boston, and L.A., their treasonous protests rang.  With Peter, Paul, and Mary’s ballads that made the students cry, the goodness of America they all began to deny.  Since of a winning spirit our leaders were bereft, we simply laid our weapons down and ceremoniously left.  Lost blood, lost years, lost soldiers not a few, we may have learned a lesson, but I doubt it; moreover, what with Afghanistan and other lands, is our nation building really over?

            Today our nation still stands strong, but there is much division.  And lest our snarling create more, we best make certain decisions.  Shall we continue on to treat our spending like a pet, thinking a nation can exist forever with permanent national debt?  Do moral issues matter?  Is our highest value our fun?  Would pro-abort folks pause if, for abortions, we used a gun?

            We have no solid guarantee our American experiment will last.  229 years of life is a very, very short past.  We best realize that spirit is what’s missing, you see, and that loving all our neighbors leads to true community.

            So hail to our America and to noble Francis Scott Key.  It was he who heralded our flag that night that led to our liberty.

Roger Hines

7/11/18

           

Whither America? The Moment is at Hand

                 Whither America?  The Moment is at Hand

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 7/8/18

It was bound to happen, the topsy-turvy state of American politics, that is.  Things change.  Flux is one of life’s absolute certainties.

Liberals typically celebrate this certainty.  Believing in the perfectibility of man, they favor and employ disruption to achieve it.  For most liberals, change is their modus operandi, not legitimate change through the legislative process, but change via the courts and the streets.

Conservatives observe change and are prone to yell, “Stop!” or at least “Hold on.”  They are perhaps the better students of history.  They question whether or not the Godless communists were any better than the 300-year reign of the church-going, peasant-holding Romanovs.  (The communists weren’t better. They were far, far worse.)  Conservatives rightly wonder why liberals used to love everything Russian and were so soft on communism, but now consider Russia a mortal enemy who colludes with Republicans.  Hhmmm.

Castro was just as evil as the deposed Batista.  One might ask if Mao’s “People’s Revolution” brought more freedom to the people.  It certainly did not.  So change is not always good.

Even so, change is happening fast in American politics.  The terms Democrat and Republican are becoming muddled.  We thought Donald Trump had muddled the words Republican and conservative, and that Democrats would profit from it.   But then Maxine Waters, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren became the face and voice of the Democrats, stirring the Democratic pot just as deeply.  Columnist George Will might want to reconsider his decision to leave the Republican Party if his intent was to go Democratic.

Donald Trump’s successful incursion into politics has delighted many Republicans and mortified others.  Trump has drawn to himself many Democrats and has driven other Democrats to unmask themselves, thus revealing their true socialist core.  Party distinctions and loyalties are no longer the beachhead for our political involvement.  Voters have begun to seek a singular voice, a disturber.  If that voice is imperfect, how perfect, how corruption-free are the parties?

Few if any media commentators have truly delved into why an unconventional Republican candidate became the Republican Party’s nominee and the nation’s President, or how a billionaire could so adeptly arouse the so-called working class.  Yet, this President with no political experience is getting at least a B+/A- for advancing his agenda.

Commentators and reporters study the news and produce their articles, but they obviously don’t study the electorate.  A reporter’s one-night stay in a remote town motel and a 30-minute session with the locals over breakfast, 30 seconds of which will be aired on television, doesn’t show who and what ordinary Americans are.  No breaking bread in a home, no driving and stopping through tired neighborhoods plus no riding down country roads equals fake information about ordinary Americans.

The folks about whom the media stars know little or nothing are the ones who are finding hope – even solace and camaraderie – in an upstart New Yorker.  And though the New Yorker probably didn’t hit any back roads either, he obviously touted positions and spoke words that the supposedly “uneducated, uninformed, cultist-inclined” Americans were waiting to hear.  Words like “more jobs,” “build the wall,” and “lower taxes.”  Trump lovers have never flocked to the courts or taken to the streets.  They’ve been at work.  Their saner tactic has been to keep waiting for the light and flocking to the voting booth.

The craziness of Maxine Waters and company, whom Democratic Party leaders have not disavowed, daily strengthens the New Yorker’s cause and broadens his base.  May her craziness increase! 

The moment is at hand.  Doubtless, our politics is moving away from parties and toward the individual who can best size up and stir up the most hearts and minds.  If we must blame someone, blame our two major parties.  It is they who have slow-walked on reducing spending, looked the other way when our southern border was being invaded, and allowed government to grow time and time again.  As a result, both parties are responsible for Donald Trump and his glorious deplorables.

As a rule, American voters turn rightward for solutions.  Think Nixon and “law and order,” Reagan and “the evil empire,” or Trump and “America First.”  Parties would best remember this. 

How many Republicans, not just President Obama, have been heard to say, “Those jobs are not coming back”?  But they are, and all because of a man, not a party.

Whither America will be answered partially in November of this year, and more fully in November of 2020.  For now, polls show that the people are feeling rather satisfied.

Roger Hines

7/4/18

     

Somebody Spank Those Young’uns

                         Somebody Spank Those Young’uns

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal,7/1/18

            Would anybody care to join me in my efforts to restore the abandoned practice of spanking?  Not hitting or striking. Spanking.

            We all know what spanking is and isn’t.  But oh, the horror stirring in the minds of readers whose minds are stuck on the words “hitting” and “striking,” even though I placed the word “not” in front of them.  Yes, modern psychology and parenting magazines have convinced most parents that they can reason with a child.  With some children you can, but I wouldn’t dote on it being a high percentage of today’s children.

            Our land, birthed in ruggedness and confidence and raised to great heights through ruggedness and confidence, has experienced an almost total loss of ruggedness and confidence when it comes to parenting.  We used to spank, but we’ve been shamed into inaction by “smart” people who write books and articles opposing it.  We’ve let them make us think we’re not as smart as they are.  I’ve read more articles on parenting than I can count, and I’ll put the wisdom and common sense of my 7^th grade educated mother and my 11^th grade educated, tenant farmer father up against any parenting expert.  My spanking parents weren’t mean.  They were wise.

            If I see one more 6-foot dad in a grocery store trying to negotiate with his 5-year-old kid, I’m going to scream.  I need the release.  Even the 6-foot, confidence-challenged dads have been seduced by the books and magazines.  Moms and dads both are constantly seeking permission from their little ones, usually with the question, “Okay?”  Make that “Okaaaay?”  String it out and maybe the child’s reasoning powers will miraculously emerge and prevail while you’re still asking for permission.

            When we see adults acting up in public (gathering and verbally attacking someone they disagree with) we can bet our last dime their parents said “Okaaaay” to them when they were children.  I mean, this situation didn’t start yesterday.  Ruggedness and confidence began to erode in the sixties.

            Many good things are happening in our country.  The economy is good; race relations are good (television news or commentary is not the measure here; your neighborhood, church, grocery store, and work place are the measure); the Nevada legislature is considering making brothels illegal, and charitable giving is still very strong, with Americans having given $373 billion in 2016.

            These facts are encouraging, but defiant, spoiled children (well, their parents) pose a present and future problem.  Children are in need of some parental shock and awe.  If parents can successfully deliver this commodity verbally, well and good.  If not, it’s time to use the belt again.  The tender approach has produced its visible fruit.  Belts, paddles, and switches on the well-padded gluteous-maximus never harmed anybody.

            The parenting books argue that “Because I said so” is a woeful response for a child who asks “Why?”  I can think of no better response.  Because Mom or Dad said so is the precise, the most supreme reason why a child should or should not do something.  If there is no ultimate authority for a child in the home, he or she is far more likely to face it before a judge or a jury.

            In his best-selling book, “12 Rules for Life,” Jordan Peterson asserts that when a father disciplines his son, he disturbs his son’s freedom, forcing him into acceptable behavior.  “But if the father doesn’t take such action,” Peterson writes, “he merely lets his son remain Peter Pan, the eternal Boy, King of the Lost Boys, Ruler of the non-existent Neverland.”  As one might guess, psychologist Peterson is breaking with his professional colleagues on this matter.

            Here is what the eternal boy (and girl) are doing that would have been embarrassing a few decades ago.  They are having their parents call up their college professors to complain about a grade.  Worse still, parents often show up on campus to discuss the perceived injustice. Good news: most professors refuse to talk to parents.  This situation should not be surprising.  Its culmination came when Obamacare allowed “children” up to age 26 to be carried on their parents’ insurance.

            If parents don’t start accepting the fact that maturity and individuality often must come through painful discipline, their children, according to Peterson, will “go to pieces in the face of adversity.”  We’re already seeing this.

            It’s time to reject philosophies and practices that produce bad results.  Time to spank again.  And please, let’s reinstate the military draft and let Uncle Sam do what Mom and Dad failed to do.

Roger Hines

6/27/18

The Rise of Numbers, the Demise of Spirit, the Death of Learning

The Rise of Numbers, the Demise of Spirit, the Death of                                                     Learning

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/24/18

            What did Tina Turner, Robert McNamara, and No Child Left Behind have in common?    For starters they all advanced the notion that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

In one of her classic songs, Turner raised the question, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”  As Secretary of Defense, McNamara ran the Vietnam War like a general manager, sounding forth on the Sunday television news shows as though he were still running Ford Corporation.  The No Child Left Behind law set in motion the great folly of trying to measure the immeasurable.

Let’s begin with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), while granting pure motives to its originators.  Let’s view it for what it was: an educational reform centered on “measurable goals” as a way to improve schools and heighten student performance.  Its catchy, humane title implied that great efforts would be made to close the achievement gap.  In 2015 President Obama signed a new version of this law which was called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).  ESSA was an acknowledgement that after 14 years, NCLB had brought only slight improvement.  No wonder.  Both bills tried to make education a managerial science.

The centerpiece of NCLB, inaugurated by President G.W. Bush in 2002, was annual testing.  Specifically, NCLB required any public school receiving federal funds to administer the annual tests to ensure that levels of proficiency would rise in math, reading, and science between grades three and eight.  The federal government mandated various penalties for schools that couldn’t show yearly improvement through standardized tests.  One penalty was the dismissal of underperforming teachers and principals.  Measure and punish, in other words.

Unintended consequences abound in far too much legislation. The punitive nature of NCLB/ESSA led to such consequences.  One was the inordinate amount of time spent preparing for and giving the tests.  Another was the predictable practice of “teaching to the test,” a spirit-killing practice if there ever was one.

The prissy word for all of this business is “metrics.”  Boiled down, metrics is the placing of numbers above people.  For decades we’ve known that the mindset of bureaucrats and managers is to measure all things quantitatively, to examine success rates, to look at the bottom line.  We can understand this.

We should also understand, however, that children and teenagers are neither salesmen, machines, nor responsible adults for that matter.  They are growing, developing minors whose learning can’t always be “measured” by quantitative methods.  Pity the teacher who is the hottest teacher on the planet, has been teacher of the year three times, has received national acclaim, but one year gets classes that possess no intellectual curiosity and are chiefly from dysfunctional families.  Don’t tell him or her that it’s the teacher’s responsibility to get the weak classes up to par on standardized tests unless you yourself have taught at least one year, in which case you would never expect such a miracle from any teacher.

The metrics craze ignored the fact that there are other methods besides tests to measure achievement such as grades, student work, attendance, and teachers’ evaluations.

Equally misguided, the military is often touched by the bad philosophy of “metrics.”  Defense Secretary McNamara was dubbed a managerial extremist for arguing that military commanders should be good at determining costs and profit margin.  Like the classroom, like the battlefield.   Education and war simply lie outside the realm of managerial principles, yet the managerial ethos is the heart of NCLB/ESSA.  War seems to defy neatly held ideas about numbers and how they should look.  So does a dynamic classroom filled with young human beings with as many different needs as there are children in the room. 

Turner’s song asks, “What’s love but a second-hand emotion?”  Her lyrics were actually sarcastic, pointing to our contemporary disdain for emotion or spirit and for things that cannot be quantified.

“Metrics” kills spirit.  Spirit is needed for athletic teams, the battlefield, and for children and teens in school.  In sales and in corporate land, maybe not, but in many of life’s endeavors, “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”  Much of teaching is to get students to dream, aspire, and reach higher, better things.  Measure that.

 Things that matter most – beauty, spirit, and the joy of living – cannot be measured.  The managerial mind has its place, but not in the classroom.  Knowledge must be tested, but tinkering with numbers and placing students into “cohorts” or “supersubgroups” to “measure” their progress is an abysmal practice.

Please call your senators, representatives, principals, and superintendents and tell them so.

Roger Hines

6/20/18

   

      

Time to Get our Dictionaries Out

                                      Time to Get our Dictionaries Out

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/17/18

            Let’s avoid the word treasonous right now, but subversive is not at all too strong.  President Trump’s detractors are engaging in subversion.

            Let’s also keep things simple.  To learn what a word means, rush to its verb form.  To subvert means “to intentionally weaken, overthrow, or destroy as in government” (The New International Webster’s Standard Dictionary, 2006).

            Leftists of all stripes are openly saying we should bring down our current president.  Comedian Bill Maher, who illustrates that comedy is serious business, recently opined that if it takes economic disaster to bring down Donald Trump, then let it happen.  MSNBC anchor Nicole Wallace, a former G.W. Bush staffer, called the president a liar while he was abroad seeking the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula.  She equated him with Kim Jong-un.

            Obviously Maher has no problem paying monthly bills, and Wallace has no grip on world history or geo-politics.  They are not alone.  The heightened anti-Trump verbal outbursts of countless entertainment figures and media stars have reached the level of subversion as well.

            Words don’t just have meanings.  They also have nuances and shades of meaning.  At what point do words become subversive?  At what point is the 1^st Amendment being stretched too far?  If treason is betrayal or a breach of faith involving one’s country, Wallace came close when she characterized the nation’s leader as a murderer.  Judases and Matthew Arnolds we will always have with us.

            All presidents have received their fair share of vilification, but some have received more than their share.  President Obama brought us the excessive Dodd-Frank banking reforms,  Obamacare, and a new and radically different definition of marriage, yet he was never so personally, so angrily, or so incessantly vilified by Republicans as President Trump is by Democrats and the liberal media.

             Democrats and moderate Republicans are disguising their anger against Trump.  They are justifying their invective with “a concern for the future of the nation,” “our democracy is at stake,” and “we can’t be governed by an unstable man.”  The 2016 losers are still so embarrassed they are coloring the Trump-Clinton contest as a battle between the lower half and upper half of the IQ scale.  Those 63 million Trump voters were “barbarians at the gate.”

            I’m going to grant the Trump haters that last sentence.  I love a good figure of speech, and don’t mind being called a barbarian since it puts me in the company of Joan of Arc, William Wallace, and Barry Goldwater.  I can hear Goldwater saying, “Barbarianism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and timidity in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

            A barbarian is an uncivilized, uncultured person, and that’s just how the progressives and their sycophant press still view those 63 million working folks.

            Justice is what the 63 million forsaken, hardworking barbarians sought.  Tired of happy talk and fuzzy, futile promises, they tried a new path and a new leader.  Seems like they’re mighty happy with him so far.  Ask South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford.  He trashed Trump and lost his first election ever this past week to a lady state representative who declared, “We are the party of Trump.”  Ponder the effect Sanford’s loss will have, or had better have, on other Republican candidates.

            Trump’s victory was no indicator of anybody’s IQ.  It was a revolt of those with more common sense against those who have less.  It was classic class warfare: the elites vs. the regulars.

            Despite the unbridled subversion of Trump’s opponents, Trump won fair and square.  To use his own words, he “did a big number” on Dodd-Frank and Obamacare.  But his adversaries should do what is historic and very American: accept the results of an election and work hard to remove him from office the American way, not the way of chaotic, unstable states.

            Can anyone deny that Trump, a 70-year-old, outworked 18 younger candidates?  His billions apparently haven’t diminished his work ethic.

            If liberals depose Trump or if they don’t, their next goal will be to abolish the Electoral College.  Despite losing the popular vote, Trump won the electoral vote.  That’s how we elect presidents.  We help little people (in this case little states), a practice liberals claim they believe in.  Without the Electoral College, the populous eastern seaboard and California would pick our presidents.  Without it, we are a pure democracy, one of the most chaotic forms of government.  With it, we are a republic which is what our ingenious founders intended.

            In addition to a dictionary, maybe we also need a tenth grade civics book.

Roger Hines

6/13/18

Go Teach … and Make Friends with the Coach

               Go Teach … and Make Friends with the Coach

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/10/18

            The high school I was teaching in was doing well in basketball, mainly because of a single player who could not be stopped by any opposing team’s defense.  He was, as they say, a hoss.

            This outstanding player was a senior, an humble, quiet lad who struggled in my senior English composition class.  I admired him because he stayed in the struggle and never gave up.  He wound up being a good writer, but more importantly, a stellar example for his classmates who viewed him as the athletic star that he was.  Happily, he took advantage of the positive pressure placed on him to do well.

            Jarvis was one of the few black students in the school.  His coach and I had the same lunch period and discussed him often.  We knew he wanted to go to college but would not be able to without substantial financial help. 

The coach and I knew about a junior college in Mississippi with a reputation for both academics and high ranking basketball teams.  One day at lunch we made a decision and a deal.  Since the coach had always wanted to visit this junior college, and since I had not visited my home state in over a year, we decided we should take Jarvis to check out the college and fulfill our ulterior motives at the same time. Coach would drive his car and buy gasoline.  I would pay for our overnight lodging.

            Leaving with Jarvis early on a Thursday morning, we stopped for breakfast just before reaching the Georgia-Alabama line.  It was a truck-stop that serves the kind of breakfast Southerners can’t resist.    

We chatted with Jarvis during breakfast.  Or tried.  The coach, like all others I have ever worked with, exhibited the skill of getting a timid youth to relax and talk.  Jarvis began to open up.   We consequently learned more about his family and how he had helped support his family since he was 12.  Mixing this new knowledge with the character he had displayed in my class, I admired Jarvis even more.

            I already knew that the coach thought highly of Jarvis himself, not just his athletic prowess.  As Jarvis related an amazing story of fatherlessness, poverty, and a strong, struggling mother, I watched as the coach arrested a tear that almost escaped his eye.  Our respect was fast turning into deep affection for this young man of character.

            Walking to the car, we were hailed down by a young white man who had exited the truck-stop a few yards behind us.  When we turned toward him, he blurted, “That’s a mighty cute black boy you got there.  You gonna let him ride with ya?”

            Something came over me.  I blurted back, “Yeah, we are.  But you better be careful ‘cause he don’t like rednecks.”  Full disclosure: I’m an educated redneck.  I respect good rednecks, but this was a bad one.

            To my surprise the coach and Jarvis reacted to my retort with looks of fear, and so did the redneck who snorted something unintelligible as he rushed to his pickup.

            Inside the car, the young coach who would never call me by my first name said, “Mr. Hines, what you said scares me a little bit.  That dude might follow us and do no telling what.”  He was right.  I was hasty.  That dude did follow us closely for several miles but finally exited the interstate. 

 Over a decade older than the coach, I admired him for challenging an older man’s action.  I admired him more for following up with Jarvis and helping him get the athletic scholarship he badly needed.

            This coach’s concern typifies all coaches I have worked with.  In two states and in five schools, coaches have been my study.  Motivators, encouragers, and generally people of joy, they have set many a Jarvis on the right path, not all of them athletes, just youths at the school who need direction or help.  The one bad apple I’ve known never represented or marred any of the other coaches I’ve known.

            Schools need a mix of both young teachers and old.  I wish more people approaching retirement would consider teaching as a second career.  It’s a tough work, but getting to know  the coaches will help.  They will infuse, delight, and inspire.

            I hope coaches are getting some summer rest, but I know what their minds are on and I suspect that, actually, they are incurably restless, but in a positive, productive way.

Roger Hines

6/6/18

             

I Hear America Singing Again

                              I Hear America Singing Again

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/3/18

What do NASCAR fans, Wal-Mart customers, plumbers, electricians, county sheriffs, teachers, blue-collared workers, green collard eaters, steel workers, Michigan machinists, coaches, chicken growers, drill operators, beer drinkers, tee-totallers, pro-lifers,  gun owners, self-described rednecks, café owners, hunters, miners, and a passel of lawyers, doctors, and pastors have in common?

            You probably know. It’s an undiminished, still passionate support for President Trump.  Or so says Salena Zito, a reporter for the Washington Examiner and a political analyst for CNN. (You read that right, CNN).

            A respected reporter and researcher, Zito has drawn her findings from over 25,000 miles on roads less traveled, and from hundreds of interviews of citizens who are from a work-based and faith-driven ethic and culture.  In articles for the Washington Examiner and in a culminating new book titled “The Great Revolt,” Zito concludes that the heartland spoke in 2016 and that its voice is still reverberating.

            From my own daily interactions, I can experientially add several more Trump constituents to the list above: carpenters, committed Christians, retired military officers, garage door repairmen, computer experts, and non-voters in 2016 who are now registered voters.  None of what I see and hear bodes well for those awaiting a Democratic comeback or a blue wave of any size.

            Review the long and the shorter lists above.  Do they both not reflect a hardcore, hard working America?  Do they not illustrate heartland authenticity and cultural realism?  Do the lists make you think of Wall Street or Main Street?  Hollywood or Marietta?  Karl Marx or Adam Smith?  Corporate influence or small business owners?  Globalism or localism?

            Never have so few misjudged so many and miscalculated so much as in the 2016 presidential election.  The few were pollsters and media stars who simply got it wrong.  Who in the world were they polling?  Not the good people of all races at the gas stations where I pump gas.  Not the exterminators who come to my house.  The many were the working stiffs who got behind a candidate who didn’t put on airs, spoke plainly, and challenged our media stars.  The  talking heads, that is, who pontificate on things they know not of, while showing ignorance of and condescension for a populace with whom they never mix.

            Zito attributes Trump’s victory and continuing popularity to several things.  One is the “Perot-istas” (voters who propelled outsider billionaire Ross Perot to a considerable showing in 1992 against President H.W. Bush).  Another is the “King Cyrus Christians” (comparing Trump’s Christian supporters to ancient Jews whom the good pagan of Persia freed, allowing them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple), and another the “silent suburban moms” (voters who were uncomfortable revealing their support for Trump but supported him still).

            As for the “King Cyrus Christians,” Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council probably represented them well when he remarked, “My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values, but upon shared concerns.”  Which leads me to ask if any Jews rejected King Cyrus’ help just because he was a pagan and not a worshipper of Jehovah.  The prophets Ezra and Nehemiah certainly didn’t.  Turns out, modern Christians aren’t as self-righteous as their critics have claimed.     

A new populist coalition is not just in the make.  It’s already built – of former Democrats, unionists, conservative Republicans, evangelicals, southerners, and Midwesterners – and is holding steady.  I call it rural and small town America.  It is the coalescing of working people who embraced a different style candidate, one well educated with a good vocabulary but who avoids the words “proliferation,” “vis-a-vis” and “sequestration,” opting for “swamp,” “hellatious,” and “lovely.”  Think Harry Truman.

             Suited politicians appearing daily on television just no longer inspire.  The same goes for the media stars who frankly are no longer needed.  Disaffected blue-collar voters are quite aware of the disdain in which they are held by those who dwell at the heights of finance, media, and government.  Their Andrew Jackson-style revolt is for real.

            Poet Walt Whitman heard America’s heartbeat as he penned lines that heralded the common man: “I hear America singing … the carpenter as he measures his plank, the mason as he makes ready for work, the young wife sewing or washing, the boatman singing what belongs to him on his boat, each singing what belongs to him…”

             America’s long unheralded workers are stirring.  They’re not “peasants storming the gates.”   They’re fed up citizens doing their duty and shaking things up.  Corporate America thinks the workers and their unorthodox leader are not long for the road.  But they are wrong.

Roger Hines

5/30/18