Inaugural hope for peace, if not unity -- column of Jan. 14, 2021

By MARSHA MERCER

At the first presidential inauguration I attended in person, President Ronald Reagan opened his address with a nod to the peaceful transfer of power.

“To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are,” Reagan said just after noon on Jan. 20, 1981.

“In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

Little did we know then how much of a miracle we took for granted.

I was new to Washington in 1981 and, sitting in the press section as the temperature hit a balmy 55 degrees, I was agog at the scene.

The oaths of office by the vice president and president, Nancy Reagan in her bright red coat, prayers, military bands, speeches and 21-gun salute all played out before a cheering throng that stretched from the West Front of the Capitol into the distance on the National Mall.

I fell in love with the “commonplace occurrence” and made a point of witnessing in person every outdoor inauguration since – nine in all. Arctic temperatures in 1985 forced Reagan to move his second inauguration inside, keeping me out along with more than 140,000 invited guests.

I loved the stirrings of hope and renewal inaugurations brought to the surface. Even if I preferred a different presidential victor, I was usually glad to see the joy that animated the day.

Let’s hope those halcyon days are not a thing of the past.

Like millions of Americans, I’ll watch Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration Wednesday on TV or online. The sad and chilling confluence of the novel coronavirus and credible threats of violence since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump have suspended our time-honored traditions.

Trump, who still falsely claims the election was stolen from him, was impeached Wednesday on a bipartisan House vote for inciting the violence at the Capitol, becoming the only president in history to be impeached twice.

He said he will not attend Biden’s inauguration, the first president to back out since Andrew Johnson refused in 1869 to attend Ulysses S. Grant’s swearing-in. Johnson too had been impeached, but one vote saved him from being removed from office.

Biden, the mayor of Washington and the governors of Virginia and Maryland have sent one message to well-wishers and those who have evil intentions alike: Stay home.

Trump issued a video statement Wednesday after he was impeached that didn’t mention impeachment or regret but said: “Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement.”

Our movement? At least 16 groups, some whose members are armed pro-Trumpians, have registered for protests in Washington. The FBI warns those protests as well as others planned in every state capitol this week threaten to turn violent.

Seven-foot fences have been erected around the Capitol, and tens of thousands of National Guard troops will be on duty to protect the small group of dignitaries attending the Biden inauguration in person.

Biden’s inaugural theme of “America United” sounds more aspirational than realistic, but he must start somewhere. Biden faces a monumental task as long as Trump is falsely telling more than 70 million voters he was wronged.

Americans used to understand that some of us were bound to be disappointed by a presidential contest. Defeat meant it was time to assess what went wrong, regroup and go to work – not use American flags as weapons to beat people.

The 1980 election was no picnic for incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who won just 49 electoral votes to Republican Reagan’s 489.

But Carter conceded to Reagan in a telephone call before 10 p.m. on Election Day and promised his support for the transition. At his inauguration, Reagan thanked Carter for his “gracious cooperation.”

We won’t hear anything like that from Biden, of course. Nor should we, for Trump hasn’t cooperated at all, much less graciously.

The best we can hope for is a peaceful day and week. That would be worth celebrating.

(© Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

You say you want a revolution -- Feb. 27, 2020 column

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By MARSHA MERCER

Four years ago this week, I wrote that voters on Super Tuesday could put the brakes on Donald Trump – “but will they?”

At the time, mainstream Republicans and Democrats were both worried that insurgent presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders might actually win their parties’ presidential nominations but turn off general election voters that November.

Trump Fever seemed to be spreading, I wrote, and on Super Tuesday a few days later Trump triumphed over his GOP rivals, winning seven of the 12 states with Republican contests, including Virginia. Of the 11 Democratic contests, Hillary Clinton beat Sanders in Virginia and six other states.

And so, Trump, the candidate many were sure couldn’t win a general election last time is now the president many say can’t lose reelection if his opponent is the current frontrunner, an avowed Democratic socialist. 

Michael Bloomberg painted this bleak scenario at the Democratic debate Tuesday night:

“If you keep on going, we will elect Bernie, Bernie will lose to Donald Trump, and Donald Trump and the House and the Senate and some of the statehouses will all go red and then, between gerrymandering and appointing judges, for the next 20 or 30 years we are going to live with this catastrophe."

So far, just a trickle of votes in three states has been cast. (As of this writing, South Carolina hasn’t yet voted.) A torrent is coming.

On Super Tuesday, 15 jurisdictions, including California, Texas and Virginia, will select more than a third of the pledged delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination. Forty percent of the U.S. population will have a primary event that day.

Sanders, who is not a Democrat, sent chills down many Democratic spines with his appreciation on “60 Minutes” last Sunday of Fidel Castro’s literacy program. Castro is anathema to Cuban-American voters in South Florida. Florida, for those who don’t remember the 2000 election, is a crucial state.

Sanders, 78, insists he has “opposed authoritarianism all over the world,” but he hasn’t budged in decades in his admiration for aspects of those ruthless regimes.

“When dictatorships, whether it is the Chinese or the Cubans, do something good, you acknowledge that,” he said at the debate. “But you don’t have to trade love letters with them.” Trump said in 2018 he and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un “fell in love” over their “beautiful love letters.”

Pete Buttigieg warned that Democrats can’t win critical House and Senate races “if people in those races have to explain why the nominee of the Democratic Party is telling people to look at the bright side of the Castro regime.”

Sanders claims he will beat Trump with an infusion of young, new voters, but turnout has not surged. He has won in the early states not by bringing in new voters but by expanding his appeal among existing Democratic voters, a New York Times analysis found.  

Sanders has proposed a Medicare for All plan, free child care and free public college tuition. He hasn’t said how much all that would cost and talks about raising taxes on the wealthiest 1%. Amy Klobuchar put a pricetag of nearly $60 trillion over 10 years on Sanders’s plans. Voters would not support such a huge expenditure, she said.

But Sanders maintained on CBS after the debate, “The truth is, nothing I am saying is radical.”

Sanders argues the United States already has corporate socialism, which benefits billionaires like Trump, while Sanders’s brand of democratic socialism would use the federal government to protect the interests of working families.

Buttigieg, 38, warned of “a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the ‘50s and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolution politics of the ‘60s.”

No Democrat wants a repeat of the 1972 or 1984 debacles, which many Sanders supporters probably don’t remember.

In 1972, George McGovern lost 49 states to Richard Nixon, winning only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. In 1984, Ronald Reagan’s landslide left Democratic Walter Mondale with wins only in his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.  

The big question this Super Tuesday: Democratic voters can put the brakes on Sanders – but will they?

©2020 All rights reserved.

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Measure presidential age in ideas, not years -- July 25, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

How old is too old to be president? Ronald Reagan settled the question 35 years ago with a zinger.

President Reagan, a Republican seeking his second term, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic presidential nominee, met Oct. 21, 1984, for their second debate.

Reagan, 73, had not had a good first debate, and veteran Baltimore Sun diplomatic correspondent Henry Trewhitt raised the age issue:

“You already are the oldest president in history. And some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?”

“Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt,” Reagan smoothly replied, “and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

Everybody broke out laughing, including Mondale, a mere lad of 56.

Mondale told his wife he lost the election that night. There were many reasons Reagan swept to victory, winning every state except Mondale’s Minnesota, but the much replayed “youth and inexperience” soundbite didn’t hurt.

It’s hard to imagine an elder candidate’s snappy comeback line having the same effect ever again, considering what we know now. Five years after leaving office, Reagan wrote a letter telling the world he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Critics questioned whether he had been slipping during his second term in the White House, though loyal staff said he showed no signs of dementia.  

Now, President Donald Trump, 73, is the oldest president ever. Age is again a campaign issue as several top Democratic presidential contenders are also septuagenarians. Former Vice President Joe Biden is 76, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is 77 and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is 70.

Critics question Trump’s mental health, although he insists he’s “a very stable genius.”

Attacking Biden, Trump says he himself looks younger and is more mentally sharp than Biden.

For his part, Biden said if Trump doesn’t stop making cracks about his age, he’ll challenge the president to a push-up contest. I’d watch that.

Age inevitably factors into the Democrats’ nomination process. Pete Buttigieg, 37, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, likes to say he won’t reach the age Trump is now until 2054. Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, 50, plays up skateboarding. 

If Democrats choose the safe and experienced Biden to go against Trump, Biden will need to project youth and vitality through his appearance and, more importantly, through his ideas.

It’s possible, as Sanders showed in 2016, for a party elder to attract a youthful following with bold, new ideas.

But first Biden must deal with his past, and when the Democrats meet for a second round of debates Tuesday and Wednesday, his record will also be on display.  

In the first debate, Biden seemed flummoxed by the attack by California Sen. Kamala Harris on his opposition to federal busing decades ago. Biden also has been criticized for pushing, as a senator in 1994, a crime bill now seen as draconian.

Setting a new course, Biden Tuesday proposed a sweeping plan to eliminate the death penalty, decriminalize marijuana and stop putting people in prison for drug use alone.

But New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, 50, tweeted: “It’s not enough to tell us what you’re going to do for our communities, show us what you’ve done for the last 40 years. You created this system.”

Sanders and Warren each have plans to erase student debt, which plagues millions of Americans, and provide free higher education.

Such policies are good politics. More younger voters turned out to vote in 2018 than in previous midterms, the Census Bureau reports. In 2020, one in 10 eligible voters will be members of Generation Z – born after 1995, the Pew Research Center projects.  

Young voters tend to vote Democratic. If they turn out strongly, as they have in recent presidential elections, they could make a difference for Democrats.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Even `Land of 100,000 Welcomes' has its limits -- Nov. 1, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Scores of angry emails and letters bombarded Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar after the White House made a surprise announcement last August President Donald Trump would visit Ireland.

Trump planned to stop at his golf resort in Doonbeg and in Dublin on his way to Paris for the 100^th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I on Nov. 11.

Protesters began to mobilize, saying they’d use the 20-foot tall “Trump Baby” balloon that floated over London in July when Trump met with British Prime Minister Theresa May. More than 60 furious letter-writers urged Varadkar to withdraw Trump’s invitation.

The letters, released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Irish Times and reported on Tuesday, provide a glimpse into Trump’s unpopularity in a country that traditionally has welcomed U.S. presidents.

“For all that is holy, please do not let Trump into Ireland,” one correspondent emailed, the Times reported.

“Seriously, every time you come out in support of Trump you experience a massive backlash,” another wrote Varadkar. “Why do you keep putting your hand back on the hot stove?” 

Noting Trump’s record on immigration, trade, climate change and human rights, he or she signed the letter “a thoroughly disgusted and disappointed citizen.”

Varadkar was sympathetic to the outcry but, like other leading Irish politicians, he called for respect.

“I know a lot of people dislike him,” he said Sept. 2 on Irish radio. “A lot of people object to him, a lot of people disagree with a lot of his policies -- just as I do, in fact -- but he is the president of America.”

After 11 days of turmoil, the Irish government said Trump wouldn’t visit after all. The White House cited “scheduling reasons.”

In the United States, about one in 10 people claimed Irish ancestry in 2016, the Census Bureau reports, and many presidents, most recently Barack Obama, play up their Irish roots.

Obama was an Illinois state senator in 2007 when Ancestry.com discovered his great-great-great grandfather came from Ireland.

As president, Obama enjoyed a warm Irish welcome in 2011 when he and Michelle Obama visited the village of Moneygall and met several of his distant relatives. An eighth cousin named Henry instantly became known as Henry the Eighth.

In Dublin, Obama told a crowd described as “rapturous” by a British newspaper, “My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way.”

As a tourist in Ireland last month, I met many people eager to talk about Obama’s and even President John F. Kennedy’s visit. Galway honored JFK’s 1963 visit with a bust in Eyre Square, also sometimes called JFK Park, and a mosaic in Galway Cathedral.

No one brought up Trump – or another American president who got a cold shoulder.

Protesters marked President Ronald Reagan’s visit in 1984. A leader of demonstrations against Reagan and U.S. policy in El Salvador and Nicaragua was an Irish senator named Michael D. Higgins.

Higgins had an American connection, having earned a master’s degree in sociology from Indiana University. Decades later, the 77-year-old poet, writer, former minister of culture and socialist is still involved in politics.

Higgins was re-elected president of Ireland last week. He is head of state, a largely ceremonial post, but it does give him a platform. He has been an outspoken critic of Trump and this country’s direction.  

“Today we are witnessing a worrying surge of unapologetic sexism and the undermining of women’s rights in one of the world’s most advanced democracies,” Higgins said in April in New York.

Trump may own a fancy golf resort on the west coast of Ireland, but he has much to learn about the country. Last summer, he raised hackles when he said Ireland is in the United Kingdom.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., son of an immigrant from Donegal, Ireland, fired back: “Ireland is not a part of the UK. It’s been an independent country for about 100 years … Please stop embarrassing us on the international stage.”

That’s a tall order for this president, but at least he won’t embarrass us in Ireland this month.  

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

`Huddled masses' need not apply? -- Aug. 3, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the White House briefing room, a senior White House aide lectured on the Statue of Liberty.

The statue is a “symbol of American liberty lighting the world,” senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said Wednesday. Welcoming immigrants was only an afterthought, he suggested.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, inscribed on the base, with its line about “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” was added later, he said.

Miller was right about the timing, but why make that historical footnote now? Because President Donald Trump intends to set the United States on a new path regarding immigration. He wants to halve legal immigration over a decade.

“Very, very important, Trump said of the proposal. “Biggest change in 50 years.”

Trump sees his America First ideology in conflict with America’s traditional role as beacon to the world’s persecuted and downtrodden.

The RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act would slash the number of green cards to about 500,000 annually and change the face of immigration. Green card holders are lawful permanent residents who can live in the country permanently and serve in the military.

The current system prizes family unification; people who are kin to citizens get top priority. The new system would prioritize green cards for English speakers, people who can support themselves financially and have job skills.

Miller emphasized most voters support such changes. To be sure, Trump’s pledges to curb illegal immigration were central to his election. But this bill goes a step farther. 

Now, legal immigration is also on the chopping block, as it has been at various points in history.

But legal immigration should not be an us-versus-them issue in the 21^st century. We rightly celebrate hard-working legal immigrants who follow the rules. We need immigrants to keep our economy humming.  

Democrats on Capitol Hill declared the bill a nonstarter. Two Republican senators – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona – drenched the proposal in cold water.

Graham said it would hurt his state’s agriculture, tourism and service industries. McCain told reporters he “wasn’t interested.” Why? “Because I’m not interested.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued the bill would hurt the economy.

“Dramatically reducing overall immigration levels won’t raise the standard of living for Americans,” said Randy Johnson, a senior vice president at the chamber.

“In fact it will likely accomplish the opposite, making it harder for businesses, communities, and our overall economy to grow, prosper and create jobs for American workers,” Johnson said.

The bill proposed by two Southern Republicans, Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, has undeniable political appeal in Trump country. But it’s helpful to think about what the RAISE bill is not.

It is not comprehensive immigration reform. It does not address the 11 million people who entered the country illegally or guest workers or border security or deporting “bad hombres,” in Trump’s phrase.

This is not 1986, when Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed the bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Trump is not Reagan, who said: “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”

Reagan understood that society can’t prosper with “a class of individuals who must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society.”

The 1986 law -- called Simpson-Mazzoli for sponsors Sen. Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, and Rep. Romano Mazzoli, Democrat of Kentucky – promised a path to legalization – amnesty -- for millions of undocumented immigrants in return for 

cracking down on illegal immigration.

The law is now widely viewed as a failure. Nearly 3 million illegal immigrants did come out of the shadows, but the border remained porous. To pass the bill, Congress jettisoned key enforcement provisions, including penalizing employers who hired workers here illegally. 

Thirty-one years later, a new president wants to remake immigration. Surely we can do better this time around – without halving legal immigration. Curb illegal immigration, yes, while affirming America’s role as a beacon to the world, while helping our citizens prosper. Our future demands no less.

© 2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Dare to eat a peach -- and other summer pleasures -- July 13, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When author Henry James said the two most beautiful words in the English language were “summer afternoon,” he surely wasn’t thinking about a heat index over 100 degrees.

But not everybody can be like my neighbors who bought a house on a cove in Maine to escape Northern Virginia’s swampy summers.

“See you in late September!” they sang out happily as they drove away in May.

Nor should we hunker down with our news feeds. Many of us stuck in town need to remember that endlessly reading tweets by the Donalds -- father and son – just makes us hotter under the collar.

Fall may not be in the air, but it is yapping at our consciousness. I’ve spotted two “Kaine 2018” bumper stickers in two days, a sure sign autumn and yet another election are coming. Back-to-school sales are in full swing, and Redskins training camp kicks off July 26.

So sit back, sip a cool drink and banish the vexing news from the nation’s capital. Just for a while.  

Here are three ways to seize the (summer) day.

No. 1 – Hit the road – and go slow.

Forget fighting traffic on Interstates. Take the back roads, and head to the mountains. The Department of the Interior named Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park one of the eight best drives in all of America.

The 105-mile road through the Blue Ridge Mountains has “some of the most sublime views in the nation,” the Interior Department says. The 35 mph speed limit is the “perfect speed to roll down the windows and let the wind whip through your hair.”

And, boomers 62 and older, now is the time to buy a lifetime Senior Pass for admission to national parks. The cost is just $10 until Aug. 28, when it rises to $80. Buy the Senior Pass at the park entrance to save time.

You could order online but demand is so heavy it takes nine weeks to get the passes, Interior warns. 

No. 2 – Go partway on the Great American Total Solar Eclipse.

This sounds harsh as the astronomical mega-event Aug. 21 will be the first coast-to-coast total eclipse since 1918. Unless you’ve already made arrangements, though, settle for the partial eclipse, which we should see in Virginia, weather permitting.

People in the know booked motels and campsites years ago in the so-called Path of Totality, including Nashville, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Columbia, S.C.

Plus, more than 200 million people live within a day’s drive of the path. Do you really want to risk viewing the eclipse bumper to bumper?  

If you plan to watch the eclipse, get your viewing glasses ahead of time and don’t bother with your camera. The event will be over before you know it. The moon will cover the sun for no more than 160 seconds in prime locations.

And plan ahead. The next total solar eclipse in North America is just seven years away, April 8, 2024. It will swing from Mexico through Texas to Maine and into Canada. You’ve got this.

No. 3 – Eat a peach.

Dire news reports last spring warned that a late March freeze had ruined the peach crop for 2017. Not to worry. It did -- and it didn’t.

Peaches are far less plentiful in the peachiest states, Georgia and South Carolina, but orchards farther north suffered no lasting deleterious effects of the cold snap.

Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania are enjoying an excellent crop, so buy local. Virginia’s more than 200 peach farms expect an abundant peach supply through early 

September.

Add peach pie or ice cream to your menu – and tuck into a taste of summer.

And remember -- President Ronald Reagan declared July 1984 National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of July National Ice Cream Day.

“Ice cream is a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over ninety percent of the people in the United States. It enjoys a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food,” Reagan said in his proclamation. Not a word about sugar, fat or calories.

“I call upon the people of the United States to observe these events with appropriate ceremonies and activities,” he wrote.

Now that’s an executive order everybody can get behind. Happy summer!

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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