`Limbaugh on decaf' soldiers on -- column of April 14, 2022

By MARSHA MERCER

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the University of Virginia Tuesday night was more like a hamburger than raw meat.

His remarks were as friendly and unfussy as a fast-food burger with a smear of spicy mustard. He was respectful, approachable -- “You can call me Mike” – and traditionally conservative.

His audience was polite and attentive as Pence boldly allied himself with the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, his Christian faith, freedom, liberty, mom and apple pie. OK, he didn’t mention pie, though he did say he’s been married to a schoolteacher for 36 years, they have three kids and “the highest title I will ever hold is spelled D-A-D.”

Serving as vice president was “the greatest honor of my life,” he said, and he bragged on the last administration’s record. Never once did he mention Jan. 6, 2021, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, or the protesters that shouted, “Hang Mike Pence” as he and members of Congress hid.

Pence’s theme was “How to Save America from the Woke Left,” so, of course, he declared “Wokeness is running amok in our public schools and universities” and critical race theory is “nothing more than state-sanctioned racism.” 

He blamed the Biden-Harris administration for crime, high inflation, the worst border crisis in American history and a “tidal wave of left-wing policies that threaten to wipe out all the progress we made in four short years.”

His prescription was for young people to join the fight for liberty, but when a student asked if he would run for president in 2024, Pence said, “I will keep you posted.”

Republicans are waiting for Trump to actually say whether he’s running again. In any case, he ruled out Pence as his running mate.

Democrats are waiting too, although President Joe Biden said last year he will run with Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate.

“Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” as Pence describes himself as a talk radio show host in the 1990s, may be the least scary of the GOP politicians who may compete for the White House in the election 200-plus days away.

This not a high bar in a Republican field that includes Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Pence is on a speaking tour of universities sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, a conservative organization. His views on marriage, trans and gender issues have made him persona non grata to some and a hero to others.

In an editorial last month titled, “Dangerous Rhetoric is not Entitled to a Platform,” the editorial board of U.Va.’s student-run newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, warned Pence’s rhetoric “directly threatens the presence and lives of our community members,” including the LGBTQ community, and demanded the speech be called off.

In response, 17 professors, including political scientist Larry Sabato, wrote in a letter to the editor: “This speech-is-violence argument is not only wrong – no calls for violence will be issued April 12 – but also contradicts the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment, which generally creates space for a wide range of views to be expressed so long as the relevant speech does not incite violence.”

A handful of students protested outside Old Cabell Hall Tuesday, but in the auditorium, which was nearly full, everyone played nice. When a student asked Pence what he would do or say if one of his children came out to him as gay, he replied: “I’d look them in the eye and tell them, `I love you,’”

Then he told the student if they got to know each other, “You’d know the Pences love everybody.”

Love is an odd political strategy, to say the least. The recent Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson as an associate justice of the Supreme Court were viewed as an audition for the presidential campaign, and several likely GOP contenders bared their teeth in full, snarling mode.

Pence barks, but he wags more. He won praise for upholding the Constitution during the electoral vote count last year. He calls himself “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican,” in that order.

We’ll see if that’s enough to compete successfully against his party’s mean boys.

©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Steal: Unvaccinated rob America of `summer of joy' -- July 29, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the grocery store for two items, I apologized for forgetting my mask, even though most customers weren’t wearing them.

“That’s OK. You don’t have to wear one,” the masked checker said with a shrug.

I told her I’d just heard news the government is again recommending masks in some public places.

“Oh, I don’t pay attention to the news anymore,” she said.

Some Americans are understandably sick of hearing about the pandemic, but ignoring reality is dangerous to one’s health, as well as to one’s friends and family.

For those of us who are paying attention, the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control was a setback. So much for the “summer of joy.”

President Joe Biden optimistically predicted in June this would be “a summer of freedom. A summer of joy,” mainly because of free and readily available vaccinations against COVID-19.

Despite an array of inducements, only about 49% of the entire population and 57.6% of those 12 and older were fully vaccinated, as of July 27. Meanwhile the highly contagious delta variant is surging, especially among the unvaccinated.

Let’s call the unvaccinated what they are: the Grinches who stole the summer of joy.

Chief Grinch may be Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who tweeted about the new CDC guidance: “Hell no. This is politics, not science.” That’s absurd.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, the minority leader, claimed the masking guidance was “conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in perpetual pandemic state.”

“He’s such a moron,” reporters heard House Speaker Nancy Pelosi say as she was getting into a car.

So, now, conscientious Americans are helping protect the reckless. Fully vaccinated people need to mask up again indoors in areas with high COVID-19 transmission rates, per the CDC. These include many counties in Virginia. 

While 80% of those infected with the delta variant are unvaccinated, vaccinated people rarely become infected as well, and their viral load is similar to the unvaccinated, meaning both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated can spread the variant.

“The delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us and be an opportunist,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday in a briefing. “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendations.”

It’s tempting to say the unvaccinated made their choice and deserve what they get. But children under 12 are not yet being vaccinated, and no one wants them to get sick. The CDC also recommends that all students, teachers, staff and visitors to K-12 schools wear masks this fall, regardless of vaccination status.

Fully vaccinated people in areas with low transmission may choose to mask to protect household members who are unvaccinated, immunocompromised or at increased risk of disease.

And there’s another, more important, reason to mask up. The largest concern among public health officials is potential mutations from the delta variant that could evade vaccines, which currently protect the vaccinated from severe illness and death.

Masks are a good step, but the real solution to the pandemic and the key to returning to normalcy is vaccinations.

Sadly, the very people who would benefit most from masks and vaccinations are least likely to follow the guidance. Largely Republican, white male conservatives believe masks and vaccinations are an assault on their freedom and would rather trust false conspiracy theories and misinformation on the Internet than the government.

We’d all be better off if more politicians were like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the Senate, who has promoted COVID-19 vaccinations all along and will spend tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on radio ads in his home state, encouraging people to get vaccinated.

Biden is taking the right step in requiring federal employees to be vaccinated or face rigorous testing and social distancing. States and cities are doing the same.  Some employers, notably Delta and United airlines and The Washington Post, are requiring proof of vaccination.

Mandate is a fighting word to many, but we are headed that way, unless more people do the right thing and roll up their sleeves. The Grinches can’t be allowed to steal our future, too.

(C) 2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 

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© 2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

As Iowa goes, so goes Iowa -- Jan. 30, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Don’t expect Iowa’s first-in-the nation caucuses Monday to write history. More likely, they’ll will write history’s footnotes.

If Iowa’s quadrennial caucuses actually picked presidents, we might be talking about Democratic Presidents Edmund Muskie, Richard Gephardt and Tom Harkin. Or Republican Presidents Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz.

All were winners in Iowa’s caucuses, but not one of them became his party’s presidential nominee, let alone president. In 2016’s caucuses, Cruz beat Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton barely edged out Bernie Sanders.

Iowa’s gift to the nation is picking also-rans.

The Hawkeye State began holding the nation’s first presidential contests after the turbulent 1968 election, when nobody cared who went first. These days, many argue Iowa’s demographics make it a poor choice to kick off the presidential voting. It’s 91% white, 4 percent black and residents are older than the national average.

Both the state’s Democratic and Republican parties will hold presidential caucuses Monday night, but with President Trump having only nominal opposition, all eyes are on the Democrats.

Candidates have lavished personal attention on Iowa for over a year, but a week before the caucuses something like 40 percent of Iowa Democrats still hadn’t made up their minds. Sanders appears to be in the lead, but maybe not. He, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren were bunched together within 8 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s average of state polls on Tuesday.

A Sanders win would thrill many young and progressive voters -- and the Trump campaign. Trump would love to run against the Democratic socialist. Trump and Co. call all Democrats socialists, of course, but Sanders is really a Democratic socialist, and proudly so. Trump planned a big rally in Des Moines Thursday to tout his accomplishments.

Democratic moderates – read: pragmatists – prefer tried-and-true Biden as the candidate they believe actually can beat Trump.

What’s at stake in Iowa for Democrats is just 41 pledged delegates to this summer’s Democratic National Convention. That’s all. California, which votes on Super Tuesday, March 3, by itself will select 495 pledged delegates.

Under Iowa Democrats’ complex caucus rules, a presidential candidate needs 15 percent of the first vote in a precinct to remain “viable.” If a candidate doesn’t reach the threshold, the candidate’s supporters are free to join another candidate, move to undecided or try to persuade people to join their first-choice candidate.

Since 1972, the candidate who won the most votes in Iowa’s Democratic caucuses has won the party’s presidential nomination in seven of 10 contested races, but only two of them captured the White House, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008, according to a  history of the caucuses by the Des Moines Register. 

Since 1980, three winners of contested Republican caucuses won the GOP presidential nomination, but only George W. Bush in 2000 won the White House.

A record turnout is expected for the caucuses that start at 7 p.m. Central on Monday in 1,678 precincts around the state. Those who will turn 18 by Nov. 3, Election Day, can participate, as can unregistered voters who register on caucus night.

And, for the first time, Iowa Democratic voters who can’t get home for the caucuses can vote in nearly 100 satellite locations, 25 out of state. Many are in sunny places where winter-weary Iowans retire, in Arizona and Florida. But the Iowa caucus is also coming to Virginia at George Mason University and to Washington, D.C., at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Iowa Democrats overseas can caucus in Paris; Glasgow, Scotland; and Tbilisi, Georgia.

Also new this time, the state Democratic party will release the first, raw vote totals in precincts as well as the final tally. What could go wrong with transparency? Disputes over who the real winner is.

You’ll probably hear there are “three tickets out of Iowa” for presidential candidates. That stems from the historical tidbit that since 1976 only one Democrat or Republican contender has come in lower than third in Iowa and won the presidential nomination. John McCain finished fourth in 2008 and won the GOP nomination.  

That same year, Iowa Democrats gave Obama a clear victory, launching the little-known senator from Illinois into history, showing Iowa can be a key first step.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

What Trump in 2016 teaches us about 2020 -- March 21, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

We’re coming up on a milestone, of sorts.

On March 23 four years ago, the first hopeful Republican contender entered the 2016 presidential race.

“The answer will not come from Washington,” he said. It will come “when the American people stand together, and say, `We will get back to the principles that made this country great.’”

Sound familiar? Not exactly. It was Ted Cruz, in a speech to cheering students at Liberty University.

That was in the B.D. era – Before Donald.

As more Democrats line up to run for president, it’s worth remembering what happened when 17 Republicans competed for the presidential nomination.

We know who won. How many of the others can you still name?

Time’s up. They were: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum and Scott Walker.

When Donald Trump jumped in nearly three months after Cruz, he vowed at Trump Tower to “make our country great again” and “have Mexico pay for the wall.”

He also gave a sour taste of things to come when he gratuitously belittled his opponents at their campaign launches.

“They didn’t know the air conditioner didn’t work. They sweated like dogs. They didn’t know the room was too big, because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?” Trump said.

Trump was making a fallacy of false cause argument -- trying to establish cause and effect between unrelated things. Someone’s not knowing the air conditioning was broken at a venue shows absolutely nothing about how he’d do at fighting ISIS. It’s absurd, but catchy.  

Trump laid waste to once-viable candidates one disparaging nickname at a time: “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, “Liddle Marco” Rubio and “Low Energy” Jeb Bush.

In Cruz’s case, Trump also claimed Cruz’s father was associated with Lee Harvey Oswald before the JFK assassination. Cruz called the allegation nuts and kooky.

“You know, you have to brand people a certain way when they’re your opponents,” Trump said before the Florida primary in March 2016, explaining how to call out Cruz: It’s “Lyin’ Ted,” he said, “L-Y-I-N-apostrophe.”

“We can’t say it the right way,” he said. “We’ve got to go, Lyin’! Lyin’! Ted!”

Moving on to Rubio, he spelled out “L-I-D-D-L-E. Liddle, Liddle, Liddle Marco.”

Trump has an uncanny knack for finding a rival’s soft spot and choosing a nickname that sticks.

He famously labeled Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “crooked Hillary,” called her “such a nasty woman” in a debate, and at rallies beamed as his supporters chanted, “Lock Her Up.”

Trump’s ad hominem attacks were stupid, wrong and creepily effective.

Now, the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls are his target.

He reportedly thinks Elizabeth Warren will be the Democrats’ pick and early on dubbed her Pocahontas for her claim of Native American heritage. She has struggled ever since, finally apologizing for saying she was Native American.

Lately, Trump watched Beto O’Rourke’s video announcing his candidacy March 14 and picked up on his expansive hand gestures.

“I think he’s got a lot of hand movement. I’ve never seen so much hand movement. I said, `Is he crazy, or is that just the way he acts?’” Trump told reporters.

It’s only March 2019. O’Rourke has time to tone down the splashy gestures. Not all the Democratic candidates are even in the pool.

Joe Biden is said to enter the race soon. Virginians Terry McAuliffe and Mark Warner are among those weighing a bid.

Meanwhile, Trump is warming up his attack machine. He called Biden Monday “another low I.Q. individual.”

As we saw in 2016, he shut down his rivals before they could introduce and fully define themselves through their actions, ideas and policies.

Trump will try again to set the tone of the presidential campaign with his personal-attack brand of politics, but he doesn’t set the rules.

Voters should pay attention to policies and hold all candidates accountable for glib fallacies and falsehoods.

We can tune out slurs and nicknames for what they are: petty, malicious noise.

And, most important, we can vote.    

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Teflon Don's sanity draws more scrutiny -- Nov. 30, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER   

     

You’d have to be crazy to run for president.

That’s what people often say, meaning it takes a certain kind of person, with a supersized ego and laser determination, to put oneself through the political wringer.

President Donald Trump proved he had the moxie to win the White House. Now his performance in the Oval Office is drawing new questions about his sanity.

When the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced last year, Trump admitted saying the vulgarities about women. He apologized and called it “locker room talk.”

But recently he changed his tune, telling a senator the voice on the tape wasn’t his and he didn’t say those words, The New York Times reported.

More than a dozen women have come forward to accuse Trump of inappropriate behavior. The charges have rolled off his back, even as many powerful men in the entertainment and media industries have lost their jobs.

He’s Teflon Don, one of Trump’s accusers said. The White House position is that every one of the women is lying.

Trump endorsed Senate candidate Roy Moore and seems to admire the way the Alabama Republican has steadfastly denied all allegations of sexual impropriety.

Trump reportedly has returned to a favorite conspiracy theory of old, strangely reiterating his claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya – after acknowledging last year that the former president was born in the United States.

Trump clings to the notion that he lost the popular vote only because there was widespread voter fraud, although no proof of it has been found.

At a White House ceremony Tuesday honoring the Navajo code talkers, he showed his impulsiveness and lack of filter when he made a crack about Pocahontas, his nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.

And his sharing three inflammatory, unverified, anti-Muslim videos on Twitter Wednesday was so far outside the norms of presidential behavior as to be inconceivable. Except that for Trump, tacit endorsement of the far-right, racist Britain First group was sadly par for the course.

“It was wrong for the president to have done this,” said a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May, who added that Britain First uses “hate-filled narratives to peddle lies and stoke tensions.”

But Trump won praise from David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan leader, who tweeted: “Thank God for Trump! That’s why we love him.”

Thumbing his nose at an ally, Trump tweeted to May to mind her own business.

During the campaign, Trump’s many GOP competitors as well as the news media, Obama and Hillary Clinton questioned his mental stability and warned of his unfitness for office.  

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, called Trump a “pathological liar,” “narcissist” and “utterly amoral,” after Trump attacked Cruz’s wife and father. Cruz later endorsed Trump anyway, and most other prominent Republicans also fell in line.

This isn’t the first time a president’s mental health has come under scrutiny. Richard Nixon was prescribed uppers and downers in an attempt to control his moodiness. 

Richard N. Goodwin, an aide to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, wrote that he studied medical books trying to understand LBJ’s paranoid behavior. 

Those interested in Trump’s mental health can skip the medical texts. “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” a book of essays, was published in October.

The authors concede no definitive diagnosis is possible, but they say Trump exhibits signs of being a malignant narcissist, a sociopath, paranoid and of having a delusional detachment from reality, among other things.

“Anyone as mentally unstable as Mr. Trump should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency,” the authors write in the prologue.

Trump’s fans dismiss such talk as politics as usual.

“Trump is NOT crazy despite the claims of some mental health professionals” read the headline on an op-ed by Andrew Snyder, a psychotherapist, on foxnews.com. Shrinks are calling Trump crazy simply because they disagree with his policies, he said.

But you don’t have to think Trump is crazy to find him reckless and rash. Not that Teflon Don is about to change.  

In Missouri Wednesday, he was talking about taxes but could have been referring to his approach to the highest office in the land.

“Hey look, I’m president. I don’t care anymore,” he said.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 30

Boycotts rarely work -- but we love 'em anyway -- Aug. 24, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem last year, some conservatives boycotted the National Football League.

Angry at what they saw as unpatriotic behavior, veterans and others rallied around the hashtag #BoycottNFL. Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, tweeted: “Here’s a peaceful protest: never buy another shoe, shirt, or jersey of rich spoiled athletes who dishonor our flag.”

Now the tables have turned.

The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP recently asked fans to boycott the NFL and a group of black pastors in Alabama released a video calling for a blackout of NFL games until a team signs Kaepernick.  

Kaepernick kneeled during the anthem to protest police brutality against blacks. Other athletes joined in, and the protests have continued in the pre-season, with white players taking part. A free agent, Kaepernick hasn’t been signed for the season that begins Sept. 7.

A huge crowd of Kaepernick supporters protested outside NFL offices in New York Wednesday, contending owners have blackballed him for his activism, which the league denies.

This is the age of voting with our wallets.

Fans of Donald Trump boycotted Budweiser over its inspirational Super Bowl ad praising immigrants. Trump’s foes boycotted L. L. Bean after the granddaughter of the company’s founder contributed to his campaign and Trump urged people to “Buy L.L. Bean.”  

People similarly shopped or stayed away from Macy’s and Nordstrom after the stores dumped some Trump merchandise. Social media and sites like grab-your-wallet.com, which lists stores that carry Trump merchandise, give boycotts more exposure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many boycotts announced in a short period of time,” says Brayden King, professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University.   

Boycotts -- more than marching in the streets or firing off an angry screed on social media -- make us feel powerful. There’s something immensely satisfying about just saying no and walking away.

Only one problem: Boycotts typically don’t accomplish much.

Not all are failures. The Montgomery (Ala.) bus boycott started in December 1955 and lasted 13 months. It ended when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation on public buses unconstitutional.

Viewership of NFL games on TV networks dipped last year, but the national anthem protest was only one reason, a J.D. Power survey of fans found. Off-field domestic violence and the presidential campaign were also factors.

Experts say boycotts fail because there are too many of them, our attention span is short and we simply don’t like to be told what not to do or buy. A boycott perversely can generate more sales for the item being boycotted.

Despite Uber’s many PR catastrophes and boycotts, its gross bookings and number of trips taken have risen, according to news reports.

Rather than judge a boycott’s impact on sales, it may be better to judge its media attention, King said.

Several Kennedy Center Honors award winners announced they’d boycott the pre-ceremony reception at the White House or the event itself. They include hit singer Gloria Estefan, TV producer Norman Lear and dancer Carmen de Lavallade.

The president and first lady announced they’ll stay away “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

At least 20 charities reportedly have dropped plans to hold galas at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Florida. Among the big names that have canceled: American Red Cross, America Cancer Society, Cleveland Clinic and the Salvation Army.

“Charities hosting large galas can pay Trump's club between $125,000 and $275,000 for a single night's revelry. Even lunchtime events can cost charities between $25,000 and $85,000,” The Washington Post reported.

Why charitable organizations choose such pricey locales for their fund-raising events, even if they do raise big bucks, is a question for another day. But the cancellations do send a message of disapproval to others inclined to book Mar-a-Largo.

“If you have a conscience, you’re really condoning bad behavior by continuing to be there,” Laurel Baker, executive director of the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, told the Palm Beach Post.

The boycott affects a prized Trump property, and that’s a sure way to grab the businessman’s attention. 

But will it change the president’s policies? That will be the true measure of the boycott’s success.

 © 2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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