Civil Commotion

Growing up, my parents and grandparents belonged to a Republican Party where science, knowledge, an effort to treat others decently and with respect, and a level of decorum were the norm. Indeed, it was expected. While not members of country clubs, in retrospect, their economic position made them the equivalent of the so-called “country club” Republicans. One simply did not associate with a certain kid of people: uncouth, uneducated, and hateful people. Now, such people make up the GOP base. My parents and grandparents have all passed away, but they would be horrified to see today’s GOP lead by a lying carnival barker fixated on bringing out the worse elements of society and making them mainstream. While the GOP continues to be the party of Christian values, its policies and, now, legitimizing of open hatred of others makes it the antithesis of such values. Nowhere is this ugly reality more visible than at a Trump rally. Whether they like it or not, when my Republican “friends” continue to refuse to flee the GOP, they tell the world that they are part of this ugliness.

Michael Hamar

This is more familiar-sounding than I can say (with the exception of the country club part), with a particular emphasis on the use of racial and ethnic slurs. It was drilled into me early that the use of those slurs betrayed ignorance, low class, lack of education, that people like us do not use them. To this day, the users of those words immediately and irrevocably go down a drawer in my mental file-cabinet.

I uphold, too, that Trump’s squalor is so overt and destructive that — Yes — it implicates the character of his supporters. We are past the time when one can plead ignorance; everybody knows now who and what Donald Trump is.

The air will be thick today with I-remember-where-I-was reminisces, so I’ll just get mine out of the way up front: I was in the backseat of my grandparents’ car, parked on the side of the road next to a cornfield somewhere near Gladwin, Michigan, listening to the landing.

CapComm: We copy you down, Eagle.

Armstrong: Houston, Tranquility Base here.

Armstrong: The Eagle has landed.

CapComm: Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.

Armstrong: Thank you.

CapComm: You’re looking good here.

Armstrong: Okay. We’re going to be busy for a minute.

Aldrin: Master arm, on. Take care of the [static] I’ll get this [static]

Aldrin: Very smooth touchdown.

One of my very earliest memories is space-related: Much of the neighborhood went outside and stood on a street-corner, looking skyward for a glimpse of Sputnik as it transited overhead. One of the adult men bellowed something along the line of “If those Russians try anything, we’ll kick their ass,” and his wife shushed him.

Dwight Eisenhower dismissed Sputnik as a “football” and was unimpressed, but Americans didn’t like the thought of an insolently beeping football they could do nothing about passing overhead, and Eisenhower was forced to establish a space program; he wisely put it under civilian, not military, control. Just a couple of years later, of course, President Kennedy launched the race to the moon.

I was part of the Sputnik generation of schoolchildren, educated with a strong bias toward what, today, is called STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. I am grateful for that, though I no longer practice engineering; analytical habits of thought transfer easily to, and enrich, other interests.

The challenge of going to the moon was vested with both romance and existential urgency, and meeting it was a triumph of science, engineering, logistics, and politics. That we are unable, today, even to dismiss a cheap demagogue and proto-fascist like The Donald is a pretty good indicator of how much America has changed in the last half-century.

Trump Denies Being at North Carolina Rally

Andy Borowitz scoops the world — again.

All right-minded Tarheels are Southern Baptists, filled with love-love-love for everybody^*, so nobody should be surprised that the First Felon had no difficulty inciting them to new behavioral lows.

GREENVILLE, N.C. — President Trump road-tested his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen on Wednesday, casting them as avatars of anti-American radicalism and reiterating his call for them to leave the country, as a raucous crowd chanted, “Send her back! Send her back!”

The performance here was a preview of a slash-and-burn re-election strategy that depicts Mr. Trump as a bulwark against a “dangerous, militant hard left.”

“These left-wing ideologues see our nation as a force for evil,” Mr. Trump told a packed arena. To roaring applause, he railed against what he called “hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down.”

“They don’t love our country,” he said. “I think, in some cases, they hate our country. You know what? If they don’t love it, tell them to leave it.”

Watch for yourself:

This man, and his malice-eaten followers, are a grave threat to this country. Do your duty, Congress.

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^*  Excepting the others, of course: Nigras, who ought to be grateful their ancestors were brought to the Good Ol’ U.S. of A.; Moozlims, who worship Satan; college-educated women, who are sluts and good for only one thing, which ain’t baking cookies or singing in the church choir; Yankees, who freed the Nigras; Jews, who killed Jesus; Ilhan Omar, who is a Nigra and a Moozlim, just like Barack Obama — the most wicked man who ever lived; Catholics, who serve the Antichrist, the Pope; John McCain and George W. Bush, who wanted to let in immigrants; Hilary Clinton, who is a demon-possessed Methodist; and New York Times readers, who actually believe all that fake news that isn’t fit to print.

Alan Turing, the gay genius who masterminded the defeat of Germany’s Enigma cipher during World War II, is to be recognized on Britain’s £50 note.

Turing was prosecuted for his homosexuality after the war, and committed suicide.