A question for the chief justice

On Wednesday the 21st, Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked our domestic Dear Leader for claiming a federal judge who issued a decision Don Trumpone didn't like was "an Obama judge". Roberts hewed to the standard line about federal judges being impartial arbiters of the law.

I don't dsiagree with Roberts' vision of the judiciary and the ideals it should uphold. Who could?

Even so, the Supreme Court, the very apex of the judicial branch, is perhaps the most prominent exemplar of a biased judiciary. Everybody speaks of "conservative" and "liberal" justices whose votes on most cases are all but preordained. If it's a hot-button cultural issue, nobody wonders how Samuel Alito or Elena Kagan will vote on the case.

Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings were a national disgrace. The majority of the public did not believe he should have been confirmed. This was not a problem the Court could solve, but the negative consequences will fall on the Court anyway. Those of us who consider Kavanaugh unfit to be a Justice have any number of reasons — provided by the nominee himself — not to trust him. If his temperament as a Justice resembles that on display during his confirmation hearings, we will have ample ammunition for impeachment hearings.

So the question for you, Mr. Chief Justice, is how you will restore faith in your Court.

Mr. Chief Justice, Kavanaugh expressed such outrageously and unapologetically partisan views during his confirmation hearing that millions of Americans rightly wonder how they can possibly receive a fair hearing at his hands. Kavanaugh called the serious allegations of sexual assault leveled against him the handiwork of "liberal" activists and "Clinton" (Bill and Hillary) supporters.

If the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee should find itself a plaintiff or respondent before the Court, how could it expect a fair hearing? Will Justice Kavanaugh recuse himself from the case? If he will not recuse himself on his own, will you use whatever authority you have to compel him?

The Court's reputation is no longer as a nonpartisan institution. If that is the ideal to which you want the Court to aspire, what will you do to bring about that state of affairs?

Most of the nation's problems are not yours to solve. However, we're looking to see how you will address those problems that are yours.

So again, Mr. Chief Justice, how will you restore confidence in the Court?

Take far-right radicalism more seriously

So runs the argument by Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Treating far-right violence as a purely domestic issue deprioritizes these crimes on the national security agenda. It also ignores the international reach of militant white supremacist groups, and obscures the greater threat posed when governments become enthralled with exclusionary nationalism, which mobilizes popular support by stigmatizing groups of "others" -- often identified by race, religion or ethnicity -- as national enemies.

German calls on the federal Justice Department and intelligence agencies "to start taking far-right violence more seriously -- in order to avoid another century of brutal conflict".

That's all well and good, but as the history of the civil rights movement shows, you can't legislate or jail your way to utopia. At some point somebody will have to figure out a way to end the cycle of propagation of the many twisted, toxic ideas embedded in white nationalism, anti-Semitism and all the other odious bigotries now proudly asserting themselves under our deeply prejudiced domestic Dear Leader.

How, in other words, do we keep such bigotry and hatred from claiming hearts and minds?

We must adapt to wildfires

Prof. Crystal Kolden persuasively argues that the western U.S. must adapt to wildfires rather than trying to prevent them. Her opening paragraphs, in fact, are a direct rebuke to our domestic Dear Leader's uninformed drivelling: "there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.”

Rather than indulging our knee-jerk impulse to ban human habitation in fire-prone areas, which Kolden accurately notes penalizes those who have been priced out of other areas in California, Kolden suggests, "we should take a cue from the Dutch":

Much of the Netherlands sits below sea level and is therefore prone to flooding, but the Dutch can’t exactly move en masse next door to Germany. So they have learned over the centuries that the solution is to stop fighting the sea, and build their cities and towns to maximize saving lives through smarter planning and infrastructure. We could do the same with wildfire.

Kolden notes that a few communities already have undertaken such measures as mandating fire breaks around homes and requiring fire-resistant building materials. Best practices will vary according to local conditions and resources.

We also shouldn't blindly follow the vision Trump clearly embraces, though he didn't come right out and say it, the vision of rapacious logging and clear-cutting. I would bet he has the cartoonish idea that if you only rid yourself of trees, you rid yourself of wildfires, too. That idea is idiotic (which is why I suspect Trump holds it: he has never met an idiotic idea he didn't love). Logging may be a component of future wildfire mitigation but that's far from certain. As with so many other things, it would be best for our domestic Dear Leader to keep his trap shut and let people who study and understand such problems come up with ideas and recommendations.

Another bit of adaptation that Kolden didn't mention, but that millions of Californians are all too painfully aware is needed, is to the threat of smoke and soot. Because of unusually gentle winds, the Camp Fire in northern California has bathed the populous Bay Area and much of the nearby San Joaquin Valley in unhealthful levels of smoke. There is no escape from the bad air for millions; even the "N95" masks designed to filter out dangerous particulate matter carry their own risks, according to the Sacramento County Department of Health Services, whether the masks are used correctly or not. Granting that the stagnant air is unusual for this area, now that the possibility for this confluence of bad conditions has been made manifest, we need to think about how to respond to it.

Turn away from rage

French president Emmanuel Macron spoke at the Arc de Triomphe today, explicitly rejecting the brand of "America First"-ism embraced by Trump.

There's nothing wrong with being a hard bargainer, with trying to win the best advantage for your side in a negotiation. If that were all Trump was doing by turning the country's back on treaties and agreements — NAFTA, NATO (sometimes), the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty — his actions would be defensible, if still regrettable.

However, that's not what Trump is about.

He wants to ride the populist wave he rode into office for as long and as far as he can because that's how he keeps his power base. As long as he holds the Republican Party in his grip, he keeps his own grip on the White House. If Republican lawmakers in Congress were to find that they could defy him and keep their seats, Trump would be out of office faster than you could say "impeachment". Those lawmakers would much rather put the drama behind them under a Pence presidency.

So Trump upends the status quo and vilifies anybody he doesn't like because that all delights his supporters. They like that he's manifestly enraging his opponents with his every word and deed. They also like that he's giving them plenty of people to hate and despise: Democrats, liberals, illegal immigrants, Latin Americans fleeing violence in their homelands, women who object to being treated as second-class citizens, non-heterosexuals, African Americans ... frankly, the list is too long to enumerate. His opponents, meanwhile, have tried to turn the popular discomfort with him — and yes, the rage at him — to their own advantage: thus the midterms.

All this rage, though, isn't good for us.

We can reject policies without vilifying one another.

We can disagree without despising one another.

In the end, living in rage and fear (fear is another emotion Trump has great success fostering) isn't just bad for our health, it's contrary to who we are as a nation. As a nation we're about looking forward.

Trump is all about looking backwards. For him, making America great again means resurrecting an America of an indeterminate past age, back when everything was just fine — for men like Trump. That everything wasn't "just fine" for a lot of others doesn't matter to him. And he has convinced more than forty percent of the voting population that it doesn't matter to them, either.

No matter what he says, though, Trump can't turn the clock back. He can't change the actual state of the world, or even of the country.

He can, however, repeat the mistake made by those who let him become president.

That mistake: ignoring those who disagreed with them in favor of rhetoric that sounded good.

That was the mistake made by two generations of D.C. politicians in both parties. They sang paeans to the free market, all while ignoring the costs to working people. The job market became a crapshoot, with all the ugly consequences that come with betting against the house. And make no mistake, employers are the house, and the rest of us are the gamblers.

White nationalists are Trump's most loyal supporters but it was economic uncertainty and fear that motivated everybody else who voted for him in 2016.

Stoking rage and fear among his own supporters gives them (and him) a temporary emotional high, but it doesn't do anything to fix the broken economic system that prompted the fear. Those among his supporters who aren't virulent white nationalists, then, will see no help from him.

Meanwhile, as long as his opponents drum up support by vilifying him and/or his supporters, they, too, offer no help to fix the broken economic system that got us into this polarized mess.

Trump will be defeated (electorally) by someone who offers an alternative vision of our national future — one that appeals to our desire to look forward. That's especially true right now because so many of us want to look anywhere but right here, because right here and right now are so ugly thanks to Trump.

Until that person comes along, we can lay the groundwork by rejecting Trump's all too sure talent for fomenting rage. Whether you support or oppose him, just stop letting him wind you up. It'll be better for you, and better for the country.