October 2021

The advent of cancel culture and the ubiquitous nature of the internet let alone camera phones have just about eliminated the notion of privacy or the expectation thereof. If you say something to anyone, expect it to be heard.

Ted Rall relates how so many people are afraid to speak their minds for fear of being cancelled or fired for expressing an opinion the majority may not like. I believe this cancel culture victimization applies particularly to those people supporting Donald Trump but living in bastions of liberalism (i.e., near water) who have actually been fired for expressing a particular political opinion, even outside of work. This is simply wrong.

In my previous blog, I discussed the confused state of the two political parties. The Republicans are being led by the Trumpist base of the mostly white Red State middle class Americans with few left defending traditional Republican values. The Democrats are in an even worse state as both elements of the party, the centrists and the progressives, are digging in their heels without compromising. The first Democratic element is skeptical of a $3.5 trillion welfare act and the second element deems it essential and long overdue. This second element is willing to sink the needed infrastructure bill to get all of their social welfare programs funded without meaningful discussion in congressional committees of each element of the social program.

I am being bombarded by people on the left and the right about some of the stances I have taken in this blog. Good. That means I am both close to the middle and not far from being correct.

Readers may remember the four P’s of Washington, DC that I learned early in my Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellowship. They are:

Policy

Process

Politics

Personality