Tag: United States of America

News & Publishing, Politics & Public Policy

A Tale of Two Presidential Campaigns

gretchenapeck

Way, way back in grad school, I studied rhetoric—the art of using words to persuade. Ever since I’ve been fascinated by politics and oration, which brings me to our Presidential race: Trump/Vance v. Harris/Walz.

There are clear policy differences between the two parties. We can vote on those according to our values and priorities. But what’s notably distinctive is the tone of the campaigns. 

One paints a picture of a dystopian America, a nation alone on the world stage, alliances be damned. Not just America First, but America Only. It’s a campaign based on grievances—personal grievances of the man at the top of the ticket, who spends his rallies disparaging people who don’t bend the knee in fealty or espouse his loosely held principles. It is a campaign that not only doesn’t extend a handshake to all Americans, it disparages them in cruel, incredible terms. It is a campaign that portrays too many Americans as “others,” to be feared, hated, prosecuted, persecuted, or worse. A campaign that describes the nation’s cities—our multicultural centers of commerce, technology and art—as hellscapes, and a campaign that reimagines the future of America in the regressive Project 2025. It’s a campaign replete with speeches pining for a dialing back to 2016, a dialing back on policy, on “settled” law, on rights, on innovation, on societal progress and intellectualism. It looks at humanity and showcases the worst of it. It is a campaign about retribution (Trump’s words). It is relentlessly angry. 

From Donald J. Trump’s Truth Social account, August 6, 2024
Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance is starting to mimic the culture-wars rhetoric of his running mate. Despite the thorough debunking of this claim days ago, this post still appears on Vance’s X.com page as of August 6, 2024.

By comparison, the other campaign strikes a tone that’s hopeful, aspirational, empathetic. You’ll find no “losers and suckers” admonishments in the deep cuts. It’s a campaign with a Presidential hopeful who is attacked—like so many women—for being accomplished and yet unapologetically happy. They call her “giggles” and “crazy” and “cackling” when she expresses joy.

Now, she has a running mate, who seems happy, too—not pollyannish about what ails our nation, but excited for the prospect of their proposed solutions to heal them.

Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz expresses empathy for Minnesota’s families who are struggling to make ends meet — offering solutions not bluster.

And unlike the falsely masculine rhetoric coming from the other campaign, this VP doesn’t hide his softness, his compassion. He laughs, and not at others’ expense. Hours old, this campaign already feels lighter, forward-focused.

So many Americans are politically exhausted and parched. They’re looking for the water source in that dystopian desert. And if you think a message of hope, aspiration and joy doesn’t sell in the nasty news cycle-obsessed world of modern-day politics, I give you eight years of President Barack Obama as evidence people find it refreshing, resounding and winning. 

In the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’s pick for a running mate, Governor Tim Walz, the Obamas weighed in on what Walz brings to the ticket, including “his ability to talk like a human being and treat everyone with decency and respect.”
Former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama take their final flight on Marine One, as they fly over Washington, D.C. following the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. Photo: G.A. Peck
Military Service, Politics & Public Policy, Uncategorized

On Memorial Day

gretchenapeck

My father-in-law died just two springtime’s ago. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of him—often, fondly and expressed with laughter. Sometimes, it’s with regret. 

We’d come north to be closer to him after my mother-in-law passed away. We knew he’d need our attention and care as the years compounded. These were bonus years, we felt, when got to know him, when we spoke of meaningful things, including his reflections on life, people, history, politics, and even war. He’d tell us his catalog of stories, as if he’d never told them before, as if we hadn’t heard them dozens of times. We knew that one day, we’d miss hearing him tell them. 

That day didn’t come until he was 95 years old, after he’d led a full life, equal parts remarkable and ordinary. 

There are days when we feel the deep, profound loss, a black hole that cannot be sated, always threatening to suck you into its mysterious depths. 

Those are the days when I think of all the questions we neglected to ask, all the memories he never got to share or didn’t want to.

Through his eyes, we’d seen the world in a different way. He could change your way of thinking with his perspective. He did that for me on numerous occasions, about things that I already thought I’d had all figured out—poverty and frugality, simplicity, curiosity, race, charity, death, religion, friendship, family, humor, war. 

What a privilege to have had the time with him, I know, and I’m especially aware of it today, when so many families gather to mourn their loved ones who never came home from war. I think of their generations of loved ones deprived of the simple moments strung together to make a complicated, fulfilled life. I think of those who never got to say goodbye, left with medals, mementoes and incessant, gnawing what-could-have-beens.

My father-in-law and all four of his brothers served in WWII, and they each came home to their family—perhaps not whole and unscathed, but alive. I’m sure not a day passed for any of them when they didn’t think of their fellow Americans, their brothers and sisters in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, who perished.

One of the stories my father-in-law used to tell was how he’d come back home from his “island-hopping” tour of the South Pacific and made a pitstop in San Francisco before making the cross-continental trek home to New Haven, Connecticut. He called home right away. His father answered in an impatient bark: Who the hell is this?

It’s me, his third eldest son said into the receiver, explaining his current location.

His father softened, but pointed out that it was the middle of the night in New Haven, Connecticut, and that he’d been awoken from a sound sleep by the phone call.

When my father-in-law told this story, he’d chuckle at the memory. Who the hell is this, he’d say, imitating his father’s gruff-Yankee tone.

Of course, his parents, siblings, and community must’ve been relieved. One son was on his way home—news worth a sleepless night, which is why we’d all laugh along during his retelling.

Today, I think of all those families who didn’t get a call like that, who received entirely different, generationally devastating news, instead. May we take today to be still and reflect on their profound loss and sacrifice.

News & Publishing, Politics & Public Policy

Imprecise rhetoric pits Americans against Americans

gretchenapeck

One thing that could help heal our nation a little bit is if our Representatives — in Congress, in the White House, at State Houses, and even in Town Councils — would stop the generalizing rhetoric.

When they mean “Democrats/Republicans IN CONGRESS,” they should speak the full phrase, not just “Democrats [insert condemnation],” not just “Republicans [insert condemnation].”

The American people should not have to shoulder the burdens of their imprecision and what is often political gamesmanship.

The American people should not be perpetually “groomed” and programmed by their Representatives to have disdain for one another — and especially because the “adults” in American government can’t compromise and get things done because they’re too busy gaining and retaining power.

News & Publishing, Politics & Public Policy

Robert Mueller Speaks

gretchenapeck

Caught off guard by this presser today, but here are some of the things we’ll be talking about in newsrooms in the aftermath:

Quick takeaways:

• Right on time. No dramatic delay. All business – true to character.

• Investigation is formally closed. Mueller has resigned as the Special Counsel.

• Wants the report to speak for itself. (How many Americans have actually read it?)

• Stressed conclusions: Russian operatives launched a concerted, multipronged attack on the American election and election systems. They hacked computers, including voter registration systems in several States (see: Florida, where they had notable success) and the DNC’s email system, where they obtained, weaponized and disseminated damaging information on a Presidential candidate.

• Another conclusion: Posing as patriotic Americans on social media channels, Russians created a highly effective disinformation campaign that expressly seeded resentment and pitted Americans against Americans.

• The Special Counsel’s investigation was legally instated, because it was vital to the nation that we understood these attempts to politically destabilize the country, manipulate American voters and exert control over public/foreign policy.

• The investigation did not find the President of the United States “guilty” of criminal conspiracy/obstruction, NOT because there was no evidence to support that allegation but because the Special Counsel and the Department of Justice’s hands were tied in a long-standing rule that allows for the investigation of a sitting President but absolutely prohibits the criminal prosecution of a sitting President (while in Office). The Department of Justice protocol also requires that a President be removed from Office not by way of the Department of Justice alone, but through an Act of Congress. The Special Counsel, therefore, provided the findings of the report and entrusted members of Congress to digest it and make the determination if Impeachment of the President is warranted.

• Mueller credited his new boss, AG Barr, for making the majority of the report public. He stated that he has not been encouraged nor prohibited from providing public or Congressional testimony by anyone, including AG Barr.

• If he is called to testify before Congress, he will stay within the content of the report. “The report is my testimony,” he said.

• He thanked the members of his team – the attorneys, the staff, the FBI – for their work. He said they are “of the highest integrity.”

• Robert Mueller’s last words to the American people as his job comes to an end: Foreign agents attempted to fuck with (paraphrasing) your Nation. They came for you. They came at you. And they’re going to do it again. “[This] deserves the attention of every American,” he concluded.