Author: docallegro

Consulting Psychologist
Specialties in: Cognitve-Behavioral Interventions, Conflict Resolution, Mediation, Stress Management, Relationship Expertise, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Fluent in Spanish

Election Analysis

Shortly after January 6th of 2021, the day that Trump’s followers stormed Congress, I made a bet with my friend, John Grahm, who was worried that Trump would win the 2024 election.  Thinking Trump was quite a long shot to win, I gave him 10 to 1 odds, $100 to $1000, that Trump would not win the election; both of us hoped that I would win the bet.  We agreed that even if Trump did not run as a candidate for president, I would still win the bet.  At the time and even later on in the mid-term elections, in 2022, when all of the candidates that Trump backed lost, I thought for sure that the Republicans would pick another candidate.  So much for predicting the future.

Although there has been a myriad of reasons put forth as to why Trump won the election, I will offer my own take on Trump’s victory.   Many years ago, my father told me that liberals can be extremely intolerable.   Inasmuch as he had been a lifelong Democrat, hearing this from him surprised me.  Moreover, I am proud to say that my father’s clothing business in Elizabeth, New Jersey, prior to the vast civil rights legislation enacted in the ‘60’s, was the first of its kind to hire Blacks as employees.  I found that liberals/progressives, that is those that veer to the left on political issues, often believe that their view is the right one and are unwilling to listen to those that may harbor different opinions. 

The reflexive reaction for many of those on the left is that Harris lost the election because of the inherent racism and sexism of America.  In my opinion, this argument carries little weight when not that long ago our country elected Barack Obama, the first Black president, not only once but twice.  A reminder to all is that America was the first country on record to have a white majority elect a Black as its president.  At the end of the day when the votes were tabulated, Trump’s support by the Black and Hispanic populace surged as he won a greater proportion of their vote than in his earlier elections. Furthermore, Trump received more female voters in this election than in the election he previously lost in 2020.  Attacking the other side with this kind of argument is simply poor sportsmanlike behavior and only will serve in strengthening the Republican hold on the slim majority they had in the present election.  Unlike earlier elections, minority groups showed a disposition toward individual rather than group identity.  It can be no longer taken as a priori that Blacks or other minorities will automatically vote Democratic.  Although these voters chose to vote for Trump, a person whose leadership qualities I seriously question, I believe this trend of no longer voting for one party by people of color is a step in the right direction.

The underlying cause of Harris’ defeat wrapped itself in the left’s denial of anything wrong with the country, excluding Mr. Trump.  This denial became obvious when President Biden faced off with Mr. Trump in the first presidential debate where Biden’s performance was considered by all a disaster.  He eventually ceded his place in the election campaign to his Vice-President, Ms. Harris, who became the Democratic Party’s candidate without having to face the normal rivalry necessary in winning the nomination through the primary process.  To her credit, she was able to amass a great amount of money, over 2 billion dollars, toward her campaign, quite a bit more than Trump spent.  So, in this case, the old saw money can buy anything, including political power, did not hold.  Furthermore, she had the support of a number of stars, such as Taylor Swift, Mark Cuban, and Oprah Winfrey who assisted her run for the presidency.  In addition, she had the press and the news stations on television, with the exception of Fox, on her side.  All this but to no avail.

Her message of joy to the voters was quite a few chords off.  The inflation that liberals appeared to forgo in their message to the American public was not addressed.  This may have been due to the fact that the Democratic Party had become more interested in the identity politics of special interest groups such as L.G.B.T.Q., gender transitions and the spread of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) in the workplace and on college campuses.  Rather than focusing on the issues   deemed foremost to many voters such as illegal immigration and inflation, the Democrats exerted their energy on a legal battle against Trump.  In a recent Op-Ed article appearing in the New York Times, Samuel Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale, points out that “for decades, liberals have made the mistake of prioritizing legal victories over popular ones.”  He goes on to say that liberals (apparently, of which he is one) in their self-righteous attitude, failed to realize that this legalistic strategy may be seen by many others as a political weapon with the intent of doing Trump in.  Suddenly, Trump had become a symbolic David fighting the evils of the Goliath, on the side of Harris, represented by the massive government bureaucracy.

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer to the New York Times, recently stated that after 2004, over 50% of Americans were not satisfied with the government.  Since that time, this lack of confidence in the institutions that form our government has clearly not improved and has been evident for some time.  As it turns out, the Democratic focus on trying to eliminate Trump through the legal system, missed the pulse of a large segment of the American populace that Bruni mentioned. 

The hope is that the Democrats will reorient themselves to the reality of where their fellow Americans are at, change tactics, with the effort of regaining the support of lower income workers that have gone over to Mr. Trump and the Republican party.  I am quite sure that identity politics will not accomplish this goal.  A better way would be to look at social class as the determining factor of their political agenda with the goal to perform better in the midterm elections in two years. 

One of the reasons I had hoped that Trump would lose the election was because he would no longer be the butt of late-night comedy featuring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Steve Colbert.  Unfortunately, this did not happen, and so we will be awarded for the next four years with their ad nauseum denigrating comments about soon to be President Trump.  They say the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  The inimitable Johnny Carson, in my opinion, exceeded the comedic talent of the above three by far.  Of course, the counterpart of these jokes will be the monotonous cheers for Trump that, I’m sure, Fox News will air.

A Wonderful World Series

For now, I will forgo discussion on America’s presidential election and rather give my thoughts about the recent World Series.   By now as most of my readers know, I am a diehard Red Sox fan.  The Red Sox Nation have fond memories of Davey Roberts, the Dodger manager:  When he stole second base in the 4th game of the playoffs between the Yankees and the Red Sox in 2004, the momentum suddenly changed.  The Red Sox came back from a 3 to 0 deficit to beat the Yankees 4 to 3 and become the first team in baseball to ever achieve such a victory.

Let me remind all you Dodger fans that the before they moved to Los Angeles in 1958, the Dodgers played at Ebbets Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn.  In the 50’s the Dodgers had a special talent of losing to the New York Yankees and consequently, were referred to by the fitting alliteration: The Brooklyn Bums.   They lost to their Bronx rivals in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953.  Doris Kearns Goodwin, the historian, who grew up in Rockville Center, New York, told of the loyalty she and her father had as true Dodger fans in the ‘50’s in a book titled:  Wait Till Next Year.  In those days, this was a repeated mantra for Dodger fans inasmuch as next year would come almost guaranteeing a repeat of same losses to the despised Yankees.  Finally, the borough of Brooklyn rejoiced in 1955 when the Dodgers beat their arch enemy to win their very first World Series. 

The wheels of fortune turned for the Dodgers when they moved to Los Angeles vis-a-vis their success in World Series.  In fact, the last time they played in the World Series against the Yankees in 1981 the Dodgers beat them 4 games to 1.  So, this Series generated a lot of excitement, not only because the rivalry would be revisited, but also because both of these teams were considered to be the two best baseball teams in 2024.

As I have pointed out in previous blogs, televised sporting events are the only unpredictable shows.  Reality T.V., comedians and other programs, for the most part, are scripted, one of which was The Apprentice that starred our president elect.  In fact, the unpredictable nature of in this case, the World Series clash between the Dodgers and the Yankees, provided lots of undue excitement for the fans.  It is precisely this that fascinates spectators who watch sporting events.

Although this World Series had several stars, Freddie Freeman’s feats for the Dodgers stood well above the others and, his name now will be associated with the legends of baseball lore.  He hit 4 home runs in the first 4 games of the World Series.  With the Yankees ahead 3 to 2, Freeman’s home run in the first game of the Series came in the bottom of the 10th inning with bases loaded and two outs.  Aaron Boone, the Yankee manager brought in Hector Cortes, a left handled hurler to pitch to the left-handed batter Freeman.  The strategy backfired when Freeman sent Cortes’ first pitch out of the ballpark for a game winning grand slam to make the final score of the Dodger win 6 to3.

The Dodgers went on to win the next two games but lost game 4 at Yankee Stadium.  Baseball, like all modern-day sports, tracks mostly everything through statistical analyses.  In World Series contention, there had been 24 occurrences in the past when one team had won the first 3 games.  Of these 24 times, 21 clubs went on to win the Series 4 to 0.  Only 3 squads have won the 4th game and now the Yankees would be the 4th team to do so.  However, no team in the World Series that trailed 3 to 0 survived a 5th game.  In fact, as I pointed out above, the Red Sox was the only team in baseball history to come back from a 3 to 0 deficit in a playoff game by winning games 6 and 7 at Yankee Stadium.

I am quite sure Davey Roberts very well knew this statistic so in game 4 when the Yankees had what appeared to be an insurmountable lead, he kept his best relief pitchers in the bullpen to save them for game 5 the following day.  The Bronx Bombers finally started hitting and went on to win that game 11 to 4. I am quite sure that Davey Roberts wanted to finish out the Series the next day rather than to return to Dodger Stadium ceding the momentum to the Yankees after winning two straight games.  He understood the peril in risking a 6th game that would have been a first after a team had fell behind 3 games to 0 in Series play.

Roberts put Jack Flaherty in to face the Yankee ace Gerrit Cole, a repeat of the 1st game in which Flaherty had pitched well making just one mistake in throwing a pitch to Giancarlo Stanton who sent it for a two-run homer.  Unfortunately, in this appearance, Flaherty fell behind early giving up 3 runs to the Yankees in the 1st inning on homers by Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm.  After giving up another run in the 2nd inning, Roberts pulled him for a relief pitcher.  The Yanks added another run in the 3rd inning on a Stanton homer to make the score 5 to 0.  Meanwhile, Cole was pitching a no hitter and looked unbeatable.  In fact, he had never lost a game when he had an early lead as great as 5 runs and going into the 5th inning, it looked like the Yankees were going to force a 5th game and a return to Dodger Stadium.  But the baseball gods had something else to say.

Kike Hernandez started the 5th inning with a single to the opposite field, thus ending Cole’s no hitter.  Tommy Edman then hit a routine fly ball to Aaron Judge in center field but it appeared he took his eye off the ball for a split second and dropped it.  Most rare as it was Judge’s first error of the season.  Furthermore, earlier in the game he had made a spectular jumping catch at the wall robbing Freddie Freeman of an extra base hit and saving a run as Mookie Betts had been on first base.  That error made it first and second and no outs with Will Smith coming to bat.  He hit a playable grounder to Anthony Volpe who chose to go to third base rather than first base.  Hernandez, in running toward third, wisely had blocked the view of Chisholm, the third basemen, resulting in the ball bouncing off his glove after hitting the ground.  Now it is bases loaded.  Cole gets Gavin Lux to strike out.  He now faces Shohei Ohtani.  Each time Ohtani came to bat he appeared to wince in pain as it was believed he had partially dislocated his shoulder upon sliding into second base during the second game played in Dodger Stadium.  In any event, he was not his usual effective self only getting a single in the three games of the Series played at Yankee Stadium.  Cole struck him out too. 

Now the Dodgers have bases loaded with two outs and, it appeared that Cole might get out of the inning unscathed.  Mookie Betts came up next and hit a spinning grounder to first base.  I said to myself that the inning had ended as Cole had successfully recorded five outs when you include the two errors made by the Yankees.  But then I watched in amazement Betts running toward first base with Anthony Rizzo fielding the ball and, Cole helplessly looking at Betts run safely to the bag.  Cole had made a mental lapse not covering first for what should have been a routine out.  Later he said he thought he could field the ball himself but when he misjudged the distance of the ball from him, he forgot to cover first base.   Though not scored an error, it was still a miscue, the third of the inning by the Yankees that produced a run making the score 5 to 1.  Cole had already pitched through two errors so he may have misplayed Bett’s grounder due to mental exhaustion.

Now Freeman was up.  With a two-strike count, Freeman had fouled a few pitches off until he got a good pitch and lined a single to centerfield producing two more runs for Dodgers.  Next up was Teoscar Hernandez who drove a fly ball well over Judge’s head scoring both Betts and Freeman and making the score 5 to 5.  The Dodgers fell behind in the 6th inning 6 to 5 but in the top of the 8th inning they came back.  With bases loaded and none out, Galvin Lux, the ninth batter for the Dodgers, hit a sacrifice bringing the score to a tie once more.  Ohtani, who I pointed out did not appear to be his usual self, was rewarded first base on interference by the Yankee catcher, Austin Wells, not only another error by New York, but also what I considered a gift.  Now Betts was up and he promptly hit a drive to centerfield that was long enough to easily score a run giving the Dodgers a 7 to 6 lead that they never lost to win the game and the World Series in 5 games.

When the Dodgers came to bat in the 5th inning, the oddsmakers had given the Yankees a 93% chance of winning the game.  But the baseball gods saw to it that this would not happen.  The Yankees, who throughout the season were able to capitalize on their opponents’ misplays, allowed the Dodgers to do exactly that to defeat them.  To quote the famous Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over till it’s over,” and when the game finally ended the Dodgers, those Brooklyn Bums from the past, were victorious.

Reflections on a Most Difficult Year

October 7th, the date of the tragic event in Israel, when Hamas murdered 1200 Israelis and took 250 hostages, marked the beginning of a tragic year for the Jewish people.  Immediately after that horrifying event, a number of students from elite schools sided with the tactics of Hamas in spite of the fact that many innocent people were quite literally slaughtered.  Hamas, in fact, sent videos around the world, boasting of its achievement in the manner in which they raped Israeli women before killing them along with the murder of many children.  If you were a Jewish student at an elite university such as Harvard or other Ivy League schools, you were vulnerable to being verbally attacked if you showed any support of the State of Israel.

Let me make it perfectly clear, as a Jewish American, I am not at all happy with the fact that in Gaza there has been some 42,000 deaths.  Although the news continually relates that these are all civilians, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in the past, estimated at least 16 to 17 thousand of those counted as dead were members of the Hamas terrorist group.  Unfortunately, the only statistic that is presented to the public is that of total deaths in Gaza that has been said to be somewhere around 42,000.  The notion that some of the people being killed in Gaza by the IDF are not only civilians, but also terrorists is lacking in both newspapers and broadcasts.  Furthermore, the press continually shows photos of the vast destruction and human suffering of Gaza’s inhabitants, but it has failed to show the constant barrage of rockets attacking Israel.

It was on November 29th, 1947, that the General Assembly of the United Stations adopted a Resolution for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in Palestine.  Young people have little understanding of the history of Israel from the start in 1948 that resulted in the surrounding areas controlled by Arabs who refused to accept Israel’s existence as a country in the Middle East.  Against all odds, the Jews had to defeat their Arab neighbors to gain their right to exist as a sovereign state.  It is an unfortunate piece of history that many Arabs would not accept the decree by the UN, and with a deep hatred, have referred to 1948 as the “Nakba” which translates to “catastrophe” in Arabic.  They use this term to describe the mass displacement of Palestinians who fled their homes due to the establishment of the State of Israel.  In reality, the seeds of hatred derive from the founding of Israel to the present where terrorist groups have refused to accept the legitimacy of Israel and wish to destroy it forever.  Moreover, many Jews living in neighboring Arab states were exiled forcing them to emigrate to Israel where they would be welcomed.

After October 7th, these seeds have taken on a bizarre variation in which much of the young, doctrinated by leftist terminology, at the best universities in the country began to chant: “Free Palestine from the river to the sea.”  Probably some of the students involved in these protests had little idea of the meaning nor significance of these words, referring to the Jordanian River and the Mediterranean Sea.  The underlying message of these words, in fact, called for the destruction of Israel.  I would maintain that a large part of the problem is that many young people are only aware of what they see occurring now with little knowledge of the complicated past that Israel has had with its Arab neighbors.  The anti-Israel alliance of leftist subgroups coming from the ivory towers of academia is most strange when one considers that Israel allows women to be treated as equals and is far more accepting of homosexuality and transgender than its Arab neighbors.

Politics make strange bedfellows so they say.  And so, we have several groups that call themselves progressives holding hands with some Arab people, led by Iran, that are eager to see the Statehood of Israel come to an end.  Their hatred of Israel, that includes Jews throughout the world supportive of Israel, would appear to be greater than their proclaimed dissatisfaction with anyone that would deny both women and other minority groups equal rights. Paradoxically, the rights of both women and minority groups have been the mainstay of much of progressive thinking.

The root of this hatred of Israel displayed on so many university campuses originates from the Manichean belief that breaks down everything into a duality of good or evil.  More specifically, many of the Left, in the United States, have made a black and white distinction between the oppressed and the oppressors where the bad guys are seen as those in power, that is the Whites, and the good guys, or the oppressed, are the Blacks.  Accordingly, Israel has been lumped with the power-seeking oppressors, thereby, becoming in the eyes of young American progressives: the oppressors.  Where Israel was once seen as David fighting its neighbors the size of Goliath, it is now seen as an omnipotent Goliath indiscriminately making war on its Arab neighbors.  The sad irony to this is that many of these anti-Israel activists completely have forgotten that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups that have little regard for human life.

More than likely, the media portraying the invasion of Israel into Gaza has reinforced this unsympathetic view of Israel.  As much as I have not particularly liked Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership in Israel, I believe he has chosen the right tactics in weakening Hezbollah, Iran’s closest and most powerful proxy.  Netanyahu so far has accepted Biden’s call for restraint in not attacking the oil fields in Iran nor their nuclear reactors.  On the other hand, he has done some of his Arab neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia, the great favor of disabling much of Hezbollah’s forces. 

Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel will retaliate against Iran after the latter shot hundreds of missiles into Israel recently. Here I would agree with the journalist Bret Stephens, who has said that Israel should go after the head of the octopus, Iran, and not just the tentacles, as represented by the proxies of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.  Granted a mission such as this could be perilous, but the dividends to both the West and some of Israel’s Arab neighboring states would not be small.   Israel has pretty much succeeded in its tactics to eliminate Hamas but it now needs to focus on the strategy of what comes next.  The destruction of Hamas is a necessary condition for the continued existence of Israel but not a sufficient one.  The strategy of how to replace Hamas with a leadership in Gaza that will feature a more peaceful existence with Israel is vital.  I agree with the journalist, Thomas Friedman, that both Saudi Arabia and other Arab States can be useful in helping to build a peaceful alliance in Gaza resulting in a two-state solution of both Israel and Palestine.

That being said, let us hope that Mr. Netanyahu begins to wind down what is going on in Gaza.  Saudi Arabia with its wealth and power would be a huge asset to Israel if the two countries normalized their relationship with one another.  This can only happen when the conflict in Gaza comes to an end and a two-state solution becomes an actuality in the Middle East.

Presidential Debate

The presidential debate has come and gone.  As you all know already, most everyone believed that Kamala Harris decidedly beat Donald Trump in the debate.  There were some on the far right that spun the debate in a way that favored Trump.  Be that as it may, Karl Rove, a staunch conservative still supportive of Trump, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s debate performance was nothing short of “catastrophic.”  He went on to say that “Mr. Trump was crushed by a woman he dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock,’ which raises the question:  What does that make him.”

Listening to the debate, I felt as if it came from a skit from Saturday Night Live.  The one critical difference, however, was that rather than an actor impersonating Trump, he was impersonating himself.  His assertion that democrats favor abortion after nine months at the birth of a child was so absurd that one of the moderators countered by telling him there had not been a shred of evidence to support such a claim. His preposterous statement that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were devouring the cats and dogs of their owners was an example of such an absurd statement that Saturday Night Live would be hard pressed to find something as ridiculous.  Subsequent, to the debate, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Republican, spoke powerfully on behalf of the Haitian immigrants.  He maintained that they are helping to bring a depressed city back to life.

Although Kamala Harris was considered the victor in her debate performance, she had the good fortune of being aided by her opponent, Donald Trump.  In fact, Trump represents one of the biggest assets that Harris brings to the election.  Harris showed uncanny wit in the way she lured Trump into making a fool of himself.  An example of this occurred when Harris blocked and parried the question of how she would handle immigration policy in the future.  Rather than answering the question, she pointed out that at Trump rallies many leave early because of boredom.  Given his inflated ego, she predicted correctly he would take this personally and defend himself.  

Harris offered an economic plan that has yet to be fleshed out in details.  Inasmuch as her advisers don’t want her to unnecessarily disclose information that might offend certain groups, her projected economic policies remain unclear.  Although Harris handled Trump and the debate quite deftly, polls indicate that she did not gain too much from her performance.  She has challenged Trump to a follow-up debate that Trump has declined all well knowing that a second debate would certainly not increase his influence on voters.

My wife, Lisa, and I saw the debate at the Jewish Community Center in Long Beach.  At the debate, there were mostly women and a few of us good men who set up materials for creating packages.  These packages were Abortion Comfort Kits to be distributed to Orange County and San Bernadino’s Planned Parenthood.  We formed an assembly line in which each person on the line would insert an article into a gift bag.  The articles we put into these bags included menstrual pads, oreo cookies, Kind bars, tea bags, Kleenex and friendship cards that people wrote on with supportive messages that offered comfort to those seeking an abortion.

The project has united women’s groups with Planned Parenthood, which has touched the lives of more than 1200 women.  These women have come from states all over the country where the rules vis-à-vis abortion are much more stringent than here in California.  I am proud of my wife, Lisa, the president of the National Council of Jewish Women–Greater Long Beach and West Orange County, who has spent many hours working on this project.  I admired the enthusiasm displayed by these women in carrying out what I consider a task of great worth.

     Campaigning

This past week I had lunch with my friend, John, who told me though he is a Republican, he considers Mr. Trump an anathema.  There are probably a lot of people that view the current state of politics and the upcoming election between Trump and Harris similar to the way John sees it.  A few weeks ago, Christopher T. Sununu, governor of New Hampshire, wrote an article published in the New York Times with the title:  My Fellow Republicans, Stop the Trash Talk.  Sununu pointed out in his article that Independents, straddling the fence as to whom they will support, are not likely to be moved by character assassinations.  Trump’s assertions to a group of Black journalists in Chicago, that Ms. Harris only recently claimed status as a Black woman and not just an Indian, was more likely to alienate this bloc of voters than gain their support. Moreover, Mr. Trump has not heeded Sununu’s warning, but rather he has resorted to name calling and attacking Harris with such barbs as: “wack job, real garbage, dumb as a rock and bum.”

Trump’s vulgar comments directed at Harris are hardly what Mario Cuomo had in mind when he compared campaigning to poetry and governing to prose.  Former presidents, such as Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, understood the meaning of those words when they went on the road to campaign, prior to each election, to the American people. They both had an ease with language when they communicated with the different constituents, they hoped they would someday represent as their president.  They carried themselves with a certain amount of charisma and mystique that made people want to listen to their message.  But even more impactful was that Reagan, especially, projected an optimistic view of what America represented in the eyes of foreign nations.  He engaged the American public with an enticing smile whose message to them was please join me on our mutual journey to make America greater than it already is.

Vice-President Harris, to her credit, has ignored Trump’s attacks on her character, in her campaign stops.  In fact, rather than Trump’s view of the current political atmosphere as American carnage, she has taken on Reagan’s mantle of optimism, and similar to Obama, has campaigned with the hope of improving and bettering the lives of Americans that are struggling.  There is a certain irony to the way the campaigning is going for both sides:  The more Trump blurts out incoherent nasty statements, the less Harris has to say about anything because the undecided voters, who may be Republicans, like my friend John, may very well be turned off by Trump’s vicious attacks on a a woman that he himself has admitted is very attractive.

But this is where Harris finds her greatest problem.  The American populace really doesn’t know where she stands on certain issues and where she will go if elected president.  Regarding the impression Kamala Harris has made on the American public, Bill Maher, the T.V. comedian, said “she is quieter than an electric car.” David Brooks has said that continuously reminding us of January 6th and/or referring to those that represent the Republican party as “weird” will not help Ms. Harris gain votes.  Moreover, although this type of criticism is far more civil than Trump’s style, it still resembles his ugly mode of campaigning.

Brooks believes that for Harris to preside over the coming election she will have to make a case, especially to working-class voters, for a better life.  But one of Harris’ suggestions to alleviate those having a difficult time financially, by employing price controls, runs contrary to the way many economists think.  Past efforts to utilize price controls have invariably caused shortages, supply chain disruptions with the result leading to higher prices.  Hopefully, she will drop this idea as she did with her earlier view on fracking that she indicated she is no longer against.  This is not to say that Trump’s idea of tariffs is any better.  When Trump implemented this measure while president, the net effect was no new jobs and prices considerably higher for consumers due to employers counting on foreign steel.

I credit Ms. Harris for not playing the race card in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention.  This is wise and lives up to that famous quote from Martin Luther King that “my children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  Whereas Ms. Harris has lived up to this standard in her campaign, Mr. Trump has eviscerated it.

Stay tuned for the presidential debate coming.

  Senior Summer Cold

Is it just me, or have those of you who read my blog that are of an advanced age, not to specify any particular age, noticed that recovery from colds appears to take much longer than in our past younger days?  Additionally, when one is not feeling well, untoward events are more likely to occur.

After a wonderful vacation on the Olympic Isle in Washington State, I came down with a cold along with an unceasing cough and concomitant fatigue. I neither had a fever nor a sore throat, but both the coughing and feeling of exhaustion refused to go away.  Thinking I had caught a strain of Covid, I tested negative.  After the cough and exhaustion persisted for over 10 days, I did a telephone consult with a doctor who suggested I go to Urgent Care.  Not particularly wanting to go, I decided to take the doctor’s advice.  When I got to Urgent Care, I took a test for Covid and was relieved when it once more was negative.  Upon going, I was able to see a doctor who ordered an antibiotic and had me take a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia.

Subsequently, I purchased the medicine with a credit card.  I recalled having difficulty making the payment as the message on the screen indicated to insert again.  When the credit card payment was finally accepted, I left the with the small bag containing the pills.  The pharmacy and diagnostic imaging were conveniently in the same area.   Because the majority of people waiting were unmasked, I changed seats a few times before the technician called my name to take the X-ray.  During the waiting period, I was trying to find my reading glasses to do the Wednesday NY Times crossword puzzle.  In addition, I was looking at my iPhone at the Red Sox game against the Texas Rangers. 

In less than thirty minutes, I heard my name summoning me to the X-ray room.   Because it was my chest, the technician told me not to take off my clothes but I did remove a few items, such as pens and iPhone, from my pocket.  Within a few minutes, the X-ray was completed and, as I walked out of the room, things got hairy.  Something felt wrong. Upon putting my hands in my pocket, I could not feel my wallet:  It was gone.  Trying to remain as calm as I could, I retraced my steps.  I knew I had my wallet when I paid the pharmacy with my credit card so I immediately returned there to see if my wallet had been turned in.  When I asked if a black wallet had been found, one of the workers checked in the back and reported that there was nothing.  She told me to go to the reception desk, adjacent to the pharmacy, and inquire there.

No luck there!  Though I was quite sure I had not lost my wallet in a restroom, the receptionist had security check all the bathrooms in the Urgent Care area.  No trace of a wallet.  I then looked at the seats by diagnostic Imaging hoping perhaps, unknowingly, my wallet had fallen out of a pocket while I was trying to find my reading glasses.  Once more my searches throughout the waiting area were futile.  One last follow-up at the reception desk bore similar results.  To add insult to injury, I noticed on my iPhone the Red Sox had blown a 3-run lead in the ninth inning and ultimately lost the game in the 10th.  It was one of those days that your glad ends so you can start afresh the next day.

Although I left my name and phone number with security informing them of the loss, I was pretty certain someone had picked it up and had decided to keep it (losers’ weepers finders’ keepers).  Unfortunately, I was right because my daily check with security proved fruitless. How I lost it will remain a mystery.   What caused the loss perhaps can be explained by my watching a baseball game online while at the same time working on a crossword puzzle. Because I could not locate my reading glasses in my pocket, I was having difficulty reading the clues.  But more importantly, I was not in the best of all spirits so these factors may have distracted me enough to not notice, until about half hour later, my missing wallet.

Of course, upon arriving at my car, I discovered my reading glasses tucked nicely into my front pocket.  Upon returning home, I immediately had all the credit card companies put a lock on the cards in my wallet.  I then went to bed that evening with a splitting headache along with a cough, though less persistent than it had been.

When I woke up, I felt well enough to do my rotation on the Senior Police Patrol, a voluntary community service that I am involved in.  An officer told me I could replace my driver’s license online without having to go to the DMV. That was good news. Furthermore, my ability to sit and write this blog is a clear indicator that my health has improved as I had zilch energy previously.  I have tested negatively every day for Covid.  

Now that I have regained my health, my wife Lisa tested positive for Covid but, thank goodness, is not feverish.  We will have to isolate from one another as was typical when Covid became an epidemic.  The nuisance of having to cancel and obtain new credit cards and replace my driver’s license, in the scheme of things, is small. The week after I had lost my wallet, my brother-in-law, Bill, discovered that he had left his wallet at Costco after he returned home.  His luck was better than mine inasmuch as it was turned in at lost and found.  So, despite my bad luck, there are still some good Samaritans out there.  The lesson I learned is not to multitask–that may lead to less focus and attention–when one is not feeling well.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Since I wrote my last blog on the possible reasons why President Biden appeared to resist his own party’s desire for him to not represent the Democratic party in the upcoming presidential election, he has withdrawn from the race.  Biden fought the idea that he was not capable of governing the country another year, but finally gave in to political pressure, a decision most commentators believe was a wise one.  Given his strong desire to stay in the game, and serve the country another four years, I am quite sure President Biden agonized over his decision to abandon his candidacy.  But to his credit he withdrew and, his departure from the presidential race provided many of us, especially those that are Democrats, with a breath of fresh air.

The bravery displayed by Cory Comperature, when he shielded both his wife and daughter from the gunshots fired at a Trump rally, deserves an even greater breath of fresh air.  Sadly, this courageous act by Mr. Comperature resulted in his death.   Comperature had been a former fire chief and was described by those who knew him as a local leader and a veteran.  Cory’s wife told Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, to publicly share that her husband “died a hero” in protecting her and his daughter from very possibly being the victims of shots that were fired at Trump.

Mr. Comperature’s death need remind us that there is no place for hatred that leads to causeless deaths of good people.  Let both the Democratic and Republican parties sheathe their hate and, at least, accept those of us who are not in agreement about which presidential candidate they support.  In contrast, in the past Mr. Trump has acted as a catalyst in supporting what became an uprising on January 6th, 2024.   Trump’s reaction to Biden stepping down from his presidential bid did not serve him nor the American people well when he said: “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President and is certainly not fit to serve—and never was.”  Trump continued by going on a typical rant by declaring that Biden had only attained the position of President by lies and Fake News.

Those who knew Cory Comperature described him as a caring man who very much loved his family.  Let us keep that in mind with people we either know or don’t know that think differently than we do.  We need not condemn them for their political positions but, at least, listen to what they have to offer.  This kind of temperament would allow for opinions opposite of ours and reduce the likelihood of extremism fostered by hate, the real weapon that murdered Cory Comperature.

The First Presidential Debate of 2024

A while back I wrote a blog titled:  The Muhammad Ali Syndrome.  In that essay, I pointed out that Muhammad Ali made the mistake, like many athletes and other professionals, of not knowing when was the best time for him to exit his boxing career.  Many commentators thought it was best for him to quit boxing after his upset win in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) over George Foreman in the 8th round.  But he persisted to fight way beyond what his body could endure resulting in permanent debilitating brain damage.

Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, recently wrote an article in the New York Times called:  The Reason It’s So Hard for Powerful People to Walk Away.  Grant maintains that rather than walk away from a losing proposition people often double down on their decisions because it feels better to be a fighter than a quitter.  He has labeled this phenomenon “escalation of commitment to a losing course of action.”  Subsequent to President Biden’s poor performance in his debate with Donald Trump last week, Biden has appeared to fall into this very same trap insofar as he has refused to throw in the towel by terminating his presidential campaign for the Democratic party.  His perseverance has held steady despite several of his past supporters stating that they would like him to withdraw his candidacy from the coming election in November.

Currently, no one knows exactly what President Biden will decide to do in the future.  But as Adam Grant mentioned, if Biden listens to the people closest to him such as family and top aides, he is receiving advice that is hardly objective but rather tinted with those susceptible to confirmation bias.  Regardless, I would recommend that whoever debates Mr. Trump in the future, be it Mr. Biden or another candidate, that that person focuses on Trump’s pattern of lying.  In the debate for presidency between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter on October 28th, 1980, in responding to Carter’s attack on Reagan vis-à-vis his position on Medicare, the latter said: There you go again.”  That comment received much laughter from the audience then allowing Reagan to explain where Carter was misconstruing what, in fact, he really believed about Medicare.  So then, why not have whoever does debate Trump, assuming there will be a debate, focus on Trump’s lies by mentioning something like the following: “Mr. Trump every time you make a false statement, I’m going to respond to it by using that famous line of the great communicator, Ronald Reagan, and say:  There you go again.”  This may appeal to the Americans who remember and loved Reagan, many of whom, of course were Republicans.  The motive here for Biden, of course, would be for him to expand his base with the potential pool of voters that are undecided as to how they will vote.

The format of the first debate was such that the commentators that presented each candidate with the questions were not going to fact check each of their statements.  That chore was to be left to the two participants in the debate.  Unfortunately, President Biden failed to call Mr. Trump on many of the falsehoods he made during the debate.  One very blatant lie Trump made was when he asserted that some Democratic states are allowing abortions after the 8th month of a woman’s pregnancy right up to the birth of the child.  When I heard this, I was surprised that Biden did not react to this obvious “Trumped” up statement.  Ironically, one of the few comments Trump made that had a ring of truth to it was when Biden was having difficulty expressing himself, Trump said: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of his sentence and, I don’t think he did either.”  I’m quite sure Trump’s followers appreciated that rejoinder.

In a Wall Street Journal article, Peggy Noonan declared Trump’s behavior as characterological whereas she believed Biden’s evident lack of coherence was neurological.  What a shame that our country is being represented by two leaders, one an individual with sociopathic tendencies, and the other one showing clear signs of aging.  These two are being backed by their parties with the belief that they are the best of all candidates to defeat their rival from the other party.  I hope this political game does not result in deleterious consequences to us, the citizens of America.

The Say Hey Kid Passes On

Among those of us that are baseball fans, sadness filled the air when we heard that Willie Mays had died. Although my allegiance went first to the Red Sox, it was because of Willie Mays that the baseball team I liked second best became the New York Giants. Each year my Aunt Ruth, who lived in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, would invite me to see Willie and the New York Giants play at the Polo Grounds.  Seeing him play baseball for the New York Giants had been one of the greater joys of my childhood.  He made some of the most difficult plays look easy.  To become a major league ball player is no easy task but it is nothing less than extraordinary to exceed in all aspects of the game.  And Mays could do it all from hitting to fielding, along with his speed, always a threat to steal a base.

I can still remember his famous basket catches along with his running the bases and seeing his cap fly off his upon his sliding into second or third base.  The way he relished the game made it that more special when he performed, with such great agility, on the baseball diamond.  And indeed, I had the excitement of seeing Willie make that most famous of all catches in the World Series against the Cleveland Indians (now called the Guardians) in 1954. That was the year that Cleveland had 111 wins losing only 43 games with a winning percentage of .721.  This record, set before the baseball season was lengthened to 162 games, remains the American League’s all-time winning percentage record.  That season the Indians easily had won the American League pennant by eight games.  Going into the World Series, the Indians had been the clear favorites to beat the New York Giants, the opposing team.

To this day, I remember it well as if it had been etched in my mind.  The game took place at the Polo Grounds.  It was the opening game of the Series on the afternoon of September 25th.  With the score tied at 2-2 in the 8th inning, Leo Durocher, then the manager of the Giants, replaced Sal Maglie, with the left-handed pitcher Don Liddle, to face the lefty-batting Vic Wertz.  There were men on first and second base and no out as Liddle got set to deliver the first pitch to the power hitting Wertz.  Wertz drove that first pitch to the right of dead center field.  At the sound of the crack of the baseball, the camera caught Mays dashing back with his back to home plate.  As he ran for the ball, somehow, I was confident that he would make the catch as long as it had not been hit out of the park.  Some 425 to 450 feet from the plate Mays caught the ball over his left shoulder.    

That catch has been said to have been the greatest catch in baseball.  But the heroics did not end there.  After catching the ball, Mays turned and whirled firing to second base keeping the Cleveland runner on first base.  I strongly believe that that one play sealed the fate of the Indians as the Giants went on to win the Series:  4-0.  After all what chance did they have against the Giants when they were playing against a player with superhuman skills.

After the Giants moved to San Francisco from New York, the games were no longer televised on the East Coast so I stopped following the Giants and devoted my baseball enthusiasm to the Red Sox.  But I really miss the artistry of Willie Mays catching a ball, running the bases and hitting a home run.  And what luck it was to actually see on T.V. that most unbelievable catch Mays made against the Indians in the Series of 1954.

Trump Craze

It is hard to understand how a good percentage of Americans continue to retain their belief in Trump as the best candidate for president.  This, despite the fact that he recently was convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York City court of law.  It may be argued that he was convicted in a city that is dominantly democratic but in accordance with the law, the jury is to be selected in the location of the crime, which indeed was in New York.  Furthermore, he was neither convicted by President Biden nor the sitting judge on his case, but rather by twelve independently selected jurors.

I had thought that January 6th, 2017 was Trump’s final call.  With an effort to overthrow constitutional law and to reject the election results determining Biden’s victory, chaos ensued.  Trump may not have told his followers to become violent but his words acted as a catalyst for the uprising on Capitol Hill that day.  Many of his firmest supporters, such as Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, were taken aback and quite astonished at his actions.  Subsequently, the candidates he backed for congress in the 2022 all lost.   I was saddened by the fact that Nikki Haley, Trump’s recent opponent in the primaries, now is promoting him.   Why would Republicans support a man whose choices had produced nothing but losers?  I for one thought the Republicans would come to their senses and abandon a candidate whose morals were at best questionable, but at worst toxic and dangerous.  How little I knew, along with so many others, that Trump over the course of the next few years would see his candidacy as a contender for the American presidency become resurrected.

Cognitive dissonance is a theory first put forth by Leon Festinger stating that people whose attitudes and beliefs are not congruent with their behavior will feel discomfort.  This discomfort will move these people to realign their behavior with their underlying beliefs. A corollary to dissonance theory is that the greater one’s investment in a company or project the more committed that person will be to the project.  This makes it much harder to give up even if, subsequently, that same project becomes less lucrative over time.  The strong commitment to their political future may make it harder for many Republicans to stand up for their true underlying beliefs.  This commitment may bridge the gap between their beliefs and their behavior in which they voice their support for Mr. Trump.

Furthermore, cognitive dissonance may help to explain why so many people of high moral standards, such as devout Christians, remain tied to Trump.  One would think that their belief systems would contradict their behavior in supporting a man who cheated on his current wife a number of times along with slandering so many of those that get on his wrong side.  But the longer they stick with Mr. Trump their investment in him strengthens making it that much more difficult to change their behavior.  To reduce their underlying dissonance, they may experience about Trump, their belief system shifts toward their behavior allowing them to ignore any of his faults.

Amazingly, after being impeached on two occasions, being convicted on 34 felony counts, and having to face the likelihood of three other prosecutions in the future, Trump’s base remains steadfast.  Furthermore, twenty-four hours after his recent conviction in New York, his supporters raised 53 million dollars for is campaign.  The outcome of this behavior is to increase the commitment of those individuals, whose value system may be in opposition to what Trump personifies.  It is hard for me to surmise what despicable act Trump might perform in the future that would lead to the erosion of his base.  Trump understood this and was prescient in 2016, during his campaign to be reelected, when he said: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

Karl Rove, a staunch Republican, wrote a column, months ago, in the Wall Street Journal where he believed if Trump were convicted of any of the charges filed against him, it would not help his chances to win the presidency.  Rove maintained he would retain his base of supporters, but may in fact lose some voters, who are on the fence vis-à-vis the coming election.  A recent poll conducted by the New York Times did indicate that Trump’s criminal convictions may affect a sliver of voters who are not as invested in him than is his base.  These voters could represent the difference in a tight race possibly providing Biden with an election win.  However, it is far too soon to predict in which direction these voters will go. 

The hope for Democrats is that Biden’s gaffes will not equal those of Trump and, that the latter will hoist himself by his own petard.  This, however, remains unpredictable, a fact that will make this election year one of the most interesting and perhaps most scary we will have experienced in the history of this great country.  Election results determine a definite winner.  More than ever, in part due to the ramification of social media and its algorithms fostering hate, there is a vehement loathing that each party holds toward the other.  Let us hope and pray that that emotion does not get in the way when one party is declared the winner over the other.