CORONA (NO LIME)

It seems unquestionable that when China gets a cold, the market sneezes.  When the world gets China’s cold - the market seizes.  As the various exchanges register “Shock and Aaaaaaargh!” at the potential impacts of the Corona virus there is a distinct chance that this will expose the fragility of the Trump economy.  The economic boom so frequently touted by the President is something I’ve long said was built on toothpicks, that it might very well disintegrate if any small thing falls out of place – and a microscopic virus seems to be proving that point. It’s also illuminating something perhaps a bit more surprising – there are many more things in common between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders than the conventional wisdom would hold to be the case.   

On what do I base these assertions?  First, let’s take four basic assumptions as starting points – if you want to challenge me on those feel free but I’m pretty confident they are correct and that the only real debate surrounds their impact, not their existence:

1.       Trump inherited a strong, improving economy from Barack Obama.

2.       The tax cuts passed in Trump’s first year assisted in heating that economy up, creating at least a mini-boom.

3.       The administration has evidenced little to no concern with the growth in the federal deficit; and,

4.       The administration has aggressively sought to counter the typical impacts associated with tariffs.

Now – let’s take those points in turn. 

Trump Inherited a Strong Economy

Barack Obama’s style infuriated conservatives but, perhaps more impactfully over the past two presidential election cycles, it frustrated and disappointed liberals, particularly those farther left.  Obama was far too measured for their taste – liberals were expecting a figure whose every speech would evoke the Gettysburg Address and every bill would be a new Voting Rights Act.  Instead Obama, while certainly capable of rising to the occasion when required (witness his speech following the murders of worshippers in South Carolina) was perhaps best described as “plodding but effective”.  (Warning:  Here come the sports analogies). They wanted Jim Brown but got Larry Csonka.  They wanted Ted Williams but got Stan Musial.  They wanted Michael Jordan but got John Havlicek.  (Further Warning – Irish sporting analogy ahead) They wanted Rory McIlroy but got Padraig Harrington. 

Enough.

The point is – all of those alternatives are great in their own way – they’re just not “the greatest ever” and aren’t all that flashy.  Obama’s probably going to end up being ranked somewhere in that category of Presidents.  Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of the economy.  The one thing no politician ever gets credit (or blame) for are the “things that don’t happen”.  If Herbert Hoover had prevented the Great Depression – would anyone have even known?  If James Buchanan had quietly sat both sides down and stopped the Civil War from happening – I’m certain people would not revile him as much as they do now but I’m equally sure that, because the Civil War would not have happened, no one would realize the danger of the bullet that had been dodged.

To me – when it comes to measuring the Obama performance – it’s a bit like asking “how sharp are the shark’s teeth that did not bite you”?  When Obama was coming in to office the economy was in something resembling free fall.  Lehman Brothers had failed, the banking system was hanging by a thread, the remnants of the auto industry were about to collapse without access to cash (which is tough to get with no banks), pensions had been wiped out, the world economy was teetering.  It was bad – really bad. 

But the fact that we are sitting here today tells you that while the economy may have been on a cliff’s edge in 2009 – it never fell off.  The fact that this didn’t happen is perhaps Obama’s greatest triumph.  He did what Hoover and Buchanan did not. We’ll never know how sharp the teeth were that did not bite.

How this happened is one of the better stories of the last fifty or so years. In large part it goes like this - having taken an active part in the transition between administrations (a stark contrast to the actions of Trump as detailed in Michael Lewis’s “The Fifth Risk”), Obama was able to effectively lobby for the passage of an economic stimulus plan.  More impressively, once in office the administration of those funds was accomplished in a way that managed to maximise their effectiveness.  Rather than financing a number of politically attractive huge projects (in a manner similar to that done during the New Deal) a more careful, deliberate course was followed.  No enormous dams, federal office complexes or national monuments (all of which could be named after prominent politicians) were built – instead the money was carefully apportioned to managed projects involving strategic investments – and ended up being historically free of waste and corruption.  The entire endeavour is described in Michael Grunwald’s book “The New New Deal”, which makes a strong case in favor of the methods used to apportion the funds.

But whether you accept the effectiveness of the incentive plan or not one thing was certain – it was not designed to bring about immediate or even “brisk” recovery.  Instead the approach was based upon gradualism – a slow, sometimes barely discernible return to prosperity.  This proved infuriating to conservatives, who decried the pace (or even the reality) of the recovery.  But more telling for the current election cycle this was even more frustrating for the left wing of the Democratic party, which had thought the incentive program offered an opportunity to funnel funds to traditional government backed programs – not a stimulus package for the private sector. The fact that this was not the approach taken led to discontent on the left – perhaps most graphically represented by the fact that throughout 2011 one Bernie Sanders was spending significant amounts of his time in New Hampshire, preparing for a primary challenge to Obama. Donald Trump was contemplating a similar run - when he wasn't trying to prove Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

Obama did have one factor acting to his advantage – the strategy was working.  While the economy could, at any one given time, be described as “lethargic” it was, over the span of years, clearly improving.  In the 2012 election Obama’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, vowed to achieve 6% unemployment if elected.  This was deemed an outrageous figure, pie in the sky stuff. Obama simply vowed to stay the course – keep the same strategy and continue the slow growth.  Hardly the stuff of legend.  Nonetheless, by 2016, after winning that 2012 election – the unemployment rate under Obama was not at Romney's promised 6% level - it was, in fact, around 4%.  Clearly whoever inherited the economy following the 2016 contest would be walking in to a solid, well performing, growth-based situation. That someone turned out to be Donald Trump.

Superheating the System

Let’s start this next section with a question. If you were to be given a credit card with a million dollar credit limit – are you then a millionaire?  I know most would say “no” – but why not?  If you see something with a million dollar price tag on it – you can buy it – that’s what a millionaire could do.  If you want to invest $100,000 dollars in ten separate business ventures – you could do that.  That’s what a millionaire could do.  If you want to fund a pension fund with a million – you could do that. Just like a millionaire.

Of course, what is not factored in to this is the annoying little fact that you will have to pay back the million – eventually.  But during the period of time that the bill doesn’t come due – shit, you’re a damn millionaire.

Here we come to the great Republican con game of the past 40 years.  While selling themselves as the staid proponents of fiscal austerity the GOP has been the largest band of profligate spenders in history.  In each of the Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan the federal deficit has grown, the national debt has exploded, the revenue base has been eroded and – incredibly – the party has promoted itself as the avatars of frugality.

Oh – by the way – they have done so successfully

The basic plan goes like this – you come in to office criticising the Democrats as a bunch of socialist, half crazed, anti-American lunatics who want to give all your money away to gang members and drug addicts.  You then assure people that if they turn the economy over to you these activities will stop, you will curtail all this craziness and – get this – you’ll be able to cut everyone’s taxes and make sure no one feels any pain. 

Of course, these are the things that would cause pain – cuts to military spending, cuts to social security, cuts to medicare, cuts to student loans, cuts to transport spending, cuts to farm subsidies, cuts to veterans’ benefits – you get it.  You could get away with attacking grants to public broadcasting (unless they are seen to be a direct threat to Big Bird), and you could make a lot of hay cutting art subsidies or food stamps – but those were red herrings – the size of the cuts were miniscule.

The tax cuts however – they were not illusory.  Each administration would come in with a single, overriding top legislative priority – get those cuts passed.  The reason was quite simple – a tax cut to a country is the equivalent of giving itself that million dollar credit card we talked about at the beginning of this section – except it was more like a multiple of billion dollar cards. 

If you spend like a millionaire for a short period of time it will become similar to a sugar high – to all watching you from the outside you’ll appear to be doing better than ever.  You’ll have a better home, drive a better car, wear better clothes, eat better food.  The same is true of a country after a tax cut.  There’s more money out there (lots more for some), there’s more economic activity, business is up, spending is up, unemployment goes down. And here’s the thing that Democrats don’t seem to realize – this is not “illusory”.  The economic boom that accompanies a tax cut is quite real- it’s just not sustainable. 

Republicans, in fairness to them, have made feeble attempts to cut spending for some of the large, pain inducing programs previously listed.  The problem is this – those are all good programs. Not just popular – but good, important, necessary areas in which government is expected to, and should, perform.  We need a military. We need social security. We need functioning roads and airports, educated students, health care for veterans and the elderly (really, more than just that) – so when you attempt to cut those programs – you lose elections. So while the previous Republican administrations of Reagan and the two Bushes probably did intend to cut spending to offset their tax cuts (although it is hard to envision how they ever thought they’d cut enough) they were never actually able to do the job – and it wasn’t because of the Democrats.

We know this because during the two Democratic administrations there was actual evidence of fiscal responsibility.  The Obama successes have been detailed – but during the Clinton years the federal government posted surpluses – an unheard of development. (Obama did not but that was largely down to the stimulus package and TARP program inherited from Bush II).  This was helped by the brakes applied by Republican congresses – but remember – they never went after the really important programs because, well, they were important.

Which brings us to Donald Trump.  Trump, who is not a conservative and was not, until the party morphed into his image, a Republican, has simply done away with all pretense when proposing an economic plan.  He passed huge tax cuts upon taking office, knowing that this would superheat the strong economy he inherited, he made no effort to reduce spending other than cosmetic things like spending on national parks, he actually boosted spending on things like his ridiculous wall, “Space Force” and other chimerical programs.  At the same time he reduced regulation, knowing this would open the gates for companies to exploit areas without fear of federal restraints.  (This is called “getting government off your back”.  Other examples of operations where government was not “on the back” of big business would be WorldCom, Enron, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and some Dutch tulip company back in the day).

Unsurprisingly all of this additional money, reduced regulation and promise of more of the same led to the spurt in economic growth the country has enjoyed for the past few years.  It is not illusory – the economy is in a legitimate “boom” period – but, like a gangly teenager going through a growth spurt – it’s getting bigger but not “stronger”.

Treating the economy like this is dangerous, and cannot be sustained for long.  Trump doesn’t care.  As far as he is concerned it only has to be maintained until November, long enough for him to tell everyone how great things are.  That’s why the latest Chinese export has him so worried.  The Corona virus just might disrupt his timetable.

Why Does This Matter?

Look – if this was only about who was going to end up as President after the November election – this really wouldn’t matter.  Economies go up and down, elections get held, there are plenty of other reasons to cast a vote that don’t involve deficits, budgets, taxes, monetary theory, trade policy – the wonky things. Go ahead - vote for (or against) someone because of guns, abortion, the judiciary, civil rights – those are all incredibly, incredibly important. But I want people to at least consider the following arguments because I think they are important as well.

As I’m writing this I’m looking through the collected works of someone whom I greatly admired.  Paul Tsongas was a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts whose office I worked in while attending college.  He was unreservedly liberal when it came to social issues, but was also a self-described “pro-business” Democrat. This meant that he did not, for example, automatically discard someone’s value as a person simply because they were rich. To him the word “billionaire” would have simply meant someone who had a billion dollars, not someone who was inherently evil.  Prejudice is prejudice, no matter if it is based on skin color or dollar signs.

He was also a great opponent of something that is not really thought about much anymore.  Here is something he wrote about in 1991 (and that I touched on at the beginning of this article):

The students will not believe the teacher.  How could this be, they will ask. How could Reagan and Bush have gotten away with balanced budget rhetoric at a time of massive budget deficit realities? How could they lull the American people into accepting such staggering debt without widespread revolt?

More pointedly, they will ask, why did people allow this enormous accumulation of debt which now burdens their generation? This, of course, raises the pointed question of generational morality.

That was 1991.  The annual budget deficit that he was up in arms about was $245 billion.  This year it is estimated to surpass $1 trillion.

For one year.

That is nearly inconceivable and, to me, represents an enormous danger.  The problem is – it doesn’t seem to bother too many people on the right (Trump) or the left (Sanders) very much at all.  At least anymore. 

Republicans were, at one time, up in arms about the deficit. Having signed on to Trump’s use of the company credit card (and the accumulation of a one trillion annual bill) that is not the case any longer.  Democrats (other than the Tsongas wing of the party, who are becoming increasingly less conspicuous) have never been overly concerned about the concept of deficit spending, though the level of unsupported expenditure has not been as high under Democratic presidents as Republicans since the 1960’s. The Bernie contingent certainly has no problem with such spending.

In fairness to both parties the lack of concern about the rate of deficit spending is not simply a case of “whistling past the graveyard”.  Economists on both the right and the left are able to justify their position on deficits on the grounds that the true measure of the impact of the deficit is not the overall size of the debt, but the cost of servicing that debt.  If interest rates are low then the cost of servicing the debt will not become a drag on the economy – instead the borrowing will act as a kind of “perpetual stimulus” keeping the debt easily serviceable while the economy motors along.  Here, in theory, is how this works itself out according to a recent article in Slate:

The main reason economists have traditionally warned governments against borrowing too much is that doing so could slow down the economy by pushing up interest rates and “crowding out” private investment. In theory, a country could also end up trapped in a debt spiral, where it can no longer meet its interest payments and is forced to default. But for developed nations that print their own currencies (sorry, Greece), those aren’t really serious concerns these days. As Olivier Blanchard, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, has explained at length, we live in an era of rock-bottom interest rates that have made it easier for governments to sustain even high levels of debt. In the United States, interest payments as a percentage of GDP are just over half of what they were in the mid-1990s. The signs of crowd-out are also all but nonexistent: Borrowing is cheaper for companies now than at any time since the 1950s. There are also signs that advanced countries can carry vastly higher debt loads than we do and still be just fine: Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio is more than double ours, and yet it’s currently borrowing money at negative interest rates, meaning investors are essentially paying Japan to hold their money.

The Slate article goes on to note that while this is currently the prevailing wisdom – they could be wrong. That moment of humility is expressed thusly: “In the end, all predictions about the economy are informed guesses, and it’s possible that, down the line, circumstances might change in unexpected ways.” That seems to be the position on all sides – they could be wrong, but there is no evidence to that effect and it’s a bet worth taking.

The problem is – there is evidence to the contrary and if you have any regard for history – fairly recent history – you would never take that bet.  It was only the 1970’s when the country faced interest rates that were in the high teens. Yes – that was forty odd years ago – but that’s the thing – if rates spike every 60 years or so – then within the next 20 years we’ll see a repeat event.  When that happens the irresponsible growth of the national debt will not be “just fine” – it will be crippling.

I can just see the people who know a bit about the events in the ‘70’s shaking their heads.  “What happened during that time was unique – you can’t base policy on the chance of an energy crisis, coupled with currency devaluation and slow economic growth repeating itself”. What are the odds of something like that happening again?

The thing is – there are any number of situations that mirror that scenario – some of which are repeating themselves during this current period.  How about this – in the next 10-15 years global warming could create a situation where it is readily apparent that energy policies have to change.  This creates a 1970’s type energy crisis.  The reason such a change becomes “readily apparent” is the impact of rising sea levels on urban areas – huge infrastructure changes may be needed to preserve the seafronts in Boston, New York, Miami Beach – every major city that is coastal.  This leads to economic chaos and monetary shortages which manifest itself in high interest rates.  The high rates cause spikes in the debt service payments that are the current generation’s legacy.  This leaves the next generation slaves to this debt and unable to finance the needed rebuilding program. They'll essentially have to deal with the economic mess for their entire lives.  Nothing in this scenario involves anything particularly “new” – and while it isn’t something that will inevitably happen –it certainly could.  Suddenly the bet everyone seems so willing to make isn’t such a sure thing.

The “Modern Monetary Theory” that pushes for the continuance of deficit spending is enormously risky – and flies in the face of Tsongas’s cry for “generational morality”.  The willingness of the extremes on the right and left to overlook that fact is troubling, as is the point of view that “moderates”, the tag applied to people who still worry about things like running trillion dollar deficits, are seen as being “against change” or “snowflakes” (depending on who is doing the name calling).  Since both Trump Republicans and the Sanders contingent on the Democratic side agree that deficits aren’t that big a deal – a vote for either of them in November makes very little difference on this issue. Plus, that’s not the only issue that Sanders and Trump agree on – when it comes to China, where the Corona virus started (remember the Corona virus- this is an article about the Corona virus…) Trump and Sanders aren’t that different either, especially when it comes to one particular area – tariffs.

What’s the Deal with Tariffs?

Up to now I’ve been giving examples of how Donald Trump has attempted to superheat the economy, creating a boom that, while unsustainable in the long term, could very well last long enough to get him re-elected.  It’s a strategy very similar to the one that Michael Cohen described Trump using when seeking to finance a deal – he creates a deceptive cash flow picture, convinces the target banks to front him cash for a speculative deal (in effect “vote for him”) and then after securing the funds he’ll default and force a re-negotiation.
 

There was one element of the Trump administration’s actions that did not seem to fit this model – the use of tariffs, which has been a staple of Trump’s trade war with China.  Tariff’s are a controversial tool – whether they are effective at all is still very much up for debate.  One thing, however, is certain.  In the short term the use of tariffs by themselves are a drag on the economy.  It raises the price of goods within the borders of the nation that imposes them, and, due to the inevitable retaliatory measures that the targets of the tariff will impose, it reduces trade for impacted industries and sectors. 

The key phrase there is “by themselves”.  Trump, when putting tariffs in place, typically never uses a tariff alone but accompanies the action with massive amounts of federal assistance for the impacted sectors.  If any other administration were to try this the immediate cry of “socialism” or “welfare” would arise – but Trump has the Republican party so strung up that no one is left to make that charge. Nonetheless – it is true – the single largest trade based social welfare program in U.S. history is being run by Donald Trump right now.

Remember when we talked about the Obama administration’s supervision of the stimulus package?  One of the larger elements of that package was the effort to preserve the auto industry.  Most Republican’s hated that program.  Mitt Romney advocated for letting the automakers declare bankruptcy rather than spend any federal money to support them.  It was derided as the worst instance of socialist meddling in U.S. history. All told the auto industry benefited from about $18 billion in federal largesse, which was a hell of a lot of money. Still – there is a U.S auto industry today and so the effort can be deemed a success from that point of view. 

Republicans in Congress still profess to hate the whole thing (even though it was started by George W. Bush).  The market, according to them, should have been left to decide the matter.  All such bailouts are bad policy say these staunch conservatives.

Ummmm.  Well, maybe not all such bailouts.

You see, since the beginning of Trump’s trade war with China the U.S. agricultural industry has received $28 billion in federal subsidies, dwarfing the auto bailout.  This is just as “socialist” an approach as that taken by Obama (and, before him, Bush). Wait a second – strike that.  This is far more socialist than the auto bail out.  At least the auto industry was actually failing – the U.S. agricultural community isn’t in danger of collapse, they were just not going to be making as much money as they did before Trump imposed tariffs on the Chinese.  This is wealth redistribution that rivals, well, Mao Tse Tung, amongst others.  Yet, magically, this enormous grant of federal money passes into the hands of a favored group without any appreciable objection from the GOP.

Why?

The reason goes back to the motivation behind the Trump tax cuts and deregulation movements.  The economy only gets superheated when people (and corporations) have cash to spend – and if a tariff is going to remove cash from as big a sector of the U.S. economy as the agricultural industry – then that would endanger the boom – and cash would need to be thrown at that sector to avoid such a result.  In order to prevent tariffs from having the effect tariffs always have – you must counteract the tariff through direct government intervention – and if that is “socialist” in its nature – well, Donald Trump and Eugene Debs would pretty much see eye to eye on that one.

One other person who would agree with using government funds to counter the impact of tariffs is Bernie Sanders – who was loudly proclaiming this same strategy long before the Republicans in Congress became converts.  Trump and Sanders both espouse the same strategy for using tariffs – use them as protectionist measures for securing domestic jobs while aggressively providing government assistance to those who are impacted by this blatant interference with free trade.  You can agree or disagree with the approach – that’s a different discussion.  All I am trying to establish here is that Sanders and Trump do not differ that much in their current positions on tariffs.

However – please note that the key word here is “current”.  If, as I think the rest of this essay makes clear – the economic trend of the first three Trump years is unsustainable – then the Trump approach to tariffs and trade will likely end as soon as the first cracks in the boom appear. There are a number of reasons for this – but the primary one is the fact that a trade war is not something that is of long-term use to Donald Trump.  A superheated economy that gets him re-elected is fine – and protective tariffs where no one feels any pain in the short term help achieve that goal. But once that has been accomplished – a trade war with China is never going to be in the best interest of an international developer like Trump.  Watch for the pressure on China to ease if Trump is re-elected.

How Does the Corona Virus Threaten This?

The house of cards that is the Trump economy is predicated on one overriding premise – make it last long enough to get him through November.  If the economy collapses or evidences significant weakness before then – the whole thing falls apart.  Corona virus is possibly the bug in the punch bowl.  The unsustainability of a boom engendered from stimuli like tax cuts, regulators looking the other way and tariff programs that offer an excuse for rampant federally funded welfare unravels if people are suddenly afraid to spend and speculate because they are worried about the global impact of a pandemic.  Instead of pumping all that money in to the system people will hold it – and the boom will end. 

Again, do not make the mistake of calling a boom like this “artificial”.  The economic effects are real – it’s just that they are not capable of lasting – and when you come out the other side of an accelerated "boom" cycle you do worse, as an economy, than you would have if you had simply let the economic trend develop organically. 

In short, this is an argument for, that dirty word again, moderation.  When you drink moderately you have a good time, and while you might be a bit tired after spending a long night out with friends – you are up for doing it again. When you drink heavily you have a great time, but it doesn’t last as long and you throw up in the cab on the way home and can’t figure out why that one guy won’t talk to you anymore.  When you eat moderately you enjoy a good meal.  When you pig out your taste buds explode with ecstasy – and then you feel like garbage and have to pop an endless series of antacids to stop the reflux.  The same thing goes for economic moderation.  The Obama recovery was slow, sometimes agonizingly so, but it was built to last.  The Trump bump – God only knows what’s going to happen when we wake up from this one.

This is an essay about Corona – and a few other things.  In the end the Corona virus may end up being a bit like Toto in The Wizard of Oz.  While everyone is looking at the smoke and mirrors at the end of the hall – it may quietly draw back the curtain of the man creating that ruckus.  Here’s the thing – Frank Morgan, the actor who played the Wizard – he looks and sounds a bit like Donald Trump.  He also can be mistaken, at times, for Bernie Sanders.

Stay healthy everyone.  And vote wisely.

COME OUT YOU BLACK AND TANS... (And Collect Your Medals)

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.

Where's me bloomin' medal?

Ulysses S. Grant, Thoughts Upon Accepting the Surrender of the Confederacy

I never expected to be revisiting U.S. Grant’s reminiscences on Appomattox when the new decade dawned, but thanks to a completely inexplicable act on the part of the Irish government – here I am. In fact, I’ve had a couple of occasions to be reminded of Grant in the last few years, and Fine Gael’s ham-handed approach to the question of how to begin the “celebration” of the centenary of Ireland’s War of Independence is just another reminder of how the confusion of the individual with the institution is bound to lead to trouble.

A brief reminder of the history behind this most recent contretemps is in order.  In 2016 Ireland celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the uprising that is most often cited as the start of the process that would eventually lead to Irish independence during the 1920’s.  That centenary, however, was the celebration of a rather crushing defeat. The Republic that was declared on Easter weekend of 1916 lasted but a few days before the British war machine, then in the fullness of its WWI related might, snuffed it out entirely, executed most of its leaders, marched the others off to prison and resumed what it believed to be normalcy for Ireland.  “Normalcy” evidently was supposed to mean that the Irish would go back to hating the British, particularly the English, but would do so quietly, like German soccer fans do today, or, you, know – like Scotland. As we shall see, this did not happen.

On the other hand the 2016 centenary celebration went off splendidly. There were fireworks, and parades and speeches and examples of great Irish food and drink (which meant halls full of beer and whiskey and a food stand with, I don’t know, mussels or something). Everyone had a great time, and – here’s the part that would come back to haunt Leo Varadkar – everyone remembered to mention that during 1916 there was a war going on and that plenty of Irish were serving in the British forces - so you had to remember those folks as well.  Other than a few muted voices on the Sinn Fein side of the aisle – no one objected to that being said.

Fast forward to 2020.  We are now on to the celebration of a new centenary, one that is very, very different from that which was celebrated in 2016.  The Easter Rising was nasty, brutish and short. It was also something that played out, in the words of those who fought and observed it, as a “grand gesture”, an “act of martyrdom”. “Winning” was secondary.

“Grandness” aside, 1916 was certainly a gesture. What started in 1919-1920 was quite different. It was a damn war. 

How best to describe this? In 1916 the leaders of the rebellion wanted to “show” the British – show them they were serious, show them things weren’t going to be the same, show them that Ireland couldn’t be taken for granted.  When, following a number of political developments, the rebellion re-started in 1919, the point was no longer to just “show” the British.  

It was to kill them. It was to win.

The British answer to this was, beginning in March of 1920, to ship thousands of British servicemen to Ireland to act as “reserve police”.  Owing to the rather mismatched status of their uniforms these new police became known as the “Black and Tans”, and soon gained a deserved reputation for butchery. The relative degree of the war crimes committed by this force remains in some dispute, but suffice to say that while the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded during the years the Tans were active in Ireland, they were never considered a threat to win. 

Of course, in order to be a part of a police “reserve” you must be in reserve to something already there. In the case of the Black and Tans the regular force they attached to was something known as the “Royal Irish Constabulary” or “RIC”.  The RIC was the crown’s policing authority in Ireland, and while not exactly the gang of thugs that would soon be so readily added to their numbers, they were also not, shall we say, “beloved of the people”. In fact, the ease by which the Tans incorporated into the RIC, and the willingness that some members of the original RIC showed to take part in some of the atrocities, (e.g. one of them assassinated the mayor of Cork) meant that the distinction between the forces became understandably blurred.  Suffice to say that amongst most Irish the term “RIC” remains a dirty word for a most dirty organisation.

Well, most, it seems, is not “all”. Here we come to modern day politics, or, to coin a Friends-type title “The One Where Leo Gets A History Lesson”.

Here’s what happened. In order to kick off the 2020 end of the “Decade of Centenaries” the current Irish Government announced that, on the 17^th of January, the institutions of the RIC and DMP (The Dublin Metropolitan Police, a branch of the wider force) would be commemorated in a ceremony at Dublin Castle.  Since the Black and Tans were an adjunct of this force, it effectively meant that they too would be commemorated. It was also announced that on the same day henhouses throughout the country would be offering thanks to foxes for their service through the ages.

Okay, that second one was a joke.

The first one wasn’t and it soon became apparent that it was no laughing matter.  Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan, the person responsible for scheduling the event, was immediately assailed by members of opposition parties expressing outrage at the idea such an event was being held.  Such expressions are to be expected from the opposition parties. However, when members of his own party began to voice their displeasure Flanagan’s actions were stoutly defended by his party leader, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.  

Varadkar, mustering maximum levels of self-righteousness, stated that it was “regrettable” that the event was being criticised.  Then, obviously subscribing to the somewhat backwards theory that when you’re digging yourself a hole the best advice is “keep digging”, Varadkar went on to say:

“I remember 10, 15 years ago it was very controversial to commemorate the deaths of soldiers in World War I because some people felt that they shouldn’t be remembered because they fought for the United Kingdom…, That has changed. We now all accept, or almost everyone accepts, that it is right and proper to remember Irish people, soldiers who died in the first World War,”.

Varadkar continued, stating he believes the same thing applies to “police officers who were killed, Catholic and Protestant alike, who were members of the RIC and the DMP, many of whose families are still alive and remember them”.

Oh boy.  Here’s where we go back to Ulysses S. Grant and confusing the individual with the collective.

When Grant made his statement he was quite careful to differentiate his feelings for a person (Lee) from the collective “cause” (the Confederacy) that he represented.  Grant let Confederate soldiers retain their mounts so that they could work their farms, because as individuals they might, in time, become good citizens when they got back home. He did not, it should be noted, allow them to march to that home under the flag of the despicable Confederacy.

Similarly, the Ku Klux Klan started as a benign social club in Pulaski, Tennessee.  It’s fairly certain that some of its members simply wanted someplace to play cards at night.  Unfortunately for those upright individuals the group they formed turned out to be exceptionally susceptible to exploitation as a white supremacist terror organization.  So while those quiet bridge players may be fondly remembered by their families, that fondness should not extend to their membership in the KKK (even if their families are OK with that).

The same holds true for those supposed “good people” who Donald Trump cited as having been unfairly besmirched just because they happened to express their concerns for public art in the course of a murderous Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Varadkar was correct in that individual officers who were simply caught in a crossfire may have suffered a cruel fate, but their membership in the collective of the RIC is not why their service is notable, or their demise regrettable. Individuals may have served “valiantly” (Grant’s words) in the RIC, but the RIC was not a valourous establishment. More to the point, the RIC policies were, during the time which this centenary commemoration marks, “one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse”. 

The susceptibility of the RIC and its adjunct branches to these worst elements disqualify it from commemoration.  It was far too easy for the police forces of Ireland to suddenly become the home for an assortment of war criminals and semi-official thugs.  This is distinctly different from the allied armed forces of the First World War, which, while lead by a collection of dolts and having certain instances of improper behavior, was by and large an honourable force. Equating membership in the British Army with the collective institution that served as a vehicle for inserting the Black and Tans into Irish history is an improper interpretation of history.  It’s also lazy. The idea that we should just lump all the members of the RIC into one big bundle of forgiveness is unfair to both their victims and, funnily enough, to those members who actually did join the group on the assumption it would be a force for good only to end up being duped into supporting the effort to suppress Irish freedom.

I don’t think Varadkar or his government were being intentionally cruel, or even attempting to rehabilitate the reputation of the RIC or British forces in Ireland when they announced this commemoration.  I do believe, however, that they were being lazy. “Let’s have a day for the RIC.”, they thought, “It’s just the same as standing up for those Irish who volunteered to fight the Germans during the war. What could possibly go wrong?”

What indeed. Here’s a very basic statement that I challenge people to contradict.  The British army, attempting to fight and kill Germans serving the Kaiser in France does not equate with an Irish based British police force attempting to fight and kill Irish people fighting for Irish independence in Ireland. Yes, I know there were some members of that police force who thought they were attempting to simply maintain civil order.  They were well intentioned. They were also wrong. The group to which they found themselves bound in service had been subverted, rather easily, into a terror machine. I hope they maintained their individual integrity – but it is simply a fact that their organisation, as a collective, had slipped in to the abyss that also contains the Confederate Army, the KKK and the Nazi party.   

Here’s a more intellectually difficult, but, I believe, better example of how to deal with the question of individual membership in a collectively disreputable institution.  When it comes to U.S. history I believe that every veteran who served in the American Civil War, North or South, deserves the honour of having an American flag placed on their grave on Veteran’s Day.  Each one of them, in their own way, forged the country that today is sovereign in the land where they lie. Every one of them contributed something to that tapestry. Of course, if their families choose not to display that symbol, that is their right. Conversely, I do not, I am afraid, believe that Confederate veterans should be allowed to have the rebel flag displayed on their gravesite if that is found in a public place.  That is a hateful symbol that disparages the rights of those citizens, particularly those of colour, that live and have lived in that same country. The individual veteran deserves respect and recognition. The cause they represented, the organisation to which they belonged, I am not sorry or afraid to say, does not.

The same basic equation should, I propose, apply in Ireland.  Those Irish people who served, on whatever side, in furtherance of their beliefs should be honoured and respected.  That instrument of respect should be expressed via the symbols of the state that was forged from the struggles in which they participated.

  

The tricolour. 

The harp in the coat of arms. 

Amhrán na bhFiann. 

Individuals should not be excluded from respect and consideration for the role they played in the evolution of the state simply because they belonged to a dishonourable organisation.  If they, as a person, were doing their best as they saw it then that should be acknowledged. The organisation, on the other hand, does not get rehabilitated just because the individuals caught in its web have been cut loose. 

The RIC, the Black and Tans, the DMP and the like do not make the cut as collectives. There are no commemorations that should be held for such groups, no more than people should mourn for the “lost cause” of the Confederacy.  These groups were not just “on the wrong side of history” – they were wrong. If saying so offends some – too bad – some things are worth being offensive about.     

Things Found

(An excerpt from "Along the Banks" in answer to a request from some friends)

The journey you’ve now completed (from Dublin to Enfield) is about 45 kilometres long and constitutes one of my favourite stretches – I’ve done parts of it many times and the full route is something I always enjoy.  But entering the town of Enfield itself is always a little bittersweet for me, and to tell you why I have to talk a little bit about Babe Ruth, lost coins and being an American ex-pat in Ireland.  

Don’t worry, it all comes together.

A Word About Things Found

I moved to Ireland from America, more particularly from around Boston, some 20 years ago now.  It was a good decision, made much easier for me by my Irish born wife and her family, not to mention my own Irish roots.  But anyone who makes a move like that and tells you they don’t miss anything is lying.  You may not miss the day to day grind (and if you do you should move back) but you do miss the big events – the wedding of a favourite cousin, the funeral of someone who was important to you – those sorts of things.  Being about as mad a sports fan as there is I include matters involving any of the Boston teams on this list of “major events”.  And so, in the fall of 2004 I found myself missing home as the Boston Red Sox prepared for an attempt to break what had (foolishly) become known as the “Curse of the Bambino”.

The Bambino in question would be one George Herman “Babe” Ruth, the greatest baseball player in history (I will brook no debate on this point) and someone who the Red Sox had, in a moment of pure greed on the part of their then owner, sold to the New York Yankees in 1919.  Since that fateful move the Red Sox had failed to win a single World Series championship, a trail of tears that extended 86 years.1   This wouldn’t be so bad except that the team had come so incredibly, impossibly, excruciatingly close to victory on numerous occasions.  In 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986 they had been within one game of ultimate triumph (in the case of ’86 actually within one strike).  In other years they had fallen victim to defeat in special play-off games (twice), labour disputes, losses in the regular seasons’ final games and, most frustratingly, had managed to lose to the hated Yankees themselves the previous year when, needing only to hold on to a three run lead over the last two innings, they had ended up losing in extra frames.  Now the team was poised to take on the Yankees again, with the winner to advance to the World Series.  I prepared myself for late nights in front of the television watching events unfold back in America.

It seemed at first that there weren’t going to be too many late nights.  Following a Saturday defeat (that took place at a relatively sane hour for Europe), in which the Yankees scored 19 runs and absolutely destroyed the Red Sox pitching staff, the Sox found themselves down three games to none, which meant the Yankees needed only one more victory to close things out.  “Not to worry” you might say “all they need to do is win four games in a row – surely that’s been done before”.

Except it hadn’t – not in baseball history anyway.  Major league baseball extended back to the turn of the prior century and not once had a team come from three games behind to win a series.  There had been plenty of chances – but it had never happened.

This was the prospect that faced me as I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning, 17 October 2004.  It was late and if I wanted any breakfast I’d have to go out to a nearby bakery to pick something up.  I made my way to Leixlip and parked the car, as dejected as you can possibly imagine. Then, while closing the car door, my eye caught sight of a Euro one cent coin towards the back tyre.  Now understand something - a Euro cent is so worthless a monetary unit that it is being eliminated from the realm of coindom.  You literally cannot spend it on anything.  It is not worth the metal contained in its exceedingly small circumference.  It was, to me, probably not worth the effort to bend down to pick the thing up.  Nonetheless – I did it anyway, thinking that found money might represent just enough good luck for the Sox to eke out a victory, just one victory, and avoid the ignominy of being swept by the Yankees.  I put the coin in my pocket and promptly forgot all about it.

That night, in a thrilling game that lasted into the wee hours of the morning Irish time, the Red Sox did manage to win at least the one game, salvaging a little pride and keeping the flame of hope, however flickering, alive for another day. The Red Sox had miraculously come back against the Yankees’ best pitcher, tying the game in the ninth inning and winning in the twelfth.  Players like David Ortiz, Dave Roberts and Bill Mueller etched their name in baseball history with this win.  I, of course, reserved a certain amount of credit for myself and the dinky little coin I had rescued from the roadside.

The next morning was a work day – and for the second year in a row I was forcing myself to get to the office on time by napping right after supper and grabbing whatever sleep I could after the games finished.  That strategy wasn’t proving to allow me much sleep as the Sox and Yankees had spent the last two Octobers setting records for the length of the epic battles between them.  This was rough enough on the U.S. based fans who were getting to bed past midnight every night.  For someone facing a five hour time difference it was a killer.  But – you do what you have to, and every morning I’d wander into work like a soup sandwich, where I’d meet up with another ex-pat (albeit an English one) and bring him up to date on the latest events from the baseball realm.

That sympathetic ear belonged to Ian Storrar, a massive man who had been a Metropolitan police officer in London prior to moving to Ireland and becoming head of security for our office. Aside from his 6’6” rugby player’s frame Ian stood out in a crowd for his booming good natured voice, willingness to organise a good time at the drop of a hat and, most impressively for the owner of such an outgoing personality, his ability to listen.  Ian was a follower of Arsenal soccer club (he often said that he didn’t have to read Nick Hornsby’s “Fever Pitch”, the classic book outlining the obsessions of an Arsenal fan, he’d lived it) and he understood the vagaries of following a team from afar.  He listened to my tales of Red Sox woe, the miraculous win of the night before (along with my having found the lucky penny) and understood exactly what was going on.  I finished my tale with one small addendum “On the way in to work today I spotted a ten cent coin next to a doorway”.  

“You grabbed it up didn’t you?” queried Ian, immediately grasping the importance of the event.  Ian was a man who would understand that where you sat, what you wore and the type of meal you ate could have drastic consequences for your team.

You bet your ass I had.  Striding in to work with my wife Margaret that morning I’d spotted the brassy glint out of the corner of my eye.  I took about two steps before what I’d seen registered, then I broke off and went back to retrieve my prize.  Margaret, whom I hadn’t yet filled in on the importance of the previous day’s find, looked questioningly back at me as I bent down to pick up scraps from the sidewalk.

“It’s 10p!” I said, as if I’d suddenly won the lotto and we would now be retiring to the Greek islands.  

“O – K” she said haltingly “I’m so happy for you – don’t spend it all in one place”.

I then explained the circumstances to her and, being the exceedingly good sport that she is, she understood right away what was going on.  (The woman did, after all, marry me).

That evening the Red Sox were again on the brink of elimination late in the game when they once more improbably rallied to force extra innings.  The game stretched out for nearly six hours until, with the season in the balance, the Sox pushed across a run to somehow eke out a win.  The exploits of Messrs. Varitek, Wakefield and Ortiz would be carved in the annals of the sport.  They had done well – and of course there was my coin to be considered.

On the way in to work that morning we were crossing Clarke’s Bridge (which spans the Royal Canal just below Croke Park) when I shouted out to Margaret (who was by now actively searching as well) “LOOK!”

There, shining on the footpath over the bridge was, amazingly, one two Euro and two one Euro coins.  Just sitting there – in the middle of the bridge.  I scooped the coins up and put them in my pocket. Now – one cent was immeasurably small, and ten cents barely moves the needle, but it’s not every day you find four Euro just sitting in the middle of the footpath.  That was more than five bucks American at the time.  Something was happening.

Margaret and I just looked at each other, shook our heads, and continued in to work. When I saw Ian, even before telling him of the previous night’s win, I told him about the money.  “You’re on to something mate” he said, confirming my suspicions.  I was on to something – but whether it continued was dependent upon my finding money prior to every damn game.  That night’s game was now seemingly covered – but I would have to keep this up.

Later that day, in an anteroom off the Red Sox clubhouse, a doctor stood over the ankle of that night’s starting pitcher, Curt Schilling.  He looked down at the sutures he had put in to said ankle only the day before, when he had improvised a procedure that had, up to then, only been attempted on cadavers as practice for this unique treatment.  Schilling’s ankle had been severely injured in a previous game, rendering him unable to push off with his foot.  The surgery was designed to alleviate the discomfort enough to give him back the mobility he required.  Amazingly – it worked.  Despite the sutures leaking blood throughout the match (leading to its famous designation as the “Bloody Sock” game) Schilling performed admirably.  In addition to this medical miracle the Red Sox benefitted from the reversal of two calls – one when a Yankee fan reached over to grab a ball hit into the stands and again when Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez intentionally interfered with a fielder.  These things never, never, went the Red Sox way in the past.  Now, in one game, everything came together.  Schilling, Dr. Bill Morgan, Mark Bellhorn – all gave great efforts to allow the Sox to draw level. But then, there was the fact that I just happened to be holding €4.11 in found coins.

Just sayin’.

By now I was obsessed.  I needed to find lost money.  So much depended on it.  On my way home from work that night I stopped at a local ATM machine to stock up on cash, seeing as I was not going to spend any of the funds I had found until after this incredible streak was over.  There, on the ground near the machine, was a scattering of about seven cents worth of coins.  I gathered them up, not sure whether cash found the night before a game had the same power of treasure found the morning of the contest. I hoped it did as I was unable to find a cent on the ground on the way in to work, a fact I nervously shared with Ian over coffee, the liquid that now fueled my existence.

“I think you’re OK” he said, completely seriously.  “I think it still counts”.

The man was right.  Not only did it count, it produced a blowout.  The Red Sox had miraculously stormed all the way back from the brink to eliminate the Yankees and advance to the next stage of competition – the World Series.  The same World Series they had not been able to win for 86 torturous years.  Sure, Johnny Damon’s two home runs, David Ortiz’ continued heroics and Derek Lowe’s pitching were key factors – but I would simply like to record that I had found money every day of the comeback.  

Just sayin’. 

So on to the World Series.  Four wins and we could put all the nonsense about curses, and Babe Ruth and 86 years and the entire laundry list of near misses to rest for good.2  If one thing was clear above all others it was that I had to keep finding lost coins.  An entire nation (Red Sox Nation) – was depending on it.  So I kept looking for change every morning – and I kept finding it.  For the first three games of the series I would stumble across money on the way in to work.  I never knew there was so much dropped change in the world.  Each morning I’d show Ian the day’s take, and each game the Sox won.  They were now only one win away from the elusive championship.  Boston was on a knife’s edge.  Friends and relatives, knowing and sharing my obsession called each night to run through the sheer improbability of it all.  We seriously discussed whether it was theoretically possible that a total eclipse of the moon (scheduled for the night of the potential clinching game) could somehow divert an asteroid from its course thus bringing about the end of civilization just as the Red Sox were about to win the World Series.  MIT is in Boston. I believe astrophysicists were consulted.  The general consensus was that this was unlikely.  Most Sox fans focused on the world “unlikely”, noting that it was not “impossible”.  The skies were scanned nervously.

Closer to planet Earth I was having a really rough time finding any loose change on the morning of Game 4.  I absolutely could not go in to work without at least a found penny in my pocket, but I seemed to have hoovered up all the stray coins within a 10 square mile radius.  Then, just outside a small convenience store, while looking down into one of those grates that they put beside a planted tree (and within sight of the Royal Canal, by the way), – I spotted a five cent coin.  It was wedged down amongst the discarded soggy cigarette butts, chewing gum, general rubbish, rat entrails and God only knows what else – but it was a coin.  The only question was whether I’d reach down into that slimy mess to fish it out.

C’mon.

Later, when I was displaying the coin to Ian over coffee I confided that if the only way to get it out was with my tongue I’d have still gone after the damn thing.  “Of course you would mate – it had to be done” he agreed – “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t even brush your teeth after”.

The result is probably well known even to the most casual observer.  The Red Sox won that World Series.  Following my initial coin find they had reeled off eight straight wins for the single greatest comeback victory in all of American sports history (on this point I will also brook no debate).  Manny Ramirez, Keith Foulke, Kevin Millar, Terry Francona and the rest of that incredible team combined to do the impossible.    I sat in my house in the early hours of that morning, after the game had been won, fielding calls from the States and making a few myself, watching the replay over and over, revelling in the triumph of the moment, knowing that I had to get through one more day at work and could then go to sleep at a reasonable hour. I also didn’t need to find any more coins.

Now I accept, deep down, that the Red Sox winning was not due to my finding all that lost change.3  But the win was still an intensely personal event – and like I said at the beginning of this whole story –it’s the events that you miss.  I knew that at the same moment I was heading in to work, Boston was like New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  Meanwhile, I was like a kid with the biggest secret in the world – I had this great news – but there was nobody I could tell.  Baseball isn’t really on the Irish radar.  I trudged in to work, looking forward to at least sharing the information with Ian – but to be honest, on that morning, I felt a long, long way from home.

Anyway, I entered the office via a side entrance and went down the short hallway to the cafeteria.  I opened the door ready to grab my coffee, but barely got my foot inside before a huge roar went up, followed by an ovation. High fives all around. It seemed like the whole place was there.  Storrar had heard the result and had organised the whole thing.  Let everyone know I’d be in, got them all assembled, clued them in on what had happened, watched for me to come through the door.  I could see him towering over the crowd, grinning like he’d just won the series himself, although he may never have seen a baseball game in his life up to that point.  But the man had still managed to make me feel like I was right in the heart of the celebration, had brought a little bit of Boston into that office.

There aren’t too many friends like that.

Since he’d moved to Ireland Ian had met and married a wonderful Irish girl named Elaine and they bought themselves a house in Enfield.  Margaret and I went to their wedding and even after I switched jobs we stayed in contact, golfing or meeting for a beer after work.  One day I got a call from Ian – he was obviously a bit shaken.  “I had some kind of a seizure” he said – “the doctors are going to check me out”.  

I won’t draw this part out.  The news was bad, about as bad as it gets.  There was a tumor. Cancer is a terrible disease.  Ian fought like you wouldn’t believe, but in the end that evil ailment called home the man who had brought a little bit of home to me.  Elaine still lives in the house in Enfield.  I think of Ian every time I go through the town.

That’s not a bad thing, he’s a man worth remembering – and there is no way I’d ever avoid this section of the canal – I like this particular stretch too much for one thing.  It’s a part that merits revisiting.  For those who can I’d urge you to find such a fragment along the banks and then go back multiple times – different seasons, different weather, with different people or different purposes. There are, I believe, two types of people in the world, those who will tell you that there are two types of things in the world, and those that will never use such a simplistic, meaningless and ultimately misleading rhetorical device.

Having cleared that up let me just say that there are two kinds of journeys in the world, first time journeys and repeat journeys.  The value of going somewhere for the first time is that you know from the outset that everything will be new and exciting.  The value of going back on a repeat journey is to surprise yourself as to how new and exciting everything still feels.  It’s like re-reading a favorite book and discovering little nuances in the author’s use of words or remembering just what you were doing the first time you read it.  

The majority of the narrative in this book has been one of initial impression, talking as if you are going down the Royal Canal for the first time.  In truth I try and cycle down the canal over and over again.  It took me several times before I even realized, for instance, that you can actually see Connolly’s Folly from the towpath near Carton House.  New appreciations and enjoyments rise up with each trip.  One time I’ll go down a stretch and it seems slightly boring – but if I give it a second chance – well, maybe I’m rewarded with a glimpse of a kingfisher, or there is a new type of flower blooming – or this time there is a fisherman landing a huge pike.  The canal is the kind of place that is just reassuringly familiar enough to allow you to experience it new each time, if that makes any sense.  

---

[1] The term “World Series”, for some inexplicable reason, seems to piss my European brethren off more than anything other than Donald Trump.  “How can it be the World Series if only American teams play?” they ask indignantly. Where to start.  First of all – Canada is a country (really, you can look it up), and they can have a representative in the Series (in fact they’ve won it – twice).  Secondly, the teams are based out of American cities but you don’t have to actually be from Milwaukee to play for the Brewers folks.  Baseball is as international a sport as there is – every team has players from all over the world – Japan, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, South Korea, Australia – all have players in the Majors, some have hundreds.  The difference really is – there aren’t that many Europeans (a few – there are German and British players).  To the continent that puts sports like luge, biathlon and rhythmic gymnastics in the Olympics a non-Euro-centric sport is an anathema.  Also – baseball is not ruled by an international cartel like FIFA or FIBA (thank God) and so international play is not dependent upon pseudo nationalistic fervor such as accompanies the Olympics or the World Cup.  When the championship is won in baseball no one pontificates about the superiority of their system of government or genetics.  They just spray champagne over each other and get drunk. I like the World Series just fine the way it is, thank you very much.

[2] For the record – I never believed in any curse.  I definitely had an incentive to keep finding coins (it was working, after all), but not because the Red Sox were cursed.  The reason the litany of near misses hurt so much wasn’t because the Red Sox were so bad – it was because they were so good – just not quite good enough. And here I’ll use the “C” word only to put it in context – the Red Sox and their fans were never cursed, (we’d seen the greatest hitters, many of the greatest moments, had the best ballpark, etc.) we were, to be quite honest, blessed. Just not blessed with a championship. We knew, the hard way, that despite all the magic – championships don’t always follow even the seemingly most perfectly scripted seasons.  We needed that one little bit of mojo to complete the circle.

[3] Bullshit.  It was totally down to my finding those coins.  I’m expecting my championship ring in the mail any day now Mr. Henry.

RETURN OF THE DRAGON LADY

So Donald Trump has actively solicited a foreign head of state to influence an American election. 

Again.

You might expect me to go crazy and declare this “the worst example of a presidential candidate selling out his own country in my lifetime”.

Sorry – nope.

This is the second worst example of interference by a presidential candidate in my lifetime.  It has managed to knock the 2016 Russian “intervention” out of that position by virtue of the brazenness of its appearance and the danger of its impact.  But it is still second.  An understanding of the incident that holds first position is necessary in order to understand why stopping this one early is so important.

In the latter half of 1968 the government of North Vietnam came under immense pressure from its allies to conclude a peace with the United States. (Full disclosure - I was 5 years old at the time - I had absolutely nothing to do with this). The motivation for the peace effort was partly an effort to avoid the increasing cost of the war to the Soviet Union and Communist China, and partly due to the desire of those countries to avoid the possibility of Richard Nixon becoming President as the result of the November elections scheduled in the U.S.  Lyndon Johnson, sensing an opening and a chance to secure his own legacy opened a dialogue which seemed destined to end the war.  All he needed was to get the South Vietnamese government to sign on to the proposed peace accords.

At about this same time a Washington socialite by the name of Anna Chennault mysteriously began making regular contact with the South Vietnamese embassy and other representatives of that government.  Before we talk about the purpose of her visits – a bit of perspective.

Between 1969 and 1972 well over 20,000 American service personnel were killed in Vietnam.  Estimates vary, but most agree that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese military and civilian deaths occurred during this same period.  It was also during this time frame that the final die was cast for the Cambodian civil war, which resulted in the death of more than 2.5 million people as a result of the fighting and a subsequent genocide (most famously described in “The Killing Fields”).  During this period the number of American prisoners of war held by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong increased exponentially, while those prisoners who had been captured prior to this period continued to suffer torture, deprivation, starvation and disease.  

There is a good chance none of it needed to have happened.

In 1968 a peace deal that was at least the equal of the one that ended up being put in place in 1972 was on the table.

Had it been instituted the South Vietnamese government, unburdened by the ensuing four years of war, corruption and unrest may have been able to survive.

It is certain that the United States, free of the constraints imposed by Watergate and its own internal unrest would have been in a better position to defend its interests in Vietnam in the event that the treaty had been breached (as it was following 1972).

No “Christmas bombings”, no Kent State, no Cambodian invasion, no women and children being abandoned on embassy rooftops, no helicopters being pushed in to the sea off aircraft carriers.

Instead we got all of that – and lost the possibility of saving all those lives – because of the interference of a presidential candidate who put his personal interests above that of the people of the United States.  

For the mysterious Anna Chennault, also known as the “Dragon Lady”, was Richard Nixon’s clandestine personal representative and she was under orders from him to “monkey wrench” the peace talks, extend the war and get Nixon elected. She instructed the South Vietnamese government to boycott the peace efforts under secret assurances that they "would get a better deal" if Nixon was elected.  (Spoiler Alert: they didn't). Watergate was serious – but it was not Richard Nixon’s worst crime.  His sabotaging of the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 was, in my opinion, much worse. 

Nixon denied a connection to Chennault until the day he died and went to extremes to conceal the efforts he made to derail the 1968 peace talks.  While long suspected it was not until the absolute last set of classified documents from his papers were made public that the clear link between Nixon and Chennault was revealed.  Then, in 2017, the disclosure of a set of notes taken by H.R. Haldeman during a conversation with then candidate Nixon removed all doubt – in black and white he sets down Nixon’s explicit instructions “keep Anna Chennault working on S.V.N." (South Vietnam). 

It might as well have read “keep Americans dying in Vietnam”.

So Donald Trump’s shenanigans with Ukraine are still in second place when it comes to undermining your own country’s interest – but it would be incorrect to describe it as a “distant” second.  For one thing – Nixon wasn’t actually President when he pulled his stunt.  The other thing is that we are only going to be able to judge the true impact of Trump’s actions when given the perspective of history – the Ukrainian situation is extremely volatile and the apparent willingness of the U.S. to withhold defense funds on a mere whim could still rebound spectacularly against us.  Finally – what Trump did is right now on the verge of being excused by a huge portion of the American electorate who have come to view any criticism of the current President as an exercise in “fake news” or “witch hunts”.  If that happens, if this activity is not accurately perceived for what it is, then we are doomed to be left at the mercy of the act itself – and no good can come of such an act.

Richard Nixon was not, at heart, an evil man.  He was incredibly paranoid and overly ambitious – but he did not know that his actions in 1968 would lead to the millions of deaths that can now be potentially ascribed to them.  Yet in overlooking his duty, and the law, he now must be judged complicit in those deaths - the rotting corpses, the orphaned children, the ruined lives – the lost opportunities.  But Nixon’s actions were hidden from view. In this current situation we know what has gone on with Donald Trump – and if this is allowed to stand because we are willing to excuse the inexcusable then, this time, we will be complicit in the ramifications.