The View from Right Field

The Great Georgia 2021 Senate “What If?”

November of 2020, there were 50 Republican senators and 48 Democrats.  But there were two races in Georgia where there had to be run-off elections because no candidate had gotten 50%+1 of the votes cast on election day (as required by Georgia law).  In both races, the Republican candidate got more votes than the Democratic candidate on election day, but the Republican had not gotten 50%+1.  So there were going to be two run-off elections on January 5, 2021.  The Democrats won run-offs, thus giving the Democrats a 50-50 “majority” in the Senate because of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But what if Donald Trump, instead of going down to Georgia in December of 2020 in a snit and complaining he had been cheated out of the election and saying there was no way any Republican would be allowed to win anywhere, even in Georgia¹; what if President Trump had gone to Georgia in December of 2020 and tried to rally Republicans to vote for the Republican Senate candidates, telling his supporters that they needed to get out and vote so we could keep the Democrats from controlling the Senate?²  And what if, therefore, even one of the Republicans had won?  The Republicans would have controlled the Senate.  But what more might have happened?

Ukraine and the Brittleness of Autocracy, the Suddenness of Change

On January 24, I wrote a post I titled “Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy.”  The post had two main points.  The first was: “[T]he suddenness of change: the unexpected never happens – until it does.  Things seem like they will never change – until they do.”  The second was: “Authoritarian regimes are often a lot more brittle than they seem.  They look strong, and they look like they are going to last for a long time.  Until all of a sudden, something happens.”

With respect to the second point, I talked about East Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1989.  I could have also talked about Argentina in 1982.  On April 2, 1982, the Argentine dictatorship under General Galtiera invaded and seized the Falklands from the United Kingdom.  I doubt they understood their opponent in British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  On April 5, a British task force set sail.  On May 1, British forces landed in the Falklands (8,000 miles from Britain).  On June 14, Argentine forces surrendered.  In Argentina, the Galtiera dictatorship collapsed, and a democratic government was elected in 1983.  In other words, the brittleness of authoritarian regimes and the suddenness of change. 

Former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (ret.) talked about the former on “Face the Nation” today (see beginning at 3:10):

Gail Halvorsen, the “Candy Bomber.” RIP

Gail Halvorsen, who was known as “Candy Bomber” for dropping candy and sweets to the children of West Berlin while flying the Berlin Airlift in 1948, has passed away at the age of 101.  The story of the Airlift is amazing (as I have said before):

“In 1948, the Soviet Union blocked the western land routes to Berlin.  In response, and just three years after the Allies had defeated the Germans in a war that lasted almost six years for the British, the U.S. and Britain operated an around-the-clock airlift to supply West Berlin with everything it needed to survive, from food to coal.  The Airlift lasted fifteen months and turned enemies into fast friends.  It may have been the biggest defeat the Soviets suffered in the Cold War until the Wall itself came down in 1989.”¹ 

The story of the “Candy Bomber” and “Operation Little Vittles” may be even more amazing.  You can read about it here.²  You can read more about Colonel Halvorsen here.

Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy

Here’s something I was going to write as an end-of-the-year post, but things got busy, so I’m writing it as a looking-back-at-2021 post:

At the end of last year, the media was full of lists of the biggest stories of 2021.  Most of them were pretty much the same: Covid, inflation, Democrats not being able to pass President Biden’s Build Back Better bill, Vladimir Putin massing troops on Ukraine’s border, etc.

“The Road Less Traveled”: A World War I History of What Might Have Been and Why It Wasn’t

One of the best books I have read recently (actually, one of the best books I have read in a long time) is The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End The Great War, 1916-1917, by Philip Zelikow.¹  The book is a history of diplomatic efforts by leaders of Germany, England, and America to end World War I at the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917. 

The book is fascinating on at least three levels: First, as a history of an unknown part of World War I.  The prelude to the war, the battles during the war, the peace conferences after the war, have all been studied and studied.  But these peace efforts haven’t been studied – because they were secret and because they failed.

President Biden: Just Because I Disagree With You Doesn’t Mean I Am on Jefferson Davis’s Side.

In a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday, Joe Biden said, in urging the passage of various election law bills in the Senate: “Do you want to be the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?" 

I have news for President Biden.  Just because I don’t agree with him on those bills, doesn’t mean I am on Jefferson Davis’s side.  When I was taking American history classes in high school in the mid-1960s, my heroes were Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.  When I toured Tennessee in 1977, I went to the Shiloh and Chattanooga battlefields.  In Virginia in 1997, I went to the Wilderness and Appomattox.  When I returned to Virginia in 2002, I was appalled that streets and roads were still named after Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.  When other people were telling me how noble Robert E. Lee was, I saw a man who had abandoned his country and committed treason.

Famine in Afghanistan: 100 Years Ago Herbert Hoover Showed Us the Way

Reports out of Afghanistan are that famine is coming, if it is not already there:

“[T]he near complete unraveling of the economy has been sudden and dramatic as the US and its allies enforced sanctions after the Taliban swept through the country and seized control. …

Nato members face re-engaging with Afghanistan or watching civilians starve in a famine that the International Crisis Group warns could kill more people than the two decades of fighting that has raged since a US-led coalition first ousted the militants in 2001. …

The High Cost of Johnson. The High Cost of Biden.

In 1966, Richard Nixon crisscrossed the country, campaigning for Republicans and attacking Lyndon Johnson on “the high cost of Johnson.”¹  While we might not see 1966’s 3.0% inflation as no big deal, in 1966, after seven years of inflation between 1.1% and 1.6%, it was a big deal – and an important campaign issue.  The Republicans picked up 47 seats in the House in 1966.

Compare 1966 with today.  The most recent inflation number today is 6.8%.  Democrats are trying to push big spending bills through Congress, bills that could keep inflation high or maybe even push it higher.  “The high cost of Biden” has the potential to be a big campaign issue for Republicans next year.  It ought to give Democrats pause and Republicans hope for 2022, and maybe even 2024. 

September 11 – 20th Anniversary

Lots of people will be writing lots of words about the 20th anniversary of September 11.  President Biden will probably talk, inter alia, about how victory over al Qaeda and the death of Osama Bin Laden meant we could get out of Afghanistan.  The Taliban will be talking about how their victory forced us to get out of Afghanistan.  And I am sure former President Trump will have something to say, too.

I will just link to two posts, one that I posted on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, mostly about our visit to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in 2006.  The other is something I wrote about the movie “United 93” after seeing it, also back in 2006.

The Diversity We Are Missing Today

In of his new book, Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy, Jeffrey Garton writes about the meetings at Camp David on August 13 to 15, 1971, when Richard Nixon and small group of advisers¹ broke the link between gold and the US dollar (i.e., “closing the gold window”), instituted wage-and-price controls, and more.²  In describing the meeting Mr. Garton emphasizes there was a real diversity among those present.  It was not, course, a diversity of race or sex.  They were all white men.  (It was, after all, 1971.)  But there was a diversity of viewpoints.  Coming into the meeting, some opposed wage-and-price controls (President Nixon had always opposed them because of his experience in the Office of Price Administration in 1942); some were okay with them.  Some thought we needed to close the gold window immediately; others wanted to do the rest of the program and then wait and see.  The investment tax credit, which had recently been repealed, was to be reinstated.  The key was that a number of people with different viewpoints met, talked, and in a weekend came up with a set of policies to change the world economic system.³