CAVETT EMPTOR

  Just as even the most unenthusiastic grain of sand must eventually make the jump to the bottom of the hourglass, we've at long last wound up here, plunked down by the merry fates into the thick of a day that seems likely to live in infamy, at least for some of us. (I gather that many of my fellow Americans are walking around in the throes of a kind of aggressive optimism, which is different from any I've ever felt in that its lucky sufferers are able to believe we are entering a golden age, while still feeling the need to angrily tweak those of us who don't quite buy it.)

I've been getting some minuscule solace from a book whose author is perhaps the tweediest man ever to wind up on a corrupt president's enemies list.
 On my choice of the word "corrupt," a word bandied about around the clock these days, I hasten to reassure the handful of Republicans who, despite their convictions that we'd all be better off without political correctness, are still inexplicably every bit as sensitive to criticism as the most entitled minority, that I am referring, I hope non-controversially, to Dick Nixon (long ago corrupt) and Dick Cavett (presumably still tweedy).

  It's oddly comforting to realize that Cavett is still among us. As I'm reading his relatively recent columns from the New York Times, I realize that during his heyday I was slightly too young to get the full effect of his mild-mannered pop culture tenure. The only entire episode of his show I've ever seen was a rerun of the classic one with a young John Kerry facing off against the guy who many years later popped up to help keep Kerry out of the Oval Office. There was a memorable moment when Cavett had to lay down the law, because Kerry's former colleague was so eager to put a positive spin on Vietnam, he rudely interrupted the host. I don't think I've ever seen a TV host rebuke a guest that way; these days loudmouths are welcomed on what passes for serious broadcasting. Cavett handled it quietly but without ambiguity. In an exchange as thrilling to me as any Wayne or Eastwood scripted dialogue, Cavett calmly explained that it was his show, and when he began a sentence he expected to be allowed to finish it.
  Cavett's short pieces, while not politically focused for the most part, are peppered with the kind of unapologetic jabs that I used to traffic in. Writing during Bush's watch, Cavett expressed embarrassment about the Iraq war, the presidential struggles with the English language, and so forth. It's refreshing to see these things in print, so deadpan they have a patina of weariness, but they also remind me that I'm trying to cut down on such things in my own writing. Not because I believe in the cause any less; calling out idiocy seems like the Lord's work to me still, but I can't enjoy it anymore.
  This is because it feels like a Pyrhhic victory. Chuckling at a rube loses its appeal when you're sincerely worried the rube may come back with an assault rifle, or wander into the voting booth for an even more powerful revenge. I began thinking this way late on election night, when it became gradually clear that many sane and responsible Republicans were still voting for Trump, regardless of what they had said about him, and that a very large portion of our brothers and sisters were untroubled by Trump's many public utterances. And I came up with a plan.

  The plan is to use all my logic, reasoning, knowledge, wit, music, and (reaching for the really big guns) my inexhaustible charm. And another interesting item that I had lying around-- empathy.

  Many of you have had the good fortune to observe a child throwing a tantrum. The scariest tantrums are the ones where a kid is literally acting against his or her own interests, shrieking with lung busting clarity that he or she isn't tired and doesn't need to go to bed. If you've seen this kind of behavior, you know what it's like to deal with a person who's completely in the wrong, but way beyond help. Reasoning with a child is always dodgy, even when they're in a good mood, but during a tantrum you're crazy to waste your breath explaining reality to them.
  I find that I am no longer interested in arguing about policy. It appears to me that we've moved way beyond such quaint behavior. Tax cuts seem almost Kardashian Level Trivial when free speech and free press are threatened. And I apologize for this, but I can't get all jacked up about the ACA the way others are. Not that I don't agree with them, because I surely do, but I can't help feeling that conservatives wished for this, and they voted for it, and now they're going to get it. And the party who never seemed concerned about the massive uninsured demographic now has to pretend they can fix the problem.
  In short, I'm not in a war with conservatism, or with the GOP. I am at odds with most of their ideas and policies, but it's a democracy so I'm ok with that.
  I'm fighting against ignorance, and the kind of partisanship and confirmation bias that allows people to swallow poisonous demonizing rhetoric about one candidate while credulously ignoring serious personal failings and lack of qualifications from another. This election has shown us that large numbers of Americans are eager to vote out of spite, to vote based on superficial ideas like "candidate A will shake things up" or even the more frightening "candidate A will BLOW things up." This is a childish way of exercising your civic duty, and behavior like that won't be stopped by yelling at the people that did it. I'm doing my best to see their side, and understand the legitimate grievances beneath the dubious logic and conclusions. If an American has a legitimate grievance, I think both parties should show that they give a damn. It's not that hard to see why a lot of white people voted for Trump. I get that they ignored racists, and racism, but lecturing them about that isn't going to get them to vote Trump out next time around.
  This doesn't mean that I'm planning to roll over and play dead during Trump's presidency. I just think the conversation should be about why we object to Trump's actions and policies, rather than why we object to people that voted for him.