As 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic ravaged Americans’ health and economy, distrust of our election system infested the bloodstream of U.S. democracy. The result is a nation with voter flu, even leading to a feverish mob physically attacking Congress in session, enraged about imagined ballot fraud and a stolen presidential election. My own service as a foot soldier in the 2020 election …
John Adams wrote, “May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” Adams was speaking of the White House, where his words are enshrined in a plaque. The current president cannot be called honest by any honest human being, and wise eludes him, too. If “wisdom is calling things by the right name,” President Trump fails the …
Rudolph Giuliani is a flamboyant liar and wanted for first-degree hassling in Ukraine. That’s what Igor told Lev after they leaned on President Zelensky on behalf of the usually straight-laced Donald Trump. That checks out. Giuliani made his dubious proclamation in front of the A&W in Mitchell, S.D., after skulking around Sisseton for several days looking for a guy named …
Here’s my short analysis of Tuesday’s election results in North Dakota. There were 69 legislative seats on the ballot across the state in 23 legislative districts. One Senate seat and two House seats in each district. Republicans won 65 of those seats. Democrats won four. The absolute worst performance by a political party (excluding fringe parties) in state history. RIP, …
Four years ago, a couple of days after the 2016 presidential election, when the results had sunk in and America realized what it had just done, I wrote: “Here’s what I think of the election. We got all dressed up to go to the ball, and we ended up at a rodeo.” Boy, was I right. I’ve been to a …
We don’t know how the election of 2020 is going to play out or what the post-election interim will be like, between Nov. 3, 2020, and Jan. 20, 2021. President Trump has announced several times that he may not accept the results of the election. Whole batteries of lawyers are lining up on both sides to contest or confirm the …
What does it mean to “listen”? The verb “listen” means to give one’s attention to a sound. As a noun, it is an “act of listening” to something. Especially for the past few decades and even the past few centuries, it occurs to me that there hasn’t been a lot of listening taking place. George Floyd’s murder at the knee …
In his regular Tuesday morning column in the Grand Forks Herald this week, Mike Jacobs wrote, “This is the last day of a year that’s made just about everybody uneasy about the state of our politics. To use a flood analogy, it seems as if the waters have divided and are rushing down parallel ditches. And there’s nobody on the …