Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Catching up


There's been too much news lately.  As soon as you try to focus on one story, you're distracted by another.  Really, there's no time for analysis, and it doesn't help that so much of what's happening seems so totally bizarre.  It's been apparent for months that Our President is increasingly unstable, and that the opportunists, sycophants, and incompetents who make up the modern Republican Party will do nothing to restrain him.

So, I won't bother to comment on the Sharpie incident, the Taliban "peace conference," the Scottish golf course brouhaha, etc.  I'll just observe that "the leader of the free world" is out of control, and leave it at that.  Instead, I'll point to what may be some good news.

The craziness in the UK over the past week may have eclipsed the craziness in the USofA, but only because a sizable chunk of Conservative MPs broke with their leadership, throwing a monkey wrench into Boris Johnson's threat of a no-deal Brexit.  The outcome remains uncertain, but the willingness of those rebels to subordinate party loyalty to national interest was good to see.  Will they set an example for others?  (Probably not on this side of the Atlantic.)

Equally strange and wonderful was the ability of Italy's Five Star and Democratic parties to form a government, sidelining Matteo Salvini and his Leaguers.   — and, perhaps, slowing the distressing growth of ethnonationalism in Europe. Five Star and the Democrats will be strange bedfellows, but they may be able to weaken the League before they're forced to hold new elections.

As Emily Dickenson put it, "Hope is the thing with feathers - That perches on the soul."  There are a hell of a lot of hungry cats on the prowl these days, but hope flutters on.

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