Over the weekend, the Senate passed a leviathan spending bill of $1.9T, with some portion of it (perhaps 40%) actually going to direct COVID relief and the remainder serving as a down-payment on a decidedly left-of-center legislative agenda. Every GOP Senator voted against it, demonstrating new-found fiscal conservatism that escaped them during the Trump presidency. They were right in doing so, as while there is much to like in this bill, there is more to dislike, and conservatives should not be happy with this outcome. Nor however, should they be surprised. This bill, its margin in the Senate, and the end-zone dances to follow from the left are the predictable outcome of a reckless, self-absorbed, and corrupt man spending two-months suborning insurrection and undercutting confidence in our election system. The two-seat pickup by the Democrats in the Georgia special election is Donald Trump’s fault, a man that the GOP Senate cravenly enabled and sustained throughout his presidency, and who it still fears as the great bogeyman behind every potential primary challenger. A pox be upon them, and while I do not like this bill’s outcome, I like the red-hot poker treatment for the GOP even more.
That said, there remains no place in either political party for a principled conservative. The GOP has chucked conservatism for nationalist populism, and the Democratic Party is moving steadily leftward. While I voted for Joe Biden as an instrument for the removal of Trump, I did so with no illusion. I knew he would win legislative victories with which I do not agree, and I knew he would pursue an agenda, portions of which I find unsatisfactory. At no point did I believe, or hope, or suspect, or hold out the prospect for there being a place in his party for someone like me, and I am in no mood for parties these days anyway. Others though (most prominently, Bill Kristol) have suggested that the anti-Trump right make common cause with the Democrats in order to “move them rightward”. There is something to this, as I generally find the Joe Manchin wing of the Democratic Party to be quite acceptable. The problem is that there is really no “wing” to speak of, there is a single feather—Mr. Manchin. The balance of his party does not value his role in it, and anyone who believes that there is a “lane” for conservative Democrats is not thinking very clearly. I find myself in the interesting position of being more conservative than at any other point in my life, but there not being a party with whom I can align. A tweet I saw Sunday put it well:
A Chat with Mr. and Mrs. Wales
Like many Americans, I have a weakness for the Royal Family. I am glad that we do not have them here, but I am also quite happy for them to be had over there. But now we have two of them here, or at least the diminished versions of two of them, and they recently sat down with Queen Oprah of Thisland for a conversation. On the night it was broadcast, Twitter was electric with talk of it, but I decided that I would not devote my precious time to watching the interview. Rather, I wasted my precious time reading other people talking about watching the interview. Over dinner the next night, my partner Catherine chastised me for choosing early bed over what she declared to be a superb and gripping event. Having some whitespace in my evening calendar (and having been informed that this glorious occasion lived forever in digital form somewhere in some form or another), we decided to watch it together that night. This was largely a means for me to get out of the doghouse I had worked myself into, as the snappy, judgmental tone I took with her as she delighted in telling me of their great courage did not go over well. And so I watched. And now I report.
Having never before heard a word spoken by Meghan Markle, I had (unfairly) prejudged her as a lightweight. I was not prepared for how sharp she was. She is of course, a former professional actress, which means that lying with a straight face is among her skills. It is important to remember this as one watches this interview, because both of them—she and he—are incredibly sympathetic and convincing. Is this because they and their story are incredibly sympathetic and convincing? Or are we getting 100% of 50% of the story conveyed to us by people who have been a part of skewed worlds of manipulation for their entire lives? We cannot tell for sure, but I came away from the two hours of dishing with the sense that not only do these two love each other a great deal, but that the great bulk of their story rings true. Meghan is utterly unconvincing when telling us of her naivete before meeting members of the Royal Family. While I understand that her upbringing did not feature the Royals centrally, she was a grown ass woman living it the great big world when set up with the Prince. Harry’s late interview expressions of horror at being “cut off” financially by the Palace ring hollow when one considers he inherited an estimated $30M from his mother’s estate, which if invested at a 5% annually compounded interest rate would have grown to $92M in the interim. Yet when they speak of the fractured hall of mirrors that is life in the Royal Family, their pain rings true. And it also raises my main difficulty with the whole thing.
I get that I was not raised in that family. I get that the family I was raised in does not have a 1200 year history of reigning by Divine Right. I get that there is in the Royal Family, a well-developed sense that they are never that far from being tossed out as an anachronism, and so they play this horrible game with both the media and the civil governments that continue them in their positions. What I don’t get is this—at some point, Meghan came to her husband and told him that the pain she was in was so great that she was considering suicide, and that when she sought mental health care she was turned down by these nameless functionaries upon whom so much blame is hung by them (whilst laying nary a glove on the source of all this rot, his Grandmother). Had I, middle- class- New Jersey -white boy -public school -public university -US Navy-gentleman farmer-me, been informed of this—there would have been physical injury visited upon anyone who tried to stop me from getting the care for my wife that she needed. Someone in that horror show has to occasionally say, “Not today, Jeeves” and jack up said “palace official” in a most uncivil manner. I get that they concluded that they needed EVENTUALLY to remove themselves from the toxicity. In the meantime, he should have taken action, the kind of action one would expect from a Prince and two-time combat tour in Afghanistan veteran.
March Madness Begins
Readers who follow me on Twitter or who have made the trek here from my former blog are aware that I am a college basketball freak, and that my team is the Virginia Cavaliers, your reigning National Champions. The Wahoos (the nickname I prefer, obviously) beat a tough Louisville squad this weekend, and as Florida State had lost earlier in the day, Virginia snuck its way into another ACC regular season championship and the #1 seed heading into this year’s ACC Tournament. This has been an odd year, and the fact that we are even having an ACC Tournament is somewhat of a miracle.
I have a love/hate relationship with UVA Basketball. There are very few things that make me happier (I’ve said that UVA winning the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship was the best thing that ever happened in my life that I had nothing to do with), and nothing that makes me madder. There was a TON of hype about this team coming into this year, and while they plodded along in workman-like fashion (to an ACC Championship), they beat exactly 1 Top 25 team all year, and that team was coming off a two-week COVID pause. They lost the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, which is a crime. They lost to a played out, average, Duke team, which is a crime. They lost to NC State. They lost to the University of San Francisco. There is only one loss on their resume—to Gonzaga—that I take with aplomb, as Gonzaga is the best team I’ve seen since the UNLV teams of thirty years ago, but they looked AWFUL in that game.
Known for their defense under Coach Bennett, they don’t play defense as well as in the past. There was a time this season where great expectations were piled on the offense, and there were flashes of brilliance, but no team seems better able to string together five minute scoreless interludes as effectively as my beloved Hoos.
I get into little contretemps with other Wahoos on Twitter, mostly because I find their lack of objectivity to be beneath a graduate or fan of The University. When we suck, we suck, and there should be no shame in saying it. When our wonderful coach mismanages time-outs, or leaves unproductive lineups in for too long, it is fair game for comment. When key, trusted, players spend a good portion of the game making bad decisions leading to opponents’ points, it is not “hating” to point this out.
Wahoos should not only be supportive but objective.