Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
I did not watch the Democratic debates last week.
I had more interesting things to do, like play with the Linux operating system on my computer, which for me might replace Windows 7 as Microsoft drops its support for it.
Times change.
At this point, the debates resemble nothing more than the old circus act in which a vehicle the size of a Smart Car rolls into the ring and 20 clowns emerge, some running, some doing cartwheels, some beeping old car horns, amazing and amusing us all.
At this point, the spectacle of 20 people sharing a debate stage, even 10 at a time on two nights, borders on the ridiculous, especially since each is there to present a well-rehearsed stage act, and the probability of more clarity emerging is near zero. It is no less chaotic but not half as amusing as the clowns.
The highlight of the debates was apparently Kamala Harris’ “triumph” in holding Joe Biden’s early legislative experience up to a modern standard. In Biden’s early days in Congress, you worked with Southern segregationists if you wanted the South’s support on a matter of mutual interest.
Now, decades later, we view the old segregationist policies in the same way we view excesses like Nazi Germany. Harris scored points by trying to pretend it was always that way.
My message to Kamala Harris is that we older voters clearly remember and understand what Biden was dealing with in his early days in Congress, even if you don’t.
I will wait til the field narrows before I start taking a real interest in intra-party debates.
Times do change.
The presence of 20 hopefuls indicates that Democrats smell blood in the water and are circling exactly as the Republicans did in 2016, when the Democrats were bleeding. We saw the same kind of overload of GOP primary candidates only three years ago.
Times can change quickly.
The Supreme Court was far more interesting last week, as the justices showed admirable immunity to ideologies.
On one hand, they ruled that asking people whether they are citizens on census forms is unconstitutional, at least as presented. On the other, they ruled that gerrymandering, the drawing of Congressional districts to favor one party over the other, is a legislative, not judicial, matter.
Democrats cheered the census ruling and lambasted the gerrymandering decision.
The Republicans plan to present the census question again, as the court invited them to do. On gerrymandering, they, like the Democrats when they gerrymander, call it “leveling the playing field.”
Right, and I’m Bill Gates’ long-lost little brother (I would have told him to stop at Windows XP).
Times change, but not gerrymandering.
It goes back to 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts drew a self-serving district that looked like a salamander. The Boston Gazette called it a Gerrymander, and that was two centuries ago.
Gerry represented the Democratic-Republican party, so if we, like Harris, assume that times never change, we can still blame both parties.
Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a semi-retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at: