Yesterday we had lunch with friends who were down from Massachusetts. Like Hania, they left Poland in the early ’80s, and, like Hania, they are distraught at what is happening in their adopted home. They constitute a forgotten segment of the immigrant population: people who are not threatened with expulsion – they came legally and now have citizenship – but who find themselves living in a country very different from the one they moved to, a country they would probably not choose to immigrate to today.
Peggy Noonan’s pre-election column in the Wall Street Journal last weekend was defiantly optimistic. She despaired of the choice – finding fault with both candidates – but took solace from the fact that the nation’s institutions were strong and would survive whatever happened on Tuesday. As would our democracy, which she claimed was in extremely good health.
I wish I shared her optimism. For an effective democracy you need a well-educated citizenry, and our schools have been in decline for decades. A lot of the campaign speeches were about the supposed dangers of a porous border while nobody talked about the obvious damage to a society when it pays its teachers so poorly that few people want to – or can afford to – enter the profession.
Add to a failed education system a declining sense of community – which inevitably results in a rise in self-interest – and you have two essential ingredients for national decline.
I watched the debate last night while simultaneously reading comments on X. Invariably, liberals praised the moderators – David Muir and Linsey Davis – for doing an excellent job, while conservatives complained that they were clearly biased toward Trump and favoring Harris.
I saw the conservatives’ point. But I also wondered if bias toward Trump is really a bias or simply a healthy human response.
Yesterday I went to the frame shop to pick up a picture. A “NEVER SURRENDER” poster of Donald Trump lay on the counter, left by the previous customer.
“People are bringing Trump things in all the time,” the woman behind the counter said. “They ask if I can frame them, and I say, ‘Yes, but it will cost you double.’
“I’m just kidding,” she said.
Watching the Republican response to the State of the Union address last night, my immediate thought was: When did Congresspeople start taking acting lessons?