When things go sideways, its important to step back and keep things in perspective. I suspect this is really about maintaining emotional and psychological balance so that not every setback sends us to the cliff edge contemplating jumping off. This is an exercise we all must master in our lives if we are to soldier on in the face of adversity, and as the old saying goes, into every life a little bit of rain must fall. In a climate like San Diego’s and in a year like this year, I imagine it is better to modify that old saying since a little bit of rain falling feels more like a good thing than a bad thing. Perhaps it ought to be something like into every life a little bit of inclement weather must be suffered. It’s not as pithy and doesn’t sound as casual, but at least it conveys the general message that you can’t get too upset by misfortune or you will miss out on the good stuff that usually comes later. One of the problems with the old sayings are that they don’t really contemplate the severity of the “weather” in all circumstances. A devastating hurricane or tornado or a Santa Ana wind that propels a wildfire to scorch the earth of your homeland is hardly a little bit of inclement weather that should or can be overlooked in search of a silver lining. The sun does come up tomorrow, but some of us won’t be here to watch it if the weather is too severe. Silver linings inside caskets are not much consolation.
Last night I went to bed with a question on my mind. I have generally been avoiding a lot of the back and forth of the post-election news. I know the Senate has gone red and it looks like the chances are that the House of Representatives will also go slightly red (with a narrow margin). That total control of the U.S. government is not really a good thing because with the Supreme Court decidedly red and both houses of Congress and the Executive branch red, there will be little to stop the red factions from reshaping our country in even more severe and in what I would deem unfriendly ways to the type of democracy I and the rest of us have grown to enjoy in this country. That is pretty upsetting and the only thing to do is close your eyes and hope it won’t be as bad as you fear. The concept of checks and balances that our Founding Fathers imbued in the structure of our democracy would seem to be severely compromised under those circumstances. The question that was on my mind last night was whether the Senate vote for its new Republican leadership would strip the vestigial check on the Executive by putting Rick Scott of Florida in the leadership role or would the Senate Republicans throttle back the power of the Presidency by installing someone like Thune or Cornyn in that role. While those two Senators are staunchly red, they seem to fall short of being sycophants to Trump like Scott appears to be. This morning I read that John Thune, Republican Senator from South Dakota, won the vote. That is America’s small favor for the day. At least with Thune rather than Scott in that role, there is some chance that the Senate will balance back at least a little the rampant extreme portions of the MAGA agenda however Trump and those even more radical than him want to see it. It is noteworthy that the Senate Republicans, in a secret ballot, agreed that giving Trump (and by extension Elon Musk…who also supported Scott) unlimited power, was not in the nation’s best interest.
Over the last ten years we have seen the Tea Party become the Freedom Caucus and then the MAGA movement. It has gained momentum at every turn, but it has always been viewed by many in Congress, even diehard Republicans, as too extreme an nihilist to be practical. It has been distressing to see those opposing this radicalism gradually fall by the wayside as the movement gained traction under Trump. People like to say that Trump is just a reflection of the popular American will, but that simply isn’t so. Yes, he does seem to have tapped into some strongly held views of the electorate, but on many issues of substance, the MAGA agenda is quite contrary to the will of the majority of Americans. The most notable of these is clearly around abortion, but there are others as well. To date, those who have sided with moderation against Trump have not fared well, but there still seem to be some that stand on their principles rather than falling in line for self-preservation or expediency. To be intentionally ironic, that is no small favor to the American people.
One of the active talking points in the press right now is the efforts by the Trump camp to form a senior military review panel. It seems that Trump feels that many of the generals (like Mark Milley, ex-Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) have not been as compliant to his needs as he wishes. The stated purpose of the panel is to deal with generals who lack sufficient “leadership” capability, but of course, the job of the military has always been to promote people who are their best leaders. Obviously Trump’s definition of leadership differs from what the military has heretofore determined. All that polite description is of great concern to many Americans like me in that the military is a critical part of the balancing of interests that our constitution provides. Not using the military to promote an agenda for the sitting President, especially against the citizenry, is a fundamental tenet of our democracy. Having Independant military leadership is actually far more than a small favor.
For one reason or another, the world is doing a good job of disappointing me quite regularly of late. I have recently observed that in my expert witness work, there have been an abundance of circumstances where the issues at play distill down to who’s pocket a particular dollar goes into. In some ways I know that civil litigation and arbitration is mostly about that very issue, but I, like everyone I imagine, like to see some moral certainty. I like to think that justice can be done and that righteousness plays a meaningful part in these decisions on which I am opining. It is sometimes hard to find that guidance under all the testimony and the procedural issues that must be considered. One of the drawbacks of working as an expert witness is that you get to see lots of forensic dirt. In the same way that a crime scene reporter of a detective sees things about the dark side of human nature, litigators and expert witnesses get that same exposure. It’s not usually about life and death as much as about greed and avarice, but it can be just as shocking in some ways. I am currently involved in eleven cases and have another three or four for which I am being considered. That is to say, I have a pretty broad array of cases on a number of different topics. I cannot and should not discuss any of them in specific, but let it suffice to say that there is a lot of human nature, and not the best side of human nature, on display in these cases. There seem to be a dearth of small favors in the tort system to ease my concerns about human nature.
About all I can do at the moment is give a big sigh about all that I see happening around me in the world, whether on the national stage or in the courtrooms and hearing rooms I inhabit regularly these days. I guess I just need to continue to be thankful for small favors when I can find them.