Troy Jackson, the Democrats’ nominee for Senate in Maine, was talking about discrimination against the French. For generations, French-speakers were looked down on in Maine. Is this still the case?
Jackson said that three of his four grandparents were French-speakers. But his parents never learned the language, and neither, of course, did he. It was too stigmatizing in Maine.
Listening to Jackson, I had a memory. When I was growing up in southeastern Michigan, I heard Polish jokes. I don’t know why. Poles were the butt of jokes. For a number of summers, I spent a couple of weeks in Maine. And I heard the very same jokes, directed against French people.
This taught me a lesson, early: People have a strange need for objects of mockery and scorn.
***
Polish jokes were killed off, or at least dented, by widespread admiration of Pope John Paul II and of the Solidarity movement in Poland. Lech Wałęsa, the leader of that movement, recently spoke of the United States and what has happened to us. “Reclaim, as Americans, your leadership role in the world,” he said. “And you can begin by saving Ukraine.”
Wałęsa may think more of us than we do.
***
Another day, another massacre by the Russian military of innocent Ukrainians.
A Russian drone struck the main railway station in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro as people waited to board a train on Thursday morning, killing 14 people.
Another 10 people were wounded in the strike, the latest in a series of Russian attacks targeting civilian spaces as well as transport and energy infrastructure in Ukraine. At least 19 people, including two 15-year-old girls, were killed across the country on Thursday …
The Ukrainians want to live. They want to live in their own free and independent country. The Russians, in the form of the Kremlin, want to crush and subjugate them. The Ukrainians’ “crime,” in the eyes of the Kremlin, is existing. Their very existence is an offense unto Putin and his ilk.
When Russia launched its all-out assault on Ukraine in February 2022, I heard from the nat-pops around me: “The West has poked the bear.” “NATO has encroached on Russia.” “Putin is rescuing Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine.”
All lies. The Russians want Ukraine because they do. Putin wants Ukraine to be Russian, and Ukrainians want Ukraine to be Ukrainian. That is the crux of the matter.
I think, too, of a recent statement by Viktor Yushchenko, a former president of Ukraine: “No one has expressed it better than Golda Meir: We have hardly any room for compromise—they want to kill us, and we want to live.”
What side is the United States on? I will quote Kori Schake, who directs foreign- and defense-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. But first, I would like to note a couple of news items:
The Trump administration is exploring a new concession to Russia: lifting sanctions on the country’s flagship government investment fund, long viewed by U.S. officials as one of the Kremlin’s most powerful tools of international influence.
That report is here. Another one carries the following headline: “In U.S. Gas Talks With Kremlin, Hidden Financing for Alaska Project Emerges.” Gee, wonder where that financing comes from.
I will now quote Ms. Schake, in a piece titled “A Requiem for Ukraine—and America”:
It cannot be stated often enough or vociferously enough: The Trump administration is helping Russia to conquer Ukraine. The United States of America has taken the side of an aggressor against its innocent victim. We are helping our actual enemies as they prey upon us and our friends.
That is a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow it we must. The American president and his party have put us on the side of the aggressor, the invader, the mass-murderer. I doubt that anything can erase this stain from our country.
***
Let me link to another article: “How Elon Musk Turned on Ukraine: No reliable alternatives exist to Musk’s satellite network, and Ukraine cannot survive for long without it.” If at all possible, the Ukrainians must free themselves of dependence on Musk, Trump, and others who hate them. It is a national, existential imperative.
***
On the domestic front, I wish to highlight this story, which begins,
A federal grand jury in Washington on Tuesday rejected an effort by the Justice Department to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide President Trump targeted after she gave damning testimony to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to people briefed on the matter.
Have a little more:
The rejection of the indictment—known in legal circles as a “no true bill”—was the latest extraordinary setback in Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging campaign to go after his political opponents. The Justice Department has repeatedly failed to build criminal indictments against the president’s rivals.
When I was coming of age, there was an expression—something like, “Any prosecutor worth his salt could indict a ham sandwich.” Google tells me that the expression originated with Sol Wachtler, a New York judge.
If the Trump administration’s prosecutors are failing to indict their targets—what does that tell you about the prosecutors’ cases? The fact that juries are saying no is somewhat reassuring.
***
Donald Trump has offered $5,000 to every adult in America—but only if the Republicans hold Congress in the midterm elections. On the heels of that offer comes this: “Trump offers $1M reward for voter-fraud tips that result in conviction.”
Do you ever get the impression that the Republicans lack confidence in the ability of their policy ideas to persuade?
We used to be bursting with ideas—good ones! If you had told me, short years ago, that the GOP would become the party of Putin, tariffs, governmental ownership of companies, and homoeroticism . . .
(The president is going around praising the physiques of Republican nominees—male ones. In truth, the homoeroticism is the most benign of the party’s current traits.)
***
Jerry Seinfeld joked about “rooting for laundry.” You don’t know who the players are on your sports teams anymore. They come and go. You essentially root for jerseys, i.e., laundry.
For many, politics is just the same way. A friend of mine writes:
Jay, I had occasion to visit my 92-year-old father-in-law last week, and, unfortunately, politics came up. He’s a MAGA guy. When I told him I despised Trump, he called me a Democrat! First time for everything, I guess.
People root for jerseys. Is the GOP anti-Kremlin, pro-West, pro-trade, pro–personal responsibility, pro–character in office? Well, that’s my team. Hang on, now they’re the opposite? Well, they’re still my team.
Laundry, that’s all it is. Principles, values, and ideas have nothing to do with it.
James Talarico is the Democrats’ Senate nominee in Texas. As the Republicans paint him, he’s a gay trans vegan socialist. In a recent interview, Talarico said,
I think we learned back in the Second World War that when we failed to stand up to an aggressor in Europe—that comes back to haunt us. We need to strengthen Ukraine. We need to strengthen our NATO allies as they stand up to Russian aggression, so we don’t have to. In some ways, I see this as a cost-saving measure. If we can stop this aggression, if we can stop Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, then we’re not going to have to stop him elsewhere.
That is exactly—exactly—how Republicans used to talk. I care about ideas and values, not laundry (although I’m a Michigan Wolverine and a Detroit Lion, Tiger, Piston, and Red Wing to the grave, and beyond).
***
Speaking of the homefront: “Ken Burns wins a $250,000 prize for bringing American history to life.” (That article is here.) Burns graduated from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. (Pi High.) I went to the other high school, Huron. Anyway, we are both Ann Arborites, and one of us has made good. There may be hope for me yet …
(Did I ever tell you that both Bob Seger and Iggy Pop went to my junior high, Tappan?)
Oh, I have a lot more to tell you, but I’ve kept you long enough. Thank you for reading, subscribing, corresponding, and being. Later on.
French Canadians, Poles, Irish, and Italians were all Catholics in a majority Protestant country. Perhaps that's the common denominator of the jokes.