100 BEST NOVELS ? PT. 4

 

Here's the next ten books on the list:

31.  Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1944.  Written 4 years before 1984, Orwell was already satirizing Communism in this amusing story of farmyard animals who overthrow their farmer oppressor, improving their lives for a short while, before corruption sets in.  While not exactly subtle this, stark view of a brutal society run by a dictator pig is almost as famous as 1984 is. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, 1984 is so good that it can stand alone as the only Orwell, especially since both books are quite similar in their satire.

32.  The Golden Bowl, Henry James, 1904.  I've already made my strong dislike of James's writing known, and if you don't like one of his books, you won't like any of them as his style stayed the same.  This novel has a series of  romantic entanglements that  James envelopes in his  rambling manner, and it's as dull as usual. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No!

33.  Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser, 1900.  This covers a lot of the same territory as Dreiser's other book on the list, An American Tragedy, as it once again deals with class, sex and scandal in what was then modern America.  Here, "fallen" women Carrie becomes the mistress of more than one man before becoming an unlikely star of the stage. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, as I felt with Animal Farm, I don't think 2 novels by the same author that cover similar ground need to be on the list.

34.  A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh, 1934.  This is the first of 3 novels that the English Waugh has on the list.  It deals with a very restrained, English marriage and  affair that interestingly recounts the difficulties of obtaining a divorcee at that time.  The story takes an odd turn when the embittered husband goes traveling for a lost city in the Amazon! DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, while this novel is quite good, I don't think that Waugh needs to have 3 on the list, so I would lose this one in lieu of the more famous Brideshead Revisited.

35.  As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, 1930.  Easier to read than The Sound and the Fury, this dark, funny novel is told from the point of view of 15 different characters.  It's about a large Southern family trying to meet the last request of their mother that she be buried in her hometown.  Most of the novel is about the long, arduous journey they make together. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, Faulkner's style here is bracing and original.

36.  All the King's Men,Robert Penn Warren, 1946.  Based on the life of Southern politician Huey Long, this tells the story of a corrupt, populist governor from the point of view of the reporter who follows his political rise.  Unfortunately, the story also goes into detail about the reporter investigating his own family's history, which I found nowhere near as interesting as the corrupt politician part.  This is one of the few novels that actually works better as a movie, (directed by Robert Rossen, it won Best Picture in 1949),  because it stuck to the political part of the novel and cut out the rest. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, this is a close call for me, but I just found it too uneven to include it.

37.  The Bridges of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder, 1927.  Set in Peru during the 16th century, Wilder's novel has an intriguing premise.  After a rope bridge breaks and six people die, a local friar investigates their lives, trying to find meaning in their deaths.  Although the story rambles at  times, I mostly enjoyed it.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

38.  Howard's End, E. M. Forster, 1910.  Forster's second novel on the list deals with class and infidelity  in early 20th century England.  While Forster effectively lays out the various romantic stories well, the slowness of the novel sometimes sinks it for me.  I also found myself wishing that Forster's style weren't so bloodless, a common problem with early century English writing., Still, worth a read for most people. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, again, when looking at authors with more than one book on the list, I think's it's best to be more critical of each, and this isn't as good as A Passage to India.

39.  Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin, 1953.  Baldwin's autobiographical tale of growing up the son of a preacher is great.  Baldwin poetically writes about the various lives of the church members as he also recalls his own childhood, and his style is gorgeous.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, and I think that another Baldwin novel, Another Country, should also be on the list.

40.  The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene,  1948.  Based on Greene's own experiences as a British intelligence officer in Sierra Leone during WWII.  The hero is in charge of security on the island and is in a loveless marriage with an unhappy wife.  Inevitably they both eventually fall into affairs, while the hero's position of authority pushes him towards corruption.  A bit slow, but mostly interesting, this is another tragic  story about British people in a foreign land. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST? Yes.

100 BEST NOVELS? PT. 3

 Here's the next 10 titles on the list, and a chance to hear about my biggest disagreement with the list.

21.  Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow, 1953.  An odd, somewhat amusing look at middle aged 1950's while male disillusionment.  Bellow's hero is a fiftyish man who, disappointed with his well off life, travels to Africa.  But his attempts to play white savior there are not as successful as he expected them to be.  This is an amusing and mostly interesting novel, with some unusual plot twists.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, even though I didn't love it.

22. Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara, 1934.  A dark story about a reasonably well off Cadillac salesman who throws his life on the rails in the space of 3 days.  Controversial in its time for some frank sexual descriptions, this is a pretty bleak look at man self destructing for little obvious reason.  Not a fun read, but a good one.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

23.  U. S. A., John Dos Passos,  1930,1932, 1936.  A trilogy that features some innovative writing in an attempt to give a broad overview of the country at the time.  Passos follows a dozen characters, while also incorporating descriptions of news articles and song lyrics, short biographies of real historical figures of the time, and stream of consciousness memories to patch together a unique look at the US. Although the stream of consciousness sections  don't really work for me, and I wish that not  all 12 of the  characters in his overview were white, this is still an ambitious and impressive series.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

24. Winesburg Ohio, Sherwood Anderson, 1919.  Not really a novel so much as a short story cycle, Anderson provides short 22 snapshots of life in a fictional small town.  Loneliness and isolation are themes repeated as few people in the town seem truly happy.  This negative view of small town America is confirmed by the last story's uplifting ending.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

25.  A Passage to India, E.  M.  Forster,  1924.  Based on Forster's own experiences in India in the previous decade, this is a great look at the unjustness of the English colonial system in India.  It focuses on the trial of an Indian doctor and the well off white woman who accuses him of rape.  Powerfully written, and controversial in its day, it holds up well, in my estimation. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

26.  The Wings of the Dove, Henry James, 1902.  I first encountered James when I was assigned to read one of his short stories in college, and within the first paragraph I knew that I wasn't going to like him.  To put it kindly, his style is discursive, to put it honestly, it's painfully rambling.  His sentences and paragraphs seem to run on forever, with their meaning winding up lost to me.  There's the seed of an interesting love triangle here, but buried in this style it's not worth it!  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No!

27.  The Ambassadors, Henry James, 1903.  I just finished trashing James, and here I go again.  As always, I find his style unbearably dull, and this story of romance among Americans in Paris is as boring to me as The Wings of the Dove was. Amazingly, James has 3 three titles on this list, tying him with Faulkner for the most by an American author, so obviously he has admirers.  But Mark Twain wasn't one of them, as he's supposed to have said “Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't pick it up again.”  Amen, brother!  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No!

28.  Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1934.  Fitzgerald based this sad story on his own disintegrating relationship with his mentally ill wife Zelda.  It's a bitter look at relationships as a psychologist and his wife engage in affairs and hurt each other repeatedly.  As a chronicle of Fitzgerald's own life, this is quite good, but as an actual novel I think it falls short, with its downbeat ending foreshadowed from the first page. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, I think Gatsby is enough Fitzgerald.

29. Studs Lonigan,  James T. Farrell, 1932, 1934, 1935.   A trilogy of books about the life of a young man living in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in Chicago, starting from his teen years and ending when he's 30.  This is an honest and well written look at a young man who leads an unremarkable but always interesting life.  The hardest part about reading it is that it's almost too honest, with many characters having racist and antisemitic attitudes that lead to them carrying out what can only be called hate crimes.  While it's clear that Farrell himself does not agree with these beliefs, and that he's realistically portraying what people in that neighborhood at that time believed, it can still make for tough reading. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, but like I said, it's not always an easy read.

30.  The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford, 1915.  Told mostly in flashbacks, Ford uses an unreliable narrator to look at the breakdown of a seemingly perfect marriage.  Like James, I find Ford's style hard to get through at times, although there are some good parts here. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, Ford has another novel on this list, and I don't think that he needs 2.

THE 100 BEST NOVELS? PT.2

 So here's my take on the next ten novels on the list:

11. Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry, 1947.  Lowry's novel is the dark, brooding story of an alcoholic member of the British consul residing in Quauhnahuac, Mexico.  Told over the course of one day (which just happens to be The Day of the Dead), the consul considers his life, drinks heavily and gets a surprise visit from his estranged wife, who's trying to repair their relationship.  As you might imagine, this isn't the happiest of stories, and at times I found its bleakness tough to get through.  Still, this may inspire a lot of people to quit drinking, and that's something.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST? Yes, but not so high up.

12.  The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler, 1903. A semi-autobiographical novel that traces 4 generations of one family, it's main theme is about the hypocrisy of the Victorian era church of England.  The main character, Ernest, finds himself becoming a priest and then losing his faith as his attempts to "save" the poor fail.  As an atheist, I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint, but the book's style is a little too formalized and dull for me to completely recommend it.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Again, yes, but not so high up.

13.  1984, George Orwell, 1948.  One of the most influential (and widely referenced) novels every written, Orwell's masterpiece continues to entrance.  Although his target at the time was Communist Russia, its themes of government dominance and surveillance were (and are) universal.  Truly, people who have never even heard of this novel know the words "Big Brother".  Yes, this is a very bleak novel (with an unforgettable ending), but it's one that still should be read and revered.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, obviously.  In fact I think it should be higher.

14.  I, Claudius, Robert Graves, 1934.  Based on many historical texts, Graves tells the true story of unlikely Roman Emperor Claudius from his own point of view.  His depiction of ancient Rome as a hotbed of deceit, murder and madness makes for mostly gripping reading, with Claudius's mother Livia standing out as particularly sadistic character.    DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

15.  To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, 1927.  The first novel on the list written by a woman, this is about a large family over the space of a decade.  It's an unusual novel in which there is little plot or dialogue, with most of it made up of different interior monologues by separate characters.  This makes it a challenging read, but one well worth trying.   It's actually very moving in some passages, especially towards the end, and the self doubting nature of aspiring painter Lily clearly reflects Woolf's own feelings about her art.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

16.  An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser, 1925.  Dreiser's excellent look at sexual relationships and class consciousness is a story that never dates.  A young man from a poor family has social ambitions, including marrying into a wealthy family.  But a woman from his past interferes, and he goes to drastic measures to deal with her unwanted pregnancy.  Based on a true story, this is gripping stuff.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST? Yes.

17.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, 1940.  McCullers is the second female author on the list, and honestly, I had never heard of her before.  For me, this novel was a revelation, and it's one of my favorite books on the list.  McCullers perspective of the American South in the 1930's  feels totally different  than that of, say Faulkner.    With it hints of homosexuality and discussions of radical political beliefs, McCullers's novel doesn't feel dated at all.  Great. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST? Oh, Yes.

18.  Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut, 1969.  Vonnegut's surreal, funny, unusual style is an acquired taste for some.  Personally, I mostly love his work (I've read quite a few of his books), and this is probably his masterpiece.  Although it has a crazy, science fiction plot about a man unstuck in time, much of it is about Vonnegut's own experiences as a soldier in WWII during the bombing of the German town of Dresden. Episodic (to say the least), and don't expect it all to make sense.   DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, and I think that Mother Night should be too.

19.  Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952.  The first novel written by a person of color, Ellison's wild, poetic, and sometimes surreal recount of one black man's life and his activities in  a civil rights group is often mesmerizing.  I imagine that it was considered even more surprising in 1952! The cynical view that Ellison takes of both unions and civil rights groups can make the story seem almost too down beat, but it's never boring. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

20. Native Son, Richard Wright, 1940.  This is the second book on the list by a person of color.  Wright's uncompromising, brutal and often violent look at race relations in America packs a wallop decades later.  A young black man  goes to work for a white family as a servant, which leads to shocking tragedy.  Although there may be one too many long discussions about Marxism, this is a mostly deeply engrossing and powerful novel. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

THE 100 BEST NOVELS? PT.1

 

Way back in 1998, the Modern Library polled their board of review (which included such luminaries  as Gore Vidal and Edmund Morris) to make a list of the 100 best novels written in the English language in the 20th. century.  (I don't have space to show the whole list; you can link to it here).  As an avid reader, I scanned the list with interest and was a bit chagrinned to discover that I had only read a measly 19 of them, not to mention the fact that lot of them were completely unknown to me. The list stuck in my mind for a long time, and back in 2014 I decided to work my way through it; just days ago I finished the 81 novels I hadn't read. (Being in lockdown sped up the process). It's been quite the literary experience.

Before I get into the novels specifically, let's look the list overall: sadly, but not surprisingly, it's stacked with white men.  There are only 5 authors of color, only 9 novels written by women (Edith Wharton has 2), and no women of color.  The lack of diversity leads to some  omissions that are really surprising: Harper Lee's  To Kill  A Mockingbird is still taught in schools and is considered an American classic, but it's not on the list.  Neither is Erica Jong's hilarious Fear of Flying, Toni Morrison's Beloved, or Alice Walker's The Color Purple, the last two of which won Pulitzer Prizes.  

Yet another bias is shown in that most of the novels are written by British authors, and, putting it bluntly, "a story about the lives and loves of upperclass English white people" could summarize a lot of the novels on the list.  Another plot that arises often is a story about a white person traveling through an"exotic" and "mysterious" foreign country.  I imagine this was something that interested a lot of readers in England throughout the early to mid 20th century, as it pops up in novels as diverse as Evelyn Waugh's satirical Scoop and Joseph Conrad's bleak look at colonialism, Heart of Darkness.  (Conrad, it should, be mentioned, has 4 novels on the list, the most of any author). 

There's also a  downplaying of the importance of genre novels, with only a handful of Science Fiction novels, one mystery novel, and no horror, fantasy, or children's ones (although Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children has fantasy elements).  There's no Lord of the Rings, or I Robot, even though they were huge in their respective genres.  And don't forget that the highly influential The Wizard of Oz was written in 1900, and it should be on the list in my opinion.  So should something by Agatha Christie, sure she may have written formulaic mysteries, but she obviously had a lot of importance and popularity in that field, and deserves to have one novel on the list.  (And Then There Were None is perhaps her most influential novel, and one that's breaks the pattern of her other mysteries, so I think that should be the one).

Another bias is that most of the novels were published before 1950, with none from the 1990's chosen. A point could be made that this reflects the fact that the ones on the list  have withstood the test of time, but it also means that well regarded novels from the 90's,  like say Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh or the first Harry Potter book, were overlooked.

Despite all of those criticisms, I still thought it was a good thing to release the list, and I'm glad I read all the novels, even if I didn't care for them all.   (And, I will freely admit, I did often use wikipedia and some other online sources to help my understanding of some of them).  Here, then are my brief takes on the top ten novels, complete with a simple yes or no question at the end: DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  I'll post my feelings about the next novels on the list soon.

1.  Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922.  I read this novel in a college class decades ago, and sometimes we would spend half an hour dissecting the meanings and references of a single page.  Yes, this novel is famously dense and difficult, as it shifts tones and picks up stream of consciousness thinking; it's also often breathtaking and stunningly beautiful.  Leopold Bloom takes a walk around Dublin Ireland, and finds, well, that's the tricky part.  Controversial and banned in many places after its publication, it still exudes a fascination worth trying.  DO I THINK IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST? Yes, absolutely.

2.  The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.  Fitzgerald's classic novel of lust and jealousy in the jazz age feels as evergreen as Ulysses.  It's still often taught in high school literature classes, and the reason is obvious: the themes of class and lost love still ring true.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

3.  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916.  Joyce's first novel is by far his most accessible.  Written in the third person combined with free indirect speech, it deals with the young life of Joyce's literary stand in, Stephen Dedalus.  The story mainly deals with Stephen's internal battle between his human desires and his Catholic upbringing.  It's fascinating reading as the young man veers between visiting prostitutes and considering joining the priesthood.  Anyone interested in  but intimidated by Joyce's novels should start here.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

4.  Lolita, Vladamir Nabakov, 1955. Nabakov's groundbreaking, controversial story, told in the first person by self loathing pedophile Humbert Humbert, is at turns both funny, and disturbing.  It still stands as one of the great first person novels in which the narrator has a loathsome point of view.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST ?  Yes, but it's obviously not for everyone.

5.  Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932.  The first Science Fiction novel to make the list, this dystopian story shows Huxley cynically foreseeing the future as a place where people will be forced to lead government prescribed lives based on genetic conditioning.  It's often compared to George Orwell's 1984, and personally I think that Huxley's novel falls short of Orwell's masterpiece.  But taken on its own merits, it's an interesting early example of futuristic Science Fiction.  DO I THINK THAT IT NOVEL DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, but lower down on it.

6. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929.  A famously difficult and confounding read, Faulkner employed stream of consciousness (like Joyce) and non linear storytelling to tell the story of one Southern family from different points of view.  I must admit that I needed wikipedia to help me sort it out, but once you get caught up in its rhythms, it contains many worthy passages.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, but perhaps not in the top ten.

7.  Catch 22, Joseph Heller, 1961.  The title of Heller's satirical WWII novel has become a shorthand expression for anything that seems self defeating (like, how killing your enemies enrages their families, which  winds up making more enemies that must be killed).  Heller based the story on his own experiences as a bomber during the war, and he often tells the story from different view points out of sequence.  The tone of the story changes towards the end, when Heller really depicts the horror of war realistically.  Not always an easy read, but well worth it.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

8.  Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1940.  A powerful takedown of Russian Communism, Koestler based this on his own membership and disillusionment with the party in the 1930's.  The Russian main character is imprisoned on trumped up charges during a brutal party purge.  The constant sense of doom (and the torture scenes) are not always easy to take, but this is an excellent observation of not just Communism but dictatorships in general.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

9.  Sons and Lovers, DH Laurence, 1913.    A woman of refinement enters into  a passionate marriage with a miner, but then finds herself unable to adapt to his poor lifestyle.  Instead she funnels her passion into her two sons, but she winds up overbearing them.  As the synopsis shows, there is a definite classist attitude in this story which I didn't like.  It's also often staid and dull; although  its sexual content was  considered quite racy by the standards of the time, it's pretty tame by today's standards.  DO I THINK THAT  IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  This is probably the first novel that I would argue doesn't need to be on the list.   But I imagine it was influential in its day. 

10.  The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939.  Steinbeck's legendary tale of "Oakies" trying to survive during the great depression is one of my personal favorite all time books.  From the heart breaking moments of hard work and desperation to Tom Joad's famously uplifting ending speech, this is just about perfect.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, in fact I wish it were higher.  (I also think that Steinbeck's other masterpiece, Of Mice and Men, should be on the list too).

MERRICK GARLAND'S DIFFICULT CHOICE

 

Buried under the coverage of Russia's brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the January 6th. Congressional Investigation Committee on Wednesday released a report that somehow was both shocking and not surprising; it officially announced that there is sufficient evidence to believe that former president Donald Trump and his presidential lawyer, John Eastman, committed crimes when they actively conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  While the committee does not itself have the power to bring charges against Trump and Eastman, they can recommend that Attorney General Merrick Garland should do so.  But will he?

On the one hand, the case against Eastman and Trump certainly seems strong; during the investigation the committee heard testimony from several former Trump administration members (including Jason Miller, his former Senior Campaign Advisor) that Trump was told, bluntly and openly, that he had lost the election.  Trump's own Attorney General, William Barr, also publicly stated that there was no widespread evidence of fraud that could overturn the election.  And Trump and Eastman still tried to push overturning the election in the courts.  This even included a message from Eastman to then Vice President Mike Pence asking him to delay certifying the election after the January 6th uprising.  Personally, I think that Trump committed a crime on that now infamous recorded phone call he had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he pleaded for Raffensperger to "find" him votes, even going so far as to hint that there might be legal repercussions for Raffensperger if he didn't.   This was, it should be mentioned, in a state that had already had an official vote recount that showed no change in the outcome. Really,  Trump's guilt seems obvious to me.

And it isn't just important for Trump to held accountable because he committed crimes, it also clearly sends a message to any future president that the kind of illegal games that Trump was playing will not be tolerated.  The next president as corrupt and criminal as Trump might also be more organized and better equipped to overturn an election; we can't allow Trump's criminality to go unpunished.  It would sent a terrible precedent.

On the other hand, any prosecution of a former Republican president  by an Attorney General serving under a Democrat can be spun as just a partisan attack.  Many Americans will see it as old news, assuming that the fact that Trump's scheming failed and that he eventually left the White House as punishment enough.  It could also build up sympathy for him with his base, who will reflexively rush to his defense, and he will inevitably use the case as an excuse to raise funds for his legal defense.  And  proving these charges in a court of law may be difficult; in an odd twist, Trump's lawyers could contend that Trump didn't intend to deceive anyone because he really thought that he had won the election and that his actions  were therefore done  in the best interest of the country!  This seems like an outright insanity defense, given how many people around Trump were telling him that he lost, but it just might work.

So Garland is left with a difficult choice: prosecute Trump in the hopes of getting a guilty verdict that will show that even the president is not above the law, even though he may be found not guilty and wind up in an even better place than before. Or,  not prosecute him and allow Trump to walk away unpunished, which would greatly tarnish the office of the presidency much more than Richard Nixon ever did.  Either way, I wouldn't want to be Merrick Garland right now.

A MIXED REACTION TO A BRUTAL INVASION

 Last Thursday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered his military to carry out a full on invasion of the country of Ukraine.  This unprovoked attack on a country that has been democratic since 1991 is a barbaric act that could result in the death of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides.  Putin's stated motivations are absurdly false, from claiming that the Ukraine is run by "neo-Nazis" to saying that NATO is threatening to destroy Russia.  His real motivation seems to be rooted in his anger at the breaking apart of the Soviet Union during the 90's.

The good news is that Putin has only strengthened the alliances of the NATO countries, and he may be in for a tougher fight than he expected because a strong majority of Ukrainians are opposed to the invasion.  He also may discover that occupying Ukraine after invading could prove to be difficult, just like the US found out in Iraq.  Even installing a puppet dictator would be met with strong resistance by the Ukrainian people.   And the war may not be popular with the Russian people, even with government propaganda running the media, as thousands of Russians have already taken to the streets to protest the invasion, a bold move given the country's often brutal crackdowns on such protests.

Putin's act of aggression shows the danger of one country being run entirely on the whims of one leader; he can lie about his reasons, or over how popular the attack is with the Russian people, but at the end of the day this is Putin's war for him and him alone.  Democracy may be messy system, and it often makes it  difficult to get things done, but it still requires more than one leader's decision to go to war.  There's a reason why there has never been a democracy that invaded another democracy.

President Joe Biden has responded to the attacks by arming the Ukrainians and slapping sanctions against Russia, while also gathering together American allies to do the same.   The Republican response has been mixed, to say the least.  Many of them have both agreed with Biden's actions while trying to say that his response has been "weak".  

The right wing media has been even crazier: just after the invasion, Tucker Carlson, the number one rated talk show host on Fox News, asked a series of odd questions that implied that he was angrier at American liberals and China (“Has Putin ever called me a racist?", "Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?”) than at Putin.  Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on his right wing podcast said that it was“not our fight” and praised Putin for being "anti-woke."

And then there's Trump himself, who has always had an admiration for Putin.  Recently he said in a speech at Mara Lago that Putin was "pretty smart" and “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions, taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”  Yes, the former president is describing a military attack that could leave thousands of innocent people dead as "just walking right in".  It's obvious why Trump can't bring himself to criticize Putin, and it's not just that the Russian government helped him in the 2016 election.  Clearly Trump responds to strongman dictators who rule their countries with an iron hand, because he wishes that he could have run our country the same way.   Although a sociopath like Trump cannot truly care about any other person, he does respect power, and he sees the fear that Putin and North Korean leader Kim-Jong Un have over their underlings and wants that to.  The fact that Trump praises a leader who carries out an unprovoked invasion of a neighboring country is reason enough to hope that he never occupies the White House again.  But who knows?  The sanctions against Russia will more than likely wind up hurting the American economy, which would help Trump if he runs again in 2024.  As horrifying as it might sound, Putin might once again help Trump win the presidency. 

A DIZZYING DOUBLE STANDARD

 

Boris Johnson is in big trouble.  The British Prime Minister, it has recently been disclosed, held at least twelve different large parties at a time when when his country was under a severe pandemic lockdown.  The extent of these violations of his own government's rules is so big that it may lead to a police investigation.   The resulting outrage in England has caused Johnson's approval rating to plummet, with fully two thirds of the country wishing he would step down.  Even his own conservative Tory party has also turned on him, with the Guardian reporting that 48% of voters who supported him in 2019 would like for him to, as former conservative cabinet minister David Davis put it, “In the name of God, go.”

Obviously what Johnson did was extremely stupid, and while he has resisted calls to remove himself from office, it's clear that his standing as both a prime minister and a Tory have been diminished.  While I can certainly understand the anger at Johnson, I can't help but wish that some of that same outrage at a leader's corruption and incompetence could find its way to the US.

When you compare what Johnson did with how Donald Trump  handled the pandemic when he was president, it's seems clear to me that Trump's response was far worse.  Yes, Johnson holding parties during a lockdown was bad, but was it as bad as Trump's initial dismissal of the pandemic ("a liberal hoax"), and then his downplaying of its severity("it will disappear when the weather gets warmer")?  Or when Trump openly pushed for people to try hydroxychloroquine as a cure for covid, despite there being no research showing that it worked?  And his even  more absurd comments about injecting bleach? And then there was the rally that he held in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, in which thousands of unmasked rally attendees sat  next to each other and screamed.  Add to that the fact we now know that our former president tested positive for covid and chose not to tell anyone for over a week, exposing hundreds of people to it, and it's clear that the Tory party's ability to see incompetent corruption for what it is in their leader is a quality that the Republican party lacks.

But then Trump's terrible reaction to Covid-19 is old news.  What about his more recent comments?  At a rally last Sunday, Trump openly showed sympathy for the January 6th. rioters who are currently in jail, and he promised that if he runs and wins the White House in 2024, he will pardon them.  So, the Republican party, the party that has successfully branded itself as the party of law and order, is still supporting a former president who wants to pardon rioters who attacked and beat police officers, stole their shields to smash in windows, and invaded the floors of congress.  How can the Republican party attack Democrats for wanting to "defund the police", (a stand that only a handful of  Democrats have actually supported), while cheering for Trump's call to pardon the violent insurrectionists?  

To be fair, there has been some criticism on the right for Trump, with Senator  Lindsay Graham saying that his pardon comments were inappropriate.  But even those comments were weak, and Trump immediately responded in an interview, saying that Graham "doesn't know what the hell he's talking about".  Anyone who's followed Graham and Trump for the past few years knows how this will end, with Graham going to Mar-o-Lago to beg Trump for forgiveness, followed by him announcing that if Trump wins in 2024, he can pardon as many police beating protestors as he wants to.   

A few months ago I wrote how angry I was at how the Democratic party's rightful rebuke of Andrew Cuomo for his multiple sexual harassment charges compared to the Republican party's ignoring the 26 charges of sexual assault or rape made against Trump.  And here we are again. I hate to be a broken record when it comes to Trump, but I just continue to be amazed at how he gets away with saying and doing the most horrible and incompetent things, with his command of the Republican party never really wavering.  I wish that  the Tory party's reaction to Boris Johnson could happen here with the Republican party and Trump, but then Trump has never really been  a politician like Johnson, instead he's a unique figure, equal parts showman, con artist, mob boss, cult figure, and  white nationalist leader.   While he currently  is under investigation for both his business interests and his attempts to steal the 2020 election while he was president, I fear that he will walk away unscathed from these charges just as he has so many times before.  Putting it bluntly, there is no bottom with Trump and the Republican party, and the possibility of him re winning the White House in 2024 is terrifyingly real.