#10 Facebook, Murder Book, And Politics
Hello. Welcome to the year 2020. I tell myself this is going to be a Better Year. We’ll see. I’m going to keep this one a bit short.
Neil Peart
As I write this I’m listening to Rush after hearing that their legendary drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart died. I went to a Rush concert in the early 1990s. The Roll The Bones tour. Neil Peart is widely regarded as the best drummer in rock history, but being a writer it’s his lyrics that get me.
The lyrics of a Rush song often take more than a couple listenings before you get it. This bit from the song Everyday Glory is my mantra for 2020:
If the future’s looking dark
We’re the ones who have to shine
If there’s no one in control
We’re the ones who draw the line
Though we live in trying times
We’re the ones who have to try
Though we know that time has wings
We’re the ones who have to fly
The guy lost his wife and his kid within months of each other, quit the band, and road a motorcycle from Canada to the southern tip of South America and back. And then wrote a book about it. It’s sad to see him go, but he’s left behind some incredible music. For more on Neil Peart, check out this excellent article.
Facebook
My final post on Facebook was on December 31, 2019. I still log on at least once a day, take a look around, maybe comment on a post if I have something substantive to say and that’s about it. I haven’t gotten rid of my profile. I still need access to Facebook in order to research Tacoma homicide victims.
Murder Book
Michael Connelly is a crime fiction writer. He’s responsible for characters such as Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer. He also has a podcast called Murder Book. Murder Book is a true crime podcast. The first season is fourteen episodes long and follows a 1987 Hollywood murder that took place during an attempted carjacking and the 32 years it took to get justice in the case.
The first episode lays out the crime and subsequent investigation. The rest of the podcast is about the cold case investigation and the way the suspect plays the legal system to stay out of court. I found the podcast fascinating and frustrating. Connelly’s speaking voice is very dour which works for the subject matter but as it is an ad supported podcast his reading of the ads sounds like he could not be less enthused about the product even when he talking about his own audio books. It isn’t that he isn’t interested. It’s just the way he speaks.
The final episode has the first four chapters of Connelly’s latest novel in audio book form. Titus Welliver, the guy who plays Harry Bosch on the excellent police drama Bosch, reads the audiobook, which is a nice touch for fans of the show. Connelly says that these days he hears the voice of Titus in his head when he writes Bosch. I find that kind of thing fascinating.
What I’m Thinking About
2020 is an election year. I expect that this time next year will be the most terrifying time of all of our lives as it will likely be the final days of the Trump presidency in which he has been defeated publicly by people he hates and has absolutely nothing to lose with access to nuclear weapons. I remain convinced that he will not leave the office of the Presidency willingly. A part of me hopes there will be video of armed men dragging his pudgy, orange ass from the White House.
And that is the absolute best case scenario. There is another, far worse option. We could be beginning the second term of this racist sexual predator as President of the United States. And this is far more likely than I’d like it to be.
I say this because Democrats show no sign of learning anything from the 2016 election. And there were many lessons to learn. So I thought it might be worth the time to go through some of those lessons.
America Is Not As Progressive As You Think It Is
One of the problems with spending too much time on social media is that you get a skewed idea of the electorate. Most of those on the right are not racist, sexist, gun nuts. Most of those on the left are not, weed smoking, communist, hippies. But it could be argued that most of those on the left and right on social media are.
Things are more extreme on the Internet. In reality, we’re a nation of Centrists. I’m a fairly liberal Democrat. I skew a bit left of most of America when it comes to the big topics such as abortion, gun regulation, healthcare, and prison reform. And while for the most part, I would like as progressive a Democratic candidate as we can get, I also recognize that the candidate may be less progressive than I’d like because most of America isn’t that progressive and this is an election that matters. We need to win. So it’s not the time to try to get America to eat its veggies. We’ve got to get America to stop drinking bleach first. We don’t have the luxury to try to run someone who describes themselves as any sort of a socialist because the nuance between a socialist and a Democratic socialist will be intentionally lost by the opposition who never, ever plays fair.
We Need To Be Aggressive
Donald Trump is an existential threat to the United States. He has more sexual assault accusers than he has fingers and toes. He has put a football stadium’s worth of children in concentration camps. He creates international incidents by accident. These facts need to be something that people hear about on a constant basis. There’s no reason to be nice about it. There’s no reason to pretend Trump is doing the best he can or that our disagreements with him are minor. I do not believe it is hyperbolic to say that four more years of Trump will end the United States of America as we know it one way or another.
So it would be nice if any of the Democratic candidates acted like it. They’re running against a guy who has documented payments to a porn star he was screwing while his third wife was home with their newborn baby and somehow that’s something that isn’t brought up as often as Bill Clinton’s affair in the previous century. This is because Republicans prefer to be aggressive and Democrats tend to be almost timid when it comes to fighting.
We Need To Accept More Than Our First Choice
Around this time last year I decided I was for Andrew Yang as he was the only person who had announced his candidacy. When my governor, Jay Inslee tossed his hat in the ring, I supported him, even donating to his campaign. After he dropped out, I wanted to support Booker, but he just didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Then for a brief time I was a supporter of Biden. But I kept hearing about Mayor Pete Buttigieg. And then I started listening to him and what I heard sounded better than any of the other candidates so I put my support behind him.
Being a big fan of Jay Inslee, who I expected would run back in 2017 when I saw him on Bill Maher, I could have decided that Jay and his message of climate change was so important that I couldn’t possibly vote for anyone else. I could have insisted that I’d just write his name in or only vote for a candidate who adopts his policies. (Liz Warren actually did adopt his policies by the way.) But I recognize that the person I want might not get to be the Democratic nominee. In fact, the Democratic nominee might be someone I genuinely think should not be President.
Here’s the thing though, every single person who was on the stage at the latest Democratic debate is objectively better than four more years of Donald Trump. I know people like to get hung up on voting for the lesser of two evils, but the lesser evil is also known as the greater good.
It’s okay if your first choice isn’t on the ticket, your last choice IS on the ticket. So vote for the other candidate.
There are more lessons, of course, and I could be wrong about some of this. But it’s what I’m thinking about right now. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.
- Jack Cameron