By Ande Jacobson
So many things happened in 2023 that were unforgettable, many of them things that we wish weren’t happening. By the same token, there has also been some good to come out of 2023, though sometimes it seems harder to find the good given the preponderance of bad news filling the airwaves and the internet on a daily basis.
So what good has happened? Locally, the arts have been recovering and in some respects have just about reached their pre-pandemic levels. San Jose’s Saxophone Christmas had 190 saxophone players making lovely holiday music for those willing to venture out into the uncertain world despite the risks of infection swarming around us. Theater has also returned locally with many lively productions, and music is in the air all around even beyond the return of the saxophones to San Jose.
While many have essentially “wished” the pandemic away and returned to their normal pre-pandemic routines and activities, others have been more reluctant to do so and take many (or all) of the same precautions they have for almost four years now to avoid getting sick. The risks are still real, and it’s become a personal decision whether to avail one’s self of vaccinations, masks, etc. There are no official overall restrictions, though some venues still require caution depending upon where one lives. For instance, in some areas medical facilities require masks while in other areas they don’t. It’s unlikely that the increased risk of illness will ever completely go away, especially for the vulnerable among us.
Societally, we have a somewhat disturbing disconnect between perception and reality, particularly where the U.S. economy is concerned. Objectively, all indictors point to a vibrant U.S. economy. Our nation recovered from the pandemic downturn faster and more robustly than any other of the G7 nations. Now at the end of 2023, the stock market is hovering at all-time highs. Inflation is down. Employment is way up (i.e., unemployment is at record lows not seen since the 1960s). Wages have also grown, particularly for those in the middle and lower end of the economic spectrum. We have the lowest uninsured rate in history. New businesses are being formed in record numbers.
Despite all the good news, the public is being inundated with propaganda saying how bad things are, and sadly, many buy into that.
The flood of information about the upcoming election is sometimes a bit overwhelming, but the truth is that the 2024 election is of critical importance with the first primaries only weeks away. World and national security are at stake, and more fundamentally, democracy is hanging in the balance. We’ve seen numerous countries abandon democracy in favor of autocracy over the last few years, and we’ve also seen how fragile our own democracy has become in the face of ongoing challenges both from abroad and from within. We claim to be a nation governed by laws rather than ideology, and so far we have maintained that, but the 2024 election will have a fundamental effect on whether that remains to be the case.
To that end, we are seeing court challenges regarding who can and cannot be on the ballot, specifically with respect to the current GOP front runner. Several states have sought to have Trump removed from their primary ballot claiming he’s ineligible to run for office based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which reads as follows:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of the President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
At the time of this writing, only two states (Colorado and Maine) have taken direct action to remove Trump from the ballot although several others are seeking to do likewise. What the debate has brought to light is how the electoral processes, even for a federal election, vary from state to state. It’s also brought up the question whether this particular provision of the Constitution which sets an additional requirement for candidacy beyond age, residence, and country of origin, is self-executing, which based on the plain language of the amendment should be just like the other requirements for office are.
Of course Trump has been in the news constantly for another reason, one that strongly supports our fundamental doctrine that nobody is above the law in the U.S. no matter what position they hold in society.
2023 marked the first time in history that a former president has been criminally indicted. On the one hand, it’s horrific that such a thing had to happen, but in another light, when we have a former president who so blatantly abused his position and is alleged to have committed serious crimes, it’s a good thing that the prosecutors followed the evidence and indicted him. Our justice system works. As such, Trump faces indictments in four criminal cases that combined add up to 91 separate charges. He faces felony prosecutions in New York and Georgia on state charges, and he faces federal felony charges in Washington, D.C. and Florida. Of course he’s been loudly challenging all of it across social media and in the news trying desperately to delay his trials until after the 2024 election, something that would be a huge disservice to the country as a whole. The electorate must be informed and know if a candidate is a convicted felon or not. Of course this same candidate already lost a massive civil defamation judgement where the presiding judge noted that were he charged in any other jurisdiction, he would have been criminally liable for rape in addition to the civil judgement.
Trump’s tactics have become so brazen and unhinged that two separate judges have issued limited gag orders in attempts to keep the people he rails against on a regular basis safe. His rhetoric inspires his equally rabid followers to acts of violence which is not a normal state of affairs. While disturbing on so many levels, the daily churn of the cases against Trump have provided a vibrant landscape on which to educate the public on the history of our legal system and on criminal procedure, and several reputable historians and attorneys such as Heather Cox Richardson, Timothy Snyder, Teri Kanefield, Jay Kuo, and Joyce Vance have taken up the mantle to do just that. They look at the facts and the historical record. They analyze the filings and provide clear explanations to help everyone understand exactly what’s happening. It’s been, and promises to continue to be, quite a learning experience for the public choosing to avail themselves of this extraordinary educational opportunity.
Internationally, the world watches in horror while two major wars rage on in Ukraine and Israel. Some analysts have equated these conflicts to world wars because of the effects they are having on international stability. The war in Ukraine is jeopardizing the world’s food supply, particularly in less developed areas. Together, the two wars destabilize tenuous relationships with parts of the world seeking to expand the nuclear threat. They also foment a significant increase in ethnic hostility worldwide including spiking antisemitism from religious extremists seeking theocratic oppression.
It’s a scary time to be alive in some ways, in part because of the abundance of information that inundates us. We find out about national and world events instantaneously rather than waiting for the evening news or the morning paper. On the other hand, this information abundance also allows us to connect more easily no matter where we are. At the core though, it’s up to us to vet the information we consume. We cannot necessarily take what we see, read, or hear at face value. We have to verify it through reputable sources. That’s always been true, but the volume of information we see now has increased exponentially making it all the more important. Facts matter.
It’s in our hands to make 2024 either the year that democracy triumphs and we help the U.S. and the world thrive or that democracy fails and pushes the world into a wide-scale autocratic downturn. If it’s the former, the new year could usher in a very bright future for us all. If it’s the latter, it would take generations to repair, if ever. The choice is collectively ours to make in 2024.
Additional Material:
Letters from an American
Teri Kanefield’s Blog
Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
The Status Kuo
The Hopium Chronicles
https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/trump-criminal-investigations-cases-tracker-list/
A Good Reed Review 