Stephen W. Browne

I have noticed something about the discussion about Syria, the Kurds, and Trump’s decision to remove about 50 American soldiers from the area.

We’re not having one.

Leftists who were chanting “No blood for oil!” not so long ago are now proclaiming we’re abandoning an ally to genocide.

Rightists who are also upset about abandoning an ally don’t seem to be curious about whether the PPK (Kurdish Workers Party) faction in the area aren’t kind of well, communist.

But the Kurds are our allies against ISIS!

News flash, Turkey is also our “ally.” They’re a NATO member and we’re committed to the common defense, though some of us thought letting Turkey into the alliance might not have been a good idea.
So quick quiz.

Who are the Kurds, where is their homeland, what is the majority religion, and what language do they speak?

Next, where is Syria and who runs the place? Then same questions as above.

How’d you do?

Yeah, me neither. Fact is, I know a little about the Kurds because I’ve known some and got curious about them. I know far less about Syria although I should because I’m a history buff and it’s the ancient home of the civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria where the name comes from.

So quick cheat sheet. The Kurds are not Arabs, they’re ethnically and linguistically close to Iranians. They’re mostly Sunni Muslims but there are also Shia Muslims and followers of Alevism, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity.

A Kurdish woman once told me some worship Shaitan or Satan, and I have no idea what she meant by that. A Kurdish gentleman I knew once complained about how, “Those damned Arabs shoved Islam down our throats.”

There are between 30 and 45 million Kurds worldwide, they are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own, and their ancient homeland Kurdistan is an area that covers parts of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and a piece of Syria. All of them countries which are not particularly keen on ceding territory to make a new country.

Fun fact, Saladin the chivalrous enemy of the Crusaders who recaptured Jerusalem was a Kurd.

Syrians are mostly Sunni Muslim, but there are also Shia and substantial minorities of Alawite, Ismaili, and Salafi Muslims. Not to mention Druse, Mandeans, Yazidis, Jews, and Christians.

Around the beginning of the 20th century Syria took in Armenian refugees from the Turkish massacres the Turks still deny ever happened.

Syria is the only country with an official Bathist ideology. Ba’athism is a pan-Arab movement that holds all Arabs should be in one state. It is more-or-less secular and socialist.

OK, how much of that did you know? Truthfully, I’m better informed than most and have lived in the region and I had to look most of it up.

Now of the people whose opinions you have been hearing a lot lately, how many of them do you think have done even that much research?

Probably not many, because the more you look into it the more confused you get.

If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we’re largely forming opinions about the situation in Syria based on our opinion of the current occupant of the White House and what he just did.

That and the fact that everybody wants out of that forsaken region but we don’t like to look at what happens when we do leave.

Then again we don’t like to look at what happens when we stay and try to “fix” things there either.

I am again seriously impressed by the disconnect between the reality star in the White House and the President of the United States.

Is it possible there are two Donald Trumps? Does he have a twin brother who’s in charge of Twitter while the president writes speeches?

What else could explain the chaotic undisciplined twiterstorm versus the focused, well-organized, down to earth yet inspiring speeches?

If you like Trump you should watch the entire speech.

If you loathe Trump you must watch it.

Agree or disagree, Trump defined the issues and made his case without rancor or rage, in marked contrast with the disturbed child who also spoke at the UN recently – or even his own public persona.

Globalism versus nationalism; Trump argued that every nation has the right and the responsibility to serve their own interests first. Which among other things means control over their borders.

He furthermore said that this is the only basis for peace, respect, and friendship between nations.

Then he said nice things about how Mexico has been cooperating on us with that problem.

On the trade war with China, where he is most at odds with his own supporters, he outlined China’s arrogance, currency manipulations , and theft of intellectual property with concrete examples. He made the case for sanctions but on a hopeful note that it will be worked out and massaged the ego of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

That’s a nice balance between a message of “we’re not going to tolerate you messing with us anymore” and “but we respect you” so necessary for dealing with leaders from cultures notoriously touchy about face.

He called out Iran and Venezuela as brutal dictatorships, but affirmed our sympathy with the suffering of their people.

And significantly he mentioned there is food waiting for the starving people of Venezuela once the walls come down. Which incongruously made me think of Charleton Heston playing El Cid at the siege of Valencia where he wheeled the catapults up to the walls – and flung loaves of bread over them.

And here is where he defined the difference between two views of the world order.
“Like my beloved country, each nation represented in this hall has a cherished history, culture, and heritage that is worth defending and celebrating, and which gives us our singular potential and strength.”

There is a great deal of talk about “diversity” and “multiculturalism” these days. Which sounds great except the people who do most of the talking expect a rigid intellectual conformity among all the best people, and who seem to have little real understanding that other cultures really are quite different from ours. Their vision of a globalist future seems monotonously bland, like the world remade into a California suburb.

And he repeated his previous statement that, “America will never be a socialist country” and called out socialism for the murder of a minimum 100 million people in the past century.

I realize many people have a different definition of socialism more like the capitalist social democracies of Europe. Well if you do, now you have to explicitly define what you mean and defend your position because Trump has drawn a line in the sand.

If you agree with Trump I think you’ll be heartened that your position is not being represented by the bombastic idiot he is portrayed as, with some justification to be sure.

If you disagree I’d say watch it more than once, analyze it, and formulate your answers to it point-by-point. Because this is an argument that cannot be answered by a screaming hissy fit.

A collection of Steve Browne’s essays and newspaper columns, “The View from Flyover Country: A Rural Columnist Looks at Life in the 21st Century” is available on Amazon Kindle.

Something a few people noted about the last presidential campaign, something different from all previous campaigns.

Well actually there were a few things that have never happened before. Chief of which was someone who had never held any public office of any kind got elected. But what I’m referring to was the insult Hillary leveled, not at her opponent but at his supporters.

Remember, “basket of deplorables”?

Obama came within spitting distance of it with his remark about the bitter people who “cling to their guns and religion,” which was a significant gaffe but was sympathetic, if clueless and patronizing.

Politicians are supposed to win over the electorate, not insult them. Of course every politician realizes there are portions of the population you’re never going to convince, and other portions you may convince eventually but not this time.

But when you straight up insult them, you’ve written off the possibility of ever bringing them over and are campaigning with a brute force strategy. Win by sheer numbers and keep hold forever.

What I want to talk about though, is something more specific than “deplorable.” I mean “racist.”

I’ve lately seen many bland assertions that “Of course, definitely” Trump supporters are racists who earnestly desire the ethnic cleansing of America.

What universe are they living in where between a quarter and a half of their countrymen are genocidal madmen?

Seriously, can you walk down the street you live on and point out the houses where the people live who would take their hunting rifles and shotguns and help load box cars full of their fellow citizens to be “resettled in the east”?

This is not a trivial insult. Careers and reputations have been ruined by the mere accusation based on a chance remark, a past association, or nothing at all.

So let’s get this out of the way. There is no evidence Trump is a racist and a great many reasons to believe he is not. Starting with his past association with leaders of the civil rights movement, his efforts to desegregate a snooty country club, and his friendship with prominent African-Americans such as Mike Tyson and Jennifer Hudson.

Nor is he a homophobe and his hotels are said to be very LGBT friendly places to work. Not to mention you can’t get away with that in show business.

He is a serial fabricator and an adulterer, not even his most fervent supporters deny that.

He is on if not friendly, then businesslike terms with the mob. Nobody who builds anything taller than two stories in New York can avoid that.

He has a reputation for stiffing subcontractors. It’s a common enough practice among big businessmen, to hold back the money you owe a smaller business so you can get a few months extra interest out of it. And it’s rotten for the little guys.

But he’s not a racist!

The logic behind that charge seems to be, “All racists are jerks, therefore all jerks are racists.”

If you took freshman logic in college you know why that doesn’t follow. “All cats are animals, therefore all animals are cats.”

And that’s why people are scared, and increasingly angry. Because most people in this country are not racists. At least not the cross burning KKK kind. There are other less hateful manifestations.

People are scared of being accused of being something hateful. An accusation where the presumption of innocence does not exist and they must grovel and humiliate themselves to try to prove they aren’t.

For comparison, imagine being accused of being homosexual 50 years or so ago.

Understand why they’re scared?

By the time this column goes to press the votes will be counted, but the election won’t be over.

I’ve been very cautious about predicting the outcome, on the eve of the day I will be bold and predict after the votes are counted some people are going to be unhappy.

The problem is, who and how unhappy? As in unhappy enough to cry “Foul!” demand recounts, or take to the streets?

That depends on whether there is a massive repudiation of the Republicans, or they make significant gains, or there is just kind of a “meh” mid-term readjustment like usual.

It’s not really possible the Democrats will take the Senate but they have hopes of taking the House. From the point of view of those who love peace and quiet that might be the best outcome.

Even some conservatives might not be too unhappy with that. The libertarian publication Reason Magazine has pointed out that government spending is generally lowest when government is divided.

If however the Democrats fail to retake the House or lose significant ground then the Devil is coming to breakfast. Because they’ve got a lot invested in this and a lot of them are flat not going to believe the results.

So before we turn this country into a permanent version of Detroit’s Devil’s Night, lets line out some of the things we’re mad at each other about.

One is, the urban-rural divide.

After searching diligently for any other explanation, we’ve admitted the only consistent predictor of voting patterns is simply population density. Rural folks vote R, urbanites vote D.

What we don’t know is why. Perhaps areas of high or low population density have different concerns that require different styles of governance. And perhaps a top-down, one-size-fits-all, my-way-or-the-highway style just doesn’t fit a country as large and diverse as ours.

And by the way it would probably help if oh-so-sophisticated urbanites didn’t look down on rural folks are inbred cross-burning bigots, and rural folks didn’t condemn city folk as America-bashing perverts.

You might think it, but it wouldn’t hurt to dial it down in public.

What complicates things is the rural areas are tax consuming and the urban areas tax exporting. Because the tax base in the hinterlands can’t support 21st century infrastructure without help. Nor does wheat and beef fly to market.

Which leads to the next problem. Redistributionist government fosters identity politics and division.

Years ago sociologist Daniel Bell pointed out that as government grows bigger and more active in redistributing wealth, people organize to grab their piece of the pie.

The first to organize were industries and professions. But as the government becomes more active in picking winners and losers, people increasingly organize along lines of kinship and ethnicity.

The worst possible development for a democratic republic.

People knowledgeable in math tell me there is a proof any voting system can always be dominated by a coalition of minorities. Think about what that implies for a minute. There will always be a faction whose interest is in division rather than unity.

Which leads to immigration. Not the legal kind.

Caravans of desperate migrants are heading for the U.S. stopping only for photo ops and coming to storm our border armed only with their misery. The left thinks this is a humanitarian crisis no decent human being can be indifferent to.

The right thinks the left is importing a massive voting block that will insure their predominance forever.

They’re both right.

Tomorrow I’m going to vote, then I’m going to go home and bar my door. See you next week. Maybe.

Well Judge Brett Kavanaugh is now Justice Kavanaugh and depending on your point of view justice has been done the Justice, or a predator is sitting on the highest court in the land.

If you believe the latter, you’re among the 31% of the electorate (Democrats) who believe 27% of the electorate (Republicans) are sexual predators, don’t care about sexual predators, or if female are traitors to their gender.

But the fact is Democrats might have prevented Kavanaugh’s confirmation but chose instead to do pretty much everything wrong.

Kavanaugh is distrusted by a fair number of constitutional conservatives and libertarians who view him as squishy on Fourth Amendment issues and as a supporter of the feared Patriot Act.

Opposition based on the issues could have had bipartisan support and possibly convinced Republicans to move on to another nominee.

But instead the Democrats chose to argue scandal. And that’s where everything fell apart.

To begin with, though Christine Blassey-Ford delivered compelling and heart-wrenching testimony the evidence simply wasn’t there.

Her claim rested on an account of an incident 36 years old with crucial details missing, and named witnesses who did not corroborate her account.

Without witnesses or physical evidence in a case such as this, it’s one person’s word against another.

And in this case there was more than one explanation available for those who doubted her. The hard-hearted could condemn her as a liar, but the soft-hearted could plausibly believe she was simply mistaken about a long-ago traumatic experience.

A second accuser appeared, and shot herself in the foot when she claimed she vaguely remembered someone exposing themselves to her at a party – then said she thought hard about it for six days in consultation with her lawyer before she realized it was Kavanaugh.

When a third accuser appeared with a tale out of The X-Files it was an embarrassment.

The effect of this was to make it impossible for the Republicans to back down. They had to back Kavanaugh to the hilt or give the Democrats an unlimited veto over any nominee, and lose the support of their own base.

Secondly, the Democrats scared people.

One may believe Ford, and one might even be right, but the available evidence in no way justified the passionate certainty displayed by Ford’s supporters.

To put it bluntly, fanatics scare most people. The message a lot of people took was, “We can ruin you at any time with a mere accusation.”

And not just men. A lot of women were frightened for their husbands, brothers, and sons.

The mother of a slightly autistic boy told me she was terrified because her son comes off as odd a little creepy, and would be terrible at defending himself against an accusation.

Thirdly, Democrats bore the weight of hypocrisy and cynicism.

Those who supported the accusations against Kavanaugh were seen, fairly or unfairly, as the same people who excused the wife of a serial predator who covered for him. That the offense he was accused of amounted to a crude pass compared to much worse behavior they were seen as having actively excused.

Remember Gloria Steinham’s “one free grope” rule for abortion supporters?

When pressed about the much better substantiated charges Senator Keith Ellison physically abused a former girlfriend, Democrats retreated to the position that a lifetime appointment is more serious than an elected position.

Democrats were seen as moving the goalposts as the initial accusations proved thin and they started harping on tales of his college drinking. As if that were somehow unusual!

So they lost every man who de-stressed in college with alcohol and may remember getting his face slapped at least once.

You don’t have to agree and you might think it quite wrong and unfair, but you should consider that’s how a great many people see it.