Some Immodest Proposals

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”

United States of America, post-election 2024?  Nope.  As you know, if you attended high school or college before dead white authors went out of vogue, thus begins Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, describing the volatile days of 1775, when France was pre-revolutionary and England was about to lose one of the crown jewels of its empire.

Crime in the streets and byways was rampant.  Social upheaval reigned. Justice was administered arbitrarily. The citizenry was confused, frightened, and disheartened.

Yet, in the midst of the bleak description of desolation, societal oppression, and personal vindictiveness, the novel holds out hope that courage, bravery, sacrifice, and redemption will prevail.

Since none of you are ever going to read the book, those of you who may have read it have forgotten it, and I don’t plan to say any more about it, you will just have to take my word for it.

Which brings us to the current situation in the United States, where a tad more than half the country is in a state of euphoria (one of the few states that did not vote for Trump in this election) and the rest of the country is despondent, if not suicidal.

Where are we to find the courage, bravery, sacrifice, and redemption to save and unite the community in such a polarized environment?

The victorious Republicans, reveling in their triumph, do not seem to be in any mood to compromise on the issues that motivated their voters and votes: crime in the streets, open borders, racial preferences, identity politics, and what they view as the absurdity of boys in girls’ sports and locker rooms. The individuals named by Trump to cabinet and advisory positions thus far do not seem to represent even the slightest conciliatory gesture to the defeated left. MAGA to the core, each and every one.

The beaten and discouraged Democrats have no time or energy to offer a meaningful way forward that might restore equilibrium, because they are too busy pointing fingers and trying to understand how they could possibly have lost to a bunch of knuckle-dragging rapists, fascists, morons, and troglodytes.

Joy Reid blamed the whole mess on white people and has announced that she has given up on them.  Joy Behar suggested that the abandonment of the Democrats by the working class was attributable to their failure to understand the Democrats’ messaging. The voters didn’t get it and they let the country down.  In The New York Times, Tom Friedman said that Harris lost because of the anti-Zionist views of her adherents.  Peter Beinart said that Harris lost because the party wasn’t anti-Zionist enough. Bret Stephens said that Harris was a terrible candidate, but that people should have voted for her anyway, because . . . Trump.  

The New York Times editorial board labeled Trump’s victory “a grave threat to the republic,” but averred that the long-term fate of American democracy “remains in the hands of the American people.” That would be, presumably, the same American people who just voted for Trump.

Do you see the problem?  If guidance from The New York Times is useless, where may  solutions be found?

We need someone with the vision to bridge the gap and the courage to try to reconcile these two apparently diametrically opposed segments of society.  Since no one else seems to be stepping up, I am going to seize the moment to advance a few not so modest proposals that might command broad approval from the entire electorate and bring us together, once and for all.  My theory is that once we start the ball rolling by finding common ground upon which people can stand and mutually agree, beneficial consequences will inevitably ensue.

Let’s start with an easy one:  Abortion.  The Democrats erroneously thought that the abortion issue was sufficiently compelling to assure that Harris would win the female vote by an overwhelming margin (she only got 54%)  The Republicans thought that the transgender stuff would counterbalance the abortion argument.

I have always felt that it is a waste of time to debate about abortion, because the differences of opinion are so extreme and so irreconcilable.  Those who view a fetus as a human being and abortion as murder will never be swayed by the argument that a woman should have the absolute right to control what goes on in her own body.  After all, women don’t have the right to murder their other children.  Those who view the fetus as something less than a human being, simply some differentiated or undifferentiated cells that are temporarily part of a woman’s body, will never be swayed by the argument that the fate of the fetus should be in the hands of anyone other than the person bearing it.  After all, no one has the right to tell a woman that she can’t cut her fingernails.

And never the twain shall meet.  So how to resolve it?  Simple. Find common ground and build on it.

The New York Post reports that liberal women, taking a page from the Korean feminist movement called 4B (no sex, no dating, no marriage, no children–it sounds better in Korean), are going on a sex strike and shaving their heads to protest Trump’s victory and what they see as a betrayal by male voters.  In a companion story, the Post reports that what it terms “conservative ladies” are eager to have more children now that their economic well-being and that of the country is assured.

This pretty much puts the abortion issue to bed. (That is a particularly infelicitous phrase; please disregard.  I’ll try again.)

This may settle the abortion issue without recrimination. (Much better.)  Since the liberal women abstaining from sex are the ones who are most likely to favor unrestricted access to abortion, now that the issue has been sent by the Supreme Court back to the states, where it always belonged, legislation could be approved and rapidly adopted with bipartisan majorities providing that unlimited abortions should be available to any such woman, provided that she has not engaged in sexual activity for the prior year.  For those women who are opposed to unlimited access to abortion (and 46% of women voted for Trump), abortion could be limited as the state legislature determines.

Win-win.

I started with Dickens, but I’ll throw in Darwin.  Taking those women who are culturally appropriating the Korean abstinence movement out of the gene pool would be a pretty big ancillary benefit.

On to border control.  This was an issue that hurt Harris badly, not only because working-class Americans are concerned about the impact of unrestricted immigration, but because many people were offended by the lawlessness involved in allowing or encouraging people to step out of line to secure rights that others had obtained lawfully.  Moreover, she clumsily flip-flopped on the value of a border wall and on whether or not the border had been closed during her administration.  On the other hand, many liberals saw the opposition to illegal immigration as  racist, xenophobic, and overblown.

The middle ground?  Easy-peasy.  Many prominent progressives have announced their unwillingness to remain in a country that is about to become a fascist tyranny.  Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, all the anchors at MSNBC, Bruce Springsteen, Katy Perry, and a host of others will be leaving the country before or shortly after the inauguration.  If they take their families and legions of fans, this will leave a lot of space and many well-paying jobs that don’t require much skill or academic training.  Homeland Security could establish a matching program by which undocumented aliens are paired with departing progressives.  For each Barbra Streisand and member of her retinue that goes, one undocumented immigrant gets to stay.

Win-win.

Going forward, we simply have people desiring entry register their names at the border and we grant admission on a one-for-one, first come, first served basis in exchange for those Hollywood stars, singers, teachers’ union leaders, and professional athletes departing. As with the abortion solution, a side benefit–this would be a major plus for the U.S. gene pool.

I have a lot of other ideas, each worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize (e.g., on the transgender thing, three leagues, three bathrooms, and everyone changes at home).  But maybe Dickens could get away with 50,000 words.  I can’t. This is a lesson that might have helped Kamala also.

Win-win.