Democracy in Tatters

Because some people don't like other people.

Photo by Jose M on Unsplash

My wife and I walked two miles to get to our small town’s Hands Off protest this past Saturday. We each felt we needed the exercise and the day was about as gorgeous of a spring day in the Cascade foothills as you could ever hope to have.

“How many protesters do you think will show up?” I said.

She replied, “Thirty.”

Being the curmudgeon — a living, breathing Eeyore — that I am, I offered, “I think I’ll go with twenty three.”

Randomly picking a precise number out of the hat in my mind. We were both low-balling it because we presumed our county hub would draw the larger, more animated crowd. Even with the knowledge that our town was blue enough to go for Harris this past fall while the rest of the county was stubbornly scarlet.

Imagine our surprise and elation when the turnout was ten times what we dolefully, matter-of-factly predicted!

The meeting site was City Hall but the crowd’s focus was lining U.S. 2 which bisects our reinvented and completely reinvigorated former lumber town. A town left for dead by the railroad and the lumberyard in the first half of the 20th century.

Now, it’s the second most visited tourist designation in Washington State — just after Pike Place Market where you need to be on the lookout out for flying fish carcasses expertly slung by employees of the oldest, most established seafood counters.

Ultimately, we chose to attend our local rally because we wanted to rub elbows and engage with our neighbors, but also because we live 25 miles west of the county seat and we were feeling lazy.

Or, should I say, we were watching our carbon footprint?

However, after thinking about it, lining up along both sides of U.S. 2 in the middle of Leavenworth, where the speed limit is reduced and multiple pedestrian crosswalks with stop lights casually impede traffic, made far more sense than standing in a park near the county courthouse where the only people to witness it would be the locals.

On the main east-west two-lane highway in north central Washington, we were catching not only the incoming tourists from Seattle but all of the cross-state travelers. The crowd’s signage was about as eclectic as you could get.

IKEA Has Better Cabinets

Two inverted American flags — one held by a ranger and one by a former county commissioner

Hands Off Social Security

This Cardboard Sign is Too Small For All of Things I Want Protest

My Body, My Choice

Your typical progressive signage, which is to say, all over the map. There are so many aspects of our society under duress.

My sign — with a different, but related message, on each side read — Defund the Oligarchy and Refund the Working Class. Income disparity really chaps my ass.

The sun was out, cars were honking and — I swear upon whatever banned book I’m reading — a bald eagle soared above us. My wife was itching for some lively protest chanting but neither of us could think of anything that would rise above the din of people in animated conversations and the steady thrum of traffic.

For a half-dozen rounds or so, we shouted back and forth across the roadway with protesters on the other side, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Elon Musk has got to go!” For some reason, no one thought to bring a megaphone and few of us thought to add “Honk If…” to our signs.

Then a woman opposite us with a voice that really carried intoned, “Tell me what democracy looks like…!”

We responded full-throated and without hesitation, “THIS is what democracy looks like!” And it went back and forth until a semi-truck driver laid on his horn and blocked our view of one another for a minute.

That was when one of the organizers came by to forewarn us a provocateur and his partner were working the line on each side of the highway. The organizer suggested we not engage. The provocateur was being trailed by two locals in fluorescent orange vests. They were the protest’s security detail. One carried an American flag.

Right side up.

I was going to let the camouflage-wearing, hat back-ass-wards interloper step on by but he insisted I show him what was on my double-sided sign. He wanted to know what I meant by defunding the oligarchy and he also wanted me to know that he did not think there was an oligarchy.

I’m guessing he was late thirties. His partner was a black woman with braided locks. He was doing the talking while her role was to occasionally roll her eyes and act frustrated.

Or incredulous at the things liberals believe.

They were rabid supporters of the president-in-name-only. It might have been a Jordan Klepper-type schtick except FOR MAGA. I couldn’t be sure.

I told him by defunding the oligarchy I meant that our tax rates need to return to the days when MAGA believes “America was great”. You know, the days when Father Knows Best was a hit television show. When civil rights were an afterthought. When women still wore bras and knew their place. When schools were segregated. When cities were redlined and therefore also segregated. When being Catholic in America was radical.

When high school students in Dallas cheered when they heard their Catholic president had been assassinated.

I told him the highest tax bracket in 1960 was 90%. The professional golfer, Jack Nicklaus, lamented this “communist plot” even though you needed to earn over $100,000 annually to be hit with a tax rate that high. One hundred thousand would be one million in today’s currency.

He insisted that was not true. He refused to accept it. He didn’t disagree that tax rates had been higher. He just couldn’t wrap his head around a 90% tax rate. Even if it was only on income exceeding $100,000.

Honestly, he had me doubting myself.

So, when I had the chance, I researched it. Here’s what I found on a nerdy, finance focused website:

The top individual marginal income tax rate tended to increase over time through the early 1960s, with some additional bumps during war years. The top income tax rate reached above 90% from 1944 through 1963, peaking in 1944, when top taxpayers paid an income tax rate of 94% on their taxable income. Starting in 1964, a period of income tax rate decline began, ending in 1987. From 1987 to the present, the top income tax rate has been fluctuating in the 30% - 40% range.

Income disparity was far more reasonable during that time period. CEOs were being paid far more reasonable factors of income above other employees in a company. Companies offered pensions instead of 401ks (which are tied to the stock market — eek!). Companies covered their employees’ health care.

What else was happening in America’s moment of largesse and a flirtation with socialist democracy?

There were government initiatives like the G.I. Bill, which provided returning soldiers with opportunities for education, home loans, and small business support.

The interstate highway system was built and, even though one of it’s purposes was to provide better mobility for the military, it also gave Americans an excuse to ‘hit the road’ and explore. ‘Blue Highways’, like America’s first cross country highway, Route 66, were — virtually — abandoned.

Space travel, suburbanization, the rise of consumerism.

It was all going so well. Even a minister in Texas earning a quarter of the nation’s highest tax bracket level could afford a mortgage on a house on the outskirts of Dallas.

This is the era — I believe — MAGA wants to return to. Because it was BEFORE minorities started asking for equal and civil rights. They want 1959 without the “colored” people. They want 1959 America without having to pay taxes for any of it. They think Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Tech, what have you, will create the long lost American dream for them and the government should just step aside.

Sadly, I don’t argue well when confronted. I don’t hold footnotes or references in my head I can present when the need arises. I do remember things I’ve heard or read — like the Nicklaus disdain for our country’s tax policy — which, for some reason, had been seared into my brain synapses. They inform my opinion but I couldn’t back it up with where or when I saw or read it.

The provocateur questioned my knowledge and I didn’t back down, but I did wonder. Like George W., I thought, I might have been “misremembering”. I was relieved to find I was not making it up.

So.

Sorry MAGA. You’re misinformed.

What else could you be misinformed about, I wonder?

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I have fully embraced campfires online. With our new extraordinarily large flatscreen television, a roaring fire — that I did not have to get up and build — is the perfect addition to our nightly, calming routine.

I have discovered there are dozens upon dozens of fireplaces and campfires to choose from and they are the perfect touch with mood lighting, an adult beverage and a good book, or soft music. Search “campfire by lake” or “campfire by moving water” or “monastery fireplace” or whatever strikes your fancy.

(Monastery Wall fireplace would not let me share it on Substack. Sad face.)

But this next one is my favorite, even though it is more art, than actual campfire. I think I like the Norman Rockwell ambiance, the hooting owls and other creatures and the UFO that enters the picture briefly at the beginning.

Be sure to explore. There are LOTS to choose from!

Also, rockhopper penguins may be my new favorite penguin. They made the news after our naked emperor decided in all his infinite wisdom to slap a tariff on the island where rockhopper penguins live. Enjoy!