My wife watched a play this week chronicling some of the goings on under Pol Pot in Cambodia. The play mixed in music in a creative way of telling the story. It essentially, followed a man who was in a rock band before the revolution and what had happened to him. Like most productions it included plenty of literary devices we teach our students. In this case, it including foreshadowing when the band was discussing what they would do if the worst occurred. Some discussed fleeing Cambodia. Others discussed hiding in the countryside. One essentially said he was in favor of Cambodia and would fly whatever flag or do whatever was asked to get by.

As you might have predicted, he ended up doing horrible things so he could stay on the “right” side. It was a singular moment in an otherwise poignant play about a very dark time in history. It is these stand alone moments that seem to grab my attention more than anything. One of the principle characters in the play was a math teacher and family man before he turned into the administrator of a prison camp. The prison camp ended up being more of a death camp than a prison camp. Naturally, the character justified himself by saying that he did not personally beat or kill any prisoners. The guards had done that.

Fascism never begins with the horrible. Decent people never do the horrible at the outset. They convince themselves they are for the state. They love the state. Their belief system gets coopted with the state where we start calling it “Christian nationalism” as if that’s even a thing. You are either for the state or against the state, so we should be for the state. That’s of course until the state begins to do terrible things. By then it’s too late. Decent people have begun to do very indecent things because the country demanded it. The signs were all there. Some out in the wilderness even said it was coming, but they didn’t listen. They allowed their focus to be on the team instead of the ideals that team was supposed to represent.

Orthodoxy in all of its forms is a dangerous thing. It requires strict adherence that is all-consuming until it is too late. The band mate that became a tool of the state really wasn’t a bad guy at heart. The math teacher turned monster wasn’t a bad guy to begin with. Yet, they became the very worst version of themselves. If we pay close enough attention it could be a cautionary tale for all of us.

Joe Biden has never been afraid of getting out in front of his party, or even his boss when he was VP.  After all, we have Biden to thank for dragging Obama over the line on marriage equality when it counted, and he’s also done it on assault weapons, troop support, healthcare, and other key issues.  He’s doing it again by shaking up the 2024 primary season, and that shake up is long past due.  The most controversial elements of the schedule is pushing South Carolina to the front, and relegating Iowa farther down the line.  New Hampshire would share the second night with Nevada.  Not surprisingly, Iowa and New Hampshire are pissed.

I happen to agree with Biden 100% in this change.  First let’s look at the obvious – diversity.  Iowa and NH are two of the whitest and most rural states in the US.  Iowa is 90% white.  NH is 87% white and packed with libertarian gun crazies.  After all, their state motto is Live Free or Die, which is not exactly comforting or consensus building.  Ignoring all other factors, the demographics alone disqualify these states as leaders, period. But it gets worse. In the last 12 primaries, Iowa chose a candidate who didn’t eventually win the nomination 4 times.  In 1976, in fact, Uncommitted beat Jimmy Carter by 10 points. In those same historic primaries, NH picked the wrong candidate 5 times.  To me, though, the death blow for Iowa happened in 2020 when it took them THREE WEEKS to announce the results, and that delay managed to pick…wait for it…Pete Buttigieg.  Biden placed fourth.  The Iowa caucuses can best be described with the words SHIT SHOW and have caused the state to lose all claims to being first in the primary/caucus season.

The rest of Biden’s plan is to push very important states to the front – South Carolina, then adding Nevada to the second week along with NH.  Those states will be followed by Georgia and then Michigan to round out the early states.  This plan makes a lot of sense as it brings demographic diversity, geographic diversity, and battleground states into the early results which will hopefully bring candidates with the broadest appeal to the front sooner.  This is a welcome change that has a number of advantages, not the least of which is motivating more people to participate.   I won’t be surprised, though, if the calcified leadership of the DNC kills it, once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

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