Geraldine Ferraro and Walter Mondale, the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket in 1984. She ran for veep, making history, as Maureen Dowd recalls.

By Bob Gaydos

     It gives me no joy to say “I told you so.” Maybe a bit of personal satisfaction, but I’ll deal with that. 

From time to time, in this era of constant chaos known as the Trump Administration, I have lamented that it is virtually impossible for those who comment on the news of the day to write about anything but the Drumpster. The fact that he lies constantly, is monumentally inept and psychologically unfit for the Oval Office only adds to the need for constant — daily — attention. It is exhausting and, ultimately, depressing. And this, I have said, could eventually scramble the brains even of veteran journalists who still do it fulltime for a living.

      Cases in point, Maureen Dowd and David Brooks. One on the left, one on the right. On a recent Sunday, the New York Times played it right down the middle.

     On Aug. 9, I decided to peruse the Views section, once my automatic go to, but for some time now a repository of more of you know what about you know who. The psyche needs a rest. Having had one, I skipped to Dowd in the back, leaving Brooks’ rare front-page splash for later.

       Dowd has been nothing if not devoted to telling us how awful and dumb Drumpf is. She does it well. I enjoy her writing. But on this Sunday she had to write about Democrats and that part of her brain apparently was fried from all the juice emanating from the Republican side.

       She was writing about Joe Biden’s much-anticipated selection of a female vice presidential running mate. She was also waxing nostalgic of her days covering Walter Mondale’s selection of Newburgh native Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate in 1984. She was the first woman to run as a vice presidential candidate on any major party ticket. Dowd recalled that that “fairy tale“ had a “sad ending.“ They lost.

     But then Dowd wrote: “It’s hard to fathom, but it has been 36 years since a man and a woman ran together on a Democratic Party ticket. To use Geraldine Ferraro‘s favorite expression, ‘Give me a break!’ “

     I’ll cue in the Jeopardy final question music. Do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do…

     I’ll take it, Alex. Who were Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in 2016?

      Correct, Bob! Hillary Clinton chose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her vice presidential running mate in July 2016. And that was the last time a man and a woman ran together on the Democratic Party ticket.

       How soon we forget. Dowd was so focused on the number two pick, she forgot all about Clinton clobbering Trump by several million votes and still losing the presidency a mere four years ago. Dowd wrote about all the biases Ferraro faced as the first female vice presidential candidate and projected that Biden‘s choice would have to be prepared to be portrayed as too bossy, too bitchy, too aggressive, too ambitious, etc.

    Of course, those are all things that were said about Clinton a mere four years ago when she ran, not for vice president, but for president. Real history. She won and she had it stolen from her as I recall.

     Kamala Harris, Biden’s eventual VP pick, will probably be able to handle all those attacks, in part because she’s highly competent, but also because Clinton already handled them, as I said, four years ago. Maybe Dowd can make it up to Hillary in a future column, but I submit that that’s what covering Drumpf 24/7 can do to you

     As for the conservative Brooks, he chose to take on the question of “Where Do Republicans Go From Here?” He’s not sure other than that, however many smart conservatives work on renovating it, Trump’s impact on the party will last for decades. And he puts the party’s future in the hands of four Republican senators in their 40s: Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse.

      Sheesh. All four are supposedly more enlightened populists who don’t always see government as the enemy and feel more must be done to help America’s working class. Rubio and Sasse occasionally try to sound like they disagree with some administration policy that harms regular people, Hawley is hawkish against corporate elites and Cotton is, at heart, a bomb thrower. They all voted not to convict Trump at his impeachment trial and none has shown the courage to consistently speak out directly to contradict the administration. Not much leadership in evidence.

      Brooks, who’s supporting Biden, writes, “The Republican Party looks completely brain-dead at every spot Trump directly touches.” I agree with him on this. And so, how are these four young stalwarts going to reshape their party so that it survives as a major political force? Stick with the working-class philosophy, but without the racism, Brooks suggests. Aha! Therein may lie the rub. How does the GOP unbecome the party of white, racist middle-Americans who hate “coastal elites”?

     Brooks takes us through many inches of well-thought-out rationales and says others are also working on the “brain-dead” issue. But Rubio, Hawley, Cotton and Sasse? They’re “inching” their way to a new GOP, Brook writes, finally ending with: “What are the odds they’ll succeed? They’ve got to be way under 50-50.”

    Swell. That’s what used to be known as burying the lead, David. After all this, you’re saying the best hope for a new GOP lies in the hands of four senators with little hope of shaking off the stench of Trumpism? Please. Give it a rest.

      Anyway, I get it. The point here is purely personal. As I said, it’s crazy-making having to write about Trump every day, like living with an alcoholic. I appreciate the efforts from both of you, but why not forget about you-know-who for a while? Take a week off. Maybe write about the plant-based food craze instead. I myself am a fan of the Impossible Whopper.

rjgaydos@gmail.com.

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

James Holmes, charged in Colorado mass shooting

By Gretchen Gibbs

David Brooks slays me. There’s so much that’s right about the New York Times columnist, and I want to be able to say, “I like some Republicans, for instance David Brooks.” But then in the midst of saying something interesting, he gets it all wrong.

Like his July 23 comment on the latest Colorado massacre, in which he said that we need more treatment programs to deal with the potentially violent. As a psychologist, I applaud any call to increase the number of treatment programs for the emotionally troubled. Let’s ignore for the moment that the mental health profession is not adept at either identifying potential violence or treating it. What I want to address is the thrust of his essay, the need for psychological approaches, not sociological critiques, to address violence. There’s the rub. Psychological factors operate within a social context and we ignore that at our peril.

All forms of mental disorder vary according to cultural norms. For instance, the percentage of individuals with eating disorders exploded in the 1970s as the approved image for women became thinner. Self-cutting and other self-mutilation became a serious clinical problem only in the last 15 years or so, along with the acceptability of body piercings and tattooing.

It’s hard to know what the factors are that contribute to our culture of mass violence, other than the notoriety that the perpetrators attain. Shooting a lot of people is a sure-fire way of attaining attention for individuals who feel they are not receiving their just desserts. There’s a copy-cat aspect, as when a teen commits suicide and then others who hear about it also make attempts. Perhaps restricting the amount of publicity the killer receives would be a good plan. Let’s focus on the victims.

Gun control plays some role, as it’s clear that having assault weapons available leads to a higher degree of potential havoc when somebody has a violent outburst.  Michael Moore explored the topic in a film, using the previous Colorado massacre, and concluded it wasn’t the guns per se, as Canada has similar gun availability yet much lower levels of violence than in the U.S.  Moore concluded that it was a culture of fear and distrust in the U.S. that led to so much violence.

We need to figure out what the factors are and address them, not just act as though a mass killer is some deviant human being in isolation from society. I see David Brooks’ attitude as part of a larger picture in which cultural factors are ignored in attempting to understand emotional problems.

The American Psychiatric Association is about to come out with a new version of its diagnostic manual. Lest you think this boring, remember that your insurance will only pay for psychological treatment for diagnoses that exist within this manual. For instance, if you have a marital problem, you’ll have a devil of a time getting your treatment paid for, as there are no diagnoses for marriage difficulties.

The premise used by the APA in this new version is that mental illness is an actual biological illness, to be treated medically. Seventy percent of the committee working on the revision of the manual has ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Some of their revisions seem an attempt to broaden drug treatment. For instance, at the present time there is a distinction in the manual between depression and experiencing grief after a loss. This distinction was going to be eliminated, meaning that normal reactions to a death or other tragedy would be labeled as illness, and millions of ordinary people would receive unnecessary prescriptions, with sometimes serious side effects.

Grief is painful, but it’s different from depression, and drugs are not the answer. After much criticism, the manual will retain the distinction between depression and grief. The committee, however, has not responded to the extensive criticism it has received from over 50 mental health organizations and 11,000 clinicians, including me, protesting the exclusively medical orientation.

What’s happened to the last 60 years of discoveries from psychology, sociology and anthropology?  Has everybody forgotten we’re products of our environment?

gretchen@zestoforange.com