October 18—22, 2020
meanwhile...

  
 
 

Hi, Linda.

I’m delighted to read that Amy McGrath’s campaign is doing well—but surely I feel
not nearly the delight of you and your friends.

Herb Reid, in email two years ago, called McConnell “that bastard.”

If I had stayed in Kentucky, I’d have been on the road around the state for Democrats intensely. By now I could have claimed to be almost native Kentuckian, though I’m not:
My pre-teen school years were mostly in southern California, which is basically why I was
so drawn back here: subliminal imprinting, I guess (plus, in those ’70s, Berkeley was still “Berkeley”—which became just home).

In any event, re: the election: A Democratic Senate seems likely.

And America’s in a new political era for LGBTQ (even for Catholicism—old news now).

By the way, years ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised if your career had moved into working for an elected official. Remember before you began law school you wanted to work for progressive tax policy? I admired that. I presume that your retirement from appellate public defense (so important!) has given you chances to work for other public goods (ACLU?
KY Democrats?)

I do what I can (writing from the Blueist of Blue bi-coastality).

A DNC solicitation today wanted “signing” of Kamala Harris’s online birthday card. More donation is the real agenda, of course. Fine. I donated more. (No wonder philanthropists seek anonymity). I wrote for her “card”: “Of course you’re someday to be President Harris.”

The following two sections are impersonal (then back to personal) because it comes to mind in writing to you during these times (election season); and I like sharing ideas. I always want to learn from others how I may be misconceiving, ill informed, naïve, or misunderstanding.


People who criticize American politics in toto (e.g., Chinese CP nationalists—desperate for legitmation in the pandemic economy) don’t admit that U.S. institutions have constrained Trumpism pretty well (that’s the “problem” for China!): He’s remained largely a blowhard who hasn’t had much chance to do long-term damage—apart from packing appellate courts with Federalists; pretty bad, fer shur. But in princple, legislation can annul juristic sleight-of-hand. And Biden’s progressive pragmatism is prevailing. (He is progressive—but prudent).

All in all now, The System works. Surely, that’s what worries Beijing about democratic populism in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But democratic trending in good government is necessarily messy.


Judge Barrett is fascinating. I admire her high wire act, though I disagree with her judicial philosophy of course. (Click “58 comments” under the video portal. I can’t correct typo
for ‘Breyer’).

Judge Textualist’s sleight-of-hand undermines itself when she admits that stare decisis “takes reliance interests into account” (Oct. 13), notwithstanding that the stature of precedent as institution undermines Textualism—and frames the pretense of Originalist attachment to the 18th century Framers (who didn’t intend to institutionalize their times, which I’ve argued in my own way).

Accordingly, strictness always has a theory of reading (secret or not), what she calls “the legal calculus of the case” which is always a construed calculus; and which plays into a doctrine (secret or not) about application of strictness: what she calls “how I would structure my decision making process.” Her Textualism unwittingly floats out the window of cogency.


Last week, I got the impulse to send you that card because I had a qwerky narrative to you here that I imagined you’d enjoy. The “branches and leaves” line was an afterthought, relative to my qwerky story. But better sense returned, and I filed it away.

It was qwerkier than my message to you via Bonnie’s Facebook account last year, which
I guess you didn’t see. So, here’s that. I hope you have a good laugh.

I want you to know that I’d be happy to respond (without qwerky Attitude) about anything that interests you about past years—or about anything. I’d be genuinely glad to be useful
any way I can.

A thing about getting old—for me, at least—is interest in understanding the singular contin-uity of life (not to be jargonistic), which is why I think of you and Bonnie; and why I’ve invited contact, which traces back before 1989. (Late ’89, I didn’t know you were still with Bonnie. It didn’t even occur to me as possibility that you were still living together. I was supposed to visit Bonnie, one night I drove through Lexington from Mississippi, on a UC research project that required traveling. I accidently saw you in a window while I was parking, which so stunned me I didn’t go to the door, and had to leave Lexington the next morning for a scheduled meeting in Ohio.)

The years of you in my life are happily recalled, which caused me to imagine that you recall happily, too. But I’ve been easy to contact for many years. I never sought to intrude.

I trust you’re in good health.

Go McGrath!

I’ll be back here Nov. 7, same URL, new note.

gary