Goodbye…!

2020 will be remembered as the year of the COVID–19 pandemic which is still in effect.

2020 also marks the year I lost my father.

It happened on Christmas Day. This last Friday, December 25, 2020.

I was with my father when he had his stroke in October.

We lived together.

I was with my father when he died, at age 88, during the early morning hours on Christmas Day.

As one who has always liked Christmas, for how it can bring people together, I will not look to the day as one I want to avoid but one I want to continue to appreciate. It is a good day. It is also my father’s day.

My father died at home with in-home Hospice. 

I was his caregiver. 

During the early period of his dying process, we talked. 

We were able to let each other know that we loved and were fortunate to have each other. Our family. Our lives. 

It was really good we talked. 

He told me, among a number of things, “[As a father], I made sure you [and your sibling] were provided for financially, emotionally, and spiritually.”

He did. My father, unlike my sibling and I, was not so fortunate. His father was present only financially.

My mother died at age 62 in 1998. (She was within weeks from turning 63.) She was 3 years younger than my father. He ended up with a lifespan of 25 more years than his wife. “I was married to a wonderful woman.” He said, after her death, his life was never the same. He missed her.

I will be turning 50 in 2021. I don’t look forward to that milestone of a birthday and age. But, I do look forward to moving past what I now label “The Worst Year Ever.”

2020 is…The Worst Year Ever.

Goodbye…Worst Year Ever!

Goodbye…To My Father!

While my life will be going through more changes, I will continue Progressives Chat with a regular schedule of blog topic posts on Mondays. I appreciate it. I know readers, who comment, do as well.

Although the word hope can mean little for some…I am hoping that this darkness that has been 2020 will bring us to light in 2021.

A ‘Merry’ Time with ‘Schitt’s Creek’

 

In 2018, during the week of Christmas, my blog topic [A Segue To Christmas: ‘SCTV’] featured videos from SCTV Network.  

As an early Christmas present for myself, I recently completed having viewed all episodes of the comedy series Schitt’s Creek.

It premiered on Pop TV in 2015 and ran for six seasons and concluded in 2020.

Created by father and son Eugene and Daniel Levy, the latter envisioned a series about characters who are wealthy but lose it all, or nearly all, and have to start over again. 

Schitt’s Creek is about the Rose family adjusting to their new life. They own this small town, called Schitt’s Creek, which the father bought for his son years ago as a joke. Well, the joke is on them.

Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) is a former video store magnate who was defrauded by his business partner. His wife, Moira (Catherine O’Hara), is a former soap-opera actress who is wanting her star to shine again. Their adult children, David (Daniel Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy), are looking to branch out independently. 

The Roses are reduced to living in a motel run by its clerk Stevie Budd (Emily Hampshire). 

The Roses—especially the parents—are often challenged by mayor Roland (Chris Elliott) and his teacher wife Jocelyn Schitt (Jennifer Robertson).

Along the way, the adult children do find romantic partners—for David, it is business partner Patrick Brewer (Noah Reid); for Alexis, it is veterinarian Ted Mullins (Daniel Milligan)—and they may or may not be enough.

The first two seasons take their time developing. And the characters, and their stories, grow very nicely as Schitt’s Creek soars.

One of my favorite scenes has Johnny and Moira having dinner with old friends. The friends disparage Schitt’s Creek for being lowly, backward, and unworthy. But Johnny, with having an epiphany, speaks of how these old friends abandoned them yet the people of this small town have been there for the Roses since they arrived. It is a nice moment that speaks to one being able to recognize who are his true friends.

Schitt’s Creek did not catch on right away. What catapulted it were repeats made available for streaming on Netflix. (Yes, I streamed the episodes from Netflix.) The fifth season garnered key Emmy nominations, for the 2018–19 television season, for Outstanding Comedy Series, Lead Actor Eugene Levy, and Lead Actress Catherine O’Hara. (Winners were Amazon Prime Video’s Fleabag and its star Phoebe Waller–Bridge and Bill Hader of HBO’s Barry.) But with its sixth and final season, the 2019–20 television season, Schitt’s Creek became the first regular television season to win for all four series-regular performance categories (Lead Actor Levy; Lead Actress O’Hara; Supporting Actor Levy; Supporting Actress Murphy) along with Series, Directing, and Writing. (Daniel became the first to win for performance, Directing, Writing, and as co-producer for Series.)

Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara also won Emmys, as writers, for SCTV Network. Eugene, 74, and Catherine, 66, have been two of the most daring comedic actors of the last four decades.And they are terrific once again on Schitt’s Creek. One can tell, with this series, why the two—along with Eugene’s son Daniel Levy, 37, and Annie Murphy, 34—were prized. Schitt’s Creek is fresh and funny.

Although I cannot assume all readers of Progressives Chat recognize and observe Christmas, I want everyone to have a safe and enjoyable holiday period.

‘In the End We Will All Pay for the Cowardice of the Liberal Class’

Last week, Jimmy Dore suggested—make that urged—his viewers, and really all true progressives, to contact the supposedly true progressive members of the Democratic-majority United States House of Representatives. This includes, of course, New York’s Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar. 

With the post-2020 Democrats heading into the next Congress with 222 seats—it takes 218 for majority—the supposedly true progressives can use their numbers to prevent California’s Nancy Pelosi from winning re-election as speaker if she does not, at the very least, bring to the floor of the U.S. House a vote on Medicare for All.

I support this move. 

I support it because it is, as Dore describes, leverage. 

I support it because these so-called true progressives should be using their leverage if Pelosi wants to continue as speaker. 

I support it because these supposedly true progressives have gone on the record saying they support and want Medicare for All. 

I support this move because these so-called true progressives should be revealing themselves for just how serious they are when they said they support and want Medicare for All.

I am ready for these so-called true progressives in the U.S. House to use their leverage.

If they don’t use their leverage, they can be included among the cowards in the “Liberal Class” as described by Chris Hedges in his piece that is this week’s blog topic. (Its link: In the End We Will All Pay for the Cowardice of the Liberal Class.)

‘America Closes Down—People Get Shafted As Monopolies Take Over!’

Jimmy Dore addresses the trajectory of shutdowns of restaurants, as one example, and how the CARES Act set it in motion to what we are lately seeing play out.

‘Glenn Greenwald—The Complete Interview!’

Jimmy Dore recently interviewed Glenn Greenwald on a number of topics which includes the attorney’s and journalist’s recent exit from The Intercept.

Happy Thanksgiving 2020!

May it be a safe and pleasant holiday for all here at Progressives Chat.

The State of Ohio: A Bellwether No More

For the first time since 1960, the state of Ohio did not vote with the winner of the recent 2020 United States presidential election.

I was born in 1971.

During my lifetime, prior to 2020, the only state carried by all presidential winners in that period was Ohio.

Ohio voted with the winners of Elections 1964 to 2016. 

This was a period of 52 years and 14 consecutive cycles.

The 2016 result had many sensing Ohio was on the verge of ending its bellwether status. It was a Republican pickup for Donald Trump by +8.07 percentage points while he lost the U.S. Popular Vote by –2.09. So, it was 10.16 points more Republican than the nation. But, had Trump won the U.S. Popular Vote, I estimate his margin would have between +2.15 to +2.64, so that adjustment made Ohio more like +5.43 to +5.92 points more Republican.

The 2020 results make it more clear. The margin in Ohio was similar—over +8 points. But, with a Democratic pickup of the presidency to Joe Biden with a national margin of +3 or +4, Ohio voted +11 or +12 points more Republican than the nation.

Since 1968, every time the White House switched parties, a Republican or a Democratic pickup winner won over to his party at least one state which has since not voted for the party which lost it.

Here were those applicable:

• 1968 Republican pickup winner Richard Nixon: *Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska [statewide], North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. (Alaska first voted in 1960. It carried Democratic just once—specifically for 1964 Lyndon Johnson.)

• 1976 Democratic pickup winner Jimmy Carter: Minnesota.

• 1980 Republican pickup winner Ronald Reagan: Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

• 1992 Democratic pickup winner Bill Clinton: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine [statewide], Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont.

• 2000 Republican pickup winner George W. Bush: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

• 2008 Democratic pickup winner Barack Obama: Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia. 

• 2016 Republican pickup winner Donald Trump: Florida, Iowa, and Ohio. (Also a pickup: non-state Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.)

The 2020 Democratic pickups for Joe Biden are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. (Also a pickup: non-state Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.)

It is too soon to say anything about the 2020 Democratic pickups. But, my feeling is that the Rust Belt trio are now the best bellwether states. That the next time the White House switches from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, those three will flip and carry. So, it may be that, with Election 2020, Arizona and Georgia will have realigned to the Democrats.

We have yet to find out if any of the 2016 Republican pickups, which did not flip as 2020 Democratic pickups, can be won back. I consider Florida as feasible. (Unseated Trump held it by +3 points while he lost nationally by the roughly the same.) But, I am writing off Iowa (with a similar margin as the Buckeye State). And that brings me to even more about Ohio.

Ohio was on an incredible streak: 14 consecutive cycles. Historically, the record belongs to both Nevada and New Mexico. Since the latter first voted in 1912, the year it was admitted into the union as the 47th state, the two voted with all winners for the next 60 years until 1972. During that period, Nevada and New Mexico voted with all winners in 16 consecutive cycles. So, a 2020 Ohio was facing the following possibilities: make it 15 in a row; match the record; surpass the record; or end its streak.

It may be refreshing to no longer defer to Ohio as the leading influence in U.S. presidential elections. Nothing goes on forever. We have had other bellwethers. California and Illinois voted for 22 and 23 of the 25 winners of the 20th century. Missouri voted for all winners, except in 1956, from 1904 to 2004. Tennessee voted with all winners, except in 1924 and 1960, from 1912 to 2004. And there are the pair Nevada and New Mexico. After so long, they dropped off—and they ended up realigning to one of the two major political parties. And, so, as Ohio goes…so goes the nation [no more].