virginia – Page 2 – Bumpass Prose and Politics

Liberty’s Chrysalis

“The love of power is natural; it is insatiable; almost constantly whetted; and never cloy’d by possession.”

Henry Saint John, 1^st Viscount of Bolingbroke

This spring my wife and I planted a small rain garden. The plantings included several swamp milkweeds, the preferred plant for Monarchs to lay their eggs on. It’s Latin name is Asclepias incarnata for the serious gardeners out there. The other day, to our delight, we discovered a dozen monarch caterpillars denuding the milkweeds.

It took several days for them to consume every leaf. Fully fueled with toxic bitterness and relatively immune from predation, they slowly wandered off to other plants, leaving the bare stalks of the milkweed as testament to their presence. One by one they moved on, rambling off into the garden seeking leaves or branches to safely transform into chrysalises.

Within several days of the caterpillar migration, we spotted two bright green chrysalises hanging under leaves. A third caterpillar wasn’t quite there yet. We hope that within 14 days, given the mild weather, the caterpillars will be reborn as butterflies. A well-tended garden brings unexpected joys.

The discovery of the caterpillars reminded me of the words of Henry Saint John, that liberty is like a tender plant. He penned these words close to 300 years ago and the metaphor could not be more relevant in our time: “liberty is a tender plant which will not flourish unless the genius of the soil be proper for it; nor will any soil continue to be so long, which is not cultivated with incessant care.”

He wrote these words in the early 18^th century, a time of upheaval in England: political factions vying for power in a deadly struggle. He didn’t always choose wisely, backing the Stuart’s claim to the crown and the ensuing Jacobite Rebellion, ending up in exile in France for some time. He is most famous, I think, for his essay “The Idea of a Patriot King,” arguing that a King should be above faction.

This idea of a King above faction is important in our own history. It informed how Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams saw the presidency. A president above faction. They tried mightily to be above faction, not always successfully, however. Andrew Jackson threw the notion of a patriot president out a White House window along with the contents of a chamber pot.

Today, we are ruled by an unsound and troubled president hell bent on hyper factionalizing our country, resorting to violence and armed soldiers patrolling city streets. He has taken the notion of faction to new extremes in America, not seen since the late 1850s. This includes sending the military to occupy blue cities to show his political muscle; flaunting the rule of law; criminally investigating critics; ruling solely by dictate; musing publicly about being a dictator; rewriting our history; engaging in extrajudicial killings on the high seas off Venezuela; and setting the stage to nullify next year’s mid-term election results unfavorable to him.

Our garden of democracy needs tending. And damn quickly.

We must steadfastly feed and nourish our democracy. Stay informed in the face of daily trespassing against our liberty. Although in today’s world where most Americans get their ‘news’ through social media, ‘informed’ is perhaps obsolete. There still are reliable news sources out there. Social media is not one of them. Social media is an avalanche of computer driven feeds designed to elicit clicks, rage, and profit. Curate your news sources. Go old fashioned and read books, lots of them. The more you read, the more you realize how little you actually know about things you thought you knew a great deal about. That’s a good thing.

We must clear out the authoritarian weeds that plague our garden of democracy. We must elect leaders that reflect our values and are in tune with today’s generation and willing to fight. The continual reelection of octogenarians does the party no good.

We must go to the polls this November and elect Abigail Spanberger governor and weed out the noxious plants occupying Virginia’s governor’s mansion. We must not just elect her but elect her in a historical landslide. We don’t want to become an autocratic state like Texas or Florida.

We must seed our garden of democracy with plants that are robust and acclimated to our current political reality: An opposition party bent on one-party authoritarian rule. We can do that by supporting new faces and ideas in the Democratic party at all levels. Starting with David Rogers who is running for the Mineral seat in our local board of supervisors.

We must amend the soil of our garden. Get friends and family to register to vote, get them to the polls on election days. Attend rallies or local meetings. Donate to candidates you support. If you can, canvas for that candidate. Volunteer with the Louisa Democrats.

We must not only resist the orange piped piper of Mar-a-Lago but fight him at every junction. Write or call your representatives, write the Supreme Court Justices, write our governor. Tell them your story and how you are impacted by Trump’s dangerous and illegal actions. That food, housing, and healthcare will be unaffordable and unattainable once the full impact of Trump’s tariffs, deportation of farm and food processing workers, and regressive taxes are felt.

Plant a garden an act of subversion against Trump’s war on climate science. Whether you have only a south facing front door stoop, a small balcony, or quarter acre, or ten acres, plant a garden in the dirt or in pots. Every plant you grow feeds or houses an insect or animal and soaks up carbon. Get radical and grow a victory garden.

Our garden of democracy is in big trouble, but with our incessant care and nourishment our democracy can flourish once again. Together we must tend the garden of democracy and create the space and time to protect and nurture liberty’s chrysalis from Trump’s insatiable drive to possess absolute power.

The Minstrel Show Presidency

“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,”

President Donald Trump, 2025

Ignorance is strength I suppose. Trump, perhaps the least read and most historically illiterate president this country has ever had, continues his campaign of whitewashing American history. Trump’s sole understanding of slavery, it appears, is informed by Disney’s “Song of the South.”. A dated and romanticized depiction of slavery. The Trump White House is theater, an increasingly odd mix of minstrel show and Nuremberg Rally.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, a museum is “an institution devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest or value.” It should include ‘interpretation’ as well. But it is essentially correct in that it preserves things ‘of lasting interest and value.’

In America, that meant museums sidelining, excluding, or denigrating peoples and their cultural objects that did not conform to America’s myths of exceptionalism and manifest destiny, that shiny white city on the hill. Reducing the ‘other’ to an asterixis of history. More heritage and nostalgia than history.

The National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture were remedies for this deliberate exclusion from America’s origin myths. Trump, however, wants to return America to a dated interpretation of our history by recasting the Smithsonian’s museum’s interpretations of our history back through the white male gaze.

Our history is complex with many paradoxes, for instance slavery and freedom. But one can’t speak to the future without knowing where we came from. America must confess to the sin of slavery before it can move on. Slavery was and is bad and showing slavery for what it was and is should not be controversial. Enlightened and benevolent plantation slave masters did not exist. A mature country, sure of itself and its future, acknowledges its horrific failures as well as its great successes. Obviously, despite his MAGA moniker, Trump really does not believe in America’s potential for greatness or future as a thriving pluralistic democracy.

Over generations, millions endured brutal dehumanizing conditions: Sexual assaults, beatings, whippings, amputations as punishment, malnutrition, murders, executions, burnings, hangings, forced sales and separations of children, wives, and husbands. This system of violence and oppression became the cornerstone America’s economic system from its founding to 1865. America was not merely a country with slaves, but a slave society.

African American history is American history. Africans were in North America even before the English, arriving as explorers with the Spanish. The first permanent presence of folks of African descent in English settlements arrived in 1619 near Jamestown, Virginia. With them came new foodways, new cosmologies, new medicines, new music, new cultural infusions that make us what we are today: American.

African American history is larger and more complex than just the institution of slavery, however. It’s a story about agency, determination, family, resilience, survival, and even thriving in the face of relentless state sanctioned violence to oppress and control.

If you are interested in your own further readings on the subject, below is my list of books that I think are worth a close read. The list is far from complete and is not meant as a comprehensive historiography of America’s ‘peculiar institution’ but merely a starting point for further exploration. They are not listed in any order, but there is a distinct Virginia tilt.

Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870. An excellent primer on the Atlantic Slave trade.

The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606-1689. Edited by Warren M. Billings. Traces Virginia’s establishment and legal evolution of race-based slavery through statutory acts. For example, in December 1662, Virginia’s General Assembly passed a law stating that “all children borne in this country shalbe held bond [slave] or free only according to the condition of the mother.”

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery — American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. Argues that colonial Virginia’s long and deep experience with slavery is a central paradox in America’s revolutionary demands for freedom from English “slavery.”

Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Traces the transformation of society with slaves to a slave society and back again and how the relationship between enslaved and free continuously remodeled over time.

Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts. First published in 1943, it was part of a growing academic response and challenge to Columbia University’s ‘Dunning School’ of historical interpretation that originated in the late 19^th century. This ‘school’ dominated scholarly discourse on Reconstruction and policies and laws in the Jim Crow South well into the 1930s. The Dunning school defended racist laws that oppressed African Americans using arguments based on ‘scientific racism’ then popular in the late 19^thcentury. For more on ‘scientific racism’ see Stephen Gould’s excellent book Mismeasure of Man.

Douglas Egerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. An excellent account of the attempted rebellion by a Gabriel in Henrico County and its aftermath.

Zora Neale Hurston, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo. From Hurston’s 1927 interview of Oluale Kossala, the last survivor of the Clotilda, the last documented slave ship to carry captive Africans to American shores in 1860. The book is a fascinating retelling of Kossala’s life in Africa before his harrowing capture and transport to the U.S., his subsequent enslavement (renamed Cudjo Lewis) and life after emancipation. Of note, the remains of the Clotilda were discovered in 2019.

The Slave Classic Slave Narratives: The life of Olaudah Equiano, The History of Mary Prince, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains or the Life of an American Slave. Excellent first-person narrative. The story of Chales Ball is extraordinary. A truly epic account of loss and resilience and hope. An American version of the Iliad.

Annette Gordon-Reed, The Heminges of Monticello: An American Family. A superb recounting of the Heminges family history while enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. Flips the script of telling the story of slavery from the perspective of the enslaver to that of the enslaved taking center stage.

Adam Rothman, Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. Explores the reasons why America’s revolutionary generation – the ones screaming loudly about being slaves of the English and all the enlightenment language on equality – did not abolish slavery, but expanded it under their watch in the early Republic.

Tiya Miles, All that She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake. A beautifully written cultural history of a canvas sack and its contents given to a daughter by her mother after her child was sold. The canvas bag survived the vagaries of time. If you read one book from this list, this is it.

Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life in the Antebellum Slave Market. It’s a story of the slave showrooms in New Orleans, how being on the sale block was negotiated from the perspective of the enslaved and the slave holder. Excellent read.

Steven Deyle, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life, and Michel Tadman, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slave in the Old South. Two excellent studies on America’s domestic slave trade which developed after the constitutional ban on the importation of slaves after 1807. This ban, in conjunction with America’s Westward movement, sparked a massive internal slave trade from Virginia and North Carolina to the ‘deep south.’

Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772 – 1832. This is the story of those enslaved African Americans that fought with the British to gain their freedom.

Jonathan Daniel Wells, The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War. A story of northern complicity in perpetuating slavery for Wall Street profit. How New York City cops, courts, lawyers, judges, and politicians conspired with southern slave owners and slave catchers to kidnap free blacks and capture runaway slaves and send them South.

David Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification. The author cogently and convincingly argues that “slavery was as important to the making of the Constitution as the Constitution was to the survival of slavery.” While one won’t ever find the word ‘slave’ or ‘slavery’ in the constitution, there are at least 11 clauses that directly or indirectly concern slavery.

M. M. Manring, Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima. A provocative book that explores the legacy of slavery and racial subservience in America’s consumer revolution in the late 19^th century. You won’t walk down the aisles of a supermarket or watch a commercial on TV or streaming the same way after reading this book.

As we careen wildly and OUT OF CONTROL towards an authoritarian government, reading will become an act of resistance. Please share this list with your friends and family.

Creeping Normalcy: America’s Long Slide to Autocracy?

Using alleged claims of ‘blood thirsty criminals’ running rampant as a pretext, in an extraordinary move Daddy Trump virtually seized the Federal District this week. Is it another deliberative act of incrementally normalizing authoritarian behavior and a conspicuous display of white supremacy.

It is a symbolic military occupation of the nation’s capital. Deploying 800 (maybe a 1000) guardsmen and taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department is more symbol than practical, but a dangerous one, nonetheless. The capital is the heart of our democracy and conspicuous displays of military power at checkpoints and patrols smacks of authoritarianism. But in a week or two, it will be normalized, like the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in the heart of Los Angeles.

In addition to the deployment of DC national guardsmen, the Pentagon announced plans today to increase the readiness of National Guard units to deploy forces to contain civil unrest. They call them Quick Reaction forces, which you normally find in combat zones. Why I ask, when there is no civil unrest, does the pentagon need to stand up National Guard quick reaction forces? Is this foreshadowing? Perhaps Trump plans some actions that would provoke civil unrest. Like declaring martial law in blue states.

It is also a conspicuous display of white supremacy. Last week the White House announced that two statues of confederates removed several years ago will be reinstalled in the district. It is not coincidental, I believe, that he juxtaposed announcements of the return of symbols of white supremacy with an out-of-control criminal element in a District ruled primarily by elected African Americans. Weekly it seems, the Trump administration continues to normalize white governance and supremacy.

The takeover of the capital must be understood in the context to other incremental actions by the president and his regime. These recent actions follow weeks of an agitated Trump going on rants about treasonous presidents and former cabinet officials. Histrionics that seem more likely to come out the mouth of a tweaked-out meth head than a president.

Aiding him is a Justice Department that no longer pretends to wear the mantle of independence, creeping ever closer to Stasi-like policing: purges, investigating political opponents, grand jury inquests against state’s attorneys and independent counsels that investigated Trumps varied criminal acts, and flipping civil rights investigations on their heads. Even the Department of Labor is not immune from purges as the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics was fired by Trump after a jobs report that showed dismal growth.

Three in the morning tweets from Daddy Trump alleging criminal mischief by his political enemies are now normalized behavior – endless fodder for late night comedy no doubt– when in fact they are disturbing displays of Trump’s unstable state of mind. They invariable result in leaders at the Justice Department and FBI to order criminal inquiry’s days later. This is how authoritarians do business and it’s become normal. That the Justice Department, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security are morphing into Trump’s personal praetorian guard should scare the crap out of Americans. They are loyal to him, not us. I am surprised at how easy it was to do.

In an earlier piece, I cautioned my fellow federal law enforcement officers that they have a choice when the president orders them to do immoral and illegal things, that they will have a decision to make. Sadly, too many in the Department of Homeland Security have already made their decision it seems. They went to the dark side…. apparently succumbing to promises of bonuses that run in the thousands of dollars. More 19^thcentury slave catcher than 21^st century federal agent.

Our much-cherished separation of powers is gone, it appears. Congress? Absent as usual. Speaker Johnson basically prorogued the House of Representatives to prevent hearings regarding Trump’s deep involvement in a sex trafficking pedophilia scandal. A bit later the Senate left the Capital like a lover slips out of a lovers window as a spouse arrives home. When they return, they will be returning a different Washington, one militarily occupied, at least symbolically, and controlled by Trump. So much for the conservative mantras ‘liberty or die’ or ‘don’t tread on me.’

And where is the Supreme Court? Oh, never mind.

There’s a term of art for what is happening in America: creeping normalcy. The incremental normalization of the abnormal through gradual shifts in behavior. It is plain and clear what is happening, but it feels like most Americans, clutching their myth of American Exceptionalism like a security blanket, are in denial, unwilling to acknowledge the incremental normalization of authoritarian behavior as we slip and slide toward the demise of our democracy.

At this point in time, I fear, momentum alone will take us to that place we don’t want to go. The enablers – Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court – keep handing Trump increased power, acting like there will never ever be another elected Democratic President to use those new powers. Perhaps that’s the plan, starting with normalizing National Guard deployments to quell so-called civil unrest.

Daddyism:How Conservatives Came to Hate the Nanny State but Love the Daddy State

It seems ancient history, but do you remember when conservatives blew up about being told what to eat, drink, and smoke? In particular, New York City’s mayor Bloomberg’s public health campaign to combat obesity and heart disease. This included limits on trans fats in foods, calorie labelling on menus, restricting smoking in restaurants and public spaces, hiking cigarette taxes, even trying to ban large sugary drinks. Cries of excessive government intrusion into personal choice and freedoms were raised. His public health campaign was derided as the personification of the “Nanny State,” which Cambridge Dictionary defined as “a government that tries to give too much advice or make too many laws about how people should live their lives, especially about eating, smoking, and drinking alcohol.” Other definitions use ‘overprotective’ or ‘unduly interfering.’

In a great 2022 article in the Columbia Political Review, “The Nanny State: A Conservative Concern or a Misogynistic Myth,” Alannis Jaquez, cogently argues that it is a misogynistic myth, concluding “If conservative politicians continue to dismiss certain policies merely because they appear to feminine, effective policies will continue to be lost. It is only once we leave behind the language that connects the welfare state and paternalism to women and femininity that we will be able to extend beyond the limitations human prejudice poses in lawmaking.” I think she hit the spot, especially considering more recent history.

Unsurprisingly, during the last election cycle, conservatives went full boar (no not a misspelling) on the nanny state, not only doubling down on misogynistic attacks on female candidates, particularly Harris, but going full tilt into fetishes of spanking errant girls and inventing what could only be termed the “Daddy State.” How Epsteinian!

One only need recall Carlson Tucker’s introduction of candidate Trump at a political rally to understand the MAGA transformation into hypersexualized daddyism: “Dad comes home. He’s pissed. Dad is pissed. And when dad gets home, you know what he says? You have been a bad girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking because you have been a bad girl ….” This followed shouts of ‘daddy, daddy’ at the Republican national convention.

Fox News recently swooned over Trump’s “dad strength” following the NATO Secretary’s ill-conceived comment about ‘Daddy Trump.’ The White House even posted a video of Trump set to Usher’s sexualized “Daddy’s Home.” Check out some of the lyrics: “And I won’t knock, won’t ring no bells/You just float that bottom up in the air/I’ll get you hot, I know you, oh-so well/And when I walk in, all that I wanna hear.” Given the Epstein sex trafficking and statutory rape scandal enveloping Trump, one would think the White House would avoid such postings.

This is all about sex, gender, and Patriarchy. It is the main battleground in America’s culture wars. For the evangelical right, it is grounded in biblical interpretations of God’s word and the reestablishment male preeminence as head of the family and government. This is not new in American history. It brings to mind the brutalist treatment of women suffragettes and arguments made by Southern slave holders desperate to redefine slaves as members of a broad loving family lead by a benevolent father, as the abolitionist movement gained traction in the north.

To add complexity to this notion of patriarchy, MAGA Republicans have weirdly fetishized it, however. This does make some sense given conservativisms long voyeuristic angst with women’s sexuality and bodies, homophobia and transgender folks. If I were to define Daddyism it would be an American 21^st century fetishized revival of patriarchy and male paternalism, white male paternalism in particular, of family and government.

When you study Trump’s mannerisms, his dictates, his threats, his attempts to discipline and punish errant children, and his followers’ fervent shouts of daddy, his governing style comes into focus. It is extreme paternalism, it is authoritarian. He is Pappa Don.

What galls me the most, however, is conservatives hypocrisy. They decry the so-called nanny state and an overbearing government, but welcome with open arms a patriarchal regime that wants to dictate practically everything in our daily lives, like a strong father is supposed to rule his family. I welcome the quaint old days when government was interested in my health, not my reading list, not my history books, not my kids gender identity, not my daughters or wife’s body.

Burn it Down! No, not the Country, your Progressive Socialist Rural Mailbox

This essay started with a conversation my wife and I had while on our way to Fredericksburg. Of all things, it was about why Postal Service mail trucks needed to be redesigned. Grumman Long life Vehicles, apparently that’s their official designation, were designed well before the age of Amazon.

Whenever the mail truck in our neighborhood passes by, it seems overflowing with boxes large and small, like an overstuffed sandwich. Eventually it sparked questions, questions we could not answer, like when did home mail delivery began. We’ve all heard of the pony express and that Ben Franklin as the first Postmaster General, but what about the nuts and bolts – the who, what, when, and where –of getting mail to our mailboxes. Why do mailboxes look like they do — black and cylindrical for the most part — and why are mail drop boxes blue?

Very rural Louisa got its first post office in 1800. It was in a tavern and Inn owned by John Jouette, who in 1781 became Virginia’s Paul Revere when he rode 40 miles to warn members of the Virginia General Assembly and Governor Thomas Jefferson that a British raiding party was on its way to Charlottesville. In many instances in early America, taverns and inns served as focal points for local government business and ‘court days’ when circuit judges (hence the term circuit courts) came to town. It was also a time of drunken revelry it seems. Local militias also meet to drill on these dates. Hard cider, rum, whiskey, and politics, what could go wrong? The Louisa Courthouse, built on, over, or around the Tavern, served also as the post office later. This according to the town’s official history.

Free home delivery in urban areas began in the mid-1850s. It was not until 1896, however, that free rural delivery began. It had a fitful start in 1892, when Congress balked at the six-million-dollar price tag. Quite a sum in those days. In 1893, Congress appropriated $10,000 to “experiment” with rural delivery routes. The new Postmaster General, however, refused to act. Additional monies were appropriated by Congress for free delivery route experiments, but it was not until 1896 that Postmaster General William Wilson began experimental free rural delivery routes in his home state West Virginia. It was a success and spread rapidly to other states.

So successful that “free” was dropped in 1906. RFD as it was called, began in Louisa County on October 1, 1903. Yep, the postal service has a specific date for Louisa. The mail was delivered via horse and wagon for the most part and I wonder how many horses were employed in such tasks. According to one estimate, by 1906 there were about 700,000 miles of rural routes. The mail carriers also sold stamps, money orders, and registered mail. They were, according to the postal service, essentially “travelling post offices.”

What struck me about the history of free rural delivery is its progressive roots. Postmaster General John Wanamaker (1889-1893) when he proposed free rural mail routes in 1891 spoke about populist movements – such as the Farmers Alliance — that demanded mail delivery in rural areas: “I think the growth of the Farmer’s Alliance movement and other farmers’ movements in the past few years has been due to his hunger for something social as much as anything else.”

Wanamaker’s statement was an understatement. The Farmer’s Alliance and other farmers’ movements were very active politically and had been since the 1870s or so. They even ran a candidate for President in the 1890s following the Depression of 1893, the worst economic calamity the U.S. faced before the Great Depression. Their party platform included such things as free rural routes, government regulation of railroads and telegraph companies, silver as legal currency in addition to gold, rural electrification, income tax vice tariffs, low-interest government backed loans for farmers.

It never occurred to me that the free rural delivery was a result of late 19^th century populist progressive politics. While the Farmer’s Alliance fractured and faded — as someone once said, third parties “are like bees, they sting once and then die,” their ideas did not. Many propositions on the platform were adopted by reform minded progressives of the early 20^th century and became law. For instance, the Progressive Party Platform in 1912 called for the ‘extension of rural delivery routes,’ which resulted In1916 “Rural Post ‘Goods’ Road Act,” provided federal funds for rural post roads. Many of the roads we travel today in Louisa had their origins then. Additionally, legislation to create federal loan subsidies was also part of this progressive legislative spree in the early 20^th century.

Now that ‘progressive’ has become a pejorative in conservative circles, for those farmers and denizens of rural America who want to Make America Great Again and eschew progressive ideals and legislation, go get your chain saw and cut down your progressive socialist mailbox. And stop driving on all those damn progressive rural mail roads.

Remote Area Medical, Pop-up Clinics, and the Canary in Virginia’s Healthcare Mine

What awaits rural Virginians now that the big, beautiful bill is now law? Now comes the hard part for vulnerable rural Virginians with limited incomes as safety net programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, and Medicare benefits shrink or disappear. This is compounded by cuts in programs that provide meals to school age children whose families can’t afford to pack school lunches much less pay for the ones provided at school. Even the anti-immigrant sentiment will have long term impacts to America’s healthcare system. There is a tsunami of despair that will sweep rural America, compounding existing systemic troubles accessing timely health care for millions of un- or under insured Americans.

During the COVID epidemic my source for this essay – my wife – volunteered with the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corp, a non-profit that provides dental, medical, and vision care at pop-up clinics across the U.S. (RAMUSA.org). RAM was founded in 1985 with the mission to provide mobile clinics at remote locations outside the U.S. It later began organizing these pop-up clinics to fill a need for underserved Americans that live in healthcare deserts.

The mobile clinics that my wife volunteered at were in Southwest Virginia. She provided logistical support to the medical teams, such as registering patients. Her stories are both sad and harrowing, they’re about folks that serve their communities, and the fortitude of the communities they serve.

At a typical pop-up clinic, the patients arrive at mid-night when they arrive at the designated facility’s grounds, such as a county fairground. They are given a numbered ticket and asked to stay in the designated parking area overnight. It is first-come-first-served, and the tickets go fast. The number of tickets is based on the number of volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses, other clinicians, and administrative folks. The administrative task of registering patients begins first around 6 the next morning.

At the mobile clinics where she volunteered, the patients represented a wide spectrum of ages and life experiences, according to my wife, but mostly 50 and up, with young adults being the second largest group. She recalled one young family — a woman and her three kids ages from 4 to 13. They came for dental care but were quickly referred to the medical clinic. The youngest shaking uncontrollably. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and when he had his last meal was anyone’s guess. At the medical conex, the crew scrambled to get breakfast for the kids and started to gather care kits: toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, combs, shampoo. Their home had no running water it was learned.

For many these mobile clinics are the only healthcare they get. The services include eye exams, and if needed glasses donated by the Lions Club; hearing tests, and if necessary, hearing aids donated by a local audiologist; dental care is provided by dentists and student volunteers from dental colleges; prescriptions (one course) and follow up care scheduling; mammograms provided in a mobile RV provided by a non-profit hospital system.

My wife noted that many of the medical students assisting the doctors were from South Asia and the Middle East. That is international students attending American medical universities. More on that later.

Most patients were on or had gone off the financial precipice: Little to no health care insurance. Per RAM, 50 percent of their patients have no health insurance. It’s much worse for vision and dental insurance coverage. There were elderly on Medicare seeking care. They could pay their premiums but could not afford the co-pays for doctor visits. Because the payment assistance program for Medicare premiums was severely cut in the big, beautiful bill, those that could not even afford co-pays will most likely loose complete access to Medicare health insurance.

Another lifeline for these folks is Rural Health Clinics. Medicare Part B and Medicaid payments subsidize these clinics, but billions in cuts will mean many of these rural health clinics, to include the one in Louisa, may close, worsening the crisis in rural health care.

As context, the federal government’s first foray into healthcare came in 1946 with the Hospital Survey and Construction Act. By 1981 there were 3000 new healthcare facilities and an additional 6600 beds. 60 percent of those beds were in communities of less than 25,000. Medicaid and Medicare were created in 1965 followed by the Rural Health Clinic Services Act of 1977. These were all bipartisan Acts; however, the zenith of rural healthcare seems to have passed long ago. The partisan big, beautiful bill guts a neglected and crumbling rural healthcare infrastructure, eventually millions will be without timely adequate healthcare. And for what, $40 billion in migrant concentration camps and a trillion-dollar defense bill, 10,000 more ICE agents, and $3.4 trillion in tax breaks to the top 10 percent?

Profit driven hospital systems and insurers will not fill the gap. No profit in it for them. Sad because of the top 20 hospital systems all but one reported net revenue gains. The top company measured in total revenue – Kaiser Permanente — reported a whooping 15 percent increase in 2024. Some smaller companies reported even greater increases. Net revenue from patients also grew, according to Hospistalogy.com. Interestingly, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, reported a 14 percent decline in net income for health insurers in the first half of 2024. On a side bar, the NAIC statistics showed that claims per month per member for Medicaid and private insurance was about the same for Individual, Group, and Medicaid: $408, $482, $481 respectively. Medicare claims per member per month was $1146, almost triple. But that is to be expected from an older age group.

Another threat to America’s healthcare system in general, and for rural America in particular, is the availability of healthcare providers. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, about 1 in 5 physicians are foreign born. I have read other sources that indicate 25 to 26 percent of doctors in the U.S. are from abroad.

Importantly, these foreign born and trained doctors are more likely to serve in areas with greater poverty, according to the American Immigration Council. The Council further stated that areas with a 30 percent poverty rate, one-third of the doctors are foreign trained. A University of California San Diego Website reported that while 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas, only 11 percent of US doctors work in these areas, and that foreign born and trained physicians fill the shortfalls. It’s not just physicians. About 15 percent of nurses in America are foreign born and trained.

The current administration’s anti-immigrant fervor against migrants, whether legal, undocumented, or adjusting status, is sending chills across the globe I would think. Many are asking (I know I would), “do I want to come to America where I am unwanted, hated, potentially abused and imprisoned because of the color of my skin and accent?” Travel bans, blanket visa denials and revocations, potential arrest and deportation for engaging in free speech on campus, all will drive away potential medical students and foreign-born healthcare providers. Imagine the impact if America lost 15 or 20 percent of its healthcare providers? The MAGA Ebenezer Scrooges in Congress would respond, “What, are there no funeral homes and casket makers?”

While the number of international students at American medical schools is less than 2 percent, I imagine those numbers will drop significantly. With a shortfall of 45 to 50K doctors, America is already in a healthcare crisis mode, further reducing the flow of healthcare professionals to the U.S. will only hurt the most vulnerable.

No money, no clinics, and no doctors is what awaits rural America. Don’t buy the bit about Medicaid scofflaws or Medicare cheaters being the problem, this is about wealth and greed, income inequality and regressive Republican tax policies. It may take a year or two for the tsunami to reach the shores of rural America, but it is coming. If you don’t believe me, volunteer at RAMUSA.org. They have clinics looking for volunteers.

A Virginian’s “Notes” on the Constitution

This week, after another dismal showing by the Supreme Court, I asked myself whether our Constitution is all smoke and mirrors. A Potemkin Village. A parchment signifying nothing. Like Macbeth’s soliloquy for his dead wife, “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

At least that is how I interpreted a recent series of Supreme Court’s shadow docket rulings. As someone who spent 29 years in law enforcement and for decades closely read the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s quarterly summaries of federal court rulings as they pertained to constitutional rights, it is my considered judgment that the Supreme Court has abandoned sanity and the rule of law in favor of partisan power.

One of my favorite references as to the intent of the framers of our Constitution is James Madison’s ‘Notes on the Constitutional Convention.’ My copy is well worn, with markers and scribbles in the margins and since January 20 has been a constant companion. I even had Chief Justice Scalia sign it when he visited the embassy in Lisbon when I was assigned there between 2005 and 2008.

Every time the Supreme Court makes a ruling, I go to Madison’s ‘Notes’ — and the Federalist essays — and read the debates at the convention relevant to the issue the Court just decided. The delegates at the convention did not leave many stones unturned in their debates, disputes we continue to dredge up and debate to this day. As for the conservative super majority, who fancy themselves die hard textualists and originalists, they seem to ignore the intent, spirit, and tone of the constitutional convention when it suits them, if not the very text of the Constitution.

The ‘Notes,’ are a compilation of Madison’s minutes of the daily proceedings of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia during the scorching summer months of 1787. It was published posthumously some 50 years after the convention. Revised and amended by Madison over the 50 years before publication, one must approach the ‘Notes’ cautiously. Nonetheless, they are a remarkable account of the discourse and debates that resulted in our Constitution. Madison’s summaries of the day-to-day debates, however flawed, provided unique insights into the worldview of the delegates that created our government and fundamental laws of the land.

Our Constitution was radical and captured the spirit and ideas of over 300 years of renaissance and enlightenment thinking, enshrining into a written constitution the primacy of the people as sovereign: We the people. Nonetheless, our new Constitution was far from perfect. In fact, it was deeply flawed because those at the convention convinced themselves that slavery was on its way to extinction, that it would diffuse and extinguish itself soon. Instead, they ended up sacrificing generations of captive African Americans to slavery for the sake of white national unity. As it turned out, they only deferred our country’s reckoning with slavery until 1861. It would take a ‘second’ founding after a Civil War to amend the Constitution to reflect the original premise of the Declaration of Independence, the bit about equality.

Our founding thinkers did not invent democracy, republics, or even the concept of separation of powers. The ideas that animated their debates go back to Greece and Rome,16^th century Republics such as Florence, Renaissance writers such as Machiavelli, and later enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu, Hume, and Rousseau. If anything, our founders took their history seriously. They believed in the ancient notion of virtuous leaders and feared the mob, that is the tyranny of the majority.

The result a novel invention of a republic with two sovereigns – sovereign states within a sovereign federal union – and a hybrid government mix of the one, the few, the many (President, Senate, House of Representatives). The key ingredient: built in checks and balances. In short, compromise. A word now considered a pejorative by right wing conservatives.

They codified their fears into hard checks and balances into our founding document. Co-equal branches of government, designed to check one another out of jealousy for one’s own power. That is the foundation, the spine, the bedrock, whatever metaphor you want to use, of our Constitution. Without checks and balances it collapses like a dying star.

Our history is complex. On the one hand, America has a legacy of horrific racist policies since independence from England: slavery, ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, Chinese Exclusion Act, Separate but Equal segregation, interment of Japanese Americans are but a few. But there was also the New Deal, the long Civil Rights movement, and women’s suffrage. Through all this our constitutional system – the mechanics — functioned as designed for the most part.

The mechanics of our system is collapsing. Since January 20, ruling by decree, Trump is squashing America’s rule of law like a junkyard car crusher. The cowards in Congress mute as they render themselves into useless piles of worthless scrap. While Democrat leaders twirled and lurched like bungling idiots during the initial onslaught of presidential decrees, the lower courts held their ground, pausing many of these orders after hearing arguments. Unsung men and women if you ask me. For the most part the appeals courts also held firm.

The Supreme Court on the other hand is a disaster, ripping out the valves, pistons, and belts that kept our system humming. They continue to hand Trump unprecedented powers one shadow docket ruling after another. And in their own power grab, kneecapping the lower courts. In many cases, rulings are announced without even offering an explanatory opinion: the ‘why.’ Mostly I think because they don’t have a legally sound ‘why’ to back up their decrees. Yes, that is what their rulings have become in essence under this regime of shadow dockets: Decrees. Like a solar eclipse, the proliferation of these rulings is thrusting the rule of law into darkness, something one sees in authoritarian regimes.

So, here is where we are now.

In Philadelphia 238 years ago, a group of delegates representing 12 of the 13 states, assembled, debated, and drafted the rudimentary structure of a new type of government never seen before. The great experiment began. They knew the document they produced wasn’t perfect, and they recognized the need to be able to change the document with the times, outlining a process to amend the Constitution through considered debate and argument. They were also cleared eyed about power and how it corrupts, building in checks and balances.

Those checks and balances are disappearing like Epstein’s client list. We now have a President who unilaterally rewrites the Constitution through edict and is immune from official acts that are criminal in nature; a Supreme Court that unilaterally changes the Constitution through opaque shadow rulings; a Congress and Supreme Court willfully and energetically empowering a tyrant King. Like Macbeth’s monologue, I ask myself, “Is American democracy on its way to dusty death?” Our candle snuffed out?

It is not too late. The candle can be relit but will take time and effort. We should focus on what we, in Virginia, can control. The next step is to vote Abigail Spanberger in as Governor this November and keep our state legislature majority blue. This November’s election will be a bellwether for the mid-terms the following year. It is an opportunity for Virginians to send a message to Trump, the do-nothing Virginian Republican sycophants in Congress, and the Supreme Court.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

For three plus years my wife and I were volunteer repair program managers for Charlottesville’s Habitat for Humanity program in Louisa. The repair program primarily focused on ensuring folks could safely get in and out of their homes. This included repairing or replacing decks or stoops and stairs, replacing or repairing exterior doors, installing ramps. We also replaced or fixed window, siding, soffits, gutters, and the occasional roof. The work was all done by volunteers. One year I put 2500 miles on my truck supporting Habitat projects, which reflects the demand for housing aid in Louisa County.

Whether or not a project went forward after the initial survey and scope of work was completed, depended on the client’s income. They had to make at or less than 50 percent of the average marginal income for the county. Our typical client was female, over 65, widowed, earning between $8 to $24K per year. The bulk of that from Social Security. To say the least, they struggled to keep maintain their homes. Most had worked their entire adult lives yet have economically drifted downwards into poverty once they can work no longer.

No defined pensions, marginal savings if any. The only wealth they have was tied up in their home and land, but without being able to maintain the home or land, its value shrinks. Given the absence of affordable housing in the county, the elderly who want to maintain their independence and local connections have two basic choices: Sell and move out of the county or stay in a decaying home. The Fluvanna-Louisa Housing Foundation is working solutions for this conundrum of Louisa’s elderly, pulling an indifferent Board of Supervisors along with it.

The reasons for the statistic regarding our primary clients are myriad, but three primary causes stand out. Women tend to get paid less than their male counterparts, even if they worked the same job. This continues to this day. Additionally, women of the generation we tended to work with were limited to careers they could work in, which in many instances, were lower paid. Finally, during childbearing years, women usually had to quit work or take long periods of unpaid leave. A triple whammy. Social Security benefits are tied to one’s annual income and lifelong earnings. So, after decades of work and sacrifices, women tend to have accumulated less Social Security benefits and retirement savings. Their reward? Poverty.

The ‘big, beautiful bill’ will add misery to the county, especially to our elderly on fixed limited incomes. For instance, our elderly clients typically pay Medicare premiums out of their Social Security benefits. For those that cannot afford Medicare premiums, which I imagine were most of them, there used to be financial assistance through the Medicare Savings Program (MSP). The beautiful bill cuts or eliminates assistance. The MSP cuts could force enrollees who earn less than $24K a year to pay an additional $3000 out of pocket for Medicare premiums, potentially $8k if a couple. Our average client will be devastated economically, to say nothing about the impacts to their health care should they lose Medicare insurance, such as access to prescriptions.

Speaking of health care, cuts to Medicaid will indirectly impact access to health care for the elderly in rural areas such as Louisa. Rural hospitals and clinics rely on Medicaid payments to stay in business. Less income will result in closures. About 17 percent of Louisa residents rely on Medicaid. Louisa is already a medical care desert as it is, and it will get worse after this bill. No hospital, no public health clinics (except for Central Virginia Health Services, a non-profit group), and no private urgent care type facilities (not profitable enough for them to come to Louisa). I imagine that the number of doctor offices we do have will shrink.

Shifting money to the wealthy. The bill does provide for a senior tax deduction. If you earn more in income benefits, you can claim a larger tax deduction. For instance, if you are 65 or older, earn up to $75K, these folks can claim a $6500 tax deduction. Our typical client would not benefit from this tax deduction at all.

This senior tax deduction is another way of transferring wealth to older, wealthier folks, and short shifting the young. Contrast the $6500 senior tax deduction with the $200 dollar increase in childcare tax deduction from $2000 to $2200 per year. I thought we loved our children. In Virginia, the average infant childcare cost is $14k per year, about $11K for a four-year-old. Overall, these types of tax breaks will accelerate the depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund. Basically, now 2033.

The bill is big, but it is not beautiful, it is damn ugly, like the spaghetti western, the good, the bad and the ugly. Mostly the latter two. It attacks the poor, marginalizes working class women, and transfers immense wealth to the upper classes, leaving many to struggle mightily for safe housing, food security, and access to health care. About 60 percent of the bill’s financial benefits will go to 20 percent of the population. 12 million folks will lose access to health care insurance. Millions of working-class folks will lose access to food aid because of “paperwork barriers” designed to reduce the number of enrollees. Yet, with these “savings” we are going to build a police state through $150 billion in increased funding for DHS agents and a trillion-dollar defense budget.

Our 5^th Congressional District representative John McGuire voted for the bill and issued an ingratiating, bootlicking, suck-up press release fit for North Korea, not America, on the cusp of 250 years of independence from Kings. Like a sucker fish on a shark, McGuire is attached to Trump’s big, beautiful orange ass.

The Second Amendment and the Seizure of California’s National Guard

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

Initial proposition that would become the Second Amendment

Several weeks ago under the pretext of executive power and spurious claims of out of control wide-spread protests and violence, Trump seized California’s National Guard and turned it on the citizens of Los Angeles. Protest is not insurrection or rebellion; it is the fight to assemble and protest government actions and policies. Local police authorities in Los Angels City and County have tens of thousands of officers and the capability and will to control any lawlessness by a minority of protestors.

California sued. The initial ruling in federal court was that the activation of the California National Guard was illegal. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the ruling almost immediately and recently ruled that Trump may continue to to retain control of the California National Guard while the State’s lawsuit continues. California did not make a second amendment argument, but I think it should have. I argue that Trump’s seizure of the California National Guard is a fundamental violation of the Second Amendment’s original intent.

The first federal Congress in 1789, fearing the possibility of one day having a despotic central government, wanted to amend the Constitution to restrict the federal government’s ability to strip state militias of the ability to ‘bear arms’ (among other things). That is essentially the states’ abilities to individually or collectively resist a repressive federal government. California’s National Guard is just such a well-regulated militia.

By seizing the California National Guard and deploying it against the wishes of the governor, Trump took away California’s right to defend itself from a despotic and corrupt President and central government. Adding insult to injury, active-duty Marines were also deployed to Los Angeles.

If you read the Congressional debates and follow the revisions surrounding the Second Amendment, the original intent of the Second Amendment was to prohibit the federal government from seizing or disbanding state militias. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has so mangled and distorted the amendment in the past decades that the second amendment’s original intent is unrecognizable.

On June 8, 1789 — 236 years ago this month — James Madison introduced nine propositions or resolutions for amending the Constitution. From these propositions the House of Representatives would derive 17 amendments, of which, ten would eventually become what is known as the Bill of Rights. Way down the list, buried in proposition four, after statements about religious freedom, freedom of speech and press, the right to peaceable assembly and petitioning for redressing of grievances, Madison, proposed what would become the second amendment.

The Annals of Congress contains the record of the running debates surrounding the amendments to the Constitution and reflect contemporaneous conceptions of the meanings of these amendments, and how they changed over the debates. Madison, borrowing from the other state constitutions and even the 1689 English Bill of Rights, proposed the following language regarding the right to bear arms (House Records, pp. 451-452):

Madison’s propositions did not gain much traction in Congress. Members of Congress were more concerned with the mechanics of setting up a functioning government. The debates preceding and surrounding the discussions on the proposed amendments centered on funding mechanisms and structure of the various executive departments being contemplated. Madison nonetheless persisted, and on July 21 requested further consideration of the amendments. After “desultory” conversation on the amendments, they were referred to a committee of eleven, which included Madison.

Just short of a month later, the committee of eleven finished their work on the proposed amendments and presented them to the House of Representatives on August 17. Madison’s language on bearing arms was revised and read:

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms (House Records, p.778)

Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts, a veteran of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, and who was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution at the end of the convention, led the debate regarding the amendment to bear arms. His remarks are crucial, I think to understanding, the intent of this amendment. He states:

“This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the mal-administration of the Government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed (p. 778).”

Not one person during the debate contradicted or challenged Gerry’s assertion, which seems to state that the ability to keep and bear arms referred to the people’s ability to form militias as a collective defense against a tyrannical central government. The remainder of the debate that day on this amendment surrounded primarily the question of religious scruples and service in the militia.

After more “desultory” (I love that word) conversation, 17 proposed amendments to the Constitution were sent to the Senate on August 24. The bearing arms amendment was number 5 and read after some minor tweaking (Senate record, pp. 63-64):

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

On September 4, the senate, whose records of debate are not as detailed as the House’s records of debate, showed that senators objected to a few of the amendments, but without comment as to why. “On the motion to adopt the fifth article of the amendments proposed by the House of Representatives, amended to read as followeth: ‘a well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed:’ It passed in the affirmative” (Senate Record, p. 71).

That senate version is today’s second amendment.

Trump’s actions run counter to the second amendment and are provocative and meant to inflame the citizens of Los Angeles and California. He deliberately and recklessly tried to provoke a larger conflict and failed. Now, instead of quelling protests, they are being used as an occupying army – with police powers – to accompany militarized ICE agents.

It is not a good sign of democratic health when federal law enforcement agents dress and act like soldiers and the military act like police officers. The stark historical difference between civilian police and the military are dangerously blurred and will eventually disappear. For a president who increasingly sees military action as a solution to both domestic – blue states — and overseas issues we will witness an increase of National Guard activations and deployments to suppress domestic opposition soon I fear.

If the Supreme Court sides with Trump, how will we, denizens of Virginia, defend itself from Trump’s provocations, corruption, and illegalities when Abigail Spanberger is elected governor this November and Virginia becomes a State with a blue governor?