Yesterday’s Supreme Court session at which the justices heard arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was just the latest salvo in the culture wars which continue to demarcate two very distinct camps or tribes within the American populace. Perhaps it is no coincidence that, on the same day, Harvard University released the 42nd edition of its Youth Poll, a survey of 18 to 19 year-olds conducted by the Kennedy School of Public Policy. As Carl Jung might say, “Synchronicity runs deep.”

Buried beneath the headline about Joe Biden’s flagging approval rating among young Americans were the following:

• 35 percent of respondents believe there will be a second civil war in their lifetimes.
• 25 percent believe at least one state will secede from the union.

This raises the legitimate concern whether the United States which emerged from the first war between the states can survive in this cultural environment. One need look no farther than the editorial pages of the Washington Post or New York Times, cable news, talk radio or Facebook to know it would be a waste of time and space to add my two cents to the discussion.

What no one else is talking about is whether the union could survive a physical partition, as suggested by the Harvard survey. Forget the confederacy. Consider the following map created by the Guttmacher Institute based on current state efforts to restrict or protect a woman’s right to choose.

Does this remind you of anything, especially after Montana, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, South Carolina and Texas join the list of pro-life states? Maybe the 1947 partition of Pakistan following Indian independence from Great Britain. How did that work out? The physical divide became problematic resulting in the creation of an independent Bangladesh 24 years later as illustrated below.

How about the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Again, the physical separation has hampered attempts to find a single broker who can negotiate a peace covering both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. When it comes to love, perhaps distance does make the heart grow fonder. Not so in governance or politics.

Returning to the Guttmacher Institute map, there is a resemblance to one only a political scientist familiar with the history of voting behavior in the U.S. could appreciate. Following passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Democratic strategists recognized they could no longer rely on support in Southern states. To accumulate the required 270 electoral votes needed to win presidential elections they came up with the “Quad-Cali” strategy. It required piecing together a center-left coalition consisting of a quadrangle of Northeast and Midwest states plus California.

With the vantage point of hindsight from previous partitions, Quad-Cali seems not the best descriptor of this geographic configuration. Maybe we should take a cue from Pakistan. Try East America and West America on for size. Or better, the East Banks (with the capital located on Wall Street) and the Java Strip (Capital? Seattle, of course.)

The only remaining question? When Middle America realizes that residents of the states outside their jurisdiction will no longer subsidize their lifestyle through redistribution of federal taxes, will Middle America president Ron DeSantis authorize the construction of cross border settlements a la Benjamin Netanyahu?

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne.

~John Heywood Proverb Collection (1546 AD)

The above quote is the origin of the phrase “the worm turns,” popularized by William Shakespeare.  In Henry VI, Part 3, Lord Clifford justifies the murder of Edmund, Earl of Rutland, stating, “The smallest worm will turn being trodden on.”  A more complete explanation is provided by Grammarist, a website comprised of writers who respond to readers’ queries about the origins, meaning and uses of English idioms.

The worm has turned means that someone who has previously been downtrodden has triumphed, someone who has previously been unlucky has become lucky, or someone who has previously been obedient has spoken up. The idea is that someone’s attitude toward another or his strength of conviction has changed.

So what was the event or events which triggered today’s post.  Based on the title, you may think it is obvious and not very creative.  It does not take a genius to make the connection between “the worm” and “de-worm” within 24 hours of the FDC tweeting, “You are not a horse.  You are not a cow, Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”  The warning was in response to suggestions on Facebook and by right wing media hosts the drug ivermectin, an ingredient in horse and cow de-worming treatment, was an alternative protection against COVID-19.  [NOTE: Did the FDA really need to use dialect like “y’all” to identify the audience most susceptible to this claim?  Now, had they substituted, “you’se guys,” that would have been surprising.]

However, the FDA directive was the equivalent of the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand his wife Sophie.  The royals’ demise was not the sole cause of the subsequent global conflict, only the catalyst which accelerated a chain of events which culminated in World War I.  Likewise, the reference to de-worming started a similar chain of events beginning with research into the metaphorical use of the phrase, “the worm turns.”  Quickly followed by these questions, based on the Grammarist definition.  Who are the worms in this case?  Why did they feel downtrodden or unlucky or obedient?  Have they triumphed or been subject to a change in luck or become newly outspoken?

To start this conversation, one must recognize there are many species of human worms.  Those cultists and sore losers who perpetuate the “big lie” and participated in the January 6th insurrection.  Those who are pro-choice when it comes to a life saving vaccine yet want to deny women the right to control their own bodies.  But the most disgusting and virulent strain might be those who march to the rhythms of chants such as “You will not replace us, “Blood and soil” and “The South will rise again.”  Their reemergence provides the best laboratory for observing the the life cycle of these erect tubular invertebrates.

We begin by asking why they feel downtrodden.  It was not always so. For almost 250 years (1619-1865) two governments (Great Britain and the United States) offered de jure protection of the myth of a superior white race, allowing half the new world to treat transplanted Africans as chattel.  For the next 100 years (1865-1965), former slaves and their decedents in the antebellum South and elsewhere continued to be treated as second-class citizens under Jim Crow laws and both de jure and de facto segregation.  At the same time, they believed the future of Anglo-Saxon, protestant America was threatened by the influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants.

One can argue 1965 was the beginning of what might be called the white nationalists’ “downtrodden era.”  It lasted 50 years during which nine U.S. presidents affirmed there was no place in America for this kind of bigotry and ignorance.  But the worms were never in danger of extinction.  They merely went underground.

The current “revenge era” began in 2015 when candidate Donald Trump launched a presidential campaign under the MAGA banner sending a signal it was okay for bigots to come out of the woodwork.  How lucky to have found such a champion of their cause.  In fact, so lucky that they became cultists willing to following their leader’s every directive.  Therefore, it comes as no surprise many of the conspiracy theories espoused by anti-vaxxers have their origins on neo-Nazi and white supremacist social media that promote fears the vaccines are a form of population control or a for-profit scam perpetrated by Jews.

And come out from the woodwork they did.  Trump’s election was falsely interpreted by the likes of the Proud Boys and the Nationalist Social Club that Americans were ready to welcome them back and support their cause.  Conversations which were limited for half a century to secret meetings and the darkest corners of the internet are now taking place at rallies in major cities and on Facebook.

Make no mistake.  As Carol Anne Freeling (portrayed by Heather O’Rourke) proclaimed in the movie Poltergeist, “They’re back!”  And even though a worm, as Heywood suggests, has turned, it is the same worm which always inhabited society, and is sorely in need of de-worming.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

When someone mentions the law of unintended consequences, it is almost always in reference to unanticipated, negative outcomes.  However, as a self-proclaimed champion of counter-intuitive thinking, I forever look for a case or cases which suggest the opposite can also be true.  This morning I found it, in Afghanistan of all places.

Until this morning, many foreign affairs specialists identified two paradoxes which were early contributors to the events of the past two weeks.

1. Nation building should not be an element of U.S. foreign policy or national security.  It did not work in Vietnam.  Iraq.  Libya. Yet, that did not stop one more failed attempt in Afghanistan.
2. Following 9/11, we were told the war against terrorism would not be a conventional conflict.  It would not involve engagements based on geopolitical boundaries or governments.  Neither would success depend on large, well equipped armed forces.  Instead it would be about intelligence, analysis of the data and precision strikes by special ops and manned or unmapped vehicles delivering guided ordinance.

The initial 9/11 response, ironically, was totally consistent with these assumptions.  Consider the following excerpt titled “The First Salvo/October 7, 2001” from an analysis of the two decades war prepared by the Council on Foreign Relations.

The U.S. military, with British support, begins a bombing campaign against Taliban forces, officially launching Operation Enduring Freedom. Canada, Australia, Germany, and France pledge future support. The war’s early phase  mainly involves U.S. air strikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces that are assisted by a partnership of about one thousand U.S. special forces, the Northern Alliance, and ethnic Pashtun anti-Taliban forces.

It proved sufficient to result in the total collapse of Taliban forces by December 9, 2001.  The only piece of unfinished business was bringing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to justice, the justification for the introduction of large numbers of ground troops to prosecute the war into the Tora Bora region where bin Laden was believed to be hiding.  As we later learned he had escaped, probably on horseback, to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

David Frum, staff to George W. Bush during this period, shared his perspective that the troop build up and 20 year war could have been avoided in an August 15, 2021 article in The Atlantic titled, “The 1 Thing that Could Have Changed the War in Afghanistan.”

Had the United States caught and killed Osama bin Laden in December 2001, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would have faded away almost immediately afterward. I cannot prove that. It’s only an opinion from my vantage point as one of President George W. Bush’s speechwriters in 2001 and 2002.

If true, one wonders if the major deployment of U.S. ground troops to secure the new constitution, democratic elections and Karzi government was a substitute for failing the prime directive, capturing or killing bin Laden.  Not to mention the second Iraq war which diluted resources which could have been devoted to the hunt for bin Laden.

Which brings us to the present.  And my long standing but unproven theory the real tragedy in Afghanistan was the U.S. effort at nation building only postponed an inevitable civil war in which Afghans would decide the nation’s future direction.  If the American war between the states settled some major issues on which the founding fathers punted, why couldn’t a similar intra-national catharsis serve the same purpose elsewhere around the globe?

Strangely, this may become the unintended consequence of the 20 year U.S. presence in “the graveyard of empires.”  Not to shore up a corrupt government.  Not to train a self-sufficient Afghan security force.  Instead, the lasting legacy may be time for a new generation of Afghans, who were unborn or too young to remember Taliban 1.0 in 2001, to grow up in a more open society.  With access to the outside world.  Where women could fully participate in the community.  Where young girls could go to school and dream of becoming doctors, teachers, etc.  A whole generation who is willing to tell the Taliban, “NO!  We do not accept what you offer.”

The first signal this new generation may become a thorn in side of the Taliban emerged in the last 48 hours as reported by two Washington Post correspondents.

(Afghans) staged protests in Kabul and other cities Thursday, challenging Taliban fighters in scattered demonstrations, including at least one that turned deadly…In the capital, men and women carried the black, red and green flags of the Afghan Republic, chanting “our flag, our identity,” according to videos posted online.

~Erin Cunningham & Rachel Pannet/August 19, 2021

The numbers are not in the Taliban’s favor.  The United Nations Population Fund in Afghanistan (UNPFA) reports 63.7 of the 37.3 million residents are 25 years of age or younger.  Compare that to the estimated 200,000 members of the Taliban.  Yes, there will likely be a continuing humanitarian crisis, bloodshed and days on which the cause may seem hopeless.  Nor will it resemble the American Civil War.  The optics are likely to be more akin to “Les Misérables” than “Gone with the Wind.”

But if this new generation of Afghans become the force for change and modernity in this ancient land, this unintended consequence means the expenditure of U.S. talent and treasure, along with that of our allies, will not have been in vain.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP