{"id":1183,"date":"2021-11-26T10:16:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T17:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/?p=1183"},"modified":"2022-06-28T22:36:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T05:36:56","slug":"midnight-in-washington-how-we-almost-lost-our-democracy-and-still-could","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/midnight-in-washington-how-we-almost-lost-our-democracy-and-still-could\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMidnight In Washington \u2013 How We Almost Lost Our Democracy And Still Could”"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

George Alfred Kennedy<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Review by George Kennedy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMidnight In Washington\u201d \u2013 a veritable tour de force <\/em>of the former Trump administration, i.e. everything we knew, though we understood, or failed to grasp regarding the former president\u2019s connection to Russia, the Ukraine Affair, and the precedent-setting double Impeachment of the nation\u2019s 45th<\/sup> president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressman Adam Schiff, the United States representative for California\u2019s 28th<\/sup> congressional district, in his role as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, found the time to chronicle the egregious misconduct and criminality of one of the most incompetent and corrupt presidencies in living memory.  \u201cMidnight In Washington,\u201d is a lengthy, thoughtful, and extensively annotated tome (483 pages) worthy of our best effort.  I had planned an extended, leisurely read, but I found myself quickly turning the pages, and in several days, I closed the book to be reminded of the four-year nightmare that is still far from over.  This was an easy read because I had consumed at least a dozen books by Washington-based reporters covering the Trump White House.  I was also familiar with major media coverage of the President, members of his administration, the President\u2019s political party, his congressional allies, and the scandals enveloping him like a shroud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schiff puts us on notice \u2013 my interpretation \u2013 that American democracy and democracy in its broadest application are fragile, still under assault, with the likelihood of more ominous challenges in the near term.  He exhorts us to think about what\u2019s important.  For example, will the American experiment wither or, will we, the American public \u2013 the country\u2019s real stewards \u2013 become increasingly mesmerized by a relentless right-wing media machine determined to advocate for a ruling, anti-democratic political oligarchy at our expense and that of the American Republic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the epilogue, Schiff offers us a lifeline when he writes, \u201cOur present circumstances are desperate, but we do not have the luxury of despair.  American history gives us good reason to be hopeful, for it demonstrates an almost endless capacity for renewal, and a depth and breadth of talent, genius, and devotion that inhabit every part of our country from sea to shining sea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I choose to be hopeful.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Review by George Kennedy \u201cMidnight In Washington\u201d \u2013 a veritable tour de force of the former Trump administration, i.e. everything we knew, though we understood, or failed to grasp…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,34,35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-book-review","8":"category-bookshelf","9":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgealfredkennedy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}