Plato, Milton Berle, and Ali — an AI conversation

I told ChatGPT to write a funny, one page argument between Plato, Milton Berle, and Muhammad Ali. I don’t think the material is ready for the Comedy Zone, yet.

———————————————

Plato: Greetings, Milton Berle and Muhammad Ali. It is an honor to meet both of you.

Milton Berle: The honor is mine, Plato. Your philosophy has influenced countless individuals throughout the ages.

Muhammad Ali: And your comedic talents have brought joy to millions, Milton Berle.

Milton Berle: Thank you, Muhammad Ali. Your own talents as a boxer and public figure have inspired many.

Plato: Yes, Muhammad Ali, your determination and fearlessness in the face of adversity are truly admirable.

Muhammad Ali: Thank you, Plato. But I must say, I find your philosophy a bit outdated.

Plato: Outdated? How so?

Muhammad Ali: Well, for starters, your ideas about the perfect society seem impractical and unrealistic.

Plato: I beg to differ. I believe that a just and fair society is not only possible, but necessary for the well-being of its citizens.

Milton Berle: Hold on, hold on. I think both of you are missing the point. The most important thing is to make people laugh and bring joy to their lives.

Plato: I agree that laughter is important, Milton Berle, but it should not be the only goal of society.

Muhammad Ali: And I agree that a just society is important, Plato, but it should not come at the expense of individual freedom and self-expression.

Milton Berle: Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Plato: I suppose so. But let us not forget the power of dialogue and the exchange of ideas.

Muhammad Ali: Agreed. We may not always see eye to eye, but the act of coming together and engaging in respectful debate can only serve to improve our understanding of the world and each other.

Milton Berle: And hopefully, along the way, we can crack a few jokes and have a good time.

Plato: Indeed. Laughter truly is the best medicine.

Muhammad Ali: Amen to that.

Memories of Watergate

I watched a lot of news tonight. It’s a historic day when a former president’s home is searched for classified documents.

I was thinking about my dad and remembering how we setup the reel-to-reel beside the TV, in August of 1974, to record Nixon’s resignation speech. That was a momentous event.

I was a senior in high school and remember it vividly, and warmly, as a dad time. The whole family watched Nixon resign, but I got to help my dad configure the tape recorder in preparation. Those moments, memories, really, of tutelage from my father (whether it be hitting a backhand, straightening a shoe stock room, doing the snow plow, developing a negative, or prepping a reel-to-reel tape recorder, are wonderful memories. (I still wonder whatever happened to that tape; we never listened to it).

I was a big Watergate fan from the beginning, even before Nixon’s 2nd inauguration in January of ’73, which I attended. I went to that inauguration, and parade, with Tapi Hayrinen, our exchange student from Finland, and Boyd Gilman, a great high school friend. Exchange students were less common back then, and we got special treatment from our Republican Congressman, Earl Ruth. I remember being fairly close to the front, unlike the other inauguration I attended — Clinton’s first. I went to that one with my friend Robert Jones. We had tickets, but Bill and Ms. Angelou were a long ways off. I was close to Nixon, but not a fan. I did respect the occasion, however, as a historic event, and only joined the hecklers a couple of times.

In the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, Peter Tennent and I attended two days of the Watergate hearings, watching Sam Ervin grill Bob Haldeman. Peter was a beloved classmate of mine who unfortunately passed away last year. In fact, Peter and I were close friends before we were classmates. We went to different elementary schools — but our parents were best friends and our families did everything together throughout our childhoods — including some extremely large and eventful Post/Tennent beach vacations. Both families had five children. Peter and Boyd and I were all on the tennis team together.

Peter and I stayed up all night, keeping our places in line with other Watergate hearing audience members, listening to political types share their takes, two nights in a row, on the sidewalk in front of the building. This was in August of 1973, almost exactly one year before Nixon’s resignation.

The last time I saw Peter was at his mother’s funeral, less than a year before he passed. He brought up that Watergate experience and we talked about it, remembering it differently. Oddly enough, the thing I remember most about the trip is a terrifying hitchhiking experience that involved a pot smoking driver, a blue light, and a speeding car that took the cop away from us. Peter remembered other things about the trip, but that part of it did not make an impression. It’s interesting how we remember the stories that we share, and as we share them, we shape them, until what actually happened is so long ago and completely ethereal, such that the story is its own creation. I remember that Haldeman and CIA Director Helms testified, but I only heard about the contents of those hearings later, on TV. After standing on the sidewalk all night, two nights in a row, I pretty much dozed through the hearings.

We certainly don’t need a tape recorder to capture events these days. In the age of iPhones and unlimited storage, everything is available anytime. As the talk of political violence gets louder, every moment of this civil war is being captured on video.

Watching Fox News is upsetting, but I did watch a few minutes last night. It’s amazing to see the different views of the same event: an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago (which is all we really know).

On CNN and MSNBC, it’s exciting news. Lots of talking heads are speculating about what classified documents were illegally removed from the White House. You could say that we progressives are excited because we think Trump is a con man and a mob boss, and we want him punished for what he did to our democracy. 

Or you could say that we want the 2020 election to be over. If Trump were convicted of a crime that prohibited him from running again, then he would be done running — and we’re tired of it. An election ends when a candidate concedes, and Trump has denied this country the experience of completing 2020. People need completion.

On Fox, the context is Biden doing something to Trump, making Trump a victim. Being a victim, of course, is a default context for living life. It’s not satisfying, but it’s powerful in the realm of politics. All stories need sympathetic characters, and every show has a victim. It’s also easy. While being responsible is much harder, being a victim is natural and takes little effort. Both sides are good at it. Trump is the master. He can spin anything into a victim number, and the FBI search is great material for that.

As the helicopters swirl around Mar-a-Lago (presumably hoping to catch sight of what Trump called a raid, we see the being of victim become reality TV performance art. He could turn over the documents or say something about why he won’t — but claiming raid is better TV. He’s also nurturing and developing a large group of apprentices and opening acts. That said, victimhood in leadership leads to danger when the vicim-in-chief presents violence as a positive thing.

Slip of the tongue?

Hopefully, this is a gaffe.

I’ll give the senator the benefit of the doubt and assume that he misspoke rather than having bought into Russian propaganda as so many in the Trump cult have.

He says “Our nation is united in its resolve to support the brave Ukrainian people and to punish Russia for its illegal war on aggression.”

Did he mean to say ‘punish Russia for its illegal war OF aggression?”

What did he mean? If there’s a war ON aggression, is that similar to a war on terrorism? If so, does he mean that Russia is fighting against aggression, meaning that Ukraine is the aggressor?

That kind of thinking would be aligned with the Russian lies, that they are invading Ukraine for de-Nazification.

Does Tillis have an ear for Russian propaganda?

After all, this was not live TV. It looks like he shot this video in an office and could have easily done another take, dropping off the last two words, “on aggression,” saying “punish Russia for its illegal war.”

How long with the newest wedge issue last?

If vax vs. anti-vax is the new big wedge issue, could it last for years?

Could it rise to the level of segregation, abortion, guns, gay marriage, Obamacare, trans kids in bathrooms, etc…?

Could vax vs. anti-vax stay with us (with all of it’s terrible consequences), into the next election and beyond, with the movement expanding such that more people think it’s cool to refuse other vaccines also?

Skipping the flu shot has always been a badge of honor for some, but could not getting that shot become comedy material for the likes of Tucker Carlson? The CDC and Dr. Fauci recommend flu shots, and those are Carlson’s targets — along with all others who belong to that highly educated group of people who devote their lives to scientific inquiry.

There’s plenty of anti-vax money being spent now in content marketing. During the Trump administration, $850,000 in PPP loans went to anti-vax groups.

In 2022, will we be seeing slick, well-funded, dark money anti-vax ads?

I hope that’s not what’s happening, but the Republicans have obviously exploited the enormous emotional charge that goes along with living during a pandemic. So many have experienced fear, disease, and death. Massive changes at home, work, and school have caused high levels of stress and depression. We’ve lost people, and we’ve lost routines and performance and travel, intimacy and connection.

Somehow, they’ve used very real emotional responses to life in the time of COVID and effectively created a strong resistance message. Resistance, of course, is Denial’s first cousin.

They’ve created a simple, fairly appealing message of faith in God and appreciation for personal liberty. I would call that a dishonest message, in light of the facts. I prefer concrete actions that embody faith and demonstrate real respect for liberty. But that’s just me. Faith in God and personal liberty as stand-alone beliefs seem to be more than enough for many people to proudly refuse the vaccine.

The messages of faith and liberty are predicated on people being in denial and being in denial about being in denial — but it works. Since Citizens United, politics has become such a big industry in the United States. The anti-vax message is obviously raising a lot of money.

It’s also a very effective message when the goal is to own the libs. In my view, “owning libs” is a cute way of hating certain groups of people that make-up the progressive coalition: college graduates, academics, scientists, people who live in urban areas, and black and brown people. But owning libs, as they say, is a powerful, tragic motivation to avoid the shot.

I admit I’ve been royally owned by many a proud unvaccinated person.

And I’m owned by this movement’s leadership — people like Rand Paul, Ron DeSantis, and Tucker Carlson. If their intention is to infuriate liberals, they have succeeded with me.

It’s almost like we have two new political parties emerging, The Vaxxers, who want less disease and a more stable, brighter future, with clean energy, quality health care for everyone as a human right, safe streets, good schools, reliable child care and elder care… all the good stuff progressives work for. And there’s the party of no, the Anti-Vaxxers, who have dark money and Proud Boys on their side. They don’t believe in carbon and they don’t believe in COVID — and they don’t believe a lot of other things we liberals say. They do enjoy the fact that they can keep us from having a future that’s organized around the idea of making life better for everybody (which they don’t believe is possible).

In reality, viruses do not belong to political parties and neither do vaccines.

But Republicans have chosen to make this into another iteration of how-stupid-far-right-can-you-get politics. It’s an important faction to that party, and it seems to get most energized when the stakes are life and death: guns, health care, abortion, and now the vaccines for COVID.

The question is, will this die out, or could this swell? Could this be like guns, wherein the right to form a militia somehow gets twisted into the right to allow easy murder and mass shootings by selling weapons of war to any person?

Could this continue through future election cycles and become a permanent political faction in urban, Republican areas and further degrade the health of Americans, and the stability of American hospitals, by letting more preventable diseases have their way into unvaccinated segments of our population?

Or will this issue “magically disappear,” like Trump said the virus would.

DeSantis in FLOVIDA

Inside the office of Governor Ron DeSantis. The Governor sits with two advisors. He’s reading his speech aloud from a piece of paper.

GOVERNOR

(reading)

And God bless the United States of America.

(He looks up at his advisors).

I like this.

CHIEF OF STAFF

Thank you, Governor.

GOVERNOR

It gets right to the heart of it.

CHIEF OF STAFF

Well good. I’m glad it pleases.

GOVERNOR

Oh, it pleases. When there’s a million bucks on the table, by God, it pleases the shit out of me!

CHIEF OF STAFF

Michigan’s not fucking around.

GOVERNOR

What if we don’t raise that much? It’s fifty thousand per plate and there are twenty people coming. That should be a million dollars. IF they all show up and write the checks. Could some of it fall through? How many do you think will fall through? What do you think we’ll end up with?

CHIEF OF STAFF

Governor, it looks solid to me.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

That’s not a strong look.

GOVERNOR

What? My nose? Should I tilt it this way?

POLITICAL ADVISOR

I’m talking about your whining! You’re so scared of not raising a million dollars! Wha wha wha! Is that the way a tough guy talks?

GOVERNOR

No.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Is that the way a big man talks?

GOVERNOR

No.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Is that the way a big, tough man talks when he is on his way to kicking ass in Michigan and having a gigantic bag of money to take to Iowa and New Hampshire?

GOVERNOR

No.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Don’t forget tough. That’s your mantra. Tough. Nothing else matters. Just tough.

GOVERNOR

Okay. I got it.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Good.

GOVERNOR

Look at my hair. I mean, it looks good — but it’s a little wet, you think? A little too much gel, you think?

CHIEF OF STAFF

It’s fine. We’re in Florida. People in Michigan know about the humidity here.

GOVERNOR

(touching his hair)

I don’t know.

CHIEF OF STAFF

It’s fine. Really. (to Political Advisor) What do you think?

POLITICAL ADVISOR

It’s okay.

GOVERNOR

You don’t like it.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

I like it. For the screen, I like it. I mean it’s freaky as shit, a little terrifying, really — but it’s your calling card and it’s perfect. Remember, Governor, your hair is not yours, and it’s not hair. Strong leaders know how to conduct a freak show and they need freak show hair. Look at Trump. Hitler’s mustache. There’s no telling what kind of product Stalin used, but he used plenty of it. Your hair…it could be a little longer and go up — vertically — a little more. Like Gaetz. But that can evolve over time. It’s perfect now. With that distinctive squeaky-victim voice you do so well… these are the DeSanto brand.

GOVERNOR

DeSantis.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Whatever. My point is that your stupid looking hair isn’t even yours. It belongs to the Trump base — and they are accustomed to a hell of a freak show, godawful hair included. They eat that gaudy shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you don’t up your game pretty soon, you’ll put ’em to sleep in five minutes. Your hair’s fine. You need more of it, but it’s okay.

CHIEF OF STAFF

We leave for Michigan in thirty minutes and I’ve got some things here about COVID that you need to know about.

GOVERNOR

COVID? I’m sick of COVID.

CHIEF OF STAFF

We all are. But it’s not sick of us.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

You should give COVID a kiss every day for what it’s done for you. You would be nobody without COVID.

CHIEF OF STAFF

We need a response to the feds sending ventilators.

GOVERNOR

I already responded. I don’t know anything about that.

CHIEF OF STAFF

But even if you don’t know about it when you say you don’t know about it, after that, you know about it, so there needs to be something for the next time we’re asked about why we need so many ventilators.

GOVERNOR

But I don’t know anything about that.

CHIEF OF STAFF

But now you’ve been told about it.

GOVERNOR

So what.

CHIEF OF STAFF

You know about it.

GOVERNOR

I don’t know anything about that.

CHIEF OF STAFF

To them, you do.

GOVERNOR

Who’s them?

CHIEF OF STAFF

The mayors. You’re bombarded with calls from hospitals.

GOVERNOR

I’m not talking to them.

CHIEF OF STAFF

I know that. But I am.

GOVERNOR

So I don’t know anything about that.

CHIEF OF STAFF

You still might need an answer up your sleeve, just in case…Newsmax or OAN could screw up and ask… you need something about the ventilators.

GOVERNOR

Maybe I could say something like, ‘My heart goes out to…’

POLITICAL ADVISOR

You weak fuck! Shut up!

GOVERNOR

That was a joke.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Oh yeah? Then it was a bad one. Your heart goes out?

GOVERNOR

Seriously, I was just messing with you. That was a joke.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

It didn’t sound like a joke to me. I’ve heard you tell jokes. And I’ve heard you cover your ass, which is what you’re tying to do. Listen, Governor, from now until November 2024, you ain’t got no heart. Understand?

GOVERNOR

I know that. No heart.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Fuck no! No heart! You may have an Italian sounding name, but your primary voters want somebody who is white. And I mean completely white. And Christian. And tough. If you think they want you to have a fucking goddamn heart, you’re out of your white southern mind!

GOVERNOR

So I should never say the word ‘heart,’ or just not reference having one in the metaphoric sense, as in…

POLITICAL ADVISOR

No heart. No feelings. No understanding. No Harvard. No Yale. No empathy, goddammit! If you give one shit about anybody who is suffering, you’ve lost. Your base won’t tolerate that shit. These people don’t want red meat. They want raw red meat. Your heart? That’s like giving them a vegetable.

GOVERNOR

I understand.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

With the exception of one group. Mask haters. Especially parents. Empathizing with parents who hate masks is good. If you’re dying to pull your smiling public face routine, use it on them. But that’s it.

GOVERNOR

Okay. Let me give this a shot.

(He smirks and then sneers)

We don’t know about any ventilators. We don’t need any ventilators! Biden is letting Mexicans in and distracting you with ventilators — in my state. We’re a state of personal responsibility! If Floridians need ventilators, they can go out and buy their own and ventilate themselves!

CHIEF OF STAFF

Leave out that last part.

GOVERNOR

(to Janet)

Was that tough?

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Loved it.

CHIEF OF STAFF

He can’t tell people to go buy their own ventilators.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Works for me.

CHIEF OF STAFF

That’s like saying ‘let them eat cake’ and ‘let them die’ all in one stroke.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

That’s why it works. And it also hits that trickle down purity message hard. Be rich — or die. Buy your own damn ventilator — or die. I love it. The libs will get a full news cycle of outrage out of that one. It’s brilliant, Governor. Retweet gold. Just brilliant.

GOVERNOR

Thank you.

CHIEF OF STAFF

Okay, so your good on the ventilators. They buy their own. What about the feds sending doctors and nurses?

GOVERNOR

I don’t know anything about that.

CHIEF OF STAFF

Now you do.

GOVERNOR

No I don’t. I never heard anything about that.

CHIEF OF STAFF

I just told you.

GOVERNOR

So I’m supposed to trust you as a valid source of data?

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Excellent.

CHIEF OF STAFF

I am your Chief of Staff.

GOVERNOR

So what? Is that information verified?

CHIEF OF STAFF

Yes.

GOVERNOR

But it’s a lie! It’s fake! Want me to tell you how I know?

CHIEF OF STAFF

Okay.

GOVERNOR

Was it in the media?

CHIEF OF STAFF

It’s all over the media. The federal government sending in ventilators, nurses, docs…turning parking lots into tent hospitals, turning away people at hospitals and urgent cares, not sending ambulances… an all time record in hospitalizations with exponential spread… denying health care in emergencies… it’s all over the…

GOVERNOR

Media! The media! Aha!

CHIEF OF STAFF

Uh, yeah. the media.

GOVERNOR

Proof! It’s fake.

(to Political Advisor)

That’s a lot of media.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Well done, Governor. Well done. And it never would have happened if you had not gone to fucking court to keep those masks out of our schools and businesses and cruise ships.

GOVERNOR

You were right about that.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Of course I was right. No masks in school. Cruises with unvaccinated people. And now your brilliant suggestion to treat only the rich. You’ve got a ways to go, but your getting tougher. I can see it.

GOVERNOR

Tough.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Tough.

CHIEF OF STAFF

We’ve got to get going.

GOVERNOR

Do you think Trump will let me run?

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Maybe. If you’re white enough.

GOVERNOR

He likes me. Don’t you think?

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Maybe.

GOVERNOR

I hope he likes me.

POLITICAL ADVISOR

Tough!

GOVERNOR

(whining) Okay. Tough.

How is Rowan County doing?

The vaccine

North Carolina does not rank well in the area of vaccinations, and with the exception of Georgia, we’re a much bigger and more densely populated state than the other low performers.

And it’s no comfort seeing the Rowan County numbers. We don’t do well compared to most other counties in the state. And this county is more populated than most of the other low-vaccine counties. We rank 21st in population.

With the Delta variant spreading very fast, these factors, and others, give us a vulnerability rating of “very high,” which prompts a concern that there will be a lot of illness and death this fall and winter, when we’re spending more time indoors.

I’ve lived here most of my life. I was born here and lived in one house for my first 18 years, and then in the house I live in now (3 blocks away) for 35 years. So I’ve lived in the same neighborhood for about 53 of my 64 years.

I’ve worked as a teacher here. I’ve owned businesses here. I have family and friends here. It’s home, and I’m not planning on going anywhere else.

But I find our county’s 30% vaccination rate to be appalling, especially since it’s universally available and free — while other countries remain vulnerable to great suffering and can’t get vaccines at all.

Education, Republican style

For obvious reasons, our vaccine numbers mirror our educations numbers, and I’m not proud of what we’ve become in the area of education.

The county commissioners and state representatives used to be a mixture of Democrats and Republicans, and much less partisan.

We used to have a pretty good county school system and a highly ranked city school system.

But for the past 30 years, it’s been nearly complete Republican government — and many of these folks seem to have values that don’t align with competent leadership.

When they speak about school funding, they never miss an opportunity to say that ‘money doesn’t solve problems.’ Or they say things like ‘you can’t throw money at a problem.’ From what I’ve read in the newspaper and seen online, they never seem to empathize with the needs of a kid who deserves a quality school in order to live a quality life.

Morality

They hold themselves up as moral leaders by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a losing court case, fighting for the right to say “in Jesus’ name we pray” at the end of a prayer, before a meeting.

Just a plain ol’ “Amen,” or a nod to God, or nothing, or a moment of silent prayer — something that would have shown common respect to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, and all other religions who have equal standing under the constitution, was not suitable for this group. If they couldn’t pray in the name of Jesus at a public meeting, then they were excited to go to court and spend all their time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to try.

And yet, in the area of morality, Craig Pierce, one of the most pious of the lot, just got a DUI, blowing a .26 and, according to the police report, threatened a police officer in the process. 

This hard right politician got drunk enough to reach across the aisle and drive in the left lane.

Another commissioner, one of the ones who spearheaded the costly lawsuit over prayer, a few years ago, showed up drunk, in the morning, to teach his eighth grade class. He was a decent guy who did get help, and he’s since passed away. But he also continued to serve after this happened.

I don’t respect the shaming of a person with a drinking problem and do not intend to do so. But I do question the ability of some people to lead. If a person exhibits enough lack of control to drive in the wrong lane or teach teenagers while under the influence — then maybe he should not make decisions about taxation, health care services, school funding, and other matters of public importance. Sure, he was elected. But…well…it’s obvious that he’s not capable.

Where do we rank?

Our vaccination numbers mirror what’s happened to our public schools in Rowan County over the past 30 years. We have failed, badly.

Where does Rowan County rank? Where does North Carolina rank? I don’t know. There’s plenty of data out there, great for drilling down and looking at a specific school’s numbers, but my Google skills are not sufficient to find school rankings. Perhaps that’s a thing of the past.

There are, however, a plethora of data available on various directory platforms with a certain social media flare. (ie. schooldigger.com, niche.com, or greatschools.org) This gives the ranking that really matters because actual people rank and comment and set the narrative. Whatever the actual ranking, according to the state’s testing and demographic data, yearly progress, and whatever other factors they use, a county’s social media reputation will have a much greater effect on what kinds of business and industry and housing and education and culture show up in that county.

Rowan County has a lower average income than each of its four surrounding counties. The poverty rate in Rowan County increased by 13% from 2010 to 2020.

And while Republicans have managed all of it, holding every political office for decades, they don’t seem to assume responsibility for the decades of economic decline. And the voters will not hold them accountable because they are told that taxes and government spending are evil, and they’re too distracted by this false morality and other irrelevant gossip to vote on the issues. Education is the issue. Competitive schools cost money. Our Republican commissioners have chosen not to compete.

When you get behind early, it makes it harder to catch up.

And we’re used to it. It’s what we know. If you’ve never seen a really nice, well-run, adequately funded school system, then it doesn’t exist as a possibility.

Years of proudly underfunding the school system has hurt our economy. We have two hospitals, three colleges, and Food Lion home office. That’s a lot of brainpower working in a small town in this county. These people who work in Salisbury used to live in Rowan County, and their children went to school here. Now, this class of people mostly commutes from surrounding counties with better schools.

It’s still a good place to live. Because population growth has been lagging behind our neighboring counties, some of which have real traffic problems, the roads here have kept up with the growth and it’s easy to get around.

How it started

Rowan was a Democratic county until the 1966 election, when it began it’s swing to the right. That year, Republican John Stirewalt defeated Sheriff Shuping, a Democrat, in an upset. Two years later, Earl Ruth, a popular dean, professor, and basketball coach at Catawba College, and member of the Salisbury City Council, changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, got a big endorsement from Nixon, and won a seat to Congress.

The pump got primed in the 80’s, when we had some extreme right wing Reagan style “government is the problem” guys on the county commission. These self-made, non-college types sent their own kids to private, Protestant church schools and voted no to anything that had to do with public school funding. One of them told me, one time, that school funding was entirely the state’s responsibility and the county had no responsibility at all.

Meanwhile, schools were just starting to get computers, and Cabarrus County (which was fairly close in population to Rowan County at that time), had a technology budget ten times the size of the Rowan County’s technology budget.

While these Reagan extremist commissioners were considered heroes by some, getting cheers each time they used the word ‘waste,’ many people thought of them as crackpots. While the 80’s foreshadowed what would happen in Rowan County and North Carolina, there were still smatterings of reasonable Democrats and Republicans in the mix — both in the county and in the city.

We began the full right turn on July 4th, 1991, when a very popular President Bush came here in order to play softball in Faith. The national news focused on the fact that there were no black residents of Faith. Locally, it was a huge rally for the Republican Party, and it also brought a lot of young people into that party. I remember kids in bands being pretty excited about playing for the president. 

In 2003, Elizabeth Dole, a Republican from Salisbury, who had already served as a Cabinet Secretary in the Reagan and Bush administrations, became a U.S. Senator. She was and still is the wife of Bob Dole, who was the Republican Leader of the United States Senate.

So Rowan County became not just a red county, but an early adopter, well-entrenched red county.

By now, demographics ensure we would be a Republican county anyway. Trump got 68% of the vote in Rowan County in 2020. The parties now have a stark urban/rural divide over the entire country, and Rowan County residents like country living. Biden had a good showing in Salisbury and won 10 precincts. But Salisbury has not grown as fast as the county and now contains 24% of the county’s population. Trump won the precincts outside of Salisbury and Spencer and East Spencer by 40 to 50 points — so there’s almost no hope for a Democrat to win an election here for anything other than the municipal non-partisan races.

A case, yes. But is it a hopeless case?

My point is that we had a few years head start on the era of austerity, and we’re paying a heavy price for it.

It shows up in many ways — income, educational opportunity, employment opportunity, technology, safety, and quality of life.

It may also show up in hospitals this winter, with more COVID.

You can’t start working to solve a problem until you recognize the problem. In the case of Rowan County Republicans versus Rowan County Education…well… there is no real case. But it seems like there has been. 

There should be a different kind of case in the other direction: Rowan County Education, and lost hopes for prosperity, versus The Rowan County Republican Party.

It’s a clear case. Thirty years of solid Republican domination in local politics has overseen 30 years of decline in education standing. And 30 years solid Republican County Commission has overseen 30 years of decline in economic standing.

You would think a strong Democrat could make that case and be a viable candidate for at least one seat on the County Commission. But, at this point, with county-wide voting for each of the five seats, with party loyalty being what it’s become, even one seat to a Democrat would be a huge upset. Even with a great candidate, a well funded campaign, a strong grass roots following, and a massive, localized get out the vote operation — it would likely end in an embarrassing trounce.

What is the story of how Salisbury came to be your home town?

Zimmerman's

The text below is a copy of a comment I wrote on Facebook. Eric Hall posted a question to the ‘You might be from Salisbury if…’ Facebook group. He asked”What is the story of how Salisbury came to be your home town?” The answers are quite interesting. Life is such a serendipitous phenomenon. My comment, below, is mostly accurate. There may be a few minor errors that could be fact checked by listening to some oral history tapes or questioning my siblings. But it’s about right.

My grandparents (Sam and Anna Zimmerman) immigrated here around the turn of the century. He was from Austria. She from Latvia. He didn’t speak Russian and she didn’t speak German — but they both spoke Yiddish.

In Europe, my grandfather was trained as an architect. Here, he was a peddler, working the South. My grandmother somehow found her way from Rochester to New Jersey and then to live with a sister in Orangeburg, SC. I think. She may have lived other places. I don’t know. I think they met in SC.

Somehow they wound up in Morganton, NC, where they had a store and started a family with two children.

The store was close to the law office of Sam Ervin, who would become a senator. They knew each other. I know this because, even though my grandfather died before I was born, I had the opportunity to ask Senator Ervin if he remembered my grandfather, Sam Zimmerman — and he said, “Yes, with the store.”

During the depression, they moved to Marion, VA and then, in the mid 30’s, to Salisbury. They had been able to live in a house in Morganton and Marion, but times were tough and they rented 110 N. Main St. in Salisbury, where they could live upstairs, above the store. The building had been vacant. My mom said, when they moved there, that the previous business had been a type of farmers’ market. She said there was handwriting on the walls — stuff like “Eggs,” Tomatoes,” “Okra,” — with prices.

Mom said she did not like Salisbury at first. She would walk home from Wiley School, embarrassed for anyone to know she did not live in a house, but above a store. Her English teacher, the legendary Helen Jenkins, would walk with her and say “Rose Hannah, Salisbury is not so bad. You’ll do fine here.”

They turned it into a small store. My grandfather was a handy guy who could build shelves and make clothes. He spent a lot of time during the day at The Friendly Cue and at night at Purcell’s Drug Store, which was a gathering place for men who would gather round the radio, in the early 40’s, and listen to news of the war.

They lived upstairs. Mom said they had one dresser with four drawers, and each member of the family had one drawer, which kept all of that person’s clothes.

During the Depression, my grandmother made as much extra food as she could afford in order to give out plates to hungry people who knocked on the back door.

My father’s parents immigrated from Russia. He grew up in NY and was a student at Columbia. After Pearl Harbor, he quit school, changed his name from Pozarick to Post, and joined the Air Force.

After the war, his aunt gave him a job managing a furniture factory she had somehow acquired, in Mocksville. There were no restaurants or movie theaters in Mocksville. My dad lived in Salisbury because there were three movie theaters downtown. He rented a room from George Rusher on Mitchell or Maupin or Wiley (not exactly sure which).

In 1948, he was walking down Main St. and my grandfather was standing outside the store. They struck up a conversation and my grandfather invited my father to dinner, where he could meet a Jewish girl, his daughter. My mom was in college, in Greensboro, and home at the time. Maybe it was a weekend, holiday, or summer — I don’t know.

They got married and my father paid for her last year of college. Then they moved to NYC, stayed a year, had one child, and moved back to Salisbury in 1950.

My father and my uncle focused on the family business, Zimmerman’s, and having more children and raising families. Zimmerman’s had no employees in the 30s and 40s. It grew in the 50s and 60s.

They raised families here. So I was born here.