What GOOD LOSERS Sound Like
Though Donald Trump has time left before January 20 to formally and publicly concede the election to Joe Biden, few believe he will do so with the customary dignity, grace, humility, loyalty, and patriotism that all past losers of the presidential election have done following their losses.
I have compiled below partial concession statements of every losing presidential candidate since 1948 so we can recall what a good loser of the presidency sounds like:
"My heartiest congratulations to you on your election, and every good wish for a successful administration." —Thomas E. Dewey, 1948 (to Harry S. Truman)
"It hurts too much to laugh, but I'm too old to cry… [I offer the new president] the support he will need to carry out the great tasks that lie before him. I pledge him mine. We vote as many, but we pray as one." —Adlai Stevenson II, 1952 (to Dwight D. Eisenhower) – Stevenson ran against Eisenhower a second time in 1956
"I have great faith that our people, Republicans, Democrats alike, will unite behind our next president." —Richard M. Nixon, 1960 (to John F. Kennedy)
"Congratulations on your victory. I will help you in any way that I can toward achieving a growing and better America and a secure and dignified peace."—Barry M. Goldwater, 1964 (to Lyndon B. Johnson)
"…my congratulations. Please know that you will have my support in unifying and leading the nation. … I am confident that if constructive leaders in both our parties join together we shall be able to go on with the business of building the better America we all seek in a spirit of peace and harmony." —Hubert H. Humphrey Jr., 1968 (to Richard M. Nixon)
"Congratulations on your victory. I hope that in the next four years you will lead us to a time of peace abroad and justice at home. You have my full support in such efforts. With best wishes to you and your gracious wife, Pat." —George S. McGovern, 1972 (to Richard M. Nixon)
"I congratulate you on your victory. As one who has been honored to serve the people of this great land, both in Congress and as President, I believe that we must now put the divisions of the campaign behind us and unite the country once again in the common pursuit of peace and prosperity… I want to assure you that you will have my complete and wholehearted support as you take the oath of office this January. I also pledge to you that I, and all members of my Administration, will do all that we can to insure that you begin your term as smoothly and as effectively as possible." —Gerald R. Ford Jr., 1976 (to Jimmy E. Carter Jr.)
"I have a deep appreciation of the system that lets people make a free choice about who will lead them for the next four years." —James E. Carter Jr., 1980 (to Ronald W. Reagan)
"He has won. We are all Americans. He is our president, and we honor him tonight. Again tonight, the American people['s] choice was made peacefully, with dignity and with majesty. And although I would have rather won, tonight we rejoice in our democracy, we rejoice in the freedom of a wonderful people, and we accept their verdict." —Walter F. Mondale, 1984 (to Ronald W. Reagan)
"I know I speak for all of you and for all the American people when I say that he will be our President, and we'll work with him. This nation faces major challenges ahead, and we must work together." —Michael S. Dukakis, 1988 (to George H. W. Bush)
"Here's the way we see it and the country should see it — that the people have spoken and we respect the majesty of the democratic system. I just called Governor Clinton over in Little Rock and offered my congratulations. He did run a strong campaign. I wish him well in the White House. And I want the country to know that our entire Administration will work closely with his team to insure the smooth transition of power. There is important work to be done, and America must always come first. So we will get behind this new President and wish him well."—George H. W. Bush, 1992 (to William J. Clinton)
"I've said repeatedly in this campaign that the president was my opponent and not my enemy. And I wish him well and I pledge my support in whatever advances the cause of a better America, because that's what the race was about in the first place, a better America as we go into the next century."—Robert J. Dole, 1996 (to William J. Clinton)
"Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency: 'Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.' Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country. … our disappointment must be overcome by our love of country. … Let no one see this contest as a sign of American weakness. The strength of American democracy is shown most clearly through the difficulties it can overcome . . . .While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party. This is America and we put country before party…. While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. For the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new president-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together." —Albert A. Gore Jr., 2000 (to George W. Bush)
"In an American election, there are no losers. Because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning, we all wake up as Americans. And that is the greatest privilege and the most remarkable good fortune that can come to us on earth. With that gift also comes obligation. We are required now to work together for the good of our country. In the days ahead, we must find common cause. We must join in common effort without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion. I hope President Bush will advance those values in the coming years. I pledge to do my part to try to bridge the partisan divide. I know this is a difficult time for my supporters. But I ask them — all of you — to join me in doing that." —John F. Kerry, 2004 (to George W. Bush)
"A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to visit — to dine at the White House — was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth." —John S. McCain III, 2008 (to Barack H. Obama)
"We can't risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work. And we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. Rising. Healing. Linking arms. Moving on. That's what's supposed to happen in the aftermath of even the bitterest elections. At least that's what vanquished candidates are supposed to encourage. May the loser in this election uphold that tradition. So very much rides on it." —Willard Mitt Romney, 2012 (to Barack H. Obama)
"Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans. This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I'm sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country… Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don't just respect that, we cherish it. It also enshrines other things; the rule of law, the principle that we are all equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values too and we must defend them." —Hillary D. Rodham Clinton, 2016 (to Donald J. Trump)
What a BAD LOSER sounds like
"Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight. And a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people, and we won't stand for it. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity. We'll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list, OK? We will win this, and as far as I'm concerned, we already have." —Donald J. Trump, White House East Room, November 4, 2020, 2:21 am
Current Electoral Vote and Popular Vote Counts (as of Sunday, November 29, 2020) with votes still outstanding and being counted:
Electoral College – Biden (306) to Trump (232) – 270 to win
Popular Vote – Biden (80,117,578) to Trump (73,923,495) – The difference of 6,194,083
"Will Biden Undo Trump's Disastrous Legacy on Israel/Palestine?"
November 24, 2020 Posted by Mairav Zonszein in Jewish Currents
[Note: What follows is part of a comprehensive overview by the Israeli-American journalist of what the Trump Administration has done in league with the right-wing government of the State of Israel vis a vis the occupied territories and its negative impact on a potential two states for two peoples peaceful and negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what President-Elect Joe Biden's options are to reverse these policies and thereby restore traditional American policy in the Middle East that supports a two-state solution. I recommend reading the entire piece – the link to the full piece is at the end.]
"IN ITS FINAL WEEKS, the Trump administration appears to be shoring up its legacy of support for Israeli territorial-maximalist ambitions. Last Thursday, Mike Pompeo visited Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank—a first for a US secretary of state. Just one year ago, Pompeo reversed decades of US policy by announcing that the Trump administration would no longer consider Israeli settlements to be in violation of international law. During last week's visit, he made two new declarations further entrenching Israel's occupation and shielding it from criticism. First, he outlined a new customs guideline that designates goods manufactured in Area C of the West Bank—the portion of the territory under full Israeli control—as Israeli products, regardless of whether they were made by Israelis or Palestinians, effectively recognizing Israeli sovereignty there and further blurring the line between Israel and the territories it occupied in the 1967 War. Second, he announced that he had directed the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism to "identify oranizations that engage in, or otherwise support" the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement,which he called a "cancer" and labeled "a manifestation of anti-Semitism." "[A]nti-Zionism is anti-Semitism," Pompeo declared.
These are only the latest items on a long list of policies implemented by the Trump administration to bolster Israel's perpetual control of the occupied territories while stifling criticism of Israel and delegitimizing Palestine solidarity activism. That list includes: moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem; recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; shuttering the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission in Washington, DC; ending US support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and all assistance from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to the West Bank and Gaza; greenlighting Israeli annexation of large parts of the West Bank; extending US–Israel scientific cooperation to include Israeli institutions in the West Bank; signing an executive order on antisemitism that conflates it with anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel; brokering normalization deals between Israel and several Gulf states; and shredding the Iran nuclear deal.
President-elect Joe Biden will inherit a Middle East policy that upended international norms and all but buried the two-state solution model. The question now is: What will Biden—whose record on the issue has been guided by the imperative that there be "no daylight" between the US and Israel—do to undo the damage wrought by Donald Trump?
"Almost all of this can be easily undone early on in a Biden administration by executive action," said Dylan Williams, head of policy at J Street. Williams said a Biden administration could immediately repudiate Trump's "Deal of the Century" peace plan and reiterate its opposition to unilateral annexation of territory. "It could and should revoke the 'Pompeo Doctrine'"—open US support for Israeli annexation of the West Bank—"and reinstate the longstanding State Department legal opinion that settlements are illegal under international law."
Williams added that Biden's State Department could also reinstate the previous US customs guidelines on labeling of products from the West Bank, refuse to fund joint scientific research projects in settlements, and once again refer to Israel's "occupation" in their reports. (The 2020 Democratic National Convention's platform does not mention the word "occupation," though it states a commitment to stopping settlement expansion.)
Mairav Zonszein is an Israeli-American journalist who covers politics in Israel, Palestine and the US, civil rights, antisemitism, and the media. She has written for The Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, and The Intercept, among others, and is a longtime contributor to +972 Magazine.
It's a matter of common decency
"The plague had swallowed up everything and everyone. No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all. Strongest of these emotions was the sense of exile and of deprivation."
So wrote Albert Camus, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, in his 1947 novel The Plague, words that well could have been written in these times.
Set in the French Algerian city of Oran, The Plague was published only two years after the end of World War II. In this novel, the plague acts as metaphor for the destruction and evil the world had just survived.
To read my reflections on Camus' The Plague see my blog at The Times of Israel at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/its-a-matter-of-common-decency/
The Museums Are Closed – Life Goes on Dancing
My dear friend Andy Romanoff looks like a sage, and he is one in heart, mind and spirit. A professional photographer and story-teller, Andy created this 5-minute video that will inspire you and touch your heart. Enjoy and share it with others!
My Two Books as Hanukah Gifts
In each of my books Why Judaism Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation (New Jersey: Turner Publishing, 2017) and Why Israel [and its Future] Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation (New Jersey: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019) I address core identity issues for Jews of all ages and for non-Jews who want to understand what it means to be a liberal ethical Jew and a lover of Israel in an era when neither is automatic. Each book includes an Afterword by my two sons Daniel (35) and David (30).
I invite you to give them as Hanukah gifts to those you love. They are available on Amazon.com or through the publisher.
Endorsements:
"Why Judaism Matters"
"John Rosove does what so many of us have struggled to do, and does it brilliantly: He makes the case for liberal Judaism to his children. As Rosove shows, liberal Judaism is choice-driven, messy, and always evolving, "traditional" in some ways and "radical" in others. It is also optimistic, spiritual, and progressive in both personal and political ethics. Without avoiding the hard stuff, such as intermarriage and Israel, Rabbi Rosove weaves all of these strands together to show the deep satisfactions of living and believing as a liberal Jew. All serious Jews, liberal or otherwise, should read this book." – Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism and a regular columnist for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz
"Rabbi Rosove gets it. Here is a religious leader not afraid to tell it like it is, encapsulating for his audience the profound disaffection so many young Jews feel toward their heritage. But instead of letting them walk away, he makes a powerful case for the relevance of tradition in creating meaningful lives. In our technology-saturated, attention-absorbing age, Rosove offers religion-as-reprieve, his fresh vision of a thoroughly modern, politically-engaged and inclusive Judaism." – Danielle Berrin a columnist and commentator on CNN, MSNBC, The Guardian, British Esquire, The Atlantic, and The Jewish Forward
"Rabbi Rosove has written a wonderful book, a love letter to his children, and through them, to all our children. Prodigiously knowledgeable, exceedingly wise, and refreshingly honest, Rabbi Rosove has described why Judaism matters. It should serve as a touching testament of faith, spanning the generations for generations to come." – Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Senior Rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, New York
"Why Israel Matters"
"Morally unflinching, intellectually courageous, Rabbi John Rosove has provided us with a desperately needed map for how to navigate the growing tensions between progressives and the state of Israel. By calling out Israel when it has done wrong and calling out its critics when they exaggerate Israel's flaws, Rabbi Rosove echoes the ancient prophets, who criticized their people but always loved and defended them. This thoughtful and passionate book reminds us that commitment to Israel and to social justice are essential components of a healthy Jewish identity." – Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem
"Through a series of letters to his sons, Rabbi John Rosove movingly describes his own relationship to the State of Israel and provides advice and a way forward for a new generation to forge its own relationship with the Jewish State. Rosove's optimism, and his boundless faith in Jewish peoplehood and Jewish values, makes this book an invaluable blueprint for Jews, both in Israel and around the world, to help the Jewish State live up to its founding values of acceptance, pluralism, and democracy and become a true light unto the nations." – Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center and Chair of Women of the Wall
"Rabbi John Rosove's letters to his sons are tender and loving, but also gripping and challenging, as he grapples with modern Israel, Jewish identity, relations between Israelis and Diaspora Jews, and perhaps most significantly whether 'you can maintain your ethical and moral values while at the same time being supporters of the Jewish state despite its flaws and imperfections.'…This book will raise as many questions for Rosove's sons as it answers; it is a book that many of us wish we had written for our own children.'" Daniel Kurtzer, Former US Ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and US Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001), Professor of Middle Eastern Policy Studies, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
"Rabbi Rosove's truths reach minds and open hearts. I urge each and every individual who feels in any way connected to the Jewish People, to ponder this powerful assemblage of candid, insightful messages which address the core issues facing Israel as a nation, and as a notion. A must-read!" – Isaac Herzog, Chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel and former opposition Labor party leader in the Israeli Knesset
What to do when encountering maskless strangers
My wife and I took a walk this week with our 22-month-old granddaughter. We wore masks. Coming towards us on the sidewalk was a young man without one. We veered away but I was tempted to ask why he wasn't covering his face out of consideration for the health and well-being of others. I said nothing.
How is it possible still that people don't wear masks when infectious disease experts say that doing so is the most effective prophylactic against spreading and/or getting the virus?
This incident reminded me of a terrifying experience I had on the road thirty years ago. I'd turned from a side street onto a well-traveled LA canyon road about one hundred yards in front of an oncoming pick-up truck. I quickly got up to speed, but before I knew it the other driver passed me on the left, gave me the finger, turned into my lane, stopped, opened his door, got out, stood on the pavement, and glared at me while shouting expletives. I stopped my car with about 40 feet between us, locked my doors, refused to engage, prepared to swing around him if he approached me and get away as quickly as I could. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that he wanted a fight. Seeing that I froze, as though confronting a bear in the wilds, he got back into his truck and sped on.
I saw recently on YouTube an ugly exchange between a maskless man and Black Lives Matters activists that challenged him to put on a face covering. While screaming he approached the group and coughed on them.
I ask, gentle reader, what would/do you do when encountering maskless people on the street, in markets, elevators, and other closed spaces? Certainly, it's good to get far away from such people, but is it better to say nothing or to request compliance (nicely) that they abide by health officials' standards and risk an uncivil or violent reaction?
It's Time to Mitigate the American Electoral College System
The current system of electing an American president in which the Electoral College awards all delegates from each state to one candidate that wins the popular vote in that state distorts our politics, encourages campaigns to focus on a few unrepresentative states, and can defy the popular will of the nation to the interests of a few smaller states. The Electoral College determines who becomes President of the United States and does not function as a democratic institution. It's time either to eliminate it entirely or to mitigate its deleterious effects on our democracy.
Two of the last six presidential elections were won in the Electoral College by candidates who did not win the popular vote (George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016). If this were to occur in any other nation, Americans would rise up and criticize those nations out of democratic outrage. But, we tolerate this assault on our own democracy here.
For my full blog at the Times of Israel, see https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/its-time-to-mitigate-the-american-electoral-college-system/
Ancient Wisdom for this Post-Election Era
"T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights," asked me to write a d'var Torah on this week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, to appear on its site almost immediately after the election.
Here is the link to the piece –
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z'l
I never met personally Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, but I have read many of his books and consider him to be one of my most esteemed teachers. A public intellectual and global moral leader, humankind lost a magnificent mind and indomitable spirit this past Shabbat when he succumbed to cancer at the young age of 72.
Formerly the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom (1991-2013), Rabbi Sacks' influence extended far beyond his own nation and the English speaking world. His wisdom, learning, understanding of the human condition, and open heart will be missed by many. Those who knew or read his works can never forget him.
Everything Rabbi Sacks wrote (25 books, countless articles and divrei Torah) is worth reading. If you wish to narrow your focus, I recommend two works that are particularly apt for this era:
Not in God's Name – Confronting Religious Violence (New York: Schocken Books, 2015)
Lessons in Leadership – A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, 2015)
Zichrono livracha – May the memory of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks be a blessing to us all.
A beautiful song before Shabbat
My Hebrew teacher in Jerusalem sent me this, and though the words are not my theology, neither is it (apparently) of the performers. It's performed movingly and with a gentle passion.