Buttons

Kirn and Taibbi are joking about Kirn running for president. They suggest the Zero Problems platform, which might actually be a good idea. Harding and Ike were Zero Problems presidents, who neither solved nor created any problems. FDR solved problems. All others made problems.

We’ll never have another problem solver. FDR gave us the chance to be a properly behaved nation, and we fucked it up immediately after he died. The best we can hope for is slower manufacturing of tyranny and genocide for a little while.

Kirn mentioned that his mother was a Republican committee member in her small town, and had a cherished collection of old campaign buttons.

Reminded me of a peculiar memory. When my parents first moved to Manhattan in 1957 they rented a spacious old bungalow. I had my bedroom in the basement, along with my father’s study and the former coal room. There was a table in the coal room, and I found a Stevenson button and an ‘I Like Ike’ button on the table. Why were those two buttons there? My parents were not politically active, so they wouldn’t have been collecting buttons like Kirn’s mother.