I wrote an article about Thomas Paine addressing trying times. I get the mindset of living during chaotic times. I also grasp what Churchill said about democracies. “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have been tried.”

I understand that once you include another person in a political discourse, two people will never totally agree with each other. Nonetheless, Americans are arguing over something called a fake election. Trump maintains that the Democrats stole the election from him. That isn’t true. He lost the election; it wasn’t stolen from him. Trump and his faithful minions have taken over sixty cases to either the Supreme Court or state courts regarding how the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election. Every case was dismissed as irrelevant or was decided against Trump and his MAGA supporters.

The American Bar Association listed the cases and decisions before the Supreme Court and state-level courts. There is no evidence that the election was fraudulent or stolen from Trump. Votes were counted and recounted. Even the Cyber Ninjas, hired by Trump supporters, rechecked the Maricopa County, Arizona ballots. Apparently, this Ninjas counter did find something.

“I found something….”

I’m not sure precisely what this Ninjas worker discovered. However, after months of painstaking counting the Maricopa County ballots, the Ninjas found that Trump actually received 261 less votes, and Biden’s vote tally increased by 99.

And yet Trump still claims Biden wasn’t elected and that he is still the rightful president. So, America has a former president crying over spilled milk even though he knows he lost. But what’s with his MAGA followers or, as Rush Limbaugh would say, ditto-heads that maintain Trump’s bogus notion. Either Trump supporters are oblivious to the real world, or they know they are also lying.

Into this ridiculous and foreboding milieu, Cody Keenan, President Obama’s head speechwriter, appeared on the scene with Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America.

Grace is about days gone by.

Reading Grace was like reading something that had occurred a lifetime ago. It felt like I was returning to an Americanize Camelot. Keenan wanted his readers to read between his lines. It was as if he wanted his readers to read, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

Keenan wrote about ten days ten day in June of 2015. This is the table of contents of Grace.

On those ten days, Keenan and Obama put words to problems facing our nation. America wasn’t a utopian paradise. We faced significant difficulties. What would the Supreme Court do with Obamacare and marriage equality? We were attempting to address racism, white supremacy, Confederate flags, and statues of military leaders of the Confederacy.

However, it all congealed around the shooting of nine blacks at the AME church, Mother Emanuel, in Charleston, SC. Keenan was faced with writing a eulogy for Obama to address the mourners of victims of that senseless shooting. Nine members of that black church were killed by a white racist. Obama knew that grace was the message needed to be articulated in the face of racism in America.

Interestingly, Keenan told a conversation that Obama had with him. Obama provided a parable for Keenan. Obama told his speechwriter to pour a drink, sit back, and listen to Miles Davis. Keenan was to “find the silence.” Obama knew the importance of silence. This is an example of his knowledge base.

This is an aside. When I want to write an essay, I pour a glass of blackberry Merlot and listen to Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13.

At other times, I will listen to Schumann’s Träumerei, “Kinderszenen” No. 7, Scenes from Childhood.

Obama is about listening for the silence. More importantly, he is correct about working hard for just causes, not bs-ing people, and helping others. Years ago, I came up with a saying. “It is in giving that we get.” America will become a place more like Camelot than it is today if Obama is our mentor and not Donald the Dumb and those of his ilk. Choose wisely because you will become your mentor.

This video is Miles Davis playing Time After Time.