The World and Everything in It: November 27, 2024

PREROLL: One year ago, Hamas released Israeli hostage Aviva Siegel. The 63-year-old grandmother tells us what happened that day in just a few minutes. Stay with us.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Congress is about ready to tackle tax policy and government funding.

MURPHY: It’s a significant lift. It’s a huge lift.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, WORLD Tour and part two of our story on the ordeal of an Israeli hostage: Today, her main message:

SIEGEL: This needs to stop immediately, and they need to come home immediately, because this cannot continue.

Later, a preview of a new music segment on the American songbook.

And WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the political doomsday that wasn’t.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, November 27th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel latest » A cease-fire officially took effect this morning between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, across Israel’s northern border.

The deal calls for at least a 60-day pause in the fighting. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says exactly how long the cease-fire lasts is up to Hezbollah.

NETANYAHU: A good deal is a deal, agreement, that one enforces, and we will enforce it.

He said if Hezbollah violates its terms, Israel won’t hesitate to strike.

But at least for now, Israeli troops are believed to be withdrawing from Lebanon, and Hezbollah has agreed to move its forces about 20 miles away from the Israeli border.

BLINKEN: This has been  an intensive diplomatic effort by the United States, partners like France, working with Israel, working with Lebanon over many months.

The United States brokered the agreement with the help of France and others.

The Iran-backed group has been firing rockets into Israel since the start of the war in Gaza last year. Israeli forces launched a ground invasion into Lebanon last month.

Possible effects on Gaza war » President Biden announced the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire from the White House on Tuesday. And he said the deal should send a message to another Iran-backed terror group in the region

BIDEN: Now Hamas has a choice to make. Their only way out is to release the hostages, including American citizens, which they hold, and in the process, bring an end to the fighting, which would make possible a surge of humanitarian relief.

Biden administration officials say Hamas was banking on Israel having to fight the war not only in Gaza, but on a second front in Lebanon, and that the ceasefire may put more pressure on Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.

But Republican Sen. Mike Rounds says whether that happens or not, Washington must stand united behind Israel.

ROUNDS: I know that President Biden wants to bring these folks home, but at some point, when you’re worried all the time about escalation, at some stage of the game, you have to stick with your allies, you have to show a strong front.

Rounds said he believes Donald’s Trump impending return to the White House turns up the pressure on Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Trump tariffs » And speaking of the president-elect,  Canada and Mexico have responded to his threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imports from those countries. Trump said he’d put those penalties in place until the neighboring countries get serious about halting the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs into the US.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he called Trump hours later.

TRUDEAU:  We obviously talked about, um, laying out the facts, talking about how, uh, how the intense and, uh, effective connections between our two countries, uh, flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together. Um, it was a good call.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum says she is sending Trump a letter but is threatening a tit for tat tariff war between the U S and Mexico. She said one tariff will come another and so on until we put our common businesses at risk.

Republican Congressman Byron Donalds says, ultimately, Mexico will have to fall in line.

DONALDS:  The Mexican government knows that Donald Trump's not playing around. He wants this border secured. He wants the drug cartels to stop this infestation of people going into the United States through our southern border.

Critics of Trump’s planned tariffs warn that the duties would fuel inflation … and that ultimately, Americans would pay for them in the form of higher prices.

Tom Homan border visit » The president-elect’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, traveled to the US southern border in Texas on Tuesday alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The governor said his state is already working with incoming federal officials to tackle the border crisis.

ABBOTT:  Everything that needs to be done is being done, uh, to make sure that there is no time gap whatsoever, that as soon as January the 20th occurs, uh, there is going to be a change in the way that the United States of America protects our border and protects the sovereignty of the United States of America.

The governor has been at odds with the Biden administration for years, locked in legal battles over border enforcement.

For his part, Tom Homan, echoed Abbott’s remarks, saying Americans will see a night and day difference on the southern border quickly.

HOMAN:  President Trump's going to come in January, like the governor says, we're not waiting to January. We're already talking. We're already planning. We're going to put, we're going to put a plan in place and secure this nation at the highest level it's ever seen.

Homan and Abbott served Thanksgiving meals to members of the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety who are supporting the Border Patrol in Texas.

Holiday travel » The Thanksgiving travel rush is expected to be bigger than ever this year. AAA predicts that nearly 80 million people in the U.S. will venture at least 50 miles from home through next Monday.

AAA spokeswoman Aixa Diaz says if you’re hitting the road today

DIAZ: You may encounter some of that rush hour traffic in the morning, but once you get past that window, you should be good mid morning as you're heading into noon. The problem is after afternoon, if schools are getting out, people are getting off work. Plus people are hitting the road. It becomes super congested.

She said it might be work considering getting up really early tomorrow morning and heading out on Thanksgiving when traffic tends to me much lighter.

Airports, though, will be pretty crowded into next week. The TSA expected 18 million travelers over the Thanksgiving travel period.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: congress reconvenes next week with competing priorities. Plus, the rest of our conversation with Israeli hostage Aviva Siegel.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 27th of November.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Congress has a few priorities left on its plate before heading home for Christmas.

Item number one: the government’s budget for 2025.

Some want that debated in 2025, others want it out of the way sooner so as to get to work quicker on President Trump’s other priorities.

Here’s WORLD Washington Bureau Reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRCIENO: For Republicans who have waited years to restore their governing mandate in Washington, January can't come soon enough.

Two priorities consistently land at the top of the list they want to do: government funding and Tax policy.

DUSTY JOHNSON: The Speaker has got confidence that we can process all that.

Dusty Johnson is South Dakota’s lone Congressman in the House of Representatives.

JOHNSON: In a perfect world, we would be able to focus on President Trump’s agenda on day one… But we don’t live in a perfect world. So, we just have to see what the art of the possible is.”

Since this summer, Congress has been working on the appropriations bills needed to fund the government and has already moved the deadline from September to December 20th. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he wants to extend the government’s current funding levels into March. That would allow Republicans to figure out government spending for 2025 once they have control of the White House and Congress.

It would also drag the issue into the middle of Trump’s first 100 days back in office, when Republicans also hope to work on renewing Trump’s signature 20-17 tax cuts that are set to expire.

Congressman Dusty Johnson, like many lawmakers WORLD spoke to, says he is waiting on some key information before supporting another short-term spending bill.

JOHNSON: Would sure be nice if we had a deal with the Senate on toplines…

Toplines are the numbers for spending levels.

JOHNSON: Would sure be nice if we knew if Chuck Schumer was interested in making a deal. Would sure be nice if we understood what kinds of poison pills they are interested in working into the legislation.

Poison pills are usually smaller pieces of legislation that lawmakers put into a bigger bill to advance unrelated or partisan priorities. Congressman Johnson is reserving his thoughts on whether he supports the spending plan until he knows what those look like.

So can Republicans manage both government funding and tax policy legislation early next year?

MURPHY: It’s a significant lift. It’s a huge lift.

That’s Congressman Greg Murphy of North Carolina. He sits on the House Ways and Means Committee—the body charged with crafting tax policy legislation. It’s this committee that spearheaded the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, also known as the TCJA. That was Trump’s signature bill that slashed taxes in almost every category.

MURPHY: I would like to think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. They are two critical issues that face the fiscal wellbeing of our country, so I think we have to get both of them done at the same time

He says the committee hasn’t really discussed whether they plan to reimplement the TCJA as is or make changes to it now.

Congressman Mike Kelley helped write the TCJA, and he is one of five Republicans who worked on it that are still on the Ways and Means Committee. I asked him if Republicans were on the same page about what would need to happen this time around.

KELLEY: I would hope so! We were pretty much all on board in 2017 when we did TCJA…Good policy, and now we have to look at what are the things we should have shored up a little more on that we could probably improve this time.

While there might be questions about what, exactly, ends up in that final product, a key difference between then and now is that they won’t be starting from zero. Yes, the current law is a springboard, but the committee has already been at work in the background. Here’s Oklahoma Congressman Kevin Hern. He’s a member of the Ways and Means Committee and the newly elected 2025 Republican Conference Policy Chair.

HERN: We’ve been working on reconciliation and the proverbial what-ifs for a few months now through the committee chairs. So, we’ve done a lot of work already.

Hern mentioned “Reconciliation.” That’s a special legislative process in Congress that allows certain budget-related laws to pass with a simple majority, bypassing the usual 60-vote threshold in the Senate. That means Republicans can pass their tax bill without Democratic votes—if Republicans can get on the same page. And Hern is hopeful that will be the case.

HERN: You contrast that when President Trump won the first time, nobody had anticipated him winning so there was not a lot of work done, so they spent the first three to four months doing the things we’ve already gotten done. There’s a lot of work that hasn’t been talked about.

I asked a few of the other Ways and Means members if they had started having conversations with their counterparts in the Senate. While the members haven’t, committee Chairman Jason Smith has been in touch.

Smith will play a central role in developing any pieces of legislation next year on tax…so I asked him about it.

BRICENO: Is work started on that yet, do you guys feel like you're on the same page?

SMITH: We’ve been working on it since April.

BRICENO: Ok, so yes, there are conversations ongoing with the Senate then?

SMITH: All the time.

BRICENO: Ok.

SMITH: And there has been since April.

With just over five weeks left in the 118th Congress, Republicans appear willing to kick a spending fight into the new year though they would need full cooperation in their ranks to pass a short-term bill. Democrats in the House would prefer to pass a 2025 spending bill that contains some of their priorities before they lose control of the White House and Senate. Here’s Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the number three Democrat in the House of Representatives.

AGUILAR: We’re not giving up hope on passing something more comprehensive than that but we will see what happens in the next couple weeks.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington, D.C.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: trapped in Gaza.

Yesterday, you met a former Hamas hostage Aviva Siegel. We told you about her and her husband, Keith. For almost 40 years the two lived on an Israeli kibbutz just four miles from the Gaza border.

Today we hear the rest of their story.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Again, a word of warning on subject matter that may be too distressing for younger listeners. You can scrub ahead about seven minutes and come back later and I certainly hope you will come back, because this is so crucial to understand the worst of Islamic terrorism.

EICHER: We ended yesterday with both Aviva and Keith trapped in Gaza, underground in dark, insufficiently ventilated tunnels. Here’s WORLD Reporter Travis Kircher with part two of this two-part story.

AVIVA SIEGEL: I was asking myself, What am I doing in Gaza with my pajamas? And what is Keith doing in his pajamas in Gaza?

TRAVIS KIRCHER: Keith and Aviva Seigel didn’t even have time to change clothes before Hamas terrorists dragged them across the border into Gaza amid cheers from Gaza residents. Hidden underground the hostages were forced to lie on filthy mattresses from around 5 in the evening to 9 in the morning. Forbidden to move.

SIEGEL: If I took my foot once out of the blanket because I was hot, I was threatened and nearly hit and beaten up into pieces just to do that. And that's the amount of control that they had on us...the only human right that I had as a as a human being in this world is how many times I blink and how many times I turn around while I'm lying.

And as the days wore on, Keith, Aviva and the other hostages watched their health deteriorate.

SIEGEL: So many times we were just starved and didn't got didn't get anything to eat while the terrorists just ate in front of us. They were chewing all the time. While we were starving.

As they got increasingly weak, Aviva says she was ready to give up.

SIEGEL: I was sure that I'm going to die, and I just prayed to God that I die first, because I did not want to see Keith dead. I saw him suffer so many times. I saw the terrorist take him into the shower and shave him looking like an Arab, and shave his body, because that's what they say that they do. And when he came out, they made a joke out of him and started laughing while he wanted to cry, and I wanted to cry.

Trapped in Gaza Aviva could see no end in sight. But although she didn’t know it yet, negotiators were working behind the scenes for her release. A temporary cease-fire had been mediated in exchange for 80 hostages. Late in November the terrorists pulled her aside and told her surprising news. She was going to be sent back to Israel. But not with Keith.

SIEGEL: I said that I'm not going anywhere without Keith. I'm going with Keith, or I'm staying with Keith. And I tried to argue with him, but it didn't help.

They assured her Keith would be released the next day. Aviva insisted on seeing him before she was taken away.

SIEGEL: I found Keith lying on a filthy, dirty mattress in the room next door, and I bent down to Keith, and I said to him, “You be strong for me, and I'll be strong for you.” And Keith didn't say a word. He was in shock. And that's how we separated.

That was the last time Aviva saw her husband.

The next day Hamas terrorists placed Aviva and several other hostages in a vehicle, including an elderly woman and two young sisters—and 8-year-old Ela Elyakim and 15-year-old Dafna Elyakim. They were going to be released.

SIEGEL: Dafna said to me that she'll never, ever forget her sister screaming when they connected her finger, because it was disconnected. They took her to a vet and didn't put any anesthetic on her finger, it was like her sister was just waiting to tell somebody that will feel for her of something that she went through in Gaza.

The 8-year-old showed Siegel her damaged finger and said it was better now. But the elderly woman was not so fortunate. Siegel says 84-year-old Elma Avraham was freezing cold to the touch.

SIEGEL: I asked them for a blanket, and I covered her, and I started massaging her whole body and shouting in her ears that she needs to keep alive. So the family is waiting for her, and her grandchildren are waiting for her.

Siegel kept Avraham warm for six hours while they waited to leave. Avraham would later credit Siegel for saving her life.

After she arrived in Israel, Siegel learned how badly her health deteriorated.

SIEGEL: I lost 10 kilos in 51 days.

That’s 22 pounds. And during that time, she didn’t have access to her usual medications. She says it took five months to stabilize her blood pressure after her release.

But she says right now she’s more worried about her husband Keith. Yesterday, November 26th, marked one year since Aviva’s release. She admits she doesn’t know if Keith is alive or dead. In April, Hamas released a video of Keith. Aviva says she couldn’t watch it, but she’s seen screenshots from it.

SIEGEL: Keith looks very thin. He looks very old, and he looks very, very sad, and it's just beyond for me to think that out of all the hostages, there's five hostages from kibbutz Kfar Aza. One of them is my husband.

She says she spoke in December with President Joe Biden about efforts to secure the release of her husband and the other hostages.

SIEGEL: I mostly felt Biden's heart. He was upset. He was sad. He was sad for me that Keith is still there, and I do know that he's trying to do everything he can to get all the hostages out.

And she says she hopes to speak with President-elect Donald Trump in the future.

SIEGEL: I'd love to meet Trump, because I want to tell him that we need his help. And I'm begging. I'm just gonna beg. I'm gonna beg and beg and beg until they bring Keith home.

But more than anything she says she wants to talk to her husband. What would she say to Keith if he were listening now?

SIEGEL: I would tell him that I'm doing everything I can and that his kids are just amazing, and his family is amazing. Everybody's doing what they can to bring him back. We are so worried about him, and we miss him, and we want him with us, and we just can't wait. Can't wait to give him a hug and to put him into a clean bed after a shower with a good meal, with a good cup of water, I can't wait. I'm telling you, I just can't wait. I can’t wait seeing his grandchildren run and jump on him.

And as the conflict in Gaza continues, Aviva says it's not just Israelis who are suffering. She says civilians in Gaza are also victims of the evil perpetrated by the terror group Hamas.

SIEGEL: Keith and I have always been peacemakers. We want good for the whole world. I want good for the good people in Gaza. I do not want to even think about mothers in Gaza having babies in tents, or older people living in tents for a year and two months. Somebody needs to scream for those people to go back to their houses too…So for me, it's heartbreaking, because I think that we've been born into this world for good things, not for bad things.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Travis Kircher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Next up, WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

SOUND: [PROTESTS]

ONIZE ODUAH: We start today in the southwestern African country of Angola, as thousands of opposition supporters march against the government.

President Joao Lourenco has ruled the country since 2017. Opposition members accuse him of authoritarianism.

The lead opposition party, which was once a former rebel group, organized the march.

Alvaro Chikwamanga is the party’s secretary general.

CHIKWAMANGA: [PORTUGUESE] Our presence here is to tell the Angolan people and the world that today, tomorrow and always, we will defend an Angola free from hunger, poverty and the systematic violation of the democratic state and the rule of law.

He says the party’s goal is to defend democracy and to protect Angola from hunger and poverty.

A record drought is affecting southern African countries including Angola.

Pinto Rafael Kangola is a 24-year-old who joined the protest.

KANGOLA: [PORTUGUESE] Even with the odd jobs I do, it doesn't solve anything, it's hard to buy for the children, I have children at school and nothing is solved, so we're here to march against hunger and poverty.

He says he struggles to meet the needs of his children.

Back in October, the country’s Catholic bishops urged the president in a statement to make hunger alleviation a national priority.

SOUND: [CHANTING]

From protests to a celebration on the streets of Uruguay where an opposition candidate defeated the ruling party’s candidate in a runoff vote.

The left-wing Yamandu Orsi won nearly 50 percent of the vote.

The ruling party’s candidate Alvaro Delgado conceded defeat ahead of the final results. Orsi is a former history teacher who had also served as mayor of Canelones.

In his victory speech, Orsi pledged to call for national dialogue.

ORSI: [SPANISH] I will be the president who calls again and again for national dialogue to find the best solutions, of course based on our proposal, but also by listening carefully to what others are telling us. I will be the president who builds a more united society, a more united country.

Next we head to the Asian country of Laos—sandwiched between Vietnam and Thailand. Authorities there are still investigating after at least six tourists died from consuming tainted alcohol.

Officials report the two Australian teenagers, a British woman, two Danish women, and an American man all drank alcohol laced with methanol in the town of Vang Vieng.

Bars often mix methanol as a cheaper alternative to ethanol.

Laotian authorities detained the manager and owner of a hotel where the Australian tourists stayed.

Neil Farmiloe is a restaurant owner in Vang Vieng. He says he expects the cases will affect tourism.

FARMILOE: There have been quite a few cancellations. It’s obviously a really bad situation. Hopefully it’s just a one off and hopefully it will get back to normal.

The United States and Canada have both issued travel advisories for Laos after the deaths.

SOUND: [COUNTDOWN IN FRENCH]

That’s the countdown to the start of the holiday season in France, where we wrap up today.

Spectators gathered to witness the annual lighting on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Colorful lights cover the trees along the so-called “world’s most famous avenue.”

Mariana Glotova attended the event.

GLOTOVA: I was very much impressed because we waited maybe for half an hour and we were ready for these lights because we saw these lights several years [ago], but in any case it was an unexpected show, we were very pleased.

The holiday light display shines from 5 pm until midnight every day until early January.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Let's talk turkey. President Biden at the White House Monday considered the appeals of two plump Minnesota birds with a taste for tater tots and Bon Jovi rock anthems.

AUDIO: Based on your temperament and commitment to being productive members of society, I hereby pardon Peach and Blossom.

But if there’s one rule in show business (and its Washington subsidiary, politics) it’s “never work with children or animals”—and Peach the turkey proved the rule:

AUDIO: (Gobble) “Yeah, I hear you.” (Laughter)

The birds gobbled on and on during the tongue-in-cheek remarks, as though they were heckling the president as he described their journey from the farm to the White House.

AUDIO: They were s- -- (a turkey gobbles) -- they -- (laughter) -- they were -- stayed nice, listening to their favorite music, which apparently includes the song ‘Living on a Prayer.’”

Prayers answered, Peach and Blossom leave the White House with a pardon and not a care in the world as they return to Minnesota free as a bird, and with apologies to Lynyrd Skynyrd, maybe gobbling out a different rock anthem.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 27th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a blast from the past.

Tomorrow WORLD Radio is launching—or I should say relaunching —an occasional series featuring the music of “The Great American Songbook.” Some listeners who have been with us since the beginning of this program may remember long time friend and contributor Bob Case.

MAST: Bob was our founding director of the WORLD Journalism Institute. Not only that, but for more than a year starting in 2013 Bob was a regular here with a feature we called: “Singing in the Shower.” Audio here from August 30th, 2013:

JOSEPH SLIFE: In this first installment, Bob acquaints us with “Tin Pan Alley.”

BOB CASE: “Tin Pan Alley” – Ah, the name has a ring and a magic to me that moves my feet to tapping and my tongue to singing.

EICHER: Well, a while ago Bob offered to pick up where he left off a decade ago, and so starting tomorrow Bob Case will be back on occasion with dozens of new selections from the Great American Songbook.

MAST: But since we’ve had so many new listeners join the program in the decade since Bob was last with us, we thought you might appreciate a more official introduction.

Here’s WORLD Radio executive producer Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: A couple months ago I flew out to Seattle, Washington, to deliver some equipment and record the first half dozen scripts with Bob Case in person.

PAUL BUTLER: [OFF MIC] Is this okay if I'm wearing my headphones? Do you feel like it gets in the way?

CASE: No, no. Are we ready to go?

PAUL BUTLER: We are ready to go…

The first thing you notice in Bob’s studio/office are the bookcases, lots of them. Some are filled with biographies of musical greats like Bing Crosby, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. But that’s only part of his library. He also has hundreds of theology books, Bibles, and commentaries. It’s an apt picture of his two loves: Christ and The Great American Songbook.

CASE: If you want to know and have a knowledge of America in the 20th century, you must know something about the most important cultural artifact in America, and that is the Great American Songbook.

As you’ll hear tomorrow, the Great American Songbook isn’t actually a book, it’s how musicologists describe the golden age of American popular music from the first 60 years of the 20th century. It’s not exactly the music Bob Case grew up listening to.

CASE: The music that I love is my parent’s music. And the music that my 16-year-old granddaughter loves is her great grandparents Music. Why is that music gonna last? Why does George Gershwin's music of the late 1920s or Cole Porter's or Irving Berlin's 1911, 1912 music still being sung, still being performed. Alright, why?

That’s one of the questions we’re going to answer in this series.

Another is: Why appreciate this popular music?

CASE: Almost every American Songbook song has the has in its lyrics, creation, fall, redemption and consummation. It was totally different because it was written in an age of the church, and as the church began to fall away from its interaction in American society, in rushed rock and roll.

And Case says as rock and roll came in, chaste love songs between a man and woman who wanted to get married, have children, and raise a family went out.

CASE: And if I'm an old fuddy duddy, that's because I like that traditional morality and ethic that goes along with the music of the 30s and the 40s and the 50s.

Believe me, Bob is no fuddy duddy, but at 81 years old he’s definitely motivated to share his love of this music with the next generation because much of today’s music industry has lost its way. Case believes an appreciation of the Great American Songbook can help with what he calls “cultural apologetics” as so much of the music is surprisingly theological…

CASE: We need to support the American Songbook, because the American Songbook supports us. It supports our view of marriage. It supports our view of Christian anthropology. A man is a man, and women are glad of it…We have a stake in preserving the music by Cole Porter and Irving Berlin…because nothing else is being preserved for us in our culture. But this music is worth preserving.

Bob Case’s knowledge of this music doesn’t just come from books and recordings…

SOUND: [BOB PLAYING MUSIC]

…a baby grand piano fills his modest music room. Sheet music is piled on the edge of the piano and spills onto the floor. Photographs of musical groups he’s led over the years line the walls. He doesn’t perform much any more, but many days, if you drop by his home, you’ll find him sitting at the piano…

SOUND: [BOB PLAYING MUSIC]

CASE: They were very good composers…that's why their music has lasted into 2024. And…it was popular music made to be thrown away, but we didn't want to throw it away because it was so good.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Earlier this month, WORLD commentator Janie B Cheaney was holding her breath, waiting to see what would happen after the election. Here’s her take as she and the country exhale a bit.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: I wasn’t worried. It’s a sin to worry. And besides you don’t get to be my age without some degree of sangfroid about election results. Twenty years and five of “the most consequential elections of our time” have numbed this jaded old soul.

But I was concerned. The hysterical rhetoric had ramped up especially hard during the last three cycles involving a certain bull who decided to go china-shopping. No matter who won, Trump or Harris, chaos in the streets seemed a not-inconceivable outcome.

But maybe the general public is as rhetoric-weary as me. I’ve seen the usual celebrities promising to wash their hands of the USA, and a few have actually followed through, but most journalists and politicos have seen the light of inevitability and are regrouping around it. At least that seems to be the general tone of the left-wing publications I surveyed last week. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

The Nation lead article, dated November 21st: “Bury the #Resistance Once and for All.”  Well said.

From The Atlantic, a piece titled “Washington Is Shocked” takes politicians to task for being surprised at what it calls Trump’s destructive ways, but advises them to dig in and do some old fashioned politicking. Then Atlantic goes back to eclectic topics like “A Ridiculous, Perfect Way to Make Friends” and “Your Armpits Are Trying to Tell You Something.”

Over at New Republic, we get the king of grimace-and-bear-it advice in this headline: “The Case for Ignoring Trump’s Daily Rage-Bait” More sober is “Trump’s Election is a Disaster for the Climate—and an Opportunity,” which raises alarm but offers hope for saviors of the planet. Also, “Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Reveal Secret Weapon to Wreck Government,” but forewarned is forearmed, right?

Author David Corn at Mother Jones’s strikes a balance with: “The Media and Trump: Not Resistance, but not Acceptance.” Sounds reasonable to me.

American Prospect asks, “What Now? Examining the Way Forward after 2024.”

In other words, politics as usual. There’s kvetching about cabinet picks and policies, but that’s democracy for you. Democracy has risen from its doomsday deathbed, pulled up its socks, stretched its tendons, and headed for the gym. It’s gearing up for another round of knock-down drag-out politics, and that’s as it should be.

Even my progressive Facebook friends are getting on with their lives. After Trump’s first election in 2016 they were wringing their hands, professing shock about their racist, sexist neighbors, and posting resistance memes. Now, rather than “We Resist” it’s “We’re Resigned.” One friend posted a picture of a church marquee reading, “This too shall pass. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.” Another found comfort in quoting Sam Gamgee from Lord of the Rings: “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

Bless your hearts, my fellow Americans, on both sides. It looks like we still have a country and a peaceful transition of power, thank the Lord. It may not be morning in America, but it’s not midnight either.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Tips for good Thanksgiving table talk. That can be difficult or awkward sometimes, so we’ll share some ideas for making those conversations meaningful. And, the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, we’ll have a report. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” —Philippians 4:8

Go now in grace and peace.

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