Politics, Pop Culture

A better nation will need a better media

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It was a publicity stunt.

Michael Cohen has many observations through his tell-all: Trump and his team expected he would lose in 2016. Trump welches on everyone and is bad at deals. Trump has no friends. Trump is a racist whose hatred (envy?) of Obama sent his rage to the stratosphere.

A contrite Michael Cohen, serving time for a crime that Trump directed, wants us to know most especially that Trump will not leave office unless forced. Trump is too much of a child, and does not want to face consequences.

I enjoy unreliable narrators. The past couple of years I have tended to a little Nabokov, books about Nabokov, books about other books about Nabokov, 1990s books from the big Critical Theory backlash on sex & culture, and pulpy political memoirs/exposés.

Disloyal by Michael Cohen combines an unreliable narrator with a pulpy memoir. It’s chewy stuff. He has good analysis of how the Trump orbit makes people into the worse version of themselves. The lure of power, no matter how tacky and cruel and dumb, becomes intoxicating and a person just wants more, more, more.

“That is what it feels like to lose control of your mind — you actually give up your common sense, sense of decency, sensitivity, even your grip on reality. […] I was in a cult of personality. And I loved it.”

Cohen’s spouse, and eventually his two children, know that Trump is corrosive from the start. And the contrast of Cohen’s sensible family at home, compared to the delusions in the Trump club, runs throughout the book. A few quick chewy bits, then I want to get to the real point:

Cohen downplays the connections to Russia (which I think are lower than reported, but not as low as Cohen conveys), but the financial reliance of Trump on Russia and Putin remain strong. Trump has a crush on Putin and sees a daddy figure to earn approval from.

Putin hates Hillary Clinton, and Trump saw a campaign as an opportunity to attack Clinton and thus curry Putin’s favor. He perceived Putin as the richest man in the world, and if Trump noticeably antagonized Clinton maybe Putin would be more inclined to funnel him money.

After a 2014 meeting that Trump had with evangelicals (often amoral grifters themselves) in Trump Tower where they laid hands on him and prayed (mirrored later on in a post-election Oval Office photo-op), Cohen reports Trump saying:

“Can you believe that bullshit? Can you believe people believe that bullshit?”

Cohen makes a compelling case that Trump is a snob and holds great contempt for the people who form his base. But since they’re the only ones who show up, he’s compelled to play to them, and often derides them post-rally. Cohen writes:

“The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swathe of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being, […] The truth was that he couldn’t care less.”

But the most compelling part – the molasses nightmare part – is to view through Cohen’s eyes the Trump Presidential campaign. Its launch as a sloppy, hammy, gaudy publicity stunt for his brand and The Apprentice game show with no plan to win the election. Yet the media gave Trump free airtime. Airtime worth, conservatively, billions of dollars.

Even on Election Night 2016, the Trump family and campaign staff did not think he would win. Many did not want to win, including Trump. Being President represented a big hassle. Yet, there he was. Winner of the Electoral College, having spent little money and few staff on his campaign team.

24-hour news networks (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.) have too much airtime to fill with too little news, and too few reporters. So they are in the habit of 2-3 minutes of genuine information followed by 10-12 minutes of redundant commentary from people who usually affirm the points already made in the 2-3 minute reportage.

Spending hours and months and years airing Trump rallies with their fawning crowds and loathsome, galling moments was easy for networks to do. It made Trump supporters happy. It made others angry. Adrenaline and emotional engagement up, viewers locked in. Ratings rose and held steady so long as the story was Trump. Cheap content and a great revenue source.

With his rallies and his Twitter tantrums, Trump became the lazy mainstream media’s National Assignment Editor. It was such a flood of coverage that Trump, with the help of weird lucky bounces in the Electoral College, became President even though he didn’t want to.

Mainstream media simplifies issues to: our side and the other side. Establishment Republicans versus Establishment Democrats. Rather than present a reasonable middle, or simply report facts, they narrow their focus to marketing to one of these two groups and entice them to stay for more confirmation of their viewer’s feelings. Matt Taibbi’s book Hate, Inc. is essential context for how things ended up this way.

Everyone is cynical about the media. We sense that a big part of it is junk. Yet, we watch.

Third or alternate or fuller narratives rarely intrude. Neither party truly makes changes for people who aren’t wealthy. Both pander to Wall Street more than people. Trump claimed to want to drain the swamp, but filled his high-turnover administration with so many crooks and D-list figures he pumped the swamp full of sewage.

I voted for Biden because he’s not cruel. I don’t expect greatness from him, but I expect him to at least slow our tumbling toward ruin, maybe even make things better here and there although our people sorely need more.

BUT BACK TO COHEN’S BOOK, here’s a money quote:

“Trump saw politics as an opportunity to make money”

So does the media looking at Trump.

Aaron Sorkin’s series The Newsroom was largely mediocre, often groan-inducing, sometimes on the nose. It’s important to know that it aired before the Trump Administration, so its cynicism about lazy news networks comes across as a rosy depiction of a time before a big whiny baby’s Twitter rant led to 30 minutes of airtime coverage.

One scene from The Newsroom that sticks in my mind. No, not from the premiere where a middle-aged guy growls a condescending rant to a young female college student (oh, Sorkin…). But a scene when there’s a scandal at the centrist cable network. A reporter is fired for distorting an important interview, more heads need to roll. The boss of the network, the lead anchor, and the anchor’s producer are deflated and resigned to resigning.

Jane Fonda plays the owner of the network (after marriage to CNN owner Ted Turner, fun!) and breezes in after a society function. She plays this scene marvelously. Masterfully. The network head laments: “We don’t have the trust of the public anymore!”

Fonda’s character commands: “Get it back!” Cut to black. End of episode.

We should insist that mainstream media stop pandering to our emotions and earn our trust back.

Politics, Uncategorized

When you have the power, but shrinking, you freak out

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I got a gem of a fundraising letter from Nikki Haley wringing its hands over leftist “bullies” (9 times) and anti-freedom leftist “mobs” (32 times). So, if I love my country, I should donate to its right-wing summer camp-thing for college students.

Too many howlers to list, and its plumply redundant 8 pages could be cut to a page and a half and lose nothing but its rubber mallet repetition. The best phrase:

“And you and I must stand up to all who bully and oppress.”

Ah, yes. The Republican party, its numbers shrinking, lost the popular vote for President 6 of the last 7 elections, openly reliant on gerrymandering and voter suppression and the undemocratic Electoral College to hold to power. Yet it holds the White House, Senate, and Supreme Court. Always put-upon, always whining it’s oppressed. And Trump, who bullies and bitches and preaches for uprisings against political rivals every day.

I’m not a fan of the Democratic party establishment. Its leadership is also too concerned with holding institutional power and refuses to make changes, that most citizens support, that help regular people because those changes would irk corporate donors. They love the professional class and also make kissy faces to Wall Street at our expense.

But, really, with Trump and the Republicans controlling three of four centers of Federal power (used to be all four), jailing peaceful protestors, giving detained asylum seekers and immigrants involuntary hysterectomies, shooting at the media and moms, proudly spreading virus — who’s being the bully and oppressor?

Wasn’t Melania going to rid us all of bullying? She done with that yet?

Highlight/lowlight mine

Politics, Pop Culture, Reading

Mary Trump’s immersive family diagnosis

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He’s been hollow within for decades, arguably since age 7. He’s profoundly insecure and not good at stuff. Not in a small way, in a chronic way. He doesn’t have the confidence to admit failing and instead lies and blames other people. These traits render him incapable of solving problems.

Looks like a nice, principled guy, right?

Mary Trump, niece to Donald Trump with a PhD. in psychology, has written a deep analysis of her family. The throughline is how Donald and his siblings grew up with odd and undemonstrative parents. How the siblings branched out from the same weird trunk provides interesting contrasts to one another. Donald, full of bluster and ambition and blundering, easily surpassed his siblings at the top of his father’s affections because his father, Fred Trump, was awkward in public and liked having a charismatic son as a front for the family business. Fred Trump did not view his son as competent, just a front, and Fred continued to run things and rescue his son from failures over and over.

Once Fred died, the bankruptcies accelerated. The tacky branding of Trump steaks or the Trump airline or the demonstrable fraud of Trump University merely starts a long list of fiascos and evidence of Donald’s horrible inability to make deals or even know what’s in the books with his name on them. He ruins his projects and robs his business partners and contractors. He was a financial wreck when he got a t.v. show that pretended he was a financial success and much of the public thought, well, if they saw him on t.v. getting into a helicopter on a skyscraper helipad, he must be a rich guy.

I listened to the audiobook, which Mary Trump capably narrates. Her tone is measured and calm throughout. She has decades of research and pinpoints the factors at play far better than pundits who pad their analyses with armchair psychology.

The pathologies she describes are not surprises. But she capably makes the case that at this point her uncle Donald’s behavior cannot change and will not change. It is foolish to wait for any reflection by him. He has no multi-layered strategy. He is a creature of appetite and impulse.

She diagnoses uncle Donald as incapable of ever being happy. The main things that give him pleasure are bullying others and getting away with things. He boasts and preens to win the approval of his father, who is dead and can never give him the praise he so desperately needs. Donald desperately clamors for attention and approval from a phantom. He is a failure who claims to be self-made but has gone bankrupt five times and been bailed out by his father with a total of $413 million (she is the primary source of Trump family financial records in the New York Times’ epic “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches Off His Father” in October 2018). He is a tax cheat, cruel, indifferent to family and has contempt for the people who voted for him, but they’re the only ones who give him praise so he taps them over and over to fill the void within.

He is dumb about history and does not understand government. He wants to be perceived as a success, no matter the cost or the lies, and the rest of us are disposable.

There is no person to recover at this point. There is only whether to allow him and his enablers to further ruin and rob us.

Politics

Portland doesn’t need or want these Federal goons

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Get these goons out of our city. Trump’s failures have led to more than 137,000 deaths, a massive recession, and rampant unemployment. He has chosen to send unmarked Federal agents to my city, Portland Oregon, to attack peaceful protestors, almost killing one from across the street this week (still recuperating from his head injury). About graffiti. They’ve escalated to abducting peaceful citizens off the street using unmarked vehicles. Trump is a whiny little bitch, a coward, and fraud and wants to fan the flames of hatred to his base on his media outlets rather than save lives by doing his fucking job competently.

Oregon and Portland did not ask for this. This ongoing stunt circumvents city police, county sheriffs, and state police. They want these goons gone. The Governor and Mayor and our Congressional delegation have demanded that these goons be removed. Peaceful protests against police violence should not be met by amplifying police violence.

Photo by Alex Wittwer, Willamette Week (click photo for story)

I called the White House, but its phone line for comments has been shut down. Weak-ass. The option was to send an email instead, which I did.

Trump has gone bankrupt five times. He is not a self-made man. His dad lent him $400m to bail him out over and over. He’s tied in with the mob. He was bankrupt when he became a game show host pretending he was wealthy. He pardons and commutes sentences of his political hit lackeys, while his personal attorney sits in jail for doing an act that Trump himself directed but cannot be prosecuted for (yet). He is a hollow person who will never be content and whose main delights are getting away with bullying and crime. The only person on Earth worse than Trump in costing lives is Brazilian President Bolsonaro, who also summons his fans to mass events that fill his ego at the cost of increasing pandemic spread and illness and death. Look at Tulsa and Oklahoma now.

Trump has made our nation a laughingstock as our people in massive numbers get sick and die, especially now in states that voted for him. And he also wants to take away the healthcare of millions, and has no problem with sending students and educators into school to get sick and die so he can pretend things are normal and not a disaster due to his ongoing epic fuck-ups. His entire history is full of fuck-ups and fraud.

If you don’t live in Oregon, ensure your state has vote by mail. It’s easy and secure, but requires good planning.

Work to make your friends vote. Consider donating to campaigns in other states if your state is secure. Vote Save America is a good place to lend a hand: https://votesaveamerica.com/save-america/

Photo by Dave Killen, The Oregonian (click photo for gallery)

History, Politics

Kansas City Kansas Missouri City

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Downtown Kansas City, Kansas = one hour walk from downtown Kansas City, Missouri

The shenanigans started early. Kansas City, Missouri (1853) precedes the state of Kansas (1861) by eight years. In 1872 a collection of Kansas towns on the border merged and named themselves Kansas City to take advantage of the popular original city just, like, right over there in Missouri.

Both sides of my family come from the NE corner of Kansas, and it’s no surprise to people who know me that I’m descended from sneaks. It’s a local legend that Kansas City (Kansas) intended to trick bankers into lending the newer city money thinking they were lending to the larger and more prosperous city.

Showing even more “sand” or “balls” or “ovaries” or “gumption”, Kansas politicians made a grab to annex the large Missouri city into Kansas the state. The Kansas City Times editorial board in 1878 wrote: “Kansas City, Mo., is the legitimate outgrowth of the state of Kansas. In everything but a line on the map she is essentially a city of Kansas.” Annexation didn’t happen.

“Kansas” as a place name started with the Kansas River, itself named after the Kanza People of the Kaw Nation.

This video lays out even more amusing details:

Also check out the Kansas City Star on the history & confusion about KCK and KCMO that Trump has brought to the fore.

Politics

What Trump Promised Inauguration Day

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Trump claiming to write his Inauguration Day speech at his Mar-a-Lago (“the Winter White House”) resort. This desk is in a hallway near a reception area.

On January 20, 2017 Donald Trump inherited the strongest economy in 20 years, zero net immigration, and promised on Inauguration Day that he will fight for you with every breath in his body and never, ever let you down. How’s he doing with his other inaugural promises & observations?

1.) We are in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all our people.
2.) We will determine the course of America.
3.) We will get the job done.
4.) We are transferring power from Washington D.C. to the people.
5.) A small group in the Capitol have reaped the rewards of government as the people bear the costs.
6.) Politicians prospered, the jobs left, and the factories closed.
7.) Establishment protected itself but not citizens.
8.) Victories have not been people’s victories.
9.) Triumphs have not been people’s triumphs.
10.) Little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
11.) All that changes right here, right now.
12.) The U.S.A. is your country.
13.) Government controlled by the people is what matters.
14.) January 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people ruled the U.S. again.
15.) Forgotten men and women of our country will no longer be forgotten.
16.) Everyone is listening to you now.
17.) The world has never seen a historic movement like this before.
18.) The movement’s crucial conviction is that a nation exists to serve its citizens.
19.) Americans want great schools, safe neighborhoods, and good jobs for themselves.
20.) These demands are just and reasonable from our righteous public.
21.) Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities.
22.) Rusted-out factories are scattered like tombstones across our nation.
23.) A well-funded education system, flush with cash, leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.
24.) Crime and gangs and drugs have stolen too many lives and robbed our country.
25.) This American carnage stops immediately.
26.) We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.
27.) We subsidize other armies, allowing to the sad depletion of our own.
28.) We defend other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own.
29.) We spend trillions overseas while our infrastructure has decayed.
30.) We make other countries rich as our wealth, strength, and confidence has dissipated.
31.) The factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions of American workers left behind.
32.) Middle class wealth ripped from homes and redistributed across the world.
33.) That is past and we look only to the future. Now it’s going to be only America First.
34.) All trade, taxes, immigration, and foreign affairs decisions will be made to benefit our workers and families.
35.) Protecting our borders leads to great prosperity and strength.
36.) Trump will fight for you with every breath in his body.
37.) Trump will never, ever let you down.
38.) America will start winning again and like never before.
39.) We will bring back our jobs and our borders.
40.) We will bring back our wealth.
41.) We will bring back our dreams.
42.) We will build new roads, highways, bridges, airports, tunnels, and railways across the nation.
43.) We will get our people off of welfare and back to work.
44.) We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.
45.) We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world.
46.) It is the right of all nations to seek their interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone.
47.) We will unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism and eradicate it completely.
48.) Through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
49.) When your heart opens to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.
50.) We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.
51.) When united, the U.S. is totally unstoppable.
52.) We will always be protected.
53.) We will be protected by the military and most importantly God.
54.) We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action.
55.) The time for empty talk is over, the hour of action has arrived.
56.) We will not fail and will thrive and prosper.
57.) New national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.
58.) Regardless of skin color, we all bleed the red blood of patriots.
59.) You will never be ignored again.
60.) Your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.
61.) We will make America strong again.
62.) We will make America wealthy again.
63.) We will make America proud again.
64.) We will make America safe again.
65.) We will make America great again.
66.) Trump will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States.
67.) Trump, to the best of his ability, will preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution.

George W. Bush after Trump’s Inaugural Address: “Well, that was some weird shit.”

Art, Music, Politics

Elvis’ “Comeback” at Age 33

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Elvis Hootenanny!
Elvis Hootenanny!

Today is Elvis Presley’s birthday and by 1968, at an ancient 33 years old, he needed a comeback. He was 27 or 28 films into a junky Hollywood career (although Jailhouse Rock is amusing, and King Creole is genuinely good. No, I’m not kidding.). A comeback special got scheduled, Elvis slimmed down (due to good choices and also, well, pills) and showed regained vitality throughout the broadcast. In the acoustic segments in particular he recovered his guileless strangeness that made his 50s recordings so essential.

For my favorite parts, the acoustic sessions, he reunited with his original lead guitarist, Scotty Moore. Bill Black, the bassist in the original trio (Elvis on rhythm guitar) had already died. D.J. Fontana, the first drummer to back Elvis, also plays in these segments.

I recommend you do a search for the entire Elvis Presley 1968 Comeback Special. The entire program(me) is a delight of fluctuating rawness and cornball showmanship.

In 1977, at age 42, he’d be bloated again, frustrated by his bloat but still striving to entertain, and by August he’d be dead. There’s a lot to mock but a lot to mourn in his life. Below is the finale of the program. He wanted to sing about unity given the special followed the April 1968 murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and June 1968 murder of Robert Kennedy. Even in a white suit, he channels something essential here.

And, honestly, between us, is this song any goofier than John Lennon’s “Imagine”.

Activity, Art, Parenting, Politics, Pop Culture

Canada is cool. Like Fonzie.

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You know what the funniest thing about Canada is? It’s the little differences. Wonderful place it is, the message could not be clearer: if you want unsweetened ice tea at any store or restaurant, fast food or fancy, you can drink lemonade-sweetened Nestea or fuck right off you wimp.

Given that it’s a British Commonwealth, or something, I’d thought Canada would have more sensitivity to the variations of tea people like to drink.

Breezed through with only part of a day in Toronto and two days in Montréal. In French-speaking Québec I fought the instinct to gush out my halting high school French freshman year skills. Kept the clumsily composed phrases to myself, sometimes whispering them when the moment passed. Did break out a few “Merci” without shame. Increased resolve to some day get to France and of course apologize to all around for George W. Bush-era and now Trump-era buffoonery done by Republicans des états-unis.

Basilique Notre-Dame De Montréal on Canada Day en route to the fireworks show at Old Port.

I unknowingly scheduled us to arrive in Montréal on Canada Day (July 1). I got to the Old Port where a 10 p.m. fireworks display was the crescendo to a day-long event. The city was active, weather great, and a lot of human activity.

I missed the first minute of fireworks as I was still walking down a street to get within sight. The music was not the national anthem of “Oh, Canada”. It was the main music theme to the “Lord of the Rings”. Then after about 10-12 minutes of medium trajectory fireworks, the show was over. Disney-trained me expected spectacle, grandeur, patriotism, boasting, expense! Fireworks in shapes! Hearts! Mickey Mouse heads! Fireworks bursting inside other fireworks then becoming another kind of fireworks!

Instead it was a modest “Here are your fireworks. Got ‘em? Good. Now let’s all go home. The police are working late and most of you probably have got work tomorrow. It’s Monday night.”

Others leisurely and pleasantly walking back didn’t seem to be as bewildered and underwhelmed as I was. Then I started laughing and I’m still chuckling on & off about it now.

“Autoportrait” (2016) by Yannick Pouliot. A two-way mirror.
[Left] Your narrator. My daughter and I marveled at this exchanging places.
[Right] Daughter sits to rest as I stand on the other side.

Within the first few minutes of watching Canada television, my daughter remarked during a commercial break for a local show & tell programm(e) that most every element seemed to not yell or want to rattle the t.v. in the way that we were used to. Typically that’s attributed to a Canadian trait/stereotype of modesty (“Sorry”). But Canada has national healthcare. The U.S. does not. Canada seems better in attending to general well-being. Increasingly I don’t think the tone is attributed to modesty so much as we in the U.S. are accustomed to feeling so on edge, working to exhaustion, aware that a major health event could bankrupt us and put us on the street, that we need to get screamed at to get our attention. Stress and worry has made us collectively dumber and more selfish and unable to identify our true sources of stress. Our media often whips us up then directs us to the wrong causes for why life/society isn’t working for us like it could. In the wealthiest nation in human history.

As we wrapped up watching the “Good Omens” series finale (fun – ups & downs – but fun!), Room Service (ehm, I mean “Service Aux Chambre”) knocked on our door tonight and accidentally gave us extra sheets and blankets. So our teens made a pillow & blanket shelter.

Le Forte du Portland Famillie en Montréal, Québec.

Yes, we had poutine in Montréal. Two different kinds. La Banquise seves 30 different kinds and is open 24 hours a day. Charming place, tasty. Back to the States tomorrow!

Poetry, Politics

“Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead” by Wanda Coleman

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[Orig. posted 2015] Anyone who clings to the tow rope of self as we climb – while circumstances and others flit and swirl around to make you change or stay the same, which of course is everyone – can relate to “Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead”.

This poem is already great: patters, vernacular, evocative of a variety of voices. With race riots in the news, again, with rage and hope fueling masses of people with demands for long overdue justice – many lines resonated with me. This poem is much grander than race, but “wanda what is it like being black” brought to the fore a dynamic that has jabbed many times.

Oregon is not a diverse state, and has a deeply racist past toward blacks in particular. And when talk of race arises, if there is anyone present at all who is non-white, that person is not only “other” in a room of whites, but often feels obliged to speak not on her/his behalf, but on behalf of the experiences of millions of people that run a range of experiences and a spectrum of barely-related shades spread across continents (but of course are people born and raised for generations in the U.S. like most everyone else in the room). And these obligations to speak on behalf of entire races/skin tones often leaves hanging in the air: “But what does she/he think as an individual?”

But that is only a part of Wanda Coleman’s poem which wittily comments on womanhood and the human condition and the way we try to control one another, and how we have to resist being defined by others.

The photo montage in the video below, with many photos of Wanda Coleman in various stages of her life as Coleman recites her poem, is a brief & worthwhile. Coleman died in 2013. Her biography at Poetry Foundation.

Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead
By Wanda Coleman

wanda when are you gonna wear your hair down
wanda. that’s a whore’s name
wanda why ain’t you rich
wanda you know no man in his right mind want a
          ready-made family
why don’t you lose weight
wanda why are you so angry
how come your feet are so goddamn big
can’t you afford to move out of this hell hole
if i were you were you were you
wanda what is it like being black
i hear you don’t like black men
tell me you’re ac/dc. tell me you’re a nympho. tell me you’re
          into chains
wanda i don’t think you really mean that
you’re joking. girl, you crazy
wanda what makes you so angry
wanda i think you need this
wanda you have no humor in you you too serious
wanda i didn’t know i was hurting you
that was an accident
wanda i know what you’re thinking
wanda i don’t think they’ll take that off of you

wanda why are you so angry

i’m sorry i didn’t remember that that that
that that that was so important to you

wanda you’re ALWAYS on the attack

wanda wanda wanda i wonder

why ain’t you dead

History, Politics

Feelings and Fury, not Facts: Trump’s Election

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Three layers to Trump’s winning Electoral College (not popular vote) campaign:

  1. Racism
  2. Sexism
  3. “Flip the table”/”Change for change’s sake”

None of these layers are exclusive. The people who were motivated by #3 either do not hear, or say they do not care, about factors #1 and #2.

1.) Racism

Trump’s campaign began on racism, and was sustained by it throughout. Trump decided to dip his toe into using politics to sell the Trump brand by pandering to racists by claiming Obama needed to show him, personally, papers to prove Obama was born in the United States. This had never been such a concern for the previous 43 white Presidents but hitching himself to the birther movement meant an easy way to get attention at a high level.

That was before Trump declared his candidacy. The candidacy that began with accusing Mexicans of being murderers and rapists and the absurd boast he would build a wall along the Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it. We have had little to no net migration from Mexico for years, and have had years when more U.S. citizens left to live in Mexico.

The few times Trump was near people of color was for a photo op, not to relate to them. Spending time in a black church that specifically told him to not talk about politics, and had to shush him when he did. Standing next to the President of Mexico and utterly wimping out on bringing up his core campaign issue, building a wall along Mexico, while in Mexico and speaking to its President.

Such moments weren’t about not being a racist, but providing visual assurance that it would not be racist to vote for Trump because he had some people of color around him that one time. Trump is a racist in both word and deed, dating back to the 1970s, and his campaign was saturated and dripping with thick venomous hatred. Dog whistle phrases like repeating use of Nixon’s “law and order”, promising to investigate Black Lives Matter as a criminal enterprise, black people live in an inescapable “hell”, millions of Mexicans would be deported within a week no matter that their family members and our economy needed them. On and on. Unmistakable hatred hissed at several races and groups. But his supporters say they are not racist despite the thousands gurgling and howling their approval at each morsel of race baiting thrown out to them. Despite Trump’s courting (or coyly not not shunning) the KKK endorsement.

These Trump supporters, brandishing the Confederate battle flag which was created to signify the fight to keep black people as slaves, are not racist at all.
These Trump supporters, brandishing the Confederate battle flag which was created to signify the fight to keep black people as slaves, are not racist at all.

Now we have Latinos rightly terrified the new President will send them away, tearing them from their families for no good reason. Muslims rightly terrified they will be banned from the country, as Trump has promised. But Trump supporters say he is not racist or bigoted.

2.) Sexism

Trump treats women as objects, not people. Trump/Pence think women should not have control over their own bodies. When he had a competent woman, Hillary Clinton, pressing him on any issue he could not keep his shit together for more than a few minutes. The series of women accusing him of sexual assault is long. From Sam Harris:

We have now witnessed Donald Trump bragging about his sexual predations in terms that not even Satan himself could spin to his advantage. He has admitted to repeatedly groping women, kissing them on the mouth without their consent, and invading the dressing rooms of teenage pageant contestants to see them naked. Every day, more women come forward confirming the truth of these confessions. Trump has even said that he would have sex with his own daughter, were she the offspring of another man. He talks about his libido as only a malignant narcissist can: as though it were a wonder of nature, a riddle no mortal can solve, and a blessing to humanity.

And the list of insults Trump directs at women for their appearance and their gender and their inherent bodily functions is also long, insults blurted out time and again out of reflex. He cannot help himself. Hillary Clinton all but telling him directly during the debates: “I am going to press down on your sexist buttons and you will flip out and make sexist remarks” and Trump did not fail to respond in just that way. But Trump supporters say none of this is a problem and he is not sexist.

3.) “Flip the table”/”Change for change’s sake”

When asked, Trump supporters often strangely tune out what their candidate has said and done. When they do track his stupid, horrible, racist, sexist ideas they say he does not mean those things. He’s just trying to get elected, as all politicians do. This is among the mind-blowing elements for people who track information and history. Everyone can laugh and know better when Trump during a national debate claimed “No one respects women more than I do. No one.” because we all know the contrary. Even Trump’s supporters must know moments like that are outright lies. Yet they don’t seem to care or take that as an alarming trait.

What many Trump supporters say they voted for was a non-politician who has shown he doesn’t give a shit about the system. The system isn’t working for them. They need a change. He’ll flip the table and maybe we’ll build something “terrific” out of that mess.

They don’t seem conscious of the constant whining of Trump’s racist dog whistle, buy many respond to blaming non-whites for their problems along with the system. They aren’t conscious of any sexism, but many had “bitch” signs about Hillary and demanded Hillary be put in jail despite her not committing any palpable crime. The subtext, or often overt text, was that she was uppity and needed to know her place.

Hillary Clinton was not my first choice for a Presidential candidate. I don’t like dynasties and thought we needed someone with a new last name. She was an establishment candidate, and I could understand Republicans seeing that she did not represent needed change. But she was qualified. And a functioning adult. And lives for public service to the benefit of others. Trump is none of those things.

Three things that I kept chewing on, even before the surprising election results:

  • There were many people during the primary who deliberated between voting for Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.
  • The Tea Party and Occupy movements started as protests against Wall Street bailouts by the government, then went wildly different directions.
  • Polls showed the leading reason people were voting for either Trump or Clinton was for NOT being the other candidate.

This was a campaign not driven primarily by hope, but by resentment. It is worth looking at the populist elements that motivated Trump voters? Are there lessons to learn about where they could be brought along in a broadened economic justice movement? I think so.

But while we consider the people and how to connect with them, to make them less scared and provide something to believe in and strive for instead of a “just stir shit up” attitude, we have disastrous years before us.

Trump has the makings of a dictator. A buffoon long-mocked because of his appearance. An initial ascension to power despite lack of support from the majority of people. Xenophobia. Zealous nationalism. Contempt for other countries. Fondness for despots. Sexual predator. Lack of friends or character witnesses. Mainstream figures in his party who know he is awful but are too scared to take a stand against him and will continue to yield to him. Lack of concern about contradicting himself. Tacky sense of style. With-me-or-against-me rhetoric. Tantrums. Proven fraud and swindler before entering politics.

His present calls to “come together” sound palliative compared to the past year of bile, but of course he means come together behind him or you’ll get run over.

His party, and his supporters, will likely take a long time to turn on him when the inevitable overreach happens. But before then, once in office his party will move quickly to attack and put a priority on ravaging the planet for short-term gain. They wail about Big Government in public but in practice the size of government will swell as they abuse the system and people to their personal benefit and perverse satisfactions.

Build our defenses, get ready to fight. The white backlash cannot last forever. When the pendulum swings back our way make sure we can bring more mass, more people over, to keep it that way for a long time.

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