July 20, 2017--A Week Without Trump

As previewed yesterday, here's what I wrote on Wednesday, March 1, 2017 after two days of trying not to mention him but then, succumbing, as if on autopilot, I referred to him that week four times on Monday and then three times on Tuesday.

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Though I noted some improvement earlier this week--mentioning Trump a regressive four times on Monday and then doing a bit better yesterday, mentioning him "just" three times--perhaps, then, since I am still disappointed with my progress, maybe I need to adjust tactics for a day to get to my goal sooner--to shake my year-long addiction to all things Trump.

So today, midweek, I'm going cold turkey. I'm taking a day off from blogging. I have an early doctor's appointment to see if my Lyme disease has abated and so I thought to take advantage of my busy schedule and not write anything today.

That's one way to deal with my Trump problem--ignore it. Admittedly, not the best way to proceed--taking it head on would be more impressive--but perhaps it could still be therapeutic.

This of course means no comments about Trump's speech last night, no mocking allusions to his having just discovered that repealing and replacing Obamacare is "unbelievably complex" or, better for satire or snarkiness, that "nobody knew [it] . . . could be so complicated."

Nobody?

This latter comment alone could under prior circumstances have been subject matter for at least two blogs.

Ignoring Trump, as I am now doing, I will make no public comments about his budget outline that sees a ten percent increase in military spending offset by massive cuts in domestic allocations. This would mean gutting food and healthcare for the poor to build more weapon systems. Cruel priorities.

But, as I've indicated, I will have nothing to say about that.

I will also not comment on the attempts to plug leaks by White House staff and how press secretary Sean Spicer forced those reporting to him to turn over their cell phones so they can be checked to find out who's been talking to the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN.

And I won't be writing about the White House banning reporters from these and other "fake news" outlets from attending the first Trump "gaggle." A briefing for a select group of reporters,
including one from Fox and another from Breitbart News, Steve Bannon's old shop.

Though I am tempted, you will not hear anything from me about this.

And you will not hear a word here about what is my thus-far favorite flap of the week--the Twitter storm about how Kellyanne Conway took her shoes off and folded her legs under her while sitting on them on the Oval Office couch as President Trump met with a group of distinguished presidents of historically black colleges and universities.

What was she doing there anyway? But you won't see me asking or speculating about that.

When Kellyann's disrespectful behavior was brought to the attention of Trump and his senior staff they were quick to publish pictures of Barack Obama sitting with his feet on the presidential desk. The same president Trump accused earlier this week of being behind all the leaks and leaving a "mess" when he left office.

But there will not be a word today about me about that. No leaking here. For me it's still Trump cold-turkey-detoxification time.

As New York City Mayor Ed Koch used at ask, "How am I doing?"

Rereading what I wrote in March, I see that (1) in spite of my intentions I did not take the day off from blogging, and (2) I mentioned Trump by name nine times. Nine! Not very impressive.

July 19, 2017--Trump Fatigue

I try to write five of these a week. One a day Monday through Friday. I've been doing this for 12 years, from August 2005, and have thus far posted 3,158.

For nearly two years more than half my pieces have been about the 2016 election; the emergence of Donald Trump; his election; and, for six months, his presidency. On occasional weeks all five, one way or the other, have been about Trump. Such has been my obsession.

During the weekend, when not posting, I try to come up with two or three subjects to write about for the upcoming week. To get ahead of the relentless pressure to produce five. Sometimes it feels as if I am physically "producing" them.

This is not a complaint. I love doing this. I like the discipline, the motivation to think things through and to approach issues in hopefully fresh ways, and especially hearing from readers who half the time like what I've been writing. The rest of the time, especially the last year and a half when my pieces have been disproportionately about Trump, I've received a lot of criticism that by taking him seriously, by attempting to write about him dispassionately, I'm "normalizing" him, and by so doing have been helping to position him in the mainstream of American presidential history. Not as an incompetent and dangerous pretender.

So, this past weekend, with Republicans in the Senate once more trying to ram viscous changes in healthcare policy through the system while seemingly every day there was another bombshell story about Donald Trump, Jr. eager to hear what "dirt" Russian operatives were pitching to spread around to sabotage Hillary and elect Trump, what with reports of this and infighting in the West Wing and stories about our raging president talking back to the TV, one would think I'd have seven things to write about, not my usual five.

But, if you've read this far, you are catching me writing about not any longer feeling I have things to write about.

If I can make the comparison, Seinfeld-like--writing about not writing.

I did manage to come up with an idea for Monday for a piece about Trump in Paris for Bastille Day and the monarchal ambitions of the new French president. And for Tuesday squeezed out something about John McCain and the now possibly doomed Republican health care plan.

But this lethargy that is the result of feeling overwhelmed, I am thinking, may be the point of Trump's brilliant strategy for governing. (There I go again calling it "brilliant.")

So overload the system that we no longer can remember all the outrageous things he did during the campaign, since entering the White House, and even last week. This cascade of outrageousness elicits so much frustration and anger that our circuits are blown.

I don't know about you, but this is the way I've been feeling.

Chipped away at I am wanting to give up and return to my cocoon and my distractions. I noticed over the past weekend that I was watching a lot of television. Not cable news but tennis and the Yankees-Red Sox series. I even surfed around looking for Seinfeld reruns. Caught the one with Elaine at Yankee Stadium!

Having confessed this, tomorrow I'll be reposting something I wrote in February during five days that I called "A Week Without Trump."

Tomorrow, I hope you will take a look to see how I did.

January 12, 2105--1,000 Lashes

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, one of our closest allies, a blogger was sentenced recently to a fine of more than $250,000, 10 years in jail, and 1,000 lashes to be administered with a cane in public over several months.

His "crime," starting a bog called Free Saudi Liberals, which in itself was enough to bring him to the attention of the country's religious establishment. Specifically, he was charged with "cybercrime," "insulting Islam," and "disobeying his father." Probably, if he had obeyed his father, they would be giving him only 500 lashes.

This punishment was considered so out of line that the United States, through the State Department, took the very rare step of criticizing the world's largest exporter of oil and one of the few Arab countries joining us in the battle against ISIS.

Saudi Arabia, recall, is really a theocracy. The House of Saud, which operates as an absolute monarchy, to get away with that and to secure the hundreds of billions of petro-dollars that flow to them, has an ongoing deal with some of the most fanatical of Islamic factions--the Wahhabis (the same group that was responsible for 9/11)--to allow the Sauds to rule in return for diverting other billions to the Wahhabi leadership and allowing them to be in charge of spiritual, judicial, and cultural life in the kingdom. Thus, the suppression and punishment of blogger Raif Badawi.

According the Amnesty International, the Saudis have already begun to administer the flogging--the first 50 lashes were carried out recently.

One glimmer of humanity--according to an article in the New York Times, Human Rights Watch reports that in Saudi Arabia floggers are supposed to distribute the lashes from the top of the back to the back of the legs without breaking the skin.

Nine-fifty to go.