November 27, 2018--South of the Border

Silly me, all along I thought Trump would wag the dog when Robert Mueller's findings were about to be published by bombing nuclear installations in North Korea or Iran. To distract from the main Mueller takeaway--the indictments of half the Trump family--he would start a war either place and watch his approval ratings soar. 

Don't they always when a president shows muscle? Like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon did in the early days in Vietnam, Ronald Reagan did in Grenada, as George H. W. Bush did in Panama and Iraq, as Bill Clinton did in Bosnia, and George W. Bush did in Afghanistan and again in Iraq. Approval numbers in all instances went off the charts. 

But then (is there a lesson here?) in almost all cases the numbers came crashing back to earth. In fact so low for LBJ and Nixon that for this and other reasons they both wound up having to resign the presidency. (Lesson here as well?)

But now I think Trump's first (note that--first) wag situation will not be with Iran or North Korea but along the 1,900 mile border with Mexico.

With our border patrol people already using teargas and rubber bullets à la Israel to contain asylum seekers and Trump authorizing the use of "lethal force" if they or the military he has deployed to the area have rocks thrown at them, the visuals are already so intoxicating to the cable-news-addicted president that how can he be expected to resist a wider, more telegenic little war? And of course not have to worry that these fleeing Guatemalans might lob nukes on San Francisco or Trump Tower in New York City.

While all this excitement is going on who will care about the beans spilt by former campaign manager Paul Manafort or former fixer Michael Cohen? Who will notice that Trump pardons Don Junior, son-in-law Jared, and Ivanka? Who will pay attention to the legal spatting about the constitutionality of subpoenaing or indicting a sitting president?

After running this riff by Rona, she said, "A little snarky, don't you think?"

"Maybe a little," I said, "But this is serious."

"And for something this serious you think snark is the right tone? Thousands in the caravans are suffering and back in their home countries there are millions more being preyed upon by violent gangs, collapsed economies, and governmental corruption."

"So what are we supposed to do? Open our borders and let anyone in who wants to work and live here? I agree the situation is serious but what are we realistically supposed to think much less do? I get the demagoguery and the rhetoric, how Trump is playing with these people's lives for his own political purposes. To feed his base of terrified haters. If you were president what would you do?"

"It is very complicated," Rona said, "Look at what happened to poor Hillary the other day. When she said in an interview in The Guardian that 'Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame' of nationalism in England, Western Europe, and with Trump the U.S. too. She got beat up, most claimed, for not getting off the stage and letting the next generation of Democrats move into the spotlight. But I think she was castigated because she told the truth. The truth that American liberals don't want to deal with because they fear it will alienate some members of their own base--those who want more open borders and a permissive approach to immigration."

"What we need," I said, "Is a whole new immigration policy. It needs to be humanitarian and efficient but also has to place limits on who we can admit to the country and need for our economy. That's the hard part."

"We can and should talk more about this because I can't figure out what I would like to see. But in the meantime I agree with you about Trump. You can safely bet your last two dollars that he's hoping for some significant violence along the border to justify a more and more aggressive response by our security forces. Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson jumped on a supposed incident in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam to justify a major ramping up of our commitment to defeat the Vietcong. My guess is that Trump is looking for his Gulf of Tonkin opportunity to take the focus off Mueller."

"In the meantime," I said, "Back to the snark."

February 3, 2017--Once More, Jack

Though a number of friends recommended I not answer the phone when Jack calls, when he rang me again the other morning I ignored that advice.

I'm not exactly sure why some of my friends were offering such counsel, but I suspect it's largely because what Jack has been saying about me and my fellow Democrats rings truer than any of us would like--that we are in large part the source of our own political problems. That we didn't do enough to help Hillary Clinton get elected. That we took her victory for granted and spent more time talking about the election than becoming directly involved.

Thus far only one person I heard from, "Gala Girl," appears to have done well on Jack's parlor game challenge, Who Do You Know? She claimed to have friends from all of Jack's categories, except that she doesn't know any coal miners!

All the other readers and friends who either called or wrote to me confessed that for the most part they knew as friends very few plumbers, policemen, or waitresses. Some who disagreed with Jack about our being out-of-touch with Americans who elected Donald Trump, had no problem with the fact that they didn't know anyone currently serving in the military or working as a lab technician. And thus, like them, I should ignore Jack's jibes.

"Things are bad enough without us beating ourselves up about the results of the election," one said.

Jack on the other hand said, "I see you have a new obsession."

"How so?"

"With all the things going on this is what you're paying attention to?"

"What might that this be?" From his attitude I was already beginning to regret that I didn't let his call go to voice mail.

"With all that's going on from the immigration ban to Trump's on-going obsession about how many popular votes Hillary secured, you keep coming back to railing about congressional Democrats gathering the other night on the steps of the Supreme Court."

"I'm all in favor of activism of all kinds. In fact, we need more and more of it right now to show Trump that there will be political consequences for his words and deeds. Really, he needed to alienate the Australians? One of our loyalist allies?"

"I agree. But what seems to be sticking in your craw is the fact that that geriatric group of your congresspeople opted to sing This Land Is Your Land. What's with that?"

"It underlined for me how impotent and out of touch my party leaders are. Nancy Pelosi who can't sing is tottering around on her last legs and Chuck Schumer looks like he's ready for Weight Watchers or needs to check into a care facility. These are the people who are going to lead the opposition and help elect Democrats two years from now? I don't think so."

"I watch some MSNBC," Jack said. "That might surprise you, but I want to check out what Rachael is up to and your version of Bill O'Reilly, loud-mouth Chris Mathews. I want to listen in on what the left-wing opposition is saying and plotting. From my perspective, I'm happy to see not much to win over Trump-type voters. Though at least some of them are recognizing that progressives need to get out into the country to find out what's on voters' minds. You know visit some of those 21-percent counties."

"What are those?"

"Like the ones in Iowa and other swing states that voted for Obama in 2008 and again in 2012, giving him 21 percent margins but then this time around voted equally overwhelmingly, by 21 percent, for Trump. There's a whole lot to learn in those places. And there are quite a few of them.

"If you're looking to start a business, consider setting up a tour company that buses Democrats for overnight visits to these districts. Especially tell them which diners to go to to have breakfast with the locals."

"In some ways we're agreeing. Which brings me back to the other night at the Supreme Court. Not only are our leaders totally out of touch and self-involved, but This Land Is Your Land? This old hippie song? I mean, I like it. But do they think it appeals to millennials and Latinos and the working poor? I don't think so. If anything, they made themselves seem irrelevant and ridiculous."

"On top to that," Jack said, "I noticed that they didn't even know the words. They had to read them from a handout."

 "And meanwhile, back at the White House, Trump was firing people and on the phone talking to the Mexican president, warning him that if the Mexican police don't do a better job of securing the border he might just have to have American troops invade Mexico because there are 'bad hombres' there."

January 30, 2017--Jack Again

"I know you think something terrible's going on with me because, you're right, I hate talking on the phone."

It was Jack calling again.

"I read what you wrote about our last conversation," he said, "which you summarized pretty well. You, of course, made yourself come off better than you I fact did when we spoke." I ignored that.

"So, what's it about this time?"

"Things with Trump are happening so fast that I can't wait to May to talk with you. Who knows, by then, we might be at war with Mexico."

"I know you mean this as a joke but it could really happen. He's on such a rampage."

"Well, you know, I can't stand Democrats--present company excepted--but I find myself interested in trying to think what you guys might do to become more competitive. I prefer winning when challenged and at the moment you and your kind are pathetic. Sunday morning, for example, on TV, while criticizing Trump's new immigration policy, like John Boehner, Chuck Schumer, your minority leader, cried his way though his comments. What a wuss."

"I really appreciate your concern about us," I said, attempting not to sound as sarcastic as I was feeling.

"So I watched some of the left-wing Sunday talk shows. Meet the Press, among others, to see what they were saying. Michael Steele was on. He used to be the head of the Republican National Committee and is a smart and decent guy."

"I saw a bit of that too. I think that . . ."

"I didn't call to find out what you think but to tell you what I think." That's my old friend Jack, I thought and was tempted to hang up on him.

"He and Doris Kearns Goodwin, who was also a guest, were saying that the Democrats are in trouble because they don't have an appealing one-paragraph message of what they stand for and would do for the country if elected."

"That's what they said and I sort of agree with them. With emphasis on the sort of."

"I thought," Jack said, "that that's your problem. You not only don't have a clear message about what you're about but you still don't get the main reason why Trump won the election. Part of the reason was that he had a four-word message--Make America Great Again--and then let the voters fill in the blanks about what he meant by that. Including the nasty dog-whistle stuff."

"I agree with that. It was pretty basic and it's own peverse way brilliant."

"What you're all leaving out is the fact that Trump was not elected by Republicans. Sure, a lot voted for him but so did about the same percentage of Independents and, here's the main point, Democrats. If you exclude African-American Democrats, he got more white Democrats than Hillary. Many of them women. In effect, he was elected by Democrats. So to make any progress, Democrats have to recognize that and deal with it. Ask me why."

"OK, why?"

"Because though he's a billionaire who lives in a gold-leaf triplex on Fifth Avenue and has been married three times, he made people in the middle of the country and in small-towns everywhere, even in all the Blue States--New York and California included--he made average Americans feel like he cared about what they cared about and liked mingling with them. In contrast, these people felt that Liberals flew over their counties on their way from one coast to the other and had disdain for them and their concerns. You know, Hillary's deplorables."

"Oh, that again," I said.

"Ignore this at your peril. But I have something to help you and your fellow travelers."

"What's that?"

"You could play it as a parlor game when you get together with your friends for Chardonnay and Brie."

"You mean like Scrabble?"

"Whatever turns you on. But here's how my game works. It requires people to be honest about themselves. Which might be a problem for Liberals." He liked that jibe and I could hear him chuckling.

"The game is called Who Do You Know? and it requires someone to read a list of types of people and for each participant to keep a list of who knows, say, a lawyer or professor. I mean really knows. Not just hires a lawyer to draw up a will or a contract when buying a house. Or their psychology professor from college."

"You're being snarky because you know most coastal liberals will have lawyer friends."

"I confess I was being snarky. Sorry about that. In the meantime you want to play?"

"I'm game. Shoot."

Here's part of the Who Do You Know? list. Do you know, again really know, a plumber or electrician? An assembly line worker? Someone currently serving in the military? A wounded veteran? A nurse? A cashier? A police or fireman? A farmer? A waitress in a diner, not a fancy restaurant like your Balthazar? A body-and-fender man? A short-order cook? A maid? An X-Ray technician? A bookkeeper? A healthcare aide? A gardener? A Walmart employee? A coal miner? A stay-at-home Mom? A doorman? A fisherman? A painter, and I don't mean an artist? A . . ."

"You can stop," I interrupted, "I get your point and where you're going with this."

"How did you do?"

"Do?"

"I assume you were making your own list."

"Well, I sort of was." Without being specific, I said, "I confess to not doing as well as I'd like."

"Give it a try," Jack said, "The next time you get together with your lawyer and professor friends.  Maybe there is hope for you and them. Even though I'm a confirmed right-winger we need all of you socialists to be part of what we think of as Americans and we need to find ways to talk with each other. Not just across party lines but across occupational and cultural ones as well."

"I like that," I said. "You could be right so between now and May feel free to call again."

August 13, 2015--Cojones

I took a peak at the first post-debate poll numbers to see if Donald TRUMP with his bombast and misogynist comments had plummeted and if Carly Fiorina and John Kasich who, it was agreed did well, soared.

Yes and no.

Fiorina, who had been at low single digits (not enough to make the top-ten main event), is now at 6-9 percent and Kasich is at about that same level. He, though, competed at the adult table. Jeb Bush, on the other hand, is commencing his long-expected disappearing act. He's the Fred Thompson of 2016. Thompson, you may recall, was referred to as the Mummy.

Then there is TRUMP. 

I suspected we would see evidence of decline. The show is over. The jokes are getting stale. His 15 minutes or days of fame are beginning to fade.

Well, not exactly. 

He is now in the lead in Iowa while Scott Walker, the early summer leader, is beginning to slip toward well-deserved anonymity. And in New Hampshire, though Kasich is doing well, The Donald is at the head of the pack. We know about South Carolina, the site of the third key primary--TRUMP is trouncing everyone.

The Koch Brothers must be having coronary occlusions, not knowing where to invest their hundreds of millions. Or billions.

TRUMP, meanwhile, according to Bloomberg News, took his roadshow to Birch Run, just north of Detroit, where to an audience of 2,000 (he of course estimated it to be 5,000) he blasted the Ford Motor Company for building more plants in TRUMP's favorite country, Mexico.

He said, "Ford is building a $2.5 billion plant in Mexico." The crowd booed. "I'll give them a good idea. Why don't we just let the illegals drive the cars and trucks right into our country."

He shouted, "If it weren't for me, the words 'illegal immigrant' wouldn't be spoken right now. We have to build a wall."

The crowd began chanting TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP. He continued, "You can be a natural born citizen and not get a 10th of the benefits that illegal immigrants do."

A member of the audience said, "We need someone to say what's on their minds and to speak the truth." Even though TRUMP was not speaking the truth about benefits to undocumented immigrants. 

In comments to the press before the speech he claimed that he is "100 percent certain--mark it down" that he could convince Mexico to pay for a wall along the border because, "They're going to be happy about it because the cost of the wall is peanuts compared to the kind of money they're making" off the United States.

What he means by this is anyone's guess, but it went unchallenged by the adoring audience and, for that matter, the titillated media.  "Their leaders are much smarter and sharper and more cunning than our leaders."

About the proposed Mexican Ford plant he warned that as president, "I would say the deal is not going to be approved. I won't allow it. I want that plant in the United Staes. Prefereably here [in Michigan]." 

The crowd rose to its feet, chanting, "U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A."

"So then I have only one question--do they move the plant to the United States the same day or a day later?"

Bloomberg quoted Jim Maratta, a Vietnam veteran, sitting in the first row, wearing a VFW cap and an American flag shirt--

"We need someone with guts. I want to see him do something for jobs and get those deadbeats in Congress off their butts." He added, "I've been waiting for someone with cojones for a long time."

His wait may be over.

July 16, 2015--TRUMP

Is Donald (all caps) TRUMP just a joke? In the front seat in the Republican clown car?

Pretty much all Democrats agree that he is someone to make fun of (even David Letterman came out of retirement to make fun of him) and most of the other Republican pretenders to the 2016 nomination hope he is just an egotistic entertainer who can't live without the spotlight and will soon move on.

He may be cartoon like, but in other important ways he is resoundingly not. If he stays in the race for the GOP nomination after the current blast of publicity fades (as it most likely will) and spends a few hundred million of his own money (not likely--he is a tightwad and exaggerates his wealth) not only will he help define the future Republican Party but also give the other front runners fits since he actually has a chance to become the nominee.

He has a chance because his brand of anger and racial hatred appeals to at least a third of the GOP primary-voter base. This is different than the general-election Republicans who are a bit more nuanced and tolerant. But it may be enough to get him very close to or all the way to the nomination since his people tend to come from the activist wing of the party.

People are frustrated and angry about their own prospects and what they rightly see to be the decline of America's standing in the world. This began during the inconclusive Korean War and was brought home to American's consciousness when we lost in Vietnam, the first war in our history in which we were defeated. And more recently we are perceived to be ineffectual in the Middle East and, as many feel, are losing to ISIS.

But TRUMP's appeal, though based on this feeling of national decline, is more the result of stagnant income for most Americans and the haunting belief that the American Dream is over for the middle class, whose children, for the first time in history, are not doing as well as their parents.

Rather than blaming structural causes for these frustrating circumstances (an unfair tax system, a weak regulatory environment, the decline of unions, and the resulting rising rate of inequality), TRUMP's people blame government (especially Obama and liberal Democrats), social welfare programs that they feel encourage and underwrite dependency on the government, and above all else, for these angry folks, the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country and the alleged continuing flow of Latin Americans--Mexicans--across our porous boarders.

And then how lucky can The Donald get--escaped Mexican drug lord, El Chapo's son two days ago threatened his life, tweeting--

"Keep fucking around, and I'll make you eat all of your goddamn words."

This gave TRUMP the opportunity to act the selfless tough guy--

He tweeted, "I'm fighting for much more than myself. I'm fighting for the future of our country which is being overrun by criminals. You can't be intimidated. It's too important."

In addition, most Americans are frustrated that we as a people, our governments, cannot accomplish big things.

The country that built the interstate highway system in the 1950s and 60s can't fix our rusting bridges and crumbling roads. Many may ask, Who do you think is more likely to fix our roads--Scott Walker or Donald TRUMP? Who more likely to rebuild our bridges--Jeb Bush or Donald TRUMP? And what about Hillary Clinton? Do you think she could do a better job than TRUMP in making sure our weapon systems work?

So TRUMP may be a joke, but a potent one at that. And, ultimately, perhaps not a joke at all.

April 25, 2014--Two Weak Men

Does anyone think the situation in Ukraine is headed in a good direction when two weak men's manhood is challenged?

One parades around topless, flexing in leather outfits while the other puts on a veneer of cool in search of his inner macho.

This may be one of the best recent examples of how the personal trumps the rational. It's all about mine-is-bigger-than-yours.

In an Enlightenment, post-Cold-War world reasonable self-interest is supposed to prevail. As the Godfather taught, "It's not personal. It's business."

Well . . .

A little history might be helpful--

In the 17th century, war between the Tsardom of Russia and the Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth resulted in Russian imperial control of most of what is now--at least for the moment--eastern Ukraine. And it wasn't until after the First World War that what we now think of as Ukraine was assigned its current borders and became semi-independent.

This is a mere sketch of Ukraine's shifting geography. If inclined, one can look back as far as the 7th century or as recently as the 1950s to see more ebb and flow.

So, in a rational or objective world, for the United States to be lecturing Russia, actually Putin, about Ukraine's immutable borders makes about as much historical sense as Putin chiding the United States, actually Obama, about our Southwestern borders, much of which belonged to Mexico until the mid-19th century. If we applied the same principles to ourselves that we are pressing on Russia, it would mean relinquishing Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and California.

So, what we are seeing is neither about history nor the aspirations of peoples from polyglot backgrounds (look at a current ethnic map of Ukraine if you want a glimpse of these deeper, nationalist problems) assigned to a fiction of a country, but rather the flexing of the out-of-control egos and vulnerabilities of two men who are locked in a dance likely spinning toward disaster.

It doesn't take a seer to predict that before too long Putin will make direct moves to re-annex at least the eastern half of Ukraine and who knows what else after that. And, in response, when Obama's layer of seemingly admirable cool cracks, who knows what fires within might be smoldering and what he might feel propelled to do.