May 24, 2019--Jack: Youngstown, Ohio

We were having a quiet morning at the diner when the door burst open and there, framed in it, grinning ear-to-ear, making an entrance was Jack. 

"Am I ever glad to see you," he bellowed.

I stole a glance at Rona, thinking, just what I needed. Now my morning is complete. 

"Yessiree. My two favorite Commies." He liked that and rolled with laughter. "But I still love you guys. Why, I do not know. But I do."

"I hesitate to ask," I finally said, "I know I'll regret it, but what's got you all jazzed up?"

"How you Dems are doing it again." Rona signaled for a heater of decaf and perhaps the check. She's had it with early morning political talk.

I said, "Doing what again?" Rona glared at me.

"Let me read it to you. From your New York Times. I have it with me. To quote it directly. From the paper of record. That's what you call it, right? I've been carrying this around for almost a week, hoping to run into you two."

He had plopped down on the banquette next to Rona and was searching for whatever it was in his pockets.

"I got it. I got it." He waved what looked like a newspaper clipping. "It's about what's going on in Youngstown. Ohio. Right in the heart of the Rust Belt. In Trump Country."

"You mean Biden Country," Rona said under her breath.

"That's a good one," Jack said. "It's never going to be Biden Country as long as he goes around denying our economy is threatened by China. Let me read something to you. From the Times." He squinted at the clipping. "I want to get this right so I quote--'On the campaign trail Mr. Biden has downplayed China's global economic threat. "China is going to eat our lunch? Come on man. They're not competition for us.'"

Jack made a face as if he was offended, "Saying these things in Ohio which has lost not just jobs to China but whole industries is crazy. He may in some ways be right, but politically this is a disaster. He expects to carry that state? Dream on. It could turn out to be his 'deplorables' moment. Remember that? I can see what he said featured in Republican TV ads."

I said, "It wasn't a politically smart way to put it. I'll grant you that. But the polls show Biden leading his Democratic rivals as well as Trump in Ohio and the other swing states."

"As I said, dream on. Let me read you what an Ohio Democratic strategist said before, out of frustration, resigning his position--

"My party has lost its voice to speak to people that shower after work and not before work. [I love that.] All we're saying is that Trump refuses to turn over his tax returns. He's saying, 'I'm fighting China to get you better jobs.' Trump's people don't care about his taxes--they just don't."

"But they care," I said, "about all the jobs that have been lost in Ohio. Including very recently, in nearby Lordstown. General Motors shut down its assembly plant and 1,600 good jobs were wiped out. On Trump's watch, after all his promises to save jobs and bring back manufacturing."

"OK but listen to what Democratic congressman Tim Ryan, who incidentally is running for president and represents Lordstown, had to say. Again from your favorite newspaper--"

Jack read, "The president is punching China in the face while the leading candidate on our side is saying China is not even an issue. If we go into the election with that as our message we'll get beat again."

I said, "As you pointed out, Ryan's running for the Democratic nomination and he is trying here to bring Biden down. To clear a path for himself."

"OK," Jack said, "So let me tell you what the vice president of the United Auto Workers union had to say. He's not running for the presidency by the way. Again, I'm reading from the Times."

With a hint of attitude, Rona said, "Glad to see you weaned yourself from Fox News."

Jack let that pass and read--

"The UAW vice president said--'Very few union members are abandoning the president even after the plant that made the Chevy Cruze laid off thousands of workers in three waves after Trump's election. I don't think these Trump people are going to flip back, even for Joe Biden, who has a lot of support in this area. I think they're dug in on Trump. Whatever happens, they're going to go down with the ship with him.'"

"Now finally that's something I can drink to," Rona said, raising her coffee mug, "Here's to Trump and his people together on a sinking ship." 

Trump Rally In Youngstown

October 14, 2016--And Now For Something Completely Different

Note:

I was hoping my friend would write something for me to post referring to our on-going discussion about the presidential election. Guest-blogger Sharon has done so and done so persuasively. 

I added a word at the end indicating where I feel we still may have some differences. 

*  *  *

As a devoted reader of "Behind," I believe it's important to acknowledge the VICTIMS of Donald Trump and many of his supporters.

His and their targets now comprise such a long list that I can sum it up by saying it's anyone who isn't an old school white guy and the women who love them. Oh yes--and anyone who challenges Trump.

I think too much space has been devoted here trying to legitimize support for Trump including those that the economy actually has left behind. The more I see of this group, most should be left behind. But you might say, but some of these folks are such nice people!

My question- if most of these people are just looking for a better life for themselves and their families, why wouldn't it have been enough for Trump to run merely as an outsider with business experience and omit the bigotry, xenophobia, authoritarianism, threats of violence, misogyny and racism?

And are my neighbors in an adjoining county of Virginia, one of the richest in the United States where Trump has drawn big crowds, among the suffering?

Trump's views are so different than Clinton's that if this was truly about change and a new path versus the status quo he could have made his case on policy differences alone.

But the real story is that he's been a magnet for the haters--both overt and covert. His daily rhetoric, often incoherent, has been a victory for the crazy right and is turning decent people into supporters of behavior they would normally reject in their children.

It's also no surprise that although not without his women loyalists, if only women voted this year, according to Nate Silver's polls this week Hillary would win the electoral college 458 to 80. Trump's core followers are mostly white men who want to turn the clock back to the 50s. They are losing power and this is their last gasp. Trump would like to turn the clock back to 1930s.

Then there is this: "Teachers have noted an increase in bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been verbal targets on the campaign." (Southern Poverty Law Center)

I personally experienced the impact of Trump's rhetoric this spring when a young Muslim woman, a working wife and mother, said to me, "I guess I could wear an identifying badge if I had to." I was embarrassed and appalled and started to cry. And remembered this had been done before. I reassured her that the majority of Americans are good people--someone like that could never win the nomination in 2016.

I tried to assure her this couldn't happen here. But it has. And the lies and conspiracy theories are only getting worse as a madman thinks he has nothing to lose. So in the face of the endless big lies, quibbling over whether the Times caught all of Hillary's misstatements misses the point.

This week I heard an account of increased hate crimes against Eastern Europeans and especially Polish workers in the UK because "the outcome of the BREXIT vote gave people the confidence to do so." One 40-year-old Polish factory worker was beaten to death in August.

Let's not give the haters here a chance to make things worse. Let's save the country and the world first and worry about holding Clinton accountable later.

Comment:

Though I agree with virtually all of this, we do have some disagreements--especially the claim that I have been attempting to "legitimatize support for Trump." In truth, I have been attempting to understand with empathy (even for the "haters") what is motivating them to endorse someone such as Trump who is so reprehensible. 

I worry about the ugly and increasingly violent bifurcation in America and continue to feel it is essential to get behind the hot rhetoric and reduce the stereotyping in order to find ways to heal some of our breaches. If we cannot find a way to do that, the long term consequences are nightmarish. Thus I will continue to write in the same vein and hope my friend will also continue to do so as her comments are always challenging and welcome.

October 7, 2016--Two Updates

Update Number 1--Hearing Aids:

Later today I am scheduled for my third "adjustment." The audiologist, Gary Schwartzberg, will ask about anything that might be bothering me. Not an existential question (for that I could report about a lot that is bothering me) but a diagnostic one--how is my hearing in crowded restaurants, while watching TV, how does music sound--too sharp, too flat--are there "hearing situations"where sounds are more unpleasant than I feel they should be? Things of this kind.

Less specifically, he will want to know how I am adjusting to having the hearing aids themselves. He will ask this with an awareness of my family experience--especially about my father who resisted them for years, feeling that if he agreed to wear them they would turn him into an instant old man. Little realizing that he already was, at about 80, an "old man."

I will remind the doctor of that and add that there were ironies with my father and hearing aids that I want to avoid, confessing that for me many inter-generational inheritances have not been benign.

My experience, including, like my father, avoiding the subject for at least three too-many years, though the need was manifest, is something I want to move on from and I am eager to remain alert to other genetic traps that may be lurking.

I also plan to report that having my aids now for three weeks has not turned me into an old man but the opposite--now that I can hear like a more normal person, I feel younger, more vibrant and engaged with life.

Checking that I am not on a grandiosity trip--the reverse of where I had inertly been--I asked Rona about my state of being and she reports that not unlike me who cried when I heard her real voice again she feels some renewed youthfulness (or at least the late-in-life semblance of it) and that this is also making her feel younger and more optimistic. Yes, we have that kind of braided relationship.

In the meantime, awaiting the next adjustment, I'm spending a lot of time listening to Bach's unaccompanied cello suites. Able again to experience the divine.

Update Number 2--Lawn Signs:

When last I reported I noted how few election signs were appearing on lawns throughout the Midcoast. I speculated that perhaps Mainers weren't that enthusiastic about the choices. On the other hand, local friends said it was too soon to draw any conclusions. About a month before Election Day, they claimed, there will be the usual profusion.

This has turned out to be true. Reading the signs (pun intended) there is a clear pattern--Hillary in a landslide.

But a complicated one.

There are about as many yard signs as four years ago but unlike then when Obama had a slight lead, Hillary signs dominate. By yesterday morning's count there were about 30 for Clinton and only 10 or so for Trump.

The complicated part--

There are at least another dozen places where there are arrays of signs for local Democrats for the state legislature or Congress but none for Hillary. One or two of these have Trump signs. This suggests some ticket splitting because of unhappiness with the choices.

But again--Hillary in a romp. Or . . .

February 10, 2016--Jeb!

During a long interview on Monday on Morning Joe, don't quote me, but I came to conclude that Jeb Bush was very impressive.

He was personable, relaxed, almost likable; but more important revealed genuine knowledge of the issues, domestic and international. And his ideas about what to do about them seemed well thought out and less radical or pandering than his GOP opponents'.

I found myself not ready to vote for him but thinking about him differently.

Yes, big-winner TRUMP is right--he has an energy, fire-in-the-belly problem. It feels as if family forces and the resulting competitive, almost Oedipal inner demons are propelling him forward as opposed to his motivation coming from a more authentic interest in running for president.

I recognize that the electorate thus far has not been that interested in "experience." With the exception of how Marco Rubio is more and more being viewed as having no experiences whatsoever to prepare him for the presidency other than a lifetime of running for office and a series of predigested sound bites that, we now know, he repeats robotically over and over again as if he has neurological issues.

But, if we are beginning to gets serious about selecting candidates, thinking who might actually make decent presidents, the two "best-prepared" candidates are Bush and Hillary Clinton.

No matter what else we think about them, no matter what we conclude about the quality of their actual accomplishments--pretty thin--they are the only two (maybe the surging John Kasich also qualifies) who have a grasp of issues, a modicum of relevant experiences, and plans to solve or deal with actual problems.

One more thought--

If we care about the country, in addition to struggling to figure out who to vote for, we should resist the temptation to root for a weak candidate from the other party.

Thus, if we support Bernie or Hillary, we shouldn't hope that Ted or Marco is nominated because we assume either one would be the weakest opponent. Since one never knows what happens on Election Day, we should hope that the best of the lot is nominated in case he somehow manages to be elected in November.

The same should thought should be posed to TRUMP or Jeb! supporters. If your candidate loses to the Democratic nominee, who among them is best suited to be your president because the political cliché is true--whoever wins is president for all of us.

That is with the exception of all the folks who tell me they're moving to Canada if The Donald is elected. These, by the way, are the same people, still residing here, who planned to move there if Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush was elected.