July 28, 2020--Playing The White Card

There was a tsunami of political polls last week.  They tell one consistent story--Joe Biden is increasing his lead over Trump in every demographic category but one. 

Be it the ABC-Washington Post, Quinnipiac, or even the Fox News poll, Biden has opened double-digit leads among senior citizens, young voters, Hispanics, and African Americans among others.

The one demographic outlier is support for Trump among white voters. In the aggregate, across all age groups, 49 percent of white voters support Trump while 42 percent say they plan to back Biden. And with white people without college degrees Trump's lead is even larger--an unfathomable 57 to 35 percent.

This is both curious and significant. Curious because it stands out so starkly while on the other hand it is concerning since white people make up 61 percent of all voters and that means if Trump does exceptionally well among them he has a fighting chance to be reelected.

Is it "only" racism that is responsible for these numbers? 

I suspect for a good half of them it is. But that gets us just part way there. Racism is deeply rooted. Slavery, for example, has existed in America for more than 400 years. That is the definition of deeply rooted.

What then about the other reasons a majority of white people appear to support Trump?

Is it racism that a large percent of them are attracted to Trump's tell-it-like-it-supposedly is style? Especially when he attacks the coastal elites in the media, universities, and among the professional class?

Is it racism when Trump talks about the concerns of suburban "housewives" and a percentage of "stay-at-home moms" find his message resonates? And then there are Trump men who, proverbially, want their woman "barefoot and pregnant."

Is it racism when some white women like their men extra-macho and somehow, though hard to believe, find Trump to be attractively so?

Of course, some of this also includes a racist component. For example, the suburban women he is desperate to appeal to are white women, the same white women 52 percent of whom voted for him in 2016. When Trump turns his attention to suburban women he is not thinking about women of color.

My bottom line--the business of gender and race and voting is more complicated and unpredictable than it at first might seem. Thus the reasons why, say, a large percentage of white women voted for Trump four years ago and might do so again needs to be understood, even if one dislikes what is discovered.

August 2, 2019--Bigotry and Eugenics

I just finished reading Daniel Okrent's Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians and Other European Immigrants Out of America.

If you haven't, pick up a copy. It is required reading for anyone who wants to understand what underlies our current debate about immigration, legal and illegal. It is a distressing history but must be confronted and exposed if we want to work our way past this sorry chapter of our history.

To get a flavor for it, here is an excerpt from the review in the Washington Post--

Okrent’s central theme is the gradual and portentous convergence of two originally autonomous movements of the period just before World War I. The movement to restrict immigration gained steam in the 1890s among New England patricians like Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge. 

They were repelled by the massive influx of people from Eastern and Southern Europe that began in the previous decade. Simultaneously, the movement to improve the human species by promoting reproduction by individuals of the finest stock began in England and spread to social elites in America. 

This eugenics movement gained superficial plausibility from Charles Darwin’s emphasis on inheritance. Eugenics became relevant to immigration restriction when ersatz scientists divided even Europeans into distinctive races and ascribed to each race differing levels of intelligence and character. 

Although the science of genetics had established well before World War I that intelligence, honesty, promiscuity, sloth and other traits central to eugenics were not carried by single genes and did not define races, restrictionists seized eugenics as an apparently scientific basis for keeping Jews and Italians and Poles and Hungarians out of the United States.

And to do so they established country-by-country quota systems that endured until 1965.

July 31, 2019--Trump's Base

The consensus is that the reason Trump went after the four congresswomen of color and then Elijah Cummings and Al Sharpton is because he is stoking his base of racists and white supremacists. His dead-ender 35 percent who, literally, would be fine with him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.

I join that consensus with one caveat--

He must be terrified to be doing this. If he feels so secure about his people's blind loyalty, why does he see the need to pour accelerant on the political flames?

Perhaps he is terrified because he senses they aren't quite as loyal as everyone is assuming. Some may be becoming fed up with his outrages others are maybe beginning to get bored with his stand-up act. Even popular reality TV shows get cancelled.

For me this is good news. 

Certainly there is legitimate concern about what he has thus far unleashed, but I hope to see him press on with his racist and misogynist agenda because even if it excites the core of his base it will incite Democrats and liberals to organize, contribute, and above all vote.

June 25, 2019--Biden's Sister Souljah Moment

As is his propensity, last week Joe Biden stepped in it.

But then again, perhaps he didn't. 

This flap, significantly taken out of context, was from something he said when Vice President, in a commencement address at Yale in 2015. Among many things he spoke about how when he was in the Senate he attempted to work directly with even other senators who were avowed segregationists and racists to advance important legislation.

Some of his current rivals, though acknowledging he is not himself a racist, claimed he minimally showed insensitivity to people of color who do not look back to that Jim Crow era with any sense of nostalgia or bipartisan clubbiness. Among others, sensing a political opportunity, Cory Booker called on Biden to apologize.

That really got under Biden's skin.

He fired back, "Apologize for what? He knows better. I don't have a racist bone in my body."

I suspect the old Joe would have tied himself up in knots of contrition and squeezed out a version of a self-righteous apology. But not this Joe. He doubled down. Tripled down. And in at least two regards this may have been the politically smart thing to do.

Voters this time around are looking for feistiness not wimpiness, confrontation not nuance. Even many liberals who pride themselves on being measured and understanding--never hot under the collar, no drama--more than anything want their candidate to be able to go toe-to-toe with Trump and take him down. After that, we can get back to seeking dialogue and reasonableness in the hope that maybe we can get a few legislative things done. Like fixing Obamacare and Social Security. Like doing something about our collapsing infrastructure. Like rebuilding our standing in the world.

For any of this to happen, assuming the Dems capture the White House and retain their majority in the House, it will be essential to figure out ways to work across the aisle with at least a half dozen Republicans. Biden by insisting on his ability to do this is boldly putting the spectrum of his political history out for review. Admittedly, some of it is on the compromised side.

Related, but more complicated, if he is to recapture some of the white, blue-collar vote that last time went overwhelmingly to Trump and more than anything else put him in the White House, he needs to demonstrate that though he is responsive to voters of color and progressive in other ways, he will not allow himself to become their agent. 

So this current flap could turn out to be Biden's Sister Souljah Moment. The original was in 1992 when Bill Clinton was the Democratic nominee. He was at risk of being perceived as pandering excessively to black voters as part of his strategy to win at least a few southern states, but in the process he risked alienating enough moderate white voters to lose to incumbent George H.W. Bush.

For those of you who do not recall what Clinton audaciously did, here is the best definition of a Sister Souljah Moment I have as yet come upon--

It is a critical moment in a campaign when a candidate takes what appears to be a bold stand against certain extremes in his or her own party and offers a calculated denunciation of that extreme position or special interest group. 

Such an act of repudiation is designed to signal to centrist voters that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party, although such a repudiation runs the risk of alienating some of the politician's allies and the party's base voters.

In 1992 popular African-American hip hop artist and social activist, Sister Souljah, provided Clinton with the opportunity to criticize her extreme views about race relations and thereby demonstrate he was not beholden to any special interest groups.

In a Washington Post interview Sister Souljah was quoted as saying (in response to a question regarding black-on-white violence during the 1992 Los Angeles riots):

Question: Even the people themselves who were perpetrating that violence, did they think that was wise? Was that a wise reasoned action?

Souljah: Yeah, it was wise. I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?... White people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you're a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person? Do you think that somebody thinks that white people are better, are above and beyond dying, when they would kill their own kind?

Speaking to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition in June 1992, Clinton responded both to that quotation and to something Souljah had said in the music video of her song "The Final Solution: Slavery's Back in Effect" ("If there are any good white people, I haven't met them").

Clinton said: "If you took the words 'white' and 'black,' and you reversed them, you might think the KKK's David Duke was giving that speech." 

This elicited a storm of hot debate but most dispassionate observers concluded that Clinton won the political battle and that helped him do better than expected, like it or not, among disaffiliated white voters.

I said "like it or not" because I do not like any of this. But politics is an ugly business and if Biden roughing up Booker will help him defeat Trump I will find a way until the day after Election Day 2020 to live with it.

April 29, 2019--Biden Steps In It

Joe Biden for me is the Democrat most likely to be able to defeat Trump in 2020. Perhaps the only Democrat. 

His announcement Thursday began well with a three minute video posted on line where Biden, announcing his candidacy, powerfully and persuasively said that at stake in 2020 is a struggle for nothing less than the "soul of the nation." And by not-so-subtle implication demonstrated he is best positioned to take on Trump on that issue and win.

But later in the day, without prompting, he revealed he had called Anita Hill to express regret about the way the confirmation hearings he chaired had gone when Clarence Thomas was being considered for a seat on the Supreme Court. He acknowledged that the conversation with her hadn't gone well. 

He really needed to call Anita Hill a couple of weeks ago to, sort of, apologize, after 28 years of silence and inform the public about it on the day he launched his campaign? 

Not that she doesn't deserve an apology for what he, in 1991, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee that was conducting confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas allowed his colleague senators to get away with as they trashed her credibility and personal reputation. 

It was one African-American women facing 15 white men, who, among other things, mocked her.  She had stepped forward to courageously accuse Thomas of sexually harassing her when he was her supervisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The way Biden allowed her to be mistreated is the worst blot on his record so it is understandable that, as he considered running for the third time for president, he would be thinking about how this would play out for him politically. Perhaps, too, he was thinking about an inner need to try to make heart-felt amends.

He knew it would be perilous to begin his campaign with an "apology tour" that would inevitably be more than about the Thomas hearings--it would also include needing to explain away his support for increasing the mandatory jail time for drug dealers and, more disturbing, why he voted to endorse the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Republicans love beating up on what they perceive to be wimpy liberals' alleged inability to be tough. Apologizing, therefore, is about as bad a thing a Democrat aspiring to be commander-in-chief can do. Girls apologize, real men plow ahead.

So what was Joe up to?

Whatever the range of his intentions and feelings about calling Anita Hill they must have included the hope that she would grant him absolution and, as a result, his problems with women who have long memories about his chauvinism would be one troubling thing he would no longer have to worry about in the middle of the night when he and his goblins are churning.

So what did he wind up with as a result of misunderstanding, miscalculating the depth of Anita Hill's residual issues and feelings? 

Did he think she would casually put aside the meaning of the defining moment of her life to throw him a cheap lifeline? This should have been an easy one--if he were serious, she said, he should have expressed more than "regret" for "what she endured."

What he tried to get away with is the classic non-apology apology. Not that he was sorry for his behavior. Instead he said that he was sorry she felt that way. Putting it off on her while taking responsibility only for how he made her feel. She told him this and refused to say never mind. The time for that for women is over.

So on this special day for Biden, he made one of his famous gaffs. Quite a big one. Friday's New York Times had his announcement as its front page lead--"Biden Joins Race, Invoking Battle for Nation's Soul." But abutting it, stepping all over his launch, was the story, "Biden's 'Regret' for Hill's Pain Fails to Soothe."

None of this is fatal, but being clueless on his first day suggests not just insensitivity but poor strategic thinking. 

More of this kind of behavior, though, could leave moderate Democrats and Independents bereft.

March 4, 2019--My Former Maine Governor

Thanks to term limits, I thought that since Mainers had the good fortune to finally be rid of their hateful governor, Paul LePage, I would never again hear about him. At least until his obituary.

But, no, he's still making noise. This time reported in a story that appeared in the New York Daily News. Excerpts are below--

Maine’s former governor Paul LePage, who left office last month, argued the Electoral College is necessary to keep white people in power. 

“What would happen if they eliminate it? White people will not have anything to say,” Paul LePage told a WVOM radio show Tuesday when asked about abolishing the system currently used to elect presidents. “It’s only going to be the minorities that would be elected.” 

LePage, who left office Jan. 2 and now lives in Florida, said making every vote equal would give too much power to states like California, Texas and Florida, where larger numbers of nonwhite people live. 

The 70-year-old Republican served two terms as Maine’s governor and had one of the highest disapproval ratings among governor’s nationwide during his last year in office. He’s no stranger to racial controversy. 

In 2016, LePage complained “guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” come to Maine from New York and Connecticut to sell drugs and “half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.” 

Later that year, LePage called Latinos the “enemy” during a bizarre press conference where he tried to explain why he’d hurled homophobic remarks at a reporter. 

“The enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in are people of color or people of Hispanic origin,” he said. 

On March 1, a proposal to elect U.S presidents with a popular vote rather than doing so through the Electoral College process will be considered by the Maine legislature. 

LePage called the bill “insane” and worried that white people, who make up more than 61% of the nation’s population and have accounted for all but one of the nation’s presidents, are “gonna’ be forgotten people.”

Spending six months a year in Maine, he was my part-time governor and a major embarrassment. While residing in Florida I am sure he will continue to be welcome as he has been at Mar-a-Lago.

October 26, 2018--My Neighbor: Jackie Robinson

When I was a kid growing up in East Flatbush, on East 56th Street, as the seasons revolved and the days lengthened, our favorite thing was to head for the streets after supper to resume our punchball or stickball games.

One evening, impatiently waiting for Heshy who was the best punchball player on the block, we finally spotted him racing toward us, pumping his arms frantically.

Gasping for air, he could hardly get the words out but managed to say, "You're not . . . going to believe this . . . but I just heard . . . Jackie Robinson . . . of the Brooklyn Dodgers . . . moved into . . . the neighborhood . . . to East 53rd Street!" 

Heshy was also a prankster. Many of us tried to keep up with him but at that he also excelled. And so we didn't believe him.

"What are you up to?" the ever skeptical Irv asked.

"Nothing. It's the truth. I swear. My father told me. He's a glazer and they hired him to replace some of their windows. Jackie Robinson! And his wife. And children. From the Dodgers!"

It was early summer 1947 and Jackie Robinson had recently joined the Dodgers. The first Negro to cross the color line in the Major Leagues. 

He was already a hero to us though he was still having to deal with racist comments and threats from opposing players as well as from some of his own teammates. 

"My father said they are very nice people." Mr. Perly was a communist and like all other communists we thought he was a supporter of Negro rights. He believed they should be allowed to live wherever they wanted and to go to school with white people. So we were a little skeptical about this as well.

Sensing this, Heshy said, "Let's walk over and take a look. I'm telling the truth. I promise this time I'm not making this up."

So we jogged the four blocks to East 53rd and Tilden Avenue where Heshy said the Robinsons had bought a house, still not believing he was telling the truth. And we wondered what kind of stunt he was going to play on us.

It took just a few minutes to get there and sure enough there was a big moving van parked at the corner. It was clear someone was moving in but we still doubted it was the Robinsons. How could it be? I thought--it's just like Heshy. What a kidder.

But to give Heshy more credibility  stepping out of the front door was a Negro woman clutching a sobbing child.

I suppose that could be Mrs. Robinson, I thought. There were no Negroes at all in our overwhelmingly Jewish and Italian neighborhood. Could it be that . . . ?

We stood in the street shamelessly gaping at all that was going on.

Smirking, Heshy whispered to the four of us, "I told you so. I'm sure that's his wife. Just like my father said."

After a few minutes, realizing it wasn't polite to stand there staring, we turned to return to our block.

"Can I get you boys a glass of milk or a soda? I'm afraid I don't have much to offer you."

We turned back to look at her. She stood on the porch, smiling broadly and waving at us.

"I have to do my homework," Bernie said, shyly with lowered head. 

"Surely you have a moment to have a drink. It's still quite hot out, and if you wait just a little longer, Jackie, my husband should be home very soon and I'm sure he'd like to meet his new neighbors. The game ended an hour ago. Against St. Louis." She continued to smile while jostling her young son on her hip.

"I suppose we could . . . ," I sputtered, "Tomorrow's Saturday and . . . You know. We could maybe . . . just for a minute or two. Our mothers will be worried." 

In fact it was still quite light out and we knew our mothers were fine with us playing on the street until it was almost dark.

And with that, he arrived, smoothly gliding his convertible to the curb. He slid out of the front seat and hoisted a big bag onto his shoulder. It had Dodgers stenciled on it's side. Without doubt it was Jackie Robinson. 

He bounded up the steps and kissed his wife and son. Then turned to us, "I see, Rachel, you have some new friends." 

She smiled, nodding, "I was just about to bring the boys sodas. Will Cokes be all right?" she asked us. We all muttered that would be perfect.

"Why don't you go and get them?" he said, "Maybe we'll throw the ball around while you're doing that." He reached into his bag and extracted a couple of bats, two gloves, and three or four baseballs.

"Let's hit the street," he said to us, full of energy.

He skipped down the steps and out into the middle of the street. "Who wants to bat first?" he asked. "If any of you know how to bunt maybe you'd go first. You could lay one down and get us off to a good start. I sometimes like to lay one down and get a rally going. I'm not that interested in home runs. I prefer walks and hits and stealing bases." We knew that already from watching the Dodgers on TV. Even in his rookie year he brought excitement and speed to the Dodgers' game.

And so, many evenings after day games, after a gulped-down dinner, we went over to the Robinson's and Jackie joined us in the street where he played with us, all the while coaching us about the subtlety of the game. 

This went on for nearly three years. It was nothing short of a miracle to have him as a neighbor and for him to be so generous and forthcoming.

Then toward the end of the third year when we arrived at the Robinson house it looked vacant and forlorn. We went around back and again there was no sign of them. From the stoop we could see into the living room and it too was empty. It was if they and our time together had vanished. 

No one on the block who we asked about the Robinsons had any idea what happened and where they were.

I asked my mother. She and Rachel Robinson were elementary school teachers and I thought she might know what happened.

When I asked, my mother changed the subject. This was very unusual for her. She never held anything back from me. And so I asked again. This time she did not respond at all. Also not characteristic of her or our relationship.

I asked a third time as I knew she was not telling the truth. That she was hiding something. The truth. 

"They had to move," my mother finally said.

"Had to? Had to? Why did they have to?

"Not everyone was as happy as you, having them in the neighborhood."

"Meaning?"

"Well, you know they're . . ." 

She didn't finish their thought. There was no need to.

On the left, the Robinson house

October 15, 2018--Male Privilege

"What was that all about?" We had just had a half dozen homemade donuts and coffee at our favorite local general store.

"I also was a little confused," Rona said, "He seemed to be talking about an incident that he probably heard about on Fox News where some guy stoped a bus and threatened the passengers."

"My hearing isn't good today," I said, "But that's what I think I heard. And then did he say they should have taken him out and shot him?"

'That's what I heard."

"Unbelievable."

"How he's a terrorist and that's how terrorists should be treated."

"That they should be taken out and shot?" Rona shrugged her shoulders and nodded.

This from an otherwise peaceful-feeling 70-year-old who sat next to us, eating his bacon and eggs at the counter.

"He said he's lived here for more than 30 years. That he grew up in upstate New York and moved when things there began to change in ways that upset him."

"Yes," Rona said, "He talked about how the thing he likes most about Maine is that very little changes. That he hates change. Including the smallest things. Like when a new owner bought the store, though he was quick to mention he liked that they kept making donuts every morning."

"I like that too," I said, wanting to move on to lighter subjects.

"He seems to live a version of the good life here and I don't understand why he's so angry about what's going on around him. And from the looks of him, including how he was dressed, he seemed to be OK financially. So I don't think it's that."

"We've been talking recently about why so many middle-aged white guys are so angry and how that's affecting our politics."

"Yes," Rona said, "I've been thinking a lot about how it's not primarily about race, but how these men feel threatened by demographics and the resulting browning of America. With their anti-immigrant views underscoring that. That is a big component of their anger, but the more I think about it the more I am concluding most of the problems these men have comes from gender issues. Their relations with women. How they used to feel empowered just because of their maleness, but in recent decades how that sense of privilege has been eroding."

"We have been talking about that and agree that a lot of the things men depended upon to feel powerful no longer operate so automatically."

"There are many things in the larger culture," Rona said, "that have been delivering the same message--that their days of dominance are over. We've been making a list of some of the things that are undermining men's sense of their place in the world. How losing the war in Vietnam, for example, was a huge blow to men who felt that just being an American, American exceptionalism assured their invulnerability. How up to then we had won every war we entered and then we were defeated by little Asians wearing sandals and black pajamas!"

"These are the guys who are prone to chant 'USA, USA' at Trump rallies. As if that restores their sense of self worth."

"The women's movement didn't help. Calls for equity in the workplace--equal pay for equal work--in family life and the bedroom (there was the pill) deeply threatened so many men."

"How many people do we know, how many men do we know, including some in our families who found themselves with women supervisors and how they hated that. How some even quit their jobs to get away from female bosses. And how in a couple of instances doing so ruined their careers."

"Affirmative action also contributed, especially as many men believed it primarily benefitting women. Again in the workplace they saw women they felt to be less credentialed and less experienced getting promoted to positions they felt entitled to."

"And when the Great Recession hit in 2008," I said, "men became aware that women were able to ride it out better than they were. Ironically, partly because women were still not receiving equal pay for equal work they were more likely than their husbands or partners not to be laid off."

Rona said, "This came decades after tens of millions of women who had been housewives entered the work force, often not just in search of career opportunities but because their husbands' incomes were not enough to sustain the household. We know, again from our own families, that a lot of men felt inadequate because on their own they couldn't make enough money for the families' expenses. My father, your father had to send our mothers to work in order to maintain their lifestyles. Or just pay the bills. How did that make them feel?"

"Not good. Diminished," I said, "In quite a few cases the women wound up making more that their husbands and this alone disrupted the emotional balance within many marriages. And now there is the MeToo movement, which has some men thinking that their or their sons' lives can be destroyed by a false accusation of sexual misconduct."

"And so, here we are," Rona said, "Even in this peaceful place there are men so angry that they want to kill people who they consider to be terrorists."

"All that seems so far away from here and yet . . ."

August 14, 2018--Jack: Omarosa

"Long time no talk."

"What's on your mind, Jack? I'm sort of busy."

"Omarosa. You've heard of her?"

"Unfortunately, yes. So what is it?"

"Your people are all excited about her. Not actually about her, but about her so-called tell-all book, especially the tapes she says she has."

"Right. The one she made in the Situation Room of Kelly firing her and her claim that there are tapes of Trump during the Apprentice years using the N-word when talking about black people."

"You guys think this is going to bring down Trump. If so, dream on."

"I don't think she's going to bring Trump down. That should only happen. Mueller can bring him down but especially voters beginning in November. The Omarosa business at most will chip away at his support."

"The way I see it," Jack said, "is that she will wind up helping Trump."

"This I have to hear."

"I'm not proud to say this, because as you know I'm not a racist. In fact I hate some of Trump's dog-whistle behavior, including his attack on athletes--black athletes--and other African Americans like CNN's Don Lemon and congresswoman Maxine Waters, both of who I can't stand. Always referring to them as 'low IQ.'"

"That's more than dog-whistle behavior," I said, "It's more like classic, out-and-out racism. Outrageous and disgusting. But finish your thought."

"When Trump plays the race card," Jack said, "it just adds to how you and your kind think about him. You're already convinced that he's a racist. At most it will motivate a few more liberals to vote in November and in 2020, if he runs for reelection. But . . ."

"But?"

"But," Jack said, "what he said about NFL players or even the very popular LeBron James actually appeals to his people. To them it's another example of his not being politically correct. Which they love. It's one of the things that make them excited about supporting him in the first place. Look, even I will admit that a portion of his base--maybe even more than a portion--are racists. They hate people of color. You heard what Laura Ingraham said the other night on Fox News--that America is no longer the country we loved in the past. It's changed for the worst, she said, because of all the immigrants who have come into the country. Including those who entered legally. Really what she was saying is that the country is now browner and blacker than it was in the good old days. When America was great. She tried to walk it back the next day after she got slammed, but what she said was what she said. It was stark and clear but wasn't pretty."

"You sound like you're all over the place. On the one hand, you criticize Trump for playing racial dog-whistle politics and then you seem to like the fact that by his being openly racist he secures and strengthens his base."

"I am sort of the way you described me," Jack fussed up, "I dislike some of the stuff he does (just as I'm sure you didn't like everything Clinton or Obama did), but overall I still support him and want him to do well in November and then two years later in 2020. To me it's not about distractions like Omarosa but about his policies. So if what he says or implies some times turn me off, what I care about is what he's done and plans to do. I agree with most of his agenda. And so if she jazzes up his people that to me is a good thing."

"To tell you the truth I'm still confused. You're even less coherent about this than usual." I already had my fill of him.

"Let me try to straighten you out. Both she and he energize people but come at it from opposite perspectives. He shamelessly plays the race card while Omarosa convinces people that those like her--black people--are Trump haters and are just like Trump describes them to be--low-IQ criminals. By her extreme and dishonest behavior, without intending to, she reenforces the stereotype of black people he's promulgating. She seems self-seeking and biased. Just the kinds of things he and his people believe to be true about all black people."

"This is too cynical for words. I hate what you're saying."

"You may, but do you disagree with me?"

"Totally. I reject your racist views."

"You're missing the whole point," Jack said sounding exasperated, "I'm against racism. I'm just saying that being openly racist like Trump is--or pretends to be--is a strategy to build and mobilize support for himself. And people like Omarosa and the football players who take a knee are helping with that because, as I said before, they confirm the stereotype."

"I get that and some of what you say may be true, but that doesn't make it acceptable. It's not just about doing whatever it takes to win, how you win also counts. You guys who claim to be good Christians and true conservatives are nothing but hypocrites. I don't see anything Christian in any of this. There is no milk of human kindness. All I see is mean-spiritedness, fear of the 'other,' and hatred. Now I've had my say and am about to hang up." 

Jack held back and so I continued, "For what it's worth, my sense of things is that you need to do some deep soul-searching, including about how you come across. Maybe more than that you would be advised to do some thinking about what you are bringing down upon America. A country you say you love."

And with that I did hang up.

January 26, 2018--Trump vs. Obama

Donald Trump launched his political career by savaging Barack Obama, beginning with the birther racism to accusing him of being a stealth Muslim to doing all he could first as a candidate and now as president to discredit and dismantle everything that was accomplished during the Obama eight years in the White House. 

It is as if Trump wants to nullify Obama's presidency (more racism) and delete his name from history. To make it as if Obama was not president. Forget that--to make it so that he never existed. 

For Trump's most ardent followers this is the definition of how to make America great again: Purge the country of people of color and anyone who is not Christian. Actually, not a Protestant. 

If one is looking for the Trump policy agenda all that is needed is to take out a list of Obama's achievements and invert them. Voilà, the Trump agenda is revealed. For example, most recently, most dramatically Obama-annihilating, Trump allowing all states bordered by our oceans to license oil companies the unfettered right to drill.

Try as Trump might to pull off this campaign to overturn Obama's record and place in history, the facts, assuming anyone is interested in them, present a very different picture.

Case in point, a recent Joe Scarborough op-ed column in the Washington Post, "The Damage Trump Has Done, Documented."

Drawing on data about the state of the economy from a January article in Forbes Magazine, not exactly a Bernie Sanders endorsed publication, "Trump's Economic Scorecard: One Year Since Inauguration," Scarborough compares how the economy fared during each presidency.

Most self-vaunted is the run up of the stock market. Trump claims there is no better evidence that his economic policies are working and that this is in contrast with the "failed" Obama record. During the first year of the Trump presidency the run-up in the Standard & Poor's average was a noteworthy 19.4%. But, though he never fails to reject the idea that he inherited a heating-up economy from Obama, the market did even better during Obama's first year--rising on the S&P an astonishing 23.5%.

In regard to jobs created Trump's numbers were lower in 2017 than in any of the first six years of Obama's presidency. And the unemployment rate declined faster under Obama than during Trump's first year in office.

The budget deficit last year was $666 billion, whereas it was a declining $585 a year earlier under Obama. And the national debt, a favorite target of conservatives, is now accruing at a more rapid rate than during the years of the Obama administration.

Then the trade deficit, an important indicator of economic health, was worse last year than in any of Obama's eight years.

There are things to criticize when it comes to the Obama record about the economy (for example the unrelenting growth in the gap between the wealthy and middle class), but things with Trump in regard to the economy, acknowledging its early achievements, are for the most part not as noteworthy as during the Obama years. 

One thing is certain, President Obama's record, which, in spite of Trump's obsessive assault on it, continues to endure while we may soon see the dismantling of the Trump presidency itself. And over time we will also see how history regards each of them. The outline of that, regardless of the Trump posturing, is already clear.

January 12, 2018--Trump 2018 Removal Act

Earlier this week, Donald Trump flew to Nashville to visit Andrew Jackson's nearby home, the Hermitage, to honor him by, among other things, placing a wreath on his tomb.

Though Trump doesn't read and knows nothing verifiable about American history, including the American presidency, a large portrait of the 7th president is currently on prominent display in the Oval Office.

Why might that be? Not because Jackson owned about 200 slaves (though that per se would not repel Trump) but because he was the first president to be widely regarded by "ordinary" people. Trump views himself that way. There is his base that he spends all day pandering to, which was on vivid display yesterday.

It began in the morning. The House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on an extension of the FISA act, legislation that was first approved in 1978 to allow intelligence-gathering agencies to spy on foreign nationals as well as American citizens who might represent terrorist threats. 

Libertarians such as Senator Rand Paul had proposed an amendment that would require that a FISA court, more than at present, be required to authorize in advance any domestic spying.

Paul was on Morning Joe a few hours before the vote, seemingly to explain his amendment but, as it turned out, to seek and secure Trump's support. Seemingly as a non sequitur, unprompted, he went into a passionate attack on the FBI who, he falsely claimed, was working to "bring down" the president.

When I wondered out loud why the senator switched subjects, Rona patted me on the arm and as if to humor me and with a sigh, said, "Of course to suck up to Trump in order to secure his support."

"Rand Paul?" I asked, still naively, "The same person Trump mocked and destroyed during the 2016 Republican primary season?"

Rona just looked over at me as if I were born yesterday.

Needless to say, waffling back and forth all day, Trump came down to oppose the Paul amendment after an hour earlier endorsing it.

So much for attempting to suck up to and relate transactually to our president.

More of Trump playing to his base was on disgraceful display later in the day.

At a bipartisan meeting in the Oval Office about legislation that would provide some additional support for the Wall along the border with Mexico in trade for Congress's approval for a path to citizenship for 800,000 stateless DACA young people, Trump met with six congressional leaders, seemingly to wrap up final details.

Appearing to be unmotivated, almost like a non sequitur of his own, Trump began to ruminate about immigration writ larger, asking why we accept immigrants and refugees from places such as Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa. 

From "shithole countries" like these.

After this outrageousness, Republicans offered their usual tepid response, mainly mild forms of faux incredulity (they too worry about the power of Trump's base--perhaps 30 percent of America's adults) while most others expressed genuine outrage.

Has Trump finally crossed the line that many of us have been waiting for for more than two years, a line that will finally bring him down? 

Even in my hopeful naïvety, I was skeptical. Trump critics were not surprised by his ignorance and racism. We have come to expect it and have been rendered exhausted by it. Perhaps even inured.  

As someone yesterday evening was quoted as saying, it was another example of Trump seeking to "make America white again."

That caused me to think more about Trump's visit to Andrew Jackson's home and grave. 

Among other disturbing things that Jackson was responsible for was the infamous Indian Removal Act of 1830 that required native people, to leave our then western territories and relocate west of the Mississippi. Some tribes did so "voluntarily," others needed to be "removed" forcefully along the Trail of Tears.

This is what Trump is up to and why he admires Jackson so much--Trump too wants to see the removal of millions of Americans along a contemporary trail of tears. El Saladorians back to El Salvador, Hatians back to their island, Africans back to Africa, Muslims back to their countries.

One thing they have in common--they are all people of color. "What can't we admit more Norwegians, white-supremacist Trump opined wistfully.

If he didn't cross the line yesterday maybe he inched closer to it. Mueller is thankfully lurking while cravenly GOP members in Congress aren't.

August 16, 2017--Donald Trump's Hostage Tape

Does anyone believe that the statement President Trump finally made on Monday, two days after the violence, murder, and deaths in Charlottesville, came from his heart?

If so, everyone should now know better.

In his initial comments on Saturday, after failing to call out by name the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, and neo-Nazi thugs, he was excoriated on all sides, by some Republicans (kudos to Marco Rubio) and most Democrats, for his unwillingness to do so and especially for striking the absurd, moral equivalent comparison when he condemned violence "from many sides."

He tried to clean it up on Sunday by having a White House spokesman release a statement that most still felt did not go far enough because it failed to mention white supremacists by name and included criticism of violence allegedly perpetrated by "other [presumably liberal] hate groups."

Still under immense pressure, on Monday, sticking close to the text on his teleprompter, he called out hate groups by name and restrained himself from making any reference to those from the many sides--

Racism is evil [he forced himself to say]. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

If he had uttered these words closer to the time of the act of domestic terrorism, he probably could have retained at least some credibility. He could have made reference to his claim on February 16th when he boasted--"I am the least anti-semitic, least racist person ever. [My italics.]

Of course, that would have been suspect based on things he actually said and did for at least the past two years.

On July 8, 2015, less than a month after announcing he was running for president he, defamed Mexicans--

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. . . . They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problem with us [sic]. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some I assume are good people.

He also has failed to explicitly mention Jews even when recalling the Holocaust. On February 27, 2017, for example, critics say, his failure to do so "generalizes" one of the worst genocides in history.

And, of course, his rise to political prominence was based on his five-year racist assault on Barack Obama's citizenship and thus the legitimacy of his presidency.

The list goes on. Stating a version of, "Some of my best friends are (fill in the blank) doesn't work. In fact, it makes his denial sound even hollower.

Monday morning, on Morning Joe, marketing expert Donny Deutsch told it like it is. He said--

He is a racist. Can we just say it once and for all, when we look at his history? When we look at the housing issues [in 1973 Trump was sued by the Justice Department for discriminating against African American renters], when you look at what he said about reverse discrimination against whites, the birther movement. We have a racist as a president who is a man who cannot stand up and condemn the Ku Klux Klan and Nazism is a racist.

From Trump's facial expressions and body language on Monday as he read the comments prepared for him by those trying to "handle" him, it looked as if he was delivering a hostage tape. And he was.

He is a hostage of his own devising. How many more bridges will he burn as he becomes more and more desperate to hold on to his dwindling base of supporters?

Three days ago, David Duke, former head of the KKK and fervent Trump supporter told the truth. He said, "We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump."

Trump continues to repay that scabrous debt.

And by yesterday afternoon he again reversed himself, saying the counter demonstrators were "very, very violent."

From his fury we knew he was unscripted and speaking from his heart.

It is time to consider implementing the 25th Amendment. He is not fit to be our president.

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.

March 15, 2016--Affectionate Pressure

I have been under affectionate pressure from many liberal friends about some of the things I have posted here about Donald Trump and his remarkable candidacy. In truth, some admonitions that have actually been less than affectionate.

But there I go again, illustrating what they see to be my problem--while attempting to understand why Trump has gathered so much support, I have used words such as remarkable to describe what I see to be the Trump phenomenon. As if remarkable sounds too much like support (it doesn't) or phenomenon is too dispassionately analytical (it may be).

Why haven't I, some say to me, reached the obvious conclusion about him and move on? Don't I see him to be a fraud and a bully, worse, a racist bigot, a misogynist with fascistic aspirations?

Yes, I see all of those tendencies and more.

But if you have been wondering about me, hear me clearly--I have no intention of voting for him in November if he is the Republican nominee.

(As a sidebar, I do not see him winning the nomination--I predicted here months ago that the prize will go to the over-coy, over-eager Paul Ryan. Mitt Romney, clearly, was not ready for his closeup.)

And, these friends have also been unhappy to hear that I will not be voting for Hillary Clinton. I find her qualifications and resumé to be suspect and her inclination to play by her own rules and lie about the consequences unacceptable. Perhaps even felonious. It is no surprise to me at all that the vast majority of young women are voting for Bernie Sanders.

My hope is that somehow someone like a Joe Biden will be able to enter the race. Someone with real, as opposed to self-proclaimed accomplishments.

Otherwise I may sit this one out.

But again, Trump is not anyone for whom I have any admiration or even respect and will not knowingly render him any support.

But I will continue to attempt to figure out the political, social, cultural, and even psychological reasons he has attracted so many followers. Neither I nor any of my friends thus far have answered all the questions I have about these questions and thus many remain.

For example, I have been pressed to see Trump as a crypto-fascist in the mode of Benito Mussolini. There are fascistic strains being exposed, but what are the economic and cultural pressures that might lead to the emergence of an American Duce? Many conditions are dire here, but it is far from 1920s Italy. And how do Evangelical Christians, as opposed to Italian Catholics affect these impulses? This is a key difference and no one to date has shown me how to think about this.

Some say to me that I am meandering into the slippery world of psychohistory. That to psychoanalyze Trump is both an easy thing to do--his omnivorous narcissism and inordinate need for adulation are right there to see on the surface--but hardly worth unpacking. I have responded that I am less interested in his personality disorders than I am in the social-psychological forces at work within our society. Our pervasive national pathology. Our tendency toward anti-intellectualism, know-nothingness, even what historians such as my undergraduate history professor, Richard Hofstadter, have called the "paranoid style in American politics."

Probing beneath the surface of the day-to-day news cycle, I have also written here about how self-loathing can lead one to an interest in Donald Trump. There is more to say about this and over time I hope to be able to do that.

Is there a will to believe that is driving interest, even devotion to Trump? If so, why are Americans, unlike our Western European allies, so prone to belief at the expense of evidence? Scientific as well as religious? Is it simply that after the Founders' generation we have been waging a war against the Enlightenment? If so, isn't that something we should be talking about?

Also, I have been asking, what about belief-driven behavior on the progressive side? Are the people who have turned to Sanders, since his numbers make no fiscal sense at all, just as belief-driven as those chanting "USA, USA" at Trump rallies? "Bernie, Bernie," doesn't sound all that attractive to me.

While on the subject of progressives, also agitating many of my progressive friends, I have been asking if we are as prone to confirmation bias as we accuse conservatives as being? In the spirit of searching for justification for our views, seemingly seeking evidence, how might we be filtering out or ignoring data and views that are legitimate but contradict our fervently-held beliefs? Are we so much smarter and objective than the conservatives we abhor?

And what about the penchant for seeking scapegoats? On the Trump side finding them among undocumented immigrants and more generally people of color. On the other side, I have periodically found friends also engaging in stereotypes--labeling Trump supporters "ignoramuses," "sexists," and "bigots." Is that the best we can come up with when attempting to understand Trump's appeal?

If a large part of Trump's power, many who excoriate him claim, comes from his exploiting and pandering to people's frustration and rage about what they perceive to be America's dissent into a society that panders to people here illegally or others who allegedly are ripping off hard-working Americans who are trying to survive by playing by the rules, what about all the grousing and withering complaints I hear from some of my friends? Much of it quite nasty.

Aren't many of us also frustrated by what we see to be America's failings and even decline? About our rigged system? Don't too many of us on the left join many on the right in looking down our noses at America's struggling unwashed? Aren't we all guilty of having insufficient understanding and too little empathy?

If any of this is true shouldn't we be more honest about our views and, more important, behavior? So many of my friends who understandably despise Trump and say we have to stop him because we will need to tell the next generation why we didn't act to stop him are doing little more than sending money to Bernie from the comforts of middle-class lives. Where is our movement? Is Black Lives Matter the best we can do?

This is just part of my list of unanswered questions. Questions I feel require better answers if we are not to rip ourselves apart. Like him, hate him, one thing Trump has inarguably done is to tear the scab off much of our collective, ideologically-spanning hypocrisies.

Admittedly, many of my remaining questions focus on people like, well,  me. To me and those like me who are leading contradictory lives, substantially satisfied, living in relative comfort and security, it is essential to understand the implications of these unflattering things, including our claim that it is only others who are vulnerable to false prophets.

Perhaps that's too quick a characterization. Among other things, it excuses us from the unpleasantness of having to engage in a difficult self-examination.

As valid as our characterization of "others" might be, to note that is the easy part. The hard part, the more important part, is to look within ourselves, do more fessing up, take more responsibility, and do a lot less finger pointing and condemning.

We're too smart for that.

There's a stereotype for you.

March 1, 2016--Godwin's Law

Do you know Godwin's Law?

More formally it is Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies and was coined in 1990 by Mike Godwin, former general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation.

It states that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches."

That is, if any discussion, regardless of topic or scope, goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Nazism.

Godwin's Law, when invoked, effectively shuts down the possibility of two or more parties continuing a discussion, even one that started out fairly benignly.

These days, Godwin's Law is working overtime during an increasingly contentious political season. We have candidates--exclusively Republicans--casually accusing each other of Nazi-like ideas and proposals.

Just last week, the reenergized Ted Cruz said that Donald Trump's preposterous promise to deport 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants was the equivalent of sending troops in "hobnailed boots" to round them up.

And I must say that in more and more of my attempts to engage in civil discourse with friends who have been critical of my paying serious attention to the campaign of Donald Trump--not endorsing him but seeing what can be learned about the current state of America from his disquieting run--that after two or three e-mail exchanges, the conversation gets shut down by friends comparing Trump to Hitler or more frequently Mussolini, to whom he does bear some physical resemblance. (Just as Ted Cruz looks so much like Senator Joseph McCarthy.)

I have attempted to push back against this use of Godwin's Law, but unsuccessfully. And as a result we stop talking about politics and agree to chat about the upcoming baseball season, which is fine.

But then, over the weekend, Donald Trump may have really stepped in it and as a result may have disqualified himself from any longer being considered a feasible candidate for the presidency.

When pressed by Jake Tapper on CNN to disavow white-supremisisit Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's support, Trump, who two days earlier had done so, hemmed and hawed, finally saying, actually lying, that he had no idea who Duke is and did not want to disavow anyone or any group until he knew for certain what they were about.

That latter point is not unreasonable except for one thing--anyone older than 50, anyone who knows anything at all about American social or racial history knows about David Duke. He is not some obscure figure living under a rock (though he probably does) but someone of great prominence who even ran for president back in 1988.

So, Trump was either lying and pandering to white-supremisist voters (unacceptable enough) or he really never heard of Duke--his ignorance is also beyond disturbing as is his craven attempt to blame his equivocation on a faulty ear piece--that he couldn't hear the question.

Beyond terrible.

But as bad as he is, he is no Fascist , no Nazi.