September 6, 2017--Jack: Trump's Two Faces

I hadn't seen Jack in what felt like weeks. And then on Tuesday, when we arrived at the Bristol Diner, sitting in his favorite booth, he was all smiles.

"So, how you been?" he bellowed. 

I wasn't ready for all the energy he was exuding or all his good cheer. I knew we would inevitably get to talking about Donald Trump and I wasn't in the mood for that either. Hurricanes were on my mind and, if you pushed me, North Korea. What with their recently claiming to have exploded a hydrogen bomb and us with an embattled president who lacks impulse control. 

I ignored him and headed for another table. Rona poked me in the back as if to say, if you let him get under your skin, he wins. Wins what? I wondered.

But, resigned, with a shrug, I turned toward Jack and slid onto the bench opposite him. Deb had already brought me a cup of half-caf coffee.

Without preliminaries, he said, "It looks as if you've given up on my boy."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, but it seems like a month since you've written anything about him. You appear to be obsessed with this audiological business and other irrelevant stories. I can't believe . . ."

"You may not believe me," I grunted, "But a lot of people seem to like my irrelevant stories. Especially the ones about my audiologist." I started to get up to leave, but, under the table, Rona pulled me back into my seat.

"This is hard to believe," he said, "But I sort of believe you." He grinned at me.

I couldn't resist and said, "Why are you so euphoric? You think things are going well? Half of Trump's people have either resigned or are about to. I doubt if chief-of-staff Kelly will stay on for more than another month and secretary of state Tillerson will not be far behind. So you think if things deteriorate further with North Korea your so-called boy has the finesse and temperament to handle the situation? I really believe we're close to a big-time war with them. Maybe with nukes. Nukes deployed by both sides. I can't understand how you seem to feel so bouncy."

"Trump's got everything under control. With need someone with his cojones to handle Kim whatever-his-name-is. You'd rather have your Obama dealing with this? Or Bill Clinton, of, for that matter, Bush? Either one of them? They're a bunch of wimps who had nearly 30 years between them to deal with this. If they had done something years ago do you think that crazy, fat fella would have such an arsenal?"

"It looks like you've moved on from what we talked about a few weeks ago. Charlottesville and Trump's cozying up to the white supremacists. When you told me that weepy story about your father in the Second World War and what he came to feel about the Nazis after seeing the Buchenwald concentration camp, I suspected you were shedding crocodile tears."

"Unfair," he shouted, "The Nazis are disgusting. They're animals. Including the ones here in America. But not everything is about Nazi this, Nazis that. Things are also about the economy, immigrants, the infrastructure, and, yes, North Korea. Tell me the truth, do you care more about the neo-Nazis or North Korea?"

I thought about that for a minute. It was a fair question. "I care about both," I finally said, "but more about North Korea."

Jack just smiled at me, rocking back and forth on the seat.  

I tried to pivot, "You really think he's up to handling all of this? The Russia probe by Mueller is clearly heating up and the noose is getting tighter around Trump's neck. Forgive the image. A lot of that was pushed out of the headlines because of the hurricane in Texas, but it's festering and I am sure the closer it gets to Trump the more scared he's becoming. One way to make even Mueller irrelevant to what you call the liberal media is a big war with North Korea. I confess I'd then turn all my attention to it and hope for the best, even with this president."

"Glad to hear you're so patriotic," Jack said.

"North Korea is a big problem. A very big and dangerous one. And, to tell you the truth, I don't have good ideas about what to do, how to proceed. I don't think anyone else does either. It may come down to war. Sometimes, when all else fails, and it looks as if that may be in the process of happening this time, war becomes the best option. We can't just let things proceed. Our technical people said it would be a few years before Kim would have functioning ICBMs that could reach our west coast and years more before he would have an H-bomb. But it looks like they're wrong and he may already have both. So I don't want to be glib or ideological about this. Trump is our president, and though I hate that, it will be up to him and whoever he listens to to decide what to do. I hope there are a few decent options available that we don't know about."

"Now I'm depressed," Jack said, "I was feeling so good until you arrived."

"We come here for coffee pretty much every day so our showing up should be no surprise. And, for the life of me, I still don't understand why you were so pumped up. Maybe, considering all the messes Trump continues to make you're more hysterical than euphoric and you're putting on a show to cover up what you're really feeling--that he's a disaster."

He smirked.

"And, in fact," I continued, "I've written quite a few pieces about him. Especially considering his various about-faces after the nightmare in Charlottesville. Which, by the way, seems like a pattern to me."

"A pattern?"

"Yeah, how Trump is frequently two-faced when it comes to situations like Charlottesville. How when he speaks off the cuff he gets himself in trouble with most of the media, including at times even with Fox, and much of the public. And then a day or two later he tries to clean things up and, tightly scripted, revisits the story and tries to pave over his true feelings. I'm coming to conclude that he does this semi-intentionally. To literally have it both ways--red meat for his base and seeming reasonableness for others."

Jack sat there not saying a word. Collapsed in the banquette, he looked exhausted. His ability to ignore unpleasant truths about Trump no longer working.

I added, "Even how he dealt with the hurricane was a version of the same thing--first he shows up and speaks extemporaneously, forgetting to mention the victims of the storm or even visiting an area that was struck by the hurricane, commenting about one of his obsessions, how big the turnout was for his visit. But then a few days later, using the teleprompter, he delivers much more measured and appropriate comments. But we know from this two-facedness what he really feels. And it's not attractive."

"I'm ready to order," I said to Deb. She had been hovering close by to listen in.

Jack roused himself, "All the stuff you're focused on doesn't mean a thing. Remember, you heard it here, it's now all about North Korea and you'll be thankful soon that Trump is your president." He resumed his grinning.

"Unlikely, but for the sake of the world, I hope you're right. And by the way--you're sort of right. I have been writing a bit less about him. He is so outrageous in almost everything he does that it's hard to keep up with him. To have the stamina to pay attention, think, and deal with it. I'm suffering from Trump fatigue. Another thing I'm sure he's enjoying--how he seems to be able to silence his critics. He simply wears us out."

Jack, with a sly smile, slid out of the booth, leaving money on the table and headed for the bathroom. It's right by the side door and I wasn't expecting him to return.

Jack, Rona and Steve @ the Bristol Diner

August 18, 2017--What's Really Going On

From Donald Trump's perspective, it's not about white supremacy, it's not about America first, it's not about support for neo-Nazis, nor is it about immigrants. Though he does have hateful positions about all of these. 

As with almost everything about him, it's personal

For most of his followers, including that frightening base of about 25 percent of racist Americans as well as nearly 80 percent of Republicans who still support him, it is about some of these matters; but his appeal continues to derive primarily from his ability to mobilize the anger Americans feel at the eroding quality of their lives and their frustrations about America's diminishing place in the world.

Trump continues to be depressingly adept at exploiting their sense of decline and dislocation. He knows the buttons to push to elicit support when he sees it necessaryto shore up his coalition. Especially those who are at the hard core of his base. The ones he encourages through dog whistle statements and tweets that sanction the ugliest of reactions. The kind of scary hatred and violence we saw on display this past weekend in Charlottesville.

Again, none of this comes from genuine concern about Americans who feel they have been left behind (too many in fact have been). It is all about Donald Trump. Not about America but Donald Trump.

And so what we are witnessing is his latest reaction to what special counsel Robert Mueller is bringing to the boiling point--the role Trump himself played in stealing the presidency and his years of financial dealings with the Russians.

Concurrent with giving sanction to the mobilization of neo-Nazis and white supremacists were reports during the past two weeks about the FBI raid on former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort's house; what is turning up in the more than 20,000 documents the Trump campaign turned over to Mueller's people and what their perusal is beginning to reveal about collusion in the election with the Russians; and Mueller's move last week to seek testimony from senior White House aids, including recently-fired chief of staff, Reince Priebus.

Only Donald Trump knows what he did and didn't do. And this is clearly terrifying him.

If his hands are clean, he should have no concerns. On the other hand, if there is clear evidence that he knew and/or encouraged working with the Russians to undermine Hillary Clinton and/or if he has had significant financial dealings with Russians (many of them likely to be dirty), he has a lot to be more than concerned about. He should be feeling desperate.

Feeling desperate would explain much of his recent behavior, most vividly on display in his gyrating reaction to what was perpetrated in Charlottesville.

His desperation about his own, personal collapsing circumstances could be what has been motivating his increasingly grotesque behavior.

Again, it's all about Mueller.

Thus, we should soon see a renewed move to fire him and the offer of pardons to Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. Both vulnerable to being "squeezed" by investigators in the hope that they will throw Trump under the bus to save their skins and keep them out of jail--which is where both are headed.

Meanwhile, while Charlottesville was blanketing the news, North Korea hasn't been sitting on its hands--expect reemerging threats from moves to launch more ICBMs and even renewed testing of nuclear weapons. This will give Trump the pretext to strike back and thereby clear the headlines of anything having to do with white supremacy or Trump people colluding with the Russians to undermining Clinton's campaign.

We'll see what the generals will say or do about that.

Of course, expect to see Steve Bannon receive his walking papers from the current chief of staff, John Kelly. Assuming Kelly himself doesn't quit before doing that.

Then, there is what Trump's senior advisors who are Jewish will do--treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin and chief economic advisor Gary Cohen . . .

Son-in-law Jared Kushner might . . .

And daughter Ivanka may . . .

Left to Right--Gary Cohen, Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump

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.

November 16, 2016--Normalization

Yesterday, the following sub-headline appeared on the first page of the New York Times website--

"Critics lamented what they said was a frightening normalization of the fringe views that Mr. Bannon promoted as chairman of Breitbart News."

The Times went on to say that by president-elect Trump appointing Stephen Bannon chief presidential strategist--responsible for generating ideas that will animate his administration--as one of the founders of the white supremacist alt-right, this designation contributes to legitimatizing racist, homophobic, nationalistic, and anti-Semetic views and behavior. And, of course, will make these kinds of reprehensible thoughts welcome in the White House.

On a very different scale, I have been accused of contributing to the normalization of Donald Trump.

I have been writing here and elsewhere for a year and a half about the unexpected political rise of Donald Trump. And after he won the Republican nomination, in spite of his outrageous words and behavior, I continued to write about him, taking him seriously while most of the others on the left continued to mock and disregard the seriousness and potency of his candidacy.

Almost all of what I wrote through the many months was asserted by me to be an attempt to understand the Trump phenomenon, particularly why he was appealing to so many. Enough eventually to elect him.

My view was and is that we must come to understand why so many white men regardless of educational evil and economic status supported him enthusiastically, why so many Hispanics (close to a third of those who turned out) cast ballots for him, and particularly why more than half of white women (again across the demographic spectrum) chose him to be our next president.

I was criticized widely for not simply condemning Trump's racism and sexism and that, by writing about him and his followers with an dispassionate mind, I was contributing to taking him seriously, rather than treating him as dismissively, and, again, by so doing I helped normalize him.

Perhaps I did not do a good enough job of making the distinction between this effort to understand and what might be viewed as unintended implicit support.  

In other words, I was lectured by many, Trump did not deserve to be taken seriously and by continuing stubbornly to do so I was inadvertently--or perhaps subliminally--endorsing his candidacy.

I can understand the angst and rage and fear that his election is causing many to feel--I as well feel his election has the potential to turn out to be a national tragedy--but I do not understand why simply dismissing him was and is the preferred way to defeat his ideas and reduce his reach.

My view is that just the opposite is true.

We need to gain a nuanced and accurate understanding of Trump's appeal and a clear sense of what is motivating and mobilizing his followers if we are to have a chance to overcome appeals of his kind and the political and culture power that is responsible for the most perversely remarkable presidential election in our history.

Calling that effort normalization misses the point. One has to take the risk of taking Trump seriously (which is different than a show of support) in order to figure out what is seething in the middle of America.

Those who continue to believe that he is evil and that his supporters in one way or another are deplorable, and thereby not worth thinking about seriously, are the ones from the progressive end of the political spectrum who also contributed to his election.

Stephen Bannon

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.

February 3, 2016--In the Spirit of Nelson Mandela

The Board of trustees of Amherst College voted last week to retire its traditional mascot--Lord Jeff. Actually, to kill him off.

"Lord Jeff" has been the affectionate name for Lord Jeffery Amherst, a British commander during the French and Indian War. It is after him that the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, is named, and then after the town Amherst College.

This is a critical distinction since protestors want to get rid of just the mascot, not the name of the college itself. In a clever have-it-both-way move, they say that the college's name can remain because it was not named after Sir Jeffrey but after the town of Amherst. And this will mean that the value of an "Amherst" degree will be preserved.

No one ever said that Amherst students don't put first thing first.

Lord Jeffery was a heroic warrior, but he is also known as an advocate of white racism, among other heinous things he arranged for the distribution of smallpox-infected blankets to Indians. As he put it, "to extirpate this execrable race."

As an offshoot to the Black Lives Matter movement, students at some elite colleges have been pressing administers and trustees to eliminate any evidence of racism--current examples but more usually from the past.

At Princeton, for example, student protestors are demanding that white supremacist and former Princeton and U.S. president Woodrow Wilson's name be taken down from various campus facilities and academic programs such as the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

At Amherst, the focus thus far seems to be on the college's mascot.

Lord Jeff (On the Left)

Not to be outdone, an activated group of students at Oxford University's Oriel College are demanding that statues of Cecil Rhodes be taken down and that all traces of one of its most successful graduates and benefactors be obliterated. Including the most prestigious of academic fellowships, the Rhodes Scholarship. Thus far there have been about 8,000 Rhodes scholars, including Bill Clinton.

After graduating, Rhodes moved to South Africa where he founded the De Beers diamond empire. In the process, it is claimed by a recent doctoral student, Brian Kwoba, that Rhodes was responsible for "stealing land, massacring tens of thousands of black Africans, imposing a regime of unspeakable labor exploitation in the diamond mines, and devising pro-apartheid policies."

All legitimate and serious charges.

But when thinking about Lord Jeff and especially Cecil Rhodes--about what I would recommend--I was reminded of an experience I had in South Africa in 1995, one year after Nelson Mandela had been released from prison and became the country's first feely-elected, black president.

I was a guest at a debate in the SA Parliament about one aspect of the legacy of apartheid. There was a movement among many newly-elected legislators to remove all statuary and portraits of apertheid-era presidents and political and military leaders such as Jan Smuts, Pieter Botha, and Willem de Klerk.

Mandela was present and listened silently for more than an hour as the arguments pro and con were passionately presented. It was clear that a sizable majority were prepared to vote for the removal of these reminders of the ugly past.

At that point President Mandela, still in physical pain from his long captivity, rose slowly from his chair and all members present turned toward him in silence.

Quietly, Mandela presented the case for leaving all the memorials intact.

"They are a part of our history," he said. "One doesn't legislate the elimination of history, no matter how painful. In fact, it is more important to remember the pain and suffering than our recent liberation. So we will never forget."

At first a few and than the overwhelming majority of those present on the floor nodded and murmured in agreement. And as a result, the paintings and statues were left in place. And today, years after Mandela's death they remain where they were originally placed. To assure that over the generations no one forgets.

Jan Smuts