Tag Archives: Trump

Immigrants, Blacks, Muslims, Jews..

So who do you hate? Who do you consider to be “lesser,” unworthy to be included in that tribe we call Americans?

Whoever it is, isn’t it comforting to know that “political correctness” no longer restrains you from letting everyone know, from “telling it like it is”? It was so silly to disapprove of name-calling, race-baiting, and other forthright communications…

That’s the ugly genie that Donald Trump’s repulsive campaign has let out of the lamp, and I am very doubtful that even his (hopefully significant) loss will allow us to put it back in.

It’s bad enough that the so-called “alt-right”–the NeoNazis, the white supremacists, the Klansmen–have come out from under their rocks to enthusiastically endorse a vile and semi-sentient candidate who channels their fevered hatreds. What is worse–far worse–is that Trump has normalized a dramatically coarsened discourse and made expressions of raw bigotry acceptable in venues where they were previously muted.

A recent post at Washington Monthly by a Jewish commentator is just one example. He writes,

I often get rough messages from people who disagree with me in the thrust and parry of presidential politics and the politics of health reform. It wasn’t always pleasant. It comes with the territory.

None of this prepared me for 2016.

I and many others who write for fairly broad audiences are being deluged with antisemitic messages from Trump supporters. They come mostly on Twitter, but on private emails and blogs, too. Many alt-right messages bracket our names like so: (((haroldpollack))), to indicate that we are Jewish….

Many include four-letter words and colorful vocabulary that is quite familiar to me from my experience working on public health interventions for high-risk adolescents and adults. I block everyone who sends me these messages. For all I know, there are hundreds more.

Pollack shared one long, rambling diatribe, and it was, as he labeled it, hateful and sick. He says he usually doesn’t share such messages–why give them more air–but he does make an observation worth considering:

In a strange way, I’m almost–almost–glad that these anti-Semitic messages are out there. They remind many of us on the receiving end of a few basic realities that hang over our contested, pluralist democracy. They should remind us of what many others are facing, who have so very much more to lose if our nation jumps off the political cliff this November.

I would quibble with only one point: it isn’t only “many others” who stand to lose if this wave of tribal venom and ignorance persists. We all stand to lose something very precious: the ideal and promise of  America.

Granted, we’ve never lived up to that promise, but most of us, at least, have tried. And over the years, we have improved. We’ve become fairer, more inclusive, less intolerant. More adult. We’ve recognized that we’re all in this together (whatever “this” is), and thousands–millions–of us have worked hard to bend that arc of history toward justice.

Those efforts are  what made America great.  Not saber-rattling or bluster or domination of some by others.

It’s those efforts, those ideals, that Trump and his sneering enablers are attacking when they call Mexicans rapists, call blacks thugs, call women fat slobs. That’s the America–our America– that they want to erase.

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If Facts Matter….

I’m one of those people who has pretty much “checked out” of the day-to-day hysteria of the Presidential campaign. (I’m old, and there’s only so much I can take….). So I decided not to watch the first debate, reasoning–I think correctly–that my impressions would be irrelevant anyway.

What ultimately matters is the ensuing “conventional wisdom.”

The consensus from all the sources I’ve seen is that Hillary won pretty convincingly. I’m sure the twitter feeds of the white supremacists, and the Facebook feeds of the “deplorables” say otherwise, but reports from credible media, the prediction markets, and  TV news anchors have been pretty consistent.

One news segment was particularly telling. Frank Luntz is a longtime GOP “message mavin.” We have him to thank for the (mis)use of political language: “death tax” rather than estate tax, for example. He is also known for the focus groups he assembles; somehow, in these polarized times, he finds voters who are undecided, has them watch campaign events, and then questions them on their reactions.

The group he’d gathered for the debate was asked, on camera, who won. Five people said Trump; sixteen said Clinton. Luntz said the margin was the largest of any group he’d previously assembled.

For those of us who actually care about substance, there were a number of sites doing fact-checking. Anyone who wasn’t previously aware that Trump occasionally lies (but only when he’s talking) could scroll through the real-time corrections and compare the consistent challenges to Trump’s statements with the virtual absence of corrections to Clinton’s.

For us ordinary people who always, dutifully, did our homework, probably the most confounding element of the 90 minutes was Trump’s obvious lack of preparation–a lack that received a great deal of comment. The Orange One evidently couldn’t be bothered to study, to actually educate himself about the complexities of governance. He apparently believed he could “wing it.” Evidently, he believes Presidents can just “wing it,” too.

The real question, of course, won’t be answered until election day, and that is: how many Americans will base their votes on the best interests of the country, and how many will support an angry, delusional and demonstrably ignorant bigot who defends and deepens their resentment of a  world they find unfair and their conviction that those “others” are to blame?

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False Equivalence, Delusion-Grade

Tomorrow night is the first Presidential debate, so this seems like a good time to get something off my chest.

I’m fed up with assertions that the candidates are equally flawed, that either would be a “disaster”–as if there is anything remotely comparable between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And I don’t think I’m the only one who finds those assertions dishonest and self-serving.

I understand the propaganda when it comes from people who don’t want to admit, even to themselves, that their support of Donald Trump is rooted in his–and their–bigotries. I don’t understand it coming from people who actually understand that we are hiring a chief executive for an incredibly demanding job, and who disclaim support for Trump, but then say they will vote for a third party or not at all–both actions an effective, if indirect, vote for him.

I participate in a listserv focused on Law and Courts. It’s a conversation between political scientists and law professors whose academic research centers on legal and constitutional issues and the ways that judges approach and resolve those issues. A recent thread about impeachment law included a post from a (male) scholar who expressed his distaste for both candidates in a fashion that suggested such a near equivalency; that post generated a response that is worth sharing in its entirety.

I categorically reject the idea that one could put Hillary Clinton in the same category as Donald Trump vis-a-vis “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Absurd. Clinton has been in public service for more 40+ years and, by and large, has abided by the rule of law governing the offices she was in, the roles she inhabited, and the causes she advocated for. Did she do some stupid, wrong and probably illegal things during some of that time? Yes, she did. Was it above and beyond what similarly situated men have done? Men whom we laud as tireless public servants? No, she did not.

Not only that, she has endured a relentless 25 year campaign to undermine, demean and thoroughly discredit her. I defy any male politician in public service as long as Hillary Clinton to come away from such a microscope with nothing more damning than the email nonsense.

We can and should be vigilant about the rule of law and the abuse of political power. But the double standard on display right now is among the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime. I was not a particularly vehement supporter of Hillary Clinton when this campaign started but I bloody well am now.

Sorry. But I just can’t take it anymore.

Like the writer of this post–with which I agree 100%–I was not a particular fan of Hillary Clinton at the beginning of this campaign. My attitude was not based upon her performance in the various offices she’s held, which was in each case highly competent; my reluctance to support her was based upon a concern that she was not–and is not–a gifted candidate.

Not unlike George H.W. Bush (the competent Bush), Clinton’s interest is clearly in governing, and she is uncomfortable “selling herself” on the campaign trail. In her case, the 25-year campaign referenced above has made her defensive and scripted. Understandable but unfortunate behaviors on the campaign trail.

Like the writer of this post, however, I’ve been “radicalized” by the double standard applied to Clinton, the raw misogyny, and the obvious delight in criticizing her every move by our so-called “liberal” media. (Since when is working through walking pneumonia without whining about it a “lack of transparency”?)

There is no equivalency between Trump and Clinton. None.

If you needed an operation, and your choice was between a respected surgeon who had saved numerous lives during a long career during which he had also made a few bad calls, and a local B-list actor with delusions of grandeur who had never performed an operation,  who displayed monumental ignorance of medicine generally and human anatomy specifically, I don’t think your choice would be difficult.

There’s false equivalency, and then there’s monumental intellectual dishonesty.

Think about that as you watch the debate.

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“The Cyber is So Big..”

Ed Brayton recently compared Donald Trump to that student who tries to give a book report without having read the book. His evidence? A Politico report on yet another episode of Trump’s “stream of consciousness” babbling, this time in what was intended to be a carefully orchestrated town hall in Virginia Beach, with a friendly moderator chosen to lob softballs:

A few minutes later, Flynn asked Trump a question about cybersecurity challenges.

Trump’s response?

“You know, cyber is becoming so big today. It’s becoming something that a number of years ago, a short number of years ago, wasn’t even a word.”…

“Now the cyber is so big. You know you look at what they’re doing with the Internet and how they’re taking, recruiting people through the Internet. And part of it is the psychology, because so many people think they’re winning. And you know there’s a whole big thing.

“Even today’s psychology, where CNN came out with a big poll — their big poll came out today that Trump is winning. It’s good psychology. It’s good psychology.”

I defy anyone to interpret that word salad. Trump makes Sarah Palin look coherent.

Brayton said it best:

All politicians try to avoid answering a question directly and they will quickly pivot to their pre-rehearsed answers. But this is not that, not even close. This is someone who literally has no idea what he’s talking about so he just babbles for a while and then stops talking without having ever even come into the same vicinity as the subject that was asked about. It’s like there’s just random firing of synapses going on.

And the really bizarre thing is that this was a staged event for the Trump campaign. He knew all the questions in advance. He was being interview by one of his advisers. He had been given prewritten answers to the question. And he still had nothing but a stream of drivel to offer. Can you imagine trying to run his campaign? I’d have killed myself by now.

It has become increasingly clear that something is very wrong with Donald Trump–not simply his ignorance, or his lack of self-discipline, or his bigotry, or even his monumental (and unwarranted) self-esteem. This man appears to be profoundly mentally ill.

And millions of Americans will vote for him.

Color me terrified.

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One Mystery (Possibly) Solved…

None of the theories to date about the reason for Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns have seemed very persuasive, but when I read this reporting by the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold, I had an “ah ha” moment. 

Apparently, “deadbeat Don” has reported–and presumably deducted– charitable gifts that he didn’t actually make. Multiple charities are telling Fahrenthold that they never received donations that the Trump Foundation listed and claimed on IRS submissions.

One can see how the disclosure of tax returns reporting non-existent donations might be…embarrassing.

Of course, even if the existence of improper deductions does solve one mystery– the reason for Trump’s refusal to share his tax returns–it leaves us with a number of others. Why, for instance, would a man who clearly has no interest in public policy or administration run for public office? Why would a candidate who is totally ignorant of the basics of constitutional government refuse to inform himself about those basics? Why would someone who has never run in a political campaign ignore all advice from people who understand what such campaigns require?

The answers to those and similar questions are probably only obtainable on a psychiatrist’s couch. And ultimately, unless he wins (which, thankfully, is unlikely) the idiosycrasies of a self-obsessed megalomaniac will ultimately be matters of only passing interest.

The more pressing question–the question that keeps me up nights and consumes reasonable Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike–is why would anyone vote for this man?

In any sane universe, Donald Trump is a joke: a tacky, ignorant narcissist who communicates at a third-grade level, lies compulsively (and not very convincingly) and thinks childish insults and ad hominem attacks are debate points.

The reason for some portion of his support is abundantly clear. (Despite walking her comments back, Clinton quite accurately described these voters as belonging in a “basket of deplorables.”) White supremacists, anti-Semites, racists, sexists and xenophobes see him–probably accurately– as one of them. But other people, who don’t appear to fall into those categories and who don’t appear to belong in the basket, also tell pollsters they support him.

I assume some number of die-hard Republicans will vote for the party’s candidate no matter what–although Trump has made it clear that he has no respect for longstanding Republican positions (assuming he even knows what those are). And I suppose there must be some people who are so horrified at the prospect of a woman in the Oval Office that they will opt for any male, no matter how unfit and/or dangerous. But beyond those (hopefully small) categories, I am hard-pressed to understand why any voter would see this repulsive ignoramus as remotely Presidential.

I know I’ll hear from readers who hate Hillary and who will claim that Trump is no worse; however, even they know that is manifest nonsense. Even if you believed every accusation that has been thrown at her (despite the innumerable investigations that have come up empty), there is still no equivalence. Besides, large numbers of critics who detest her have publicly confirmed that they won’t vote for Trump. They’ll vote for third-party candidates or leave the Presidential line blank. Depending on the state the voter lives in, those actions do help Trump, but they aren’t the same as affirmatively supporting him.

I want to know about the people who actually plan to cast a vote for him. Who are they? What am I missing?

Why would anyone who isn’t a White Nationalist vote for an unstable, demonstrably unfit blowhard whose election would quite obviously pose a clear and present danger to the nation and the planet?

Inquiring minds really want to know.

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