Month: January 2017

SUPER TRUMP: AN ACTION FIGURE WITHOUT A CLUE

Well, score one for Team Trump. They said their guy would blow everything up, and that’s just what he is doing. Take a look at the headlines:

• Refugee Ban Causes Worldwide Furor (Washington Post)
• Judge Blocks Trump Order on Refugees Amid Chaos and Outcry Worldwide (New York Times)
• Donald Trump’s Immigration Order Sparks Confusion, Despair at Airports (Wall Street Journal)

I suspect there are 63 million arms pumping away over all this turmoil. After all, one person’s furor, chaos and despair is someone else’s sweet sound of a draining swamp. Yet, as it has been written – or should have been if it hasn’t – any fool can light a fuse (or drain a swamp); the hard part is replacing the ruins with something better. On that end, there has been only a bewildering mixture of wanton hyperbole and silence.

This administration is not high on details. If it had been, Trump might have a chosen a date other than Holocaust Remembrance Day (Friday) to sign an order suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days, indefinitely barring Syrian refuges and blocking citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days. Politico reported that a Twitter account methodically posting names of Jews refused asylum in the United States and subsequently murdered in the Holocaust was retweeted thousands of times on Friday.

According to nonstop news accounts, Trump’s order provoked pandemonium at airports where numerous legal residents were denied admission from foreign trips. An Iraqi interpreter who served in the U.S. military for over a decade, was put in handcuffs at New York’s JFK airport and detained until a judge ordered his release. According to a Politico report, an Iranian scientist on her way to Harvard Medical School to work on a cure for tuberculosis, was not allowed to board her plane.

Trump’s executive order drew intense criticism from world leaders, a number of Republicans, representatives of most major religions and the CEOs of nearly every Silicon Valley high tech corporation which employs foreign nationals. The White House was anything but contrite. The president’s senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway tweeted Saturday night: “Get used to it. @POTUS is a man of action and impact. Promises made, promises kept. Shock to the system. And he’s just getting started.”

Nobody from Trump’s office, of course, even attempted to connect the dots between the hastily and sloppily drafted executive order and the goal of protecting Americans from terrorism. None of the 9/11 terrorists were from the seven countries named in the order. Other countries that have produced numerous terrorists, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan, were untouched by the order. The result is a cruel illusion of security at the price of keeping law abiding foreign nationals from entering the country. The National Basketball Association is hardly a hotbed of political activists, but the Milwaukee Bucks made a point of starting Thon Maker, a Sudanese immigrant, Saturday night as a protest over Trump’s xenophobic order.

The problem with all of this, for the country and for Trump, was captured in Kellyanne Conway’s tweet: “. . .he’s just getting started.” These people are still in campaign mode. They are pushing the narrative of Trump the Superhero, the guy who can singlehandedly “Make Gotham Great Again.” What they are ignoring is the reality that a four-year term is a marathon, not a sprint and, despite the campaign lore of Trump’s invincibility, he can’t go it alone.

He’s been in office less than 10 days and Republican congressional leaders are struggling valiantly to keep a lid on their dismay over their party’s president. Several key lawmakers broke the vow of silence over the weekend and publicly criticized his immigration order. Consistent with superhero fashion, it was drafted and released without consulting Congressional Republicans.

As former president Barack Obama can attest, you can only go so far with executive orders. Trump was dealt a winning hand last November: Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. But the president’s solipsism is not conducive to making that legislative advantage work for him. According to a secret recording from last week’s Republican meeting in Philadelphia, there was considerable angst voiced over Trump’s lack of any details concerning a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) “That’s going to be called TrumpCare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.” The colossal disaster of Trump’s immigration rollout this weekend did nothing to lower the anxiety level of House Republicans.

Instead, the president managed to throw even more energy into a growing resistance movement with spontaneous protest rallies across the country. There is widespread anger over the harm inflicted on innocent immigrants and foreign nationals, with no persuasive evidence that the plan will do anything to reduce terrorism. Most speculation, as a matter of fact, leans in the opposite direction, that anger over the move will be used as a terrorist recruiting tool.

For the moment, however, the White House is content to cling to the campaign fiction that Trump’s superhero powers, alone, will win the day and eradicate evil. For those who no longer read comic books, the time will soon come when measurable, quantifiable results will determine the success of this presidency. Right now, all indications are that such a test will be Trump’s kryptonite.

AN IMPORTANT LESSON LURKING AMONG THE RUBBLE ON FACEBOOK

I found something pretty incredible on Facebook the other day. It was hidden in the clutter of proclamations, declarations and protestations that dot our daily dose of social media cognition. It was unaccompanied by bold headlines and offered no sharp-edged sarcastic graphics. In plain, quiet 12-point type, the words almost seem to whisper. This is what they said:

“Just a thought but today, once again, I was reminded to use caution (when) speaking with family, friends and relatives. Those words might be the last thing that you ever have a chance to say to them. If you truly care, be careful. Sometimes hurt feelings become anger. Choose wisely.”

The message was written by a guy I barely know, someone I went to high school with 50 years ago. I can’t precisely place him, although I have a vague recollection of the two of us shooting spitballs in study hall. Now I am marveling at the wisdom and well-timed relevancy of his advice.

We’ve all been locked into this bizarre, and seemingly endless, political passion play for the last 18 months. Who among us has never chosen unwisely, never treaded or trampled on the feelings of those who don’t share our world view? The instantaneousness of social media is not always compatible with audience analysis and wise choices. Much has been written about how the presidential campaign, and its ongoing aftermath, have strained and destroyed close personal relationships (here, here and here). The New York Times just released a compelling video involving three parent-adult child dyads grappling with the Trump-Anti Trump dichotomy and the toll it took on their relationships. We’ve all gotten so caught up in preaching the righteousness of our beliefs that we needlessly and unintentionally hurt those who see the world differently.

I was so taken with my classmate’s advice, that I went to his homepage to see what other pearls of wisdom David had to offer. I am using only his first name here out of respect for his privacy, since he didn’t sign up to share his comments with my 300,000 blog readers. (Readership estimates calculated by Sean Spicer and Associates.) David heaped praise on the Republican/conservative control of all three branches of government and was critical of former President Obama for “forcing his extreme far-left agenda on an unwilling country by executive orders, left wing judges, and obsequious bureaucrats.”

As a far-left true believer, I disagreed with the content of virtually all of David’s political writings. Yet, there was something refreshingly nostalgic in the tone of his messages. He stuck to the subject matter, to the issue at hand, and never threw daggers or venom-laced sarcasm at those who might hold contrary views. I found it utterly refreshing. It was a throwback to our high school days.

I was on the debate team then. We learned how to argue both sides of an issue, a process that instilled a tremendous respect for differences of opinion. I covered the Minnesota Legislature in the 1970s, back when politicians treated each other with respect and civility, fighting over ideas without assassinating each other’s character. All of that now seems as outdated as rotary telephones and Smith Corona typewriters. We seem to have lost the ability to disagree without being disagreeable.

I live in a 55-and-up community where we all smile and wave at each other. The friendliness, however, morphs into cut-throat vindictiveness as soon as the neighborhood list serve detects a whiff of political thought. This week’s “nana na nana” exchange was over who was more obnoxious, Madonna or Donald Trump? The monitor had to shut it down and remind us to avoid political discussions. Here we are, a bunch of geezers in the twilight of our lives, and we can’t carry on a political discussion without sounding like professional wrestlers.

Remember the old “Saturday Night Live” riff on Point/Counterpoint? Dan Akroyd always started his counter to Jane Curtin’s opening argument with, “Jane, you ignorant slut!” It was a funny exaggeration back then. Now it’s standard procedure. I finally went cold turkey on the nightly cable news talk shows because I couldn’t take the shouting, the interruptions and the caustic sarcasm. Then come those daily email solicitations from political groups, all using what Andrés Martinez, an Arizona State University professor, calls “dystopian depictions” of the opposition. Martinez astutely notes that people are more inclined to push a button and donate $20 if they think they are helping to fight evil incarnate, as opposed to a reasonable person with whom we disagree.

Polarization clearly wins for cable programming and internet fundraising. But it also seeps into our psyche where it does absolutely nothing for our humanity. One of David’s political posts defended Trump’s bankruptcy filings on the basis that they were nothing more than a successful business strategy. From the left, there are obviously a number of rational and legitimate retorts that could have been offered. Instead, an alleged liberal, posted this rebuttal: “So a success? Fuck no, and it takes a brainwashed piece of shit idiot to even pretend it’s so. Know what’s good though? You’re old, and will be dead soon. And the world will be better off.”

The angry, young author of that comment deserves to be hit with a speeding spitball. The truth is that the world will be better off when there are more people like David in it, people who stand up for their beliefs without denigrating those who believe something else.

THE ILLUSIVE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A TRUMP WHITE HOUSE

We’re not even 100 hours into the Trump presidency and he has uttered a string of foolish, sophomoric lies on mostly trivial subjects, ones that, oddly and pathologically, matter only to him. In other words, whoever had January 21 or 22 in the pool on when this guy would start acting presidential lost. And the rest of the month is not looking any more promising.

Among this weekend’s presidential proclamations:

• There were 1.5 million people at his inauguration, the largest inaugural crowd ever. There were actually about 250,000 people there, dwarfing the 2009 Obama inauguration which drew 1.8 million. The new president’s fabrication became an instant meme; even the Jumbotron at a Dallas hockey game got into the act by flashing, “Tonight’s Attendance: 1.5 Million!”
• After a few rain drops fell at the start of his speech, President Trump said “God looked down and he said we’re not going to let it rain on your speech. The truth is it stopped immediately.” (This was, by the way, the first recorded report of God ever referring to Himself with a plural pronoun.) According to the Washington Post and the National Weather Service, the rain continued during the first several minutes of Trump’s speech.
• The President reported that as soon as he finished his speech, there was a pounding downpour. That simply did not happen according to weather authorities.
• President Trump told career intelligence staffers at the Central Intelligence Agency Saturday that the news media totally fabricated a report that he had been critical of their work. Days earlier, Trump’s own tweets had compared CIA employees to Nazis and made fun of them for having been wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

This singularly bizarre presidential behavior on Trump’s part should come as no surprise, although it will for anyone who held out hope that, somehow, the oath of office would transform him from a narcissistic combatant into a more serious statesperson. After all, against all odds and predictions, Trump now holds the most important job in the free world. Why is he still acting like an insecure adolescent, obsessed with constantly proving himself? The answer would fill a PhD dissertation, and I’m sure several are already in progress.

Unfortunately, unless his staff finds a way of reigning him in, – and prospects for that are extremely low – we will have to adjust to a new normal: a president totally lacking in basic leadership skills. Google the subject and you will immediately find thousands of treatises on the necessity of leaders establishing credibility and being selective in picking their battles (here, here and here). That is foreign terrain to our new president. The size of the inauguration crowd does not matter one iota. If 12 people or 12 million people had showed up, his presidential powers remain the same. Spending the first 50 hours of his presidency in a urination contest over crowd sizes and weather reports makes no strategic sense, particularly when the news media has hard evidence of his falsehoods.

The problem, of course, goes well beyond the immediate issue of crowd counts and weather patterns. What happens when the president’s words really matter? What if he’s talking about the number of American casualties in battle? Or the substance of a trade agreement? Or how many people are without health insurance? Trump’s disregard for the truth is pathological, meaning he lies constantly, whether he needs to or not. The New York Times reported a story from Trump butler Anthony Senecal, who said the president once told someone that the nursery tiles at Mar-a-Lago were made by Walt Disney. Senecal told Trump that was not true. His boss’ response? “Who cares?”

Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard University psychologist, wrote a fascinating book explaining the cognitive process that causes some people to, in effect, create a false reality and believe it is true. In his book, “Stumbling on Happiness,” Gilbert laid out such a thought process. A person knowingly exaggerates an observation to match a fantasy or an expectation. Most people, he said, then differentiate between the fantasy and the actual situation. But some, Gilbert writes, repeat the exaggeration so often that they come to believe it.

Mix that scenario with what Trump, in his autobiography, “The Art of the Deal,” called “truthful hyperbole,” and you have a recipe for converting the imagination into reality. Here is what Trump wrote in that book: “People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.” 

Its innocence, however, quickly dissipates when you lose the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, particularly when your job description includes access to the nuclear codes. Hang onto your seats. This is going to be a long, bumpy ride.

PUSSIES, POETRY AND A BLANK FROM THE PAST

There is a fascinating fracas in the heartland. It’s stirring the nostalgic juices of all of us ink-stained geezers, who periodically look up from our laptops and long for that rancid smell of crusty old newsrooms, complete with pica poles, glue pots and hungover editors in green shaded visors, an unfiltered cigarette hanging from their lips. From a production standpoint, today’s journalism is barely recognizable to anyone who got their first byline in the ‘60s or ‘70s. The printed page is on a death watch. Digital rules. Video trumps words. Content is designed for a smart phone screen. Nobody yells “Stop the presses!” anymore.

But just when you’ve accepted the fact that this vintage newspaper culture is confined to “The Front Page”, now in a limited Broadway engagement starring Nathan Lane, along comes a throwback to the days of old. It brought back so many memories, only 37 years of twelve-stepping kept me from reaching for a back-pocket flask to toast the moment.

This wonderful oldie-but-goodie appeared in a recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune story about the censorship of a poem titled “A Prayer for P–––––s.” That is exactly the way the newspaper identified the title. Millennials reading that story may have thought it was a word game. The censored poem’s title was a Prayer for a seven letter word starting with “p” and ending with “s”. Hmm. Prayer for Papists? Prayer for Pasties? How about, with apologies to those with allergies, Prayer for Peanuts? No? Then, maybe Prayer for Piggies, Pouters, Psychos or Pushers? Or even Prayer for Pundits, Punters, Pygmies or Phonics?

Of course, those of us old enough to remember the golden days of print journalism knew in a nostalgic instant that the alliterated prayer could only be for. . . drumroll please. . .ready? PUSSIES! The censored poem was “A Prayer for Pussies.” The blanks were a throwback to an era when newspapers strove to protect pure and innocent eyes. Newsrooms were odd places back then. Profanities, dirty words and foul language were part of the constant banter, but there was a sacredness about the printed word and editors made sure that the bad ones never ended up in their paper. Granted, it was news when a senator told a colleague to perform an anatomically challenging act on himself. In print, it came out as “Go f––k yourself.”

Enough of memory lane, let’s get back to pussies. A well-known Minnesota writer and artist, Junauda Petrus, was commissioned by the City of Minneapolis to write a poem to be encircled around one of 12 globe-shaped metal lanterns as part of the redesign of a downtown mall. Seizing on the uniqueness of this political moment, Petrus converted the presidential campaign’s infamous Donald Trump-Billy Bush exchange into an artfully crafted ode to the power of womanhood. She called it “A Prayer for Pussies,” figuring that a country that just elected a president who boasted about grabbing them couldn’t possibly object to praying for them.

Alas, she was wrong. Minneapolis officials decided that, as progressive as their city might be, hanging a “Prayer for Pussies” lantern in front of Macy’s Department Store might be pushing the envelope just a tad. Petrus’ poem was rejected and the resulting censorship flap was the entire basis for the Star-Tribune story. Unfortunately for readers, the piece looked like a Wheel of Fortune game board, waiting for Vanna White to start turning letters. The reporter did a solid job of telling both sides, but the nostalgic ‘60s edits were tantamount to an endorsement of the city’s censorship decision. Take a look, for example, at this otherwise pithy quote from the poet, comparing her art to Trump’s, eh, “locker room” behavior: “If he can feel bold to not only say the word ‘p––––,’ but make it a philosophy to grab for women, I can fricking write a poem that is adding sacredness and having love around the idea of praying for p–––––s.”

It’s 2017, people. The word pussy isn’t going to hurt anyone. A news story based entirely on a controversy over the use of a word needs to spell it out. Without blanks. Still, the flap was amusing and it took me back to my very early years as a reporter on a small town newspaper. During a heated council meeting, a colorful local mayor called the police chief a “goddamn suck hole.” The chief sued the mayor for slander. After lengthy litigation, a judge dismissed the suit on the basis that the term “goddamn suck hole” was so lacking in substantive meaning that it could not rise to the level of slander because nobody knew what it was.

Through it all, the newspaper referred to the alleged slanderous term as “g–––––n s––– h–––.” Many readers actually cut the articles out of the paper, filled in the blanks and mailed them in. Most of them got it wrong. The top vote getter was “goddamn shit head,” which, had it been uttered by the mayor, would have presented the court a more difficult set of facts. Other readers, baffled by all the blanks, called the newspaper and demanded to know the censored term. As a result, a young newsroom receptionist sat for weeks at her desk, telephone in hand, repeating over and over, “goddamn suck hole.” It was a strange ethical system: you could say it, but you couldn’t print it, even though a judge found that it had no meaning.

Of course, we now have an even stranger ethical system. For the next four years, the band will be playing Hail to the Chief for a man who grabs women by their pussies, while a poet who wants to pray for them is forever banned. As we used to say back in the day, that is really f––––d up.

POST ELECTION BLUES? YOU’LL FIND NO ESCAPE IN FLORIDA

Having just returned from a protracted stay in Florida, I’m still trying to untangle the state’s incongruous dualism. There is nothing more radiant than ocean waves glistening under a January sun. Yet, you don’t have to venture far from the beach to find a sea of tacky souvenir shops offering, in almost parody fashion, blow-up sea urchins and plastic alligator heads that glow in the dark. They can be ignored if you try hard enough, focusing instead on the elegant palm trees and luscious greenery adorning Florida’s highways and byways. Then again, such aesthetic vegetation is interspersed with gigantic billboards, split evenly between adult sex shops and personal injury lawyers. Florida folks are pragmatic. If a marital aid breaks at an inopportune time, they know who to call for punitive damages.

And then there’s politics. Florida and its 29 electoral votes have long been the southern belle of presidential elections, drawing more attention than any state below the Mason-Dixon line, and most of them above it. Its hanging chads took center stage in the 2000 legal battle that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court decision handing the presidency to George W. Bush. President Obama carried the state in 2008 and 2012. Two of the supporting actors in last year’s Republican primary drama – Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio – are Floridians. But Donald Trump beat them both and went on to capture the state’s electoral prize in November. With that sometimes-you-win-and-sometimes-you-lose background, you’d think Florida voters would be in a Que Sera, Sera kind of place over the pending Trump inauguration.

That’s decidedly not the case. The most dramatic evidence of the deep personal tension felt by many Floridian liberals came in an unlikely venue. Micanopy is a small, beautifully peaceful, antediluvian town a few miles south of Gainesville. Its main drag is filled with shops selling crafts, antiques and home furnishings. We spent an hour in one of those stores and drew an occasional glance from the owner, who undoubtedly marked us as out-of-towners. She approached us after the other customers had left and asked where we were from. Upon learning that we lived a few miles outside of Washington, D.C., she withdrew into a brief and pensive silence. After mentally calculating the political demographics, she took a chance.

“I just don’t know what to do,” she told us. “This whole thing with Trump. I’ve never been so scared.” My wife, Melissa, and I nodded and smiled, much to the store owner’s relief.
“Oh, thank God,” she said, “I figured you were safe. You just never know. So many customers are for Trump. It’s just awful. I can’t let on and I don’t even want to talk to them. I’ve never been through anything like this. My candidates have lost in the past and life goes on. But this time is different. I am scared of this guy. Some of his supporters scare me even more. The day after the election, I thought I would close the shop and sell the business so I wouldn’t have to deal with them. But it’s been my life. I don’t know what to do.”

It’s not just a Florida thing. New York City is offering employees counseling services and other support for dealing with Trump’s election. Therapists throughout the nation have reported an overwhelming caseload of patients needing help with their anxiety and depression over the incoming Trump administration. Staffers at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline say they have been swamped with calls from people in deep distress with feelings of hopelessness and betrayal over the election.

It’s a safe bet that this level of angst has to do with more than differences of opinion over tax policy or climate change. By campaigning against what he called “political correctness,” Trump, intentionally or unintentionally, validated the misogyny, racism and homophobia that progressives have been fighting for decades. For people affected by identity politics, this is deeply personal.

A man who sexually assaulted women and made disparaging comments based on race, religion and nationality will become president of the United States by the end of the week. A bully who delights in punching below his weight and demeaning anyone who gets in his way will soon be the leader of the free world.

Those of us who are bothered by our new reality have been counseled by Trump voters to “get over it and move on.” They are half right. We will never – and should never – get over the fact that our new president is the antithesis of the character and values we struggled to instill in our children: kindness, inclusiveness, fairness, decency and honesty. He is who he is. We need to accept that and move on. As of 12:01 p.m. Friday, we’re playing for keeps. It’s no longer about obnoxious early-morning tweets or a Fox news soundbite. Now it’s about policies and programs, legislation and executive orders. We who believe that America’s greatness lies in its diversity, including all of those struggling in the shadows, need to focus on keeping our dream alive.

Yes, this week’s inauguration represents one of the finest attributes of America’s unique democracy: the peaceful transfer of power based on the will of the electorate. Yet, another equally powerful piece of our system is one that allows citizens to rise up in agitation and peaceful protest when leaders betray the values and principles that made our country great. That’s why Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington is just as important to this inauguration as Friday’s swearing in.

Although our candidate lost, her campaign theme continues to thrive. Starting with Saturday’s march, and continuing every day for the next four years, we are, indeed, Stronger Together.