Author: Bruce R. Nelson

WORKING THROUGH THE PAIN OF A HORRENDOUS CAMPAIGN

Pain has been my constant companion these past several months. Like all long-term relationships, it’s had its ups and downs, and now seems to have settled in – for better or worse – as a member of the family. No, this isn’t just about my recent surgeries. I’m also addressing a much greater source of pain: the 2016 presidential election.

There are remarkable similarities and distinctions between the two, the burning and stabbing at the nerve center of my most recent surgical site, and the foreboding fear and angst invoked by a dystopian political campaign of Trumpian proportions. Experiencing both simultaneously was an opportunity for introspective reflection on how the mind processes and copes with negative stimuli. I know that sounds, alternatively, like a bad grad school dissertation subject or a prisoner of war tactic banned by the Geneva Convention. Bear with me. A point will soon emerge.

As frequent visitors to this space know, I’ve spent some time in a medical odyssey of broken ribs and reoccurring tumors large enough to qualify for their own zip codes (here and here). My daily challenge has entailed searches for pain reduction by finding just the right way to sit. A large pillow to the left of me, a smaller one to the right, another behind my back, adjusted ever so slowly and slightly so as to find just the right combination to take me to that wonderful sweet spot, a euphoric moment in time when there is . . . absolutely . . . no . . . pain. It sometimes takes hours for me to get to that place, but once I’ve landed? There is no greater glory to be found. This is pain’s hidden blessing, the bliss that plays the yin to pain’s yang. People sit in chairs every day and feel nothing at all. But when pain has gripped your entire being, clogged all of your senses and shut out the world, only to suddenly disappear once you have arranged your body and pillows in just right way, well, that’s a high unmatched by any opioid. If you don’t believe me, here’s a little experiment you can try at home: Lift one end of a large couch three to five inches from the floor. Place one foot under the couch and drop it. Quickly lift the couch off your foot. Bask now in the momentary delight of instant pain relief!

So picture me, perfectly contorted in my reclining office chair, bathing in the nirvana of painlessness. Careful not to do anything that would unblock my nerve receptors, I slowly extend my right hand to the cordless mouse and double click on Politico’s Playbook. Another woman told her story of being forcibly groped by Donald Trump, who just issued a denial on the basis that she was too unattractive to grope. The crowd cheered and chanted – what else? – “Lock Her Up!” I quickly manage another mouse click to the Washington Post. There’s a picture of a white biker at a Trump rally waving a confederate flag in one hand and, in the other, a sign that says “Blacks for Trump.” Another mouse click to the Real Clear Politics polling site. The average of national tracking polls is within the margin of error.

Through it all, my physical pain remains at bay, but I am overcome now with an entirely different form of trauma, a deeper and darker sense of angst, an existential foreboding that somehow manages to shake the very foundation of. . .well, everything. Never in our lifetime, or before, have we come so close to having as our president a racist, misogynistic autocrat morally and intellectually incapable of leading. This is a much different kind of pain and there aren’t enough pillows or positions to manage it. Earlier this fall, there was some momentary relief in rapid mouse clicking, landing on a really good poll or a story or two about Republicans repudiating their candidate or a particularly poignant rebuke of the latest Trump atrocity. As a last resort, there are always those left-of-center sites like Talking Points, Daily Kos and Teegan that offer some momentary solace, but that’s more by way of escape, denial or support, than meaningful, lasting relief.

Some pain simply demands that it be felt in all of its agony. Dodging or denying it only makes things worse. Trump pain is that kind of pain. His campaign has done exactly what his true believers wanted it to do. They really don’t care what kind of a beast he is. They are disgusted with the status quo and they want Trump to “shake things up.” And that he has done. He has shaken this country and our lives to the rafters. He has shredded the basic values many of us hold dear: democracy, civility, decency, respect, justice, dignity, inclusion and diversity. This is pain that we can’t avoid or turn our backs on.

The challenge will be how to constructively work through that pain after Tuesday’s election. If Trump wins, we must be ready to find effective ways to fight for the values he’s stomped on. If Hillary Clinton wins, we will have dodged a bullet but the pain will linger and the gun will remain loaded. She is the first presidential candidate in history to attract impeachment talk before election day. The biggest challenge, and one of the most important, will be to do what we should have done long ago – reach out to many of those ardent Trumpians, people who have been ignored, neglected or left behind, and pull them into a real movement that addresses their needs without destroying the fabric of this country. That’s a tall order, but it’s the only way of overcoming a deeply embedded pain.

HEY WIKILEAKS: YOUR CREDIBILITY IS LEAKING!

When – and if – the dust settles from this hallucinogenic presidential election, serious news outlets need to rethink the journalistic value of Wikileaks. Once viewed as a noble whistleblower, a digital version of Watergate’s Deep Throat, this unseemly outfit has become an ugly goiter on the body politic.

Founded by Julian Assange in 2006, the organization was devoted to “combating secrecy”, largely by procuring leaked, hacked or otherwise purloined information that shed light on the shadows of unsavory government operations. In 2010, for example, Wikileaks released thousands of classified documents that raised serious questions about the manner in which the United States conducted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was praised by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) as a “new breed of media that offers important opportunities” for news organizations. That was then. Now is a whole different deal.

Right wing websites have been ablaze this week (here, here and here) with Assange’s promises that his next batch of Hillary Clinton emails will lead to her arrest, just in time for the election. He made that boast from his perch in the Ecuadorian Embassy where he’s got a bed-and-asylum deal protecting him from a Swedish rape charge. Heralding Hillary’s arrest, of course, was the promised capstone of Wikileaks’ summer and fall project: the serialized release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign staff. There seems to be a rare consensus among U.S. intelligence operatives that Russia was responsible for the email hacking. Predictably, Assange would not reveal his source. You cannot, after all, combat secrecy without keeping some secrets. But what he did share with us, through an interview last July with a British television host, was that he absolutely opposes Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and views her as a “personal foe.” He told the interviewer that he would rather see Donald Trump elected.

So let’s review: an avowed political partisan with an ax to grind is dodging rape charges while systematically releasing his political opponent’s private emails that were likely hacked by Russian spies. Compared to the pedestrian position paper stuff I covered as a political reporter in the 1970s, this all seems rather otherworldly. Of course it is a much different world than the Carter v. Ford days of 1976. With the Wide World Web, you don’t have to go to Alice’s Restaurant to get what you want. A flick of the keyboard connects you to endless verbiage on how the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and the Moon Landing were both staged for political purposes.

The difference here, however, is that serious, responsible media institutions have, with seemingly little forethought, bestowed the banner of credibility on Wikileaks. On a daily basis, the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Politico have been doling out the hacked emails despite an absence of authenticity and, with a few notable exceptions, any meaningful news value. The thinking seems to be that the emails are news simply because they are out there. I don’t seem to remember that standard from journalism school, but I was young then and skipped class a lot.

There is a compelling need for news organizations to step back and seriously think out how they should responsibly treat Wikileaks in the future. It seems abundantly clear that it has changed significantly since the days when the IFJ characterized it as a serious new media outlet. Even without the Russian connection and Julian Assange’s political vendetta, there remains the question of whether responsible news organizations should routinely make public the content of private communication that is otherwise void of substantive value. The vast majority of the published emails rose only to the level of what we baby boomers remember from the ancient days of party line telephones, where you could occasionally hear a neighbor say something that you weren’t supposed to hear.

For political junkies, it’s fun and amusing to read how Clinton campaign director John Podesta totally trashed some party functionary. But the news value is limited. It doesn’t begin to compare to Edward Snowden’s releases concerning the National Security Agency’s secret access to the emails and phone calls of U.S. citizens. Having spent a good chunk of my life in and around newsrooms, large and small, I can tell you that a collection of hacked emails from those places would make fascinating reading. Reporters and their editors are pretty creative when it comes to trashing each other and their rivals.

As the renowned linguist, Deborah Tannen, recently observed in a Washington Post op-ed, we all communicate with at least two voices, public and private. For the sake of civility and relationship preservation, we vent and carry on something fierce about friends, family and coworkers when talking or emailing with a trusted few, and then clean up our acts for broader exposure. If the only value in publishing hacked emails is to destroy that construct, then I think it best to let those who really want to wallow in that kind of muck go directly to the Wikileaks site. Fascination is an insufficient standard for news value. Millions of people are fascinated by pornography, but they don’t get there through the Washington Post or the New York Times.

The only thing about political journalism that hasn’t changed over the years is the relationship between partisan sources and reporters – the users and the used. It is, at once, symbiotic and codependent. It works best when both parties fully comprehend their roles and motives, when journalists weigh and evaluate not just the information given to them but also the sources who provided it. The problem with Wikileaks is that it was once considered a serious news outlet in its own right. That is obviously no longer the case. It is as partisan as those it hacks, and should be treated accordingly.

BREAKING NEWS: WEINER LAPTOP EMAILS HACKED

(Confidential sources have provided me with the emails found by FBI agents examining the laptop of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. In the finest WikiLeaks tradition, and to combat secrecy wherever it may lurk, I pass them on to you unvarnished. As you will see, some of the emails involve official U.S. State Department business, while others appear to be linked to Weiner, who sometimes uses the nom de plume Carlos Danger. FBI Director James Comey was busy writing another letter to congressional leaders and unavailable for comment on this email release.)

From: McHale, Judith A McHaleJA@state.gov
To: Abedin, Huma AbedinH@state.gov; Reines, Philippe I reinesp@state.gov
Sent: Fri Oct 15 12:35:32 2010
Subject: Pakistan

Americans recognize that our security and prosperity depend on having stable global partners, able to contribute to solving shared problems. Americans also know that our influence in the world and our ability to rally peoples and nations around common challenges rests in large measure on our reputation as a beacon of humanity and human dignity.

******************************************************************************
From: Danger, Carlos cDanger@horndog.org
To: McHale, Judith A McHaleJA@state.gov>
Sent: Fri Oct 15 12:48:57 2010
Subject: Pakistan

Judy, Judy, Judy. So, r u hot, or what? I say F Pakistan. Better you should play with my package. Want to see it?

******************************************************************************
From: Abedin, Huma AbedinH@state.gov
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:51 AM
To: Clinton, Hillary HDR22@clintonemail.com
Subject: Ilan Grapel released by Egypt, en route to Israel

Grapel was freed in exchange for 25 Egyptians jailed in Israel, media report. He is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu upon arrival in Tel Aviv.

******************************************************************************
From: Weiner, Anthony awein@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2011 2:38 AM
To: Abedin, Huma AbedinH@state.gov
Subject: I Swear to God

Sweetheart, I had no idea she was 12. I mean, Jesus Christ, she used polysyllabic words. I mean, like she totally understood triangulation. You have to believe me on this!

******************************************************************************
From: Mills, Cheryl D MillsCD@state.gov
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 3:14 PM
To: Clinton, Hillary HDR22@clintonemail.com
Subject: FW: Anthony Weiner: ‘Nothing Huma can’t do’

By: Jonathan Allen, POLITICO
July 19, 2012 10:18 AM EDT

Some Democrats are whispering that it might be Abedin, not Weiner, who has a future in
elective politics.
“There’s nothing Huma can’t do,” Weiner said in an email Thursday morning.

******************************************************************************
From: Sydney Leathers leatherMe@uporn.com
To: Danger, Carlos cDanger@horndog.org
Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2012 5:28 PM
Subject: Getting Off

Carols, baby boy! Time for me to get you off in ways your wife could never do.

******************************************************************************
From: Mills, Cheryl D MillsCD@state.gov
To: Clinton, Hillary HDR22@clintonemail.com
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:05 PM
Subject: Kabul update

As of this hour of Thursday night there is no deal on an ironclad, substantive, political platform of national solidarity and governance reform, in return for Abdullah’s gracious concession which would obviate the constitutional and political need for a problematic 2nd round. Karl and I remain in close touch with the candidates as they continue their engagement. But short of a miracle, there will be no such deal at least until Friday evening or Saturday morning, if then.

******************************************************************************
From: Anthony Weiner awein@yahoo.com
To: Morehead Community College Cheerleading Squad wecheer@Morehead.edu
Subject: Bad Spelling

No, No, No! Not crotch rot. I meant to type crotch shot. Send me a crotch shot. F’ing auto correct!

******************************************************************************

From: Cheryl Mills MillsCD@state.gov
To: Hillary Clinton HDR22@clintonemail.com
Date: 2012-08-16 06:15
Subject: Bill Clinton reunited with 14-year-old Uganda boy named after him

So good!
You have a new child — hope you all are taking good care of him!
Such a nice story.

******************************************************************************
From: Weiner, Anthony awein@yahoo.com
To: Clinton, Bill hill.hubby@ clintonemail.com
Date: 2012-08-16 07:32
Subject 14-year-old Uganda boy

Jesus, Bill! Heard you were trying boys. Wild, man! At least there’s no messy blue dress to worry about. LOL! Let me know how it goes, Bro.

FBI IS THE WEINER OF THIS ELECTION

We probably should have seen this coming, but the quadrennial dialectic over our country’s governance, has devolved into a shambles that makes a middle school food fight look profound. Let’s review:

Four years ago this week, a divided nation, torn between giving a second term to President Barack Obama or replacing him with Mitt Romney, was transfixed on the question of whether tax cuts scheduled to expire should be renewed. Four years earlier, the closing argument between Obama and John McCain was how to best recover from the country’s economic collapse. And four years before that, when John Kerry ran against President George W. Bush, the focus was on the Iraq War – was it a mission of folly or an essential predicate for stability in the Middle East?

And now? Forget about tax policy, job creation or wealth redistribution. The endgame for this 2016 presidential campaign has us slowly twisting. . .no, make that sinking, in a quagmire of pussy and Weiner. Up until Friday afternoon, Donald Trump was having another bad week. On Thursday, Miss Finland of 2006 became the twelfth woman to accuse Trump of sexual assault, in effect adding to the validation of his “Access Hollywood” claims that he uses his star power to forcibly kiss women and/or grab their private parts. She said Trump squeezed her rear end while she and Miss Australia, Miss Puerto Rico and Miss Columbia posed for a picture. And that is as close as his campaign got to a discussion of foreign affairs this week.

By Friday, however, The Donald was suddenly a born-again believer in the sanctity of U.S. elections and his chances of securing the presidency. That’s because the FBI supposedly stumbled upon some Hillary Clinton related emails while conducting an investigation into Anthony Weiner’s exchange of sexually oriented texts with a 15-year-old girl. Or, as the New York Post headline put it: “Stroking Gun”, with a kicker of “Dickileaks: FBI Reopens Email Case”.

The unfortunately named Weiner, of course, is the now the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s top aides. The FBI had subpoenaed his laptop in search of underage sexting evidence and came across emails that might be related to Clinton’s use of a private server when she was secretary of state. From a strictly factual matter, of course, the FBI did not say it was “reopening” the closed investigation of Clinton’s email. Nor did it say that it found any emails that it had not already reviewed, or even if any of them came from candidate Clinton. But none of that matters much when you are Donald Trump and trying desperately to move the conversation away from the growing parade of women he allegedly groped, fondled, squeezed and/or forcibly kissed.

“This is bigger than Watergate,” the always hyperbolic Trump said yesterday. “This changes everything.” Actually, it changes absolutely nothing. It is merely one more piece of bizarre absurdity in a campaign jammed packed with them. The most important byproduct of a national election is the conversation it creates about the kind of country we want. How people should be taxed, corporations regulated, students educated, justice distributed. There has been nothing resembling a conversation this year. Just shouting: “Lock her up!” “Build the wall.” “Nasty woman.”

The only serious policy positions in this campaign have come from the Clinton camp because, love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton has spent her political life as a policy wonk. She has always been more comfortable in the deep weeds of complicated issues than pressing the flesh on a rope line. But you wouldn’t know much about her positions unless you visited her website. Trump has ignored public policy altogether, relying instead on simplistic but dangerous solutions to complicated problems: “build the wall”, “keep Muslims out”, “America first”. That lack of substantive symmetry has made serious policy conversation impossible. Saying “wrong” seven times in one debate does not qualify as a national conversation.

In lieu of substance, campaign media coverage has focused, understandably, on the elephant in the room. That would be Trump and all of the off-the-wall stuff he says and does, whether it is promoting one of his hotels, introducing women who claim Bill Clinton groped them 30 years ago or repeatedly calling Hillary “crooked” or “corrupt” without a scintilla of substantiation. As soon as the FBI director mentioned the existence of Clinton emails, Trump immediately characterized his opponent as a modern day Lizzie Borden.

Meanwhile this week, it was just another day on the Trump rally circuit. According to the Raleigh News Observer, a young black man, a Trump supporter, wandered up to the stage of the Kinston, NC get-together, intending to hand his candidate a note containing some tips on how he could appeal to more African Americans. A black face stands out in the whiteness of Trump Land. Security was called and they hauled the man away, presumably for being black at a Trump rally, while The Donald goaded him with accusations of being a paid disrupter.

When the Weiner Gate dust finally settles, we will be right back where we always have been: the worst excuse for a presidential campaign in the country’s history. And a choice between a razor sharp woman who knows policy inside and out, but has made her share of mistakes over the years, and a racist buffoon who abuses women and has never developed a serious public policy position in his life. In my book, that’s an easy decision – even if those emails spell out top state secrets in Haikou.

SEARCHING FOR MR. GOOD TRUMP

I am, hopefully, less than 24 hours away from yet another surgical attempt to extricate the latest in a series of invasive protrusions on my upper back. As reported earlier, these benign-but-annoying tumors have been popping up faster than Donald Trump’s sexual assault victims. The current one expands its girth on a daily basis, rubbing up against a muscle and creating general havoc on my central nervous system. I’ve found some mitigation from a delicate and precise arrangement of pillows on the back of my office chair. That and 10 milligrams of Percocet every six hours.

It is from that opioid induced fog of critical thinking that I address you now. Reviewing my last few posts in this space, it occurs to me that I have been exclusively critical of the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. My late mother raised me with the mantra of “always look for the good in people.” In the heat of this most divisive presidential campaign, I regret that I have failed to follow her edict. I have not sought out the goodness in Donald J. Trump. With tomorrow’s scheduled surgery, I am one slip of the knife away from having written my final blogpost. So this one is for Mom: a compendium of Trump Goodness.

1. A Trump presidency would give President James B. Buchanan his first good night’s sleep in 160 years. Buchanan has long been regarded by most historians as the worst president in U.S. history. If elected, Trump, in a selfless act of charity, would relieve the 15th President of the burden of being the worst.

2. Trump is singlehandedly responsible for taking Billy Bush off the air.

3. Thanks to The Donald, business is booming for Taco Trucks.

4. He performed a miracle by making Mike Pence, a raving lunatic of a wingnut, look like the adult in the room and, as a two-for, spared the good citizens of Indiana from the possibility of a second Pence gubernatorial administration.

5. He prompted the Tic-Tac company to issue a statement in support of women.

6. Trump has done more than any other individual to spur Latino voter registration.

7. He has pulled record numbers of American Muslims into the country’s political process.

8. In the waning moments of print journalism, Trump framed a brand new issue for vigorous debate in the daily news huddle: “Can we use the word ‘pussy’ in a headline?”

9. He created unlimited possibilities for memes, country western songs and B movies with his delectable combination of “Nasty Woman” and “Bad Hombres.”

10. Finally, and best of all, Donald Trump appears to be on the verge of his most significant act of goodness – making it possible for the United States to have its first woman president.

And that concludes my pre-surgery act of contrition. The next time you hear from me, I shall be lumpless. And with nothing good to say about The Donald.

EVEN WITHOUT CONCEDING, TRUMP IS A LOSER

I am struggling to understand the universal shock-and-awe reaction to Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of this election. My lack of comprehension may well be a side effect of the pain meds I’ve been on this week, but I really don’t get it. Every major news outlet led its Wednesday night debate coverage with Trump’s remarks challenging the legitimacy of an election he appears to be losing.

The lede on the Associated Press debate story began with these words, “Threatening to upend a basic pillar of American democracy. . .” Serious politicians and thinkers of all political stripes have been shaking their heads in deep disdain ever since.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the defeated 2008 Republican nominee for president: “A concession . . . is an act of respect for the will of the American people, a respect that is every American leader’s first responsibility.”

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer: “This is political suicide.”

Veteran Republican campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, saying Trump’s remarks were “disqualifying,” added, “The campaign is over.”

New York Times editorial: “Donald Trump turned . . . from insulting the intelligence of the American voter to insulting American democracy itself.”

Believe me, I am not rising to his defense. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the validity of the election process he willingly entered into was absurd and nonsensical. But I would submit, from the totality of the record, that, (a) we should not have been at all surprised, and, (b) he has repeatedly repudiated decency, respect for law and the American way of life. When it comes to graven depravity of political thought, Trump has mastered the art of consistency.

After all, The Donald has called for: the assassination of Kim-Jong-um and the families of terrorists, shutting down the mosques, deporting U.S. citizens whose parents entered the country illegally, reducing U.S. debts by defaulting on them and banning Muslims from entering the country. This is the candidate who wished for the housing market to crash so he could make money off it, kept a collection of Adolph Hitler speeches in a cabinet by his bed, refused to rule out using nuclear weapons on ISIS, fraternizes with avowed white supremacists on Twitter and urged supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies. And this is the candidate who secured his party’s nomination on the back of one word: “winning.” America doesn’t win anymore, he said. The other candidates were weak losers. Trump defined himself as a winner, the only person who can make our country win again.

Did we actually expect him to walk onto that final debate stage, down seven points and falling, and tell Chris Wallace that yes, of course, he would graciously concede this hard fought election to Hillary Clinton, should that be the outcome, and then pledge to do everything he can to help the Clinton Administration Make America Great Again? If he had, that would have been one hell of a story. First year journalism students are taught that it’s not news when a dog bites a person, but you’ve got yourself a story when a person bites a dog. In Wednesday’s debate, Trump merely bit himself, just as he has been doing since the start of this campaign. Had Mitt Romney or John McCain said the same thing about not recognizing the validity of the election process, it would have been a stop-the-presses moment. In 2016, it was merely Trump being Trump.

It is abundantly clear that this guy is, in every way, totally ill-equipped to handle even the lowest level of public leadership, let alone the presidency. He lives in his own world, constantly creating and revising a reality to suit him for the moment. He supported the Iraq War when he thought it was the thing to do, but denies it now. He supported abortion rights, but says he didn’t. He spent his life objectifying, denigrating and sexually assaulting women, but insists that “nobody respects women more than I do.” The very predicate of his presidential candidacy is that he, Donald J. Trump, is a winner. When he wakes up on Nov. 9 with less than 270 electoral votes, he will experience the worst bout of cognitive dissonance in his life. He will sputter with foolish excuses and scapegoats. Ultimately, it won’t matter. Our country is stronger than that. Under the law of the land and in our hearts, The Donald will be what we’ve always known him to be: the World’s Biggest Loser.

RETURN OF THE GRAPEFRUIT

Three Trump blogposts in a row and what do I get? Another grapefruit. Let me tell you: the karmic fix is in. You may remember my recent surgical lament. I went to have a benign tumor, allegedly the size of a key lime, removed from my back. Out came a grapefruit and a rougher than expected recovery period. This is the sequel to that story.

I returned to the surgeon’s office for the obligatory post-surgical visit. My doctor has a stellar reputation, one of the best cutters in the Washington, D.C. area. His down side is that he is the spitting image of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. When he studies an image of my anatomy, I imagine him looking for an artery to close in order to mess up bridge traffic. Given some of the things I’ve written about his guy Trump, the thought of him lurching over me with a scalpel is a tad disconcerting. Then again, what are the odds that he is among the five regular visitors to this site?

So Christie’s doppelganger stood behind me, peeling the bandages off my back. I heard a couple of affirming grunts as he surveyed his work product. He backed up for a more global view. “Yes, very good,” he said. “Oh, yes. Perfect.” It was as if he were looking at the Venus de Milo at the Louvre, not a seven-inch incision on my upper back.

He invited my wife, Melissa, to join him at the viewing station. I would have thought the fact that I was still alive a week after surgery would have been sufficient validation for him. But he wanted more. He craved recognition for what he clearly thought was a remarkably compelling incision line, subtle in tone with an unassuming texture. Melissa, an artist in her own right, specializes in the rapid deflation of the male ego. She assumed the position adjacent to the beaming surgeon, who pointed to his handiwork and said, “See how nice this came out?”

Melissa, without skipping a beat, pointed her finger to a prime piece of upper torso real estate six inches from the incision. “What’s this,” she asked, “another tumor?” There was awkward silence behind me now. I felt two hands poking and kneading what felt like an enormous lump, very similar to the extricated grapefruit, except larger. It might be approaching small melon territory. Silence hung heavy for three or four minutes.

Then the surgeon uttered a long sigh, followed by, “Jesus, I’ve never ever seen anything like this.” The art show abruptly ended. He thinks the mass is a seroma, as was the one he removed. A seroma is a benign soft tissue tumor usually caused by trauma. I broke two ribs in June, giving rise to Seroma I. The most common source of trauma leading to these tumors is surgery. It is very possible that the surgical removal of Seroma I created Seroma II. My life seems to be evolving into an continuous surgical loop of Ground Hog’s Day seromas.

I was scheduled to undergo surgery today but was bumped at the last minute by some emergency life-and-death cases. Seroma II is now set to meet the knife on Tuesday of next week, unless the governor can work me in sooner. Meanwhile the mass continues to grow. As it does, it presses something fierce against a nerve, generating more pain than a Trump rally.

So that is my tale of woe for the day. Rest assured I have no intention of turning this into a medical blog. The world is overrun with medical blogs, most of them self-indulgent chronicles of everything you wouldn’t want to know about someone’s condition. For example: Jenni’s Guts, Celiac Chicks, I am Not My Disease, and my personal favorite, At Your Cervix. Yet, I wanted to let you know that I may need to skip a cycle or two of appearances here, depending on the pain level. Then again, I may decide to write through the pain. If my next post sounds like I have plagiarized the Unabomber’s manifesto, you deserve to know why.

TRUMP AND WOMEN: JUST ANOTHER POWER GRAB

At least Bill Cosby made one good decision in his life. He rejected Donald Trump’s advice on how to handle allegations of sexual assault. As reported by the Washington Post, Trump told an E! reporter in 2014 that the 79-year-old comedian was making a big mistake by not personally responding to the dozens of women who said Cosby forced himself on them. The Donald, of course, faced his own growing cavalcade of accusers this week, women who, one by one, came forward to say they were forcibly groped and/or kissed by the Republican presidential candidate.

Trump followed the advice Cosby turned down, and I am willing to bet half my 401(k) that, at some point this weekend, one of Cosby’s lawyers pointed to the candidate’s traveling freak show of a defense and said to his client, “Do you see now why we told you to keep your mouth shut.” Trump didn’t merely deny the accusations, he held rallies to denigrate and belittle the accusers. He claimed some were ugly, not worth his grope. The cult-like crowd was right out of a Rocky Horror Picture Show. Trump would cite an accusation of sexual assault and the audience would chant “we don’t care,” followed by laughs and jeers. Trump called the women liars and the faithful Trumpians chanted “Lock them up,” the official campaign refrain for non-believers.

One woman in a North Carolina rally Friday wore a hand painted t-shirt with the words “Trump Can Grab My” followed by an arrow pointing to her crotch. Two days earlier in an Ohio revival meeting, women wore shirts that said, “Hey Trump, Talk Dirty to Me.” In case there was any doubt, this is no longer Mitt Romney’s Republican Party. To these folks and their candidate, sexual assault is a myth, just like global warming, a conspiracy hatched by vile liberal interests designed to stop Trump from making America great again. Why else would all of these women come forward now with their accusations?

Of course, we know the answer to that question only too well. This is the way it always works. Women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted cower in shame and insignificance, afraid to come forward because no one would believe them. They spend years in turmoil and agony and powerlessness, wondering, in their darker moments, if maybe they somehow brought this on themselves. And then, later – sometimes years, decades later – one woman steps forward with a story she can’t hold in any longer. Another woman sees it and suddenly recognizes that she is not alone, not the only one, and she too goes public. Then the dam bursts and the flood begins.

I saw the pattern so many times in my work as a union representative. A young woman in her first job would find the boss’s hands all over her. To him, it was just another power grab. To her, it was the most traumatic moment of her life. Never once was there a single victim. Within days of the first complaint, the others quickly followed. None of it had anything to do with how the women looked, dressed or what they did. It wasn’t about sex. It was about power, about men in powerful positions taking what they wanted because they could. It had always been that way and would forever remain thus – until the first victim ends her silence and frees the rest to do the same. Just ask Bill Cosby or Donald Trump.

For me, a seminal moment in understanding this dynamic came in 1991. I was visiting my aunt who was 79 then, long retired from a career as a department store clerk. We were watching the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Anita Hill, who had accused Thomas of sexual harassment, had just completed her testimony. My aunt, rarely at a loss for words, sat in silence, seemingly in another place. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Finally, she spoke.

“I never knew it was wrong,” she said. “I mean we didn’t like it. Actually, we hated it. But these men were in charge. They were over us. And we didn’t want to lose. . . no, we couldn’t lose our jobs. We didn’t have a choice. It’s just the way it is.” It was the only time I saw my aunt cry. The moment was transformative for us both. She was apprehending a new day in which it was simply wrong for a man to use his power over a subordinate that way. And I, for the first time, was realizing there had actually been a point in our history when sexual harassment was an accepted norm: “just the way it is.”

So here we are, in 2016 – three weeks from electing the 45th president of the United States. Have we finally moved the gender fulcrum far enough to elect a woman? Or are we about to knowingly choose a sexual predator, who not only flaunts the rules of decency, but brags about it? My aunt has been gone for 15 years. She never missed an election and always voted Republican. Had she been around these past few days, however, I can tell you without hesitation that Donald Trump would not get her support. Once she saw a world where sexual harassment was wrong and not a way of life, she would never, ever, vote to go back.

GOP’S ANSWER TO TRUMP PROBLEM IS BLOWING IN THE WIND

When our newest Nobel Laureate wrote that “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan had never met the current crop of Republican politicians. These folks desperately need emergency meteorological assistance. Their old windsocks of public opinion are no match for the velocity of the October gusts of Donald J. Trump.

Ordinarily, politicians publicly shower fellow party members with obligatory superlative prose that has all the sincerity of an Eddie-Haskell-to-June-Cleaver compliment. That’s only when the mic is on. Behind the scenes, it is more Jerry Springer than Leave it to Beaver. Alas, this is no ordinary election. The challenge for Republican congressional candidates has been how to distance themselves from a toxic presidential nominee without losing votes from the deplorables who love him. After anguishing through months of tortured Trumpisms, each raising the level of racism, misogyny and xenophobia one step higher, most GOP leaders and candidates managed to stake out deeply contorted positions on The Donald. They were tightly parsed and highly nuanced, a natural result of simultaneously condoning that which they condemn. Then the Access Hollywood tape hit and all bets were off. And then on again. Consider, for example:

Darryl Glenn, Republican Senate candidate from Colorado, withdrew his endorsement of Trump after the tape hit the news. In it, the presidential candidate boasted about using his star power to get by with sexual assaults. Glenn told Fox News that “America cannot have a man who speaks this way about women be the face of our country to the Free World.” After 48 hours of backlash from Trump supporters, however, Glenn reversed course and threw his support behind Donald to be the face of our country to the Free World.

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) came out against Trump on Saturday, telling Politico that the Republican nominee’s remarks were “disgraceful” and that he “is not fit to be president of the United States.” By Tuesday, however, Byrne was back on the Trump Train, regardless of how disgraceful and unfit he may be.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has outdone the Kama Sutra in finding unique positions. She clearly loathes the guy but is involved in a very competitive reelection battle in a state where Trump has a solid base of support. Initially, Ayotte refused to endorse him but said she would vote for him, a dubious status akin to being a little bit pregnant. Then she was asked during a television appearance if she thought Trump was a role model for children. She said yes. The next day, however, she reversed herself, saying that Trump was no role model but that she would still vote for him. After the groping tape was released, Ayotte made a clean break and said she would not vote for Trump, a stand she says may end her political career.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) had supported Trump until the tape went public. She immediately reversed course, according to the Omaha World-Herald, saying that his comments were “disgusting and totally unacceptable under any circumstance.” She reversed herself once more on Tuesday and said she will vote for Trump.

The list goes on and on, with changes occurring hourly. There has been far less fluctuation in the stock market this fall than in the Trump positions held by Republican leaders. What remains unknown at the moment is whether any of the un-endorsement “recanters” will flip once more on the heels of new allegations by women who say Trump sexually assaulted them. The only law that matters right now is the uncertainty principle of physics: positions constantly change based on the momentum of events.

Even those who have gone a few days without a reversal are left with some curious juxtapositions. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) says Trump is a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral.” Yet, he has endorsed him. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) characterized Trump’s remarks as “textbook definition of racist.” He refuses to campaign with him. But, for the record, the Speaker has endorsed the racist.

There is, of course, an unprecedentedly long list of high ranking Republicans, who have publicly repudiated their party’s presidential candidate. For the most part, they are the ones not up for reelection this year. As for those who are, this is my plea:

Donald Trump is a very mean man, a man who brags about the women he has forcibly groped, a man who has denigrated every minority group, a man who can’t tell fact from fiction, a man who has most of us frightfully scared over what will become of our country, our world, should he be elected. For the love of God and America, please don’t let this man bring us down. No job is worth that price.

PUSSIES AND THE UNMAKING OF A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

So let’s recap. Prior to last Friday, we knew that Donald Trump believes:

Laziness is a trait in blacks;
Mexican immigrants are rapists;
It’s funny to mock a disabled reporter;
Muslims should be prohibited from entering the country;
Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her whatever;
His money should be counted only by “little short guys that wear yarmulkes”; and
The Pope is disgraceful.

Yet, Trump was only a couple of poll points behind Hillary Clinton and enjoyed the backing of most Republican office holders. Then came the Pussy Tape and all hell broke loose. At least now we know there is a line never to be crossed. This will be helpful for future campaigns. You can denigrate blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, the disabled and the Pope and still be acceptable to most Republicans. But boasting about grabbing women by their pussies is a deal breaker.

Well, maybe it’s not quite that linear. There is another explanation. Jacob Riis, a 19th century photographer and social reformer, taught that progress comes from the cumulative effect of many events. The same is true of regression. Here’s Riis:

“. . . I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

Applying the Riis paradigm to Trump’s fall from GOP grace, it took more than a pussy grab to throw the Party of Lincoln into a cataclysmic frenzy. As Hillary suggested in Sunday night’s debate, if Donald’s bus ride peroration on groping, extramarital seduction, furniture shopping and Tic-Tacs had been a singular aberration, he might have gotten a pass, particularly if he promised to forever keep his two small hands to himself. But coming as it did, on the heels of serial character flaws, rarely seen by someone not on a registered sex offender directory or a terrorist watch list, it was almost too much to take. Even open-minded, understanding Republican congressional leaders like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan called the boys on the bus dialogue sickening, repugnant and unacceptable. And then, just to hedge their bets, continued to endorse Trump to become the leader of the free world.

Pussygate’s most fascinating feature has been the Rorschach quality of responses from party leaders. See if you can pick out a unifying theme in this sampling of reactions from GOP White Guys:

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (Trump’s running mate): “As a husband and father, I was offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump. . .”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: “As the grandfather of two precious girls, I find that no apology can excuse away Donald Trump’s reprehensible comments degrading women.”

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: “Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters. . .”

Utah Senator Mike Lee: If anyone spoke to my wife or my daughter or my mother or any of my five sisters the way Mr. Trump has spoken to women, I wouldn’t hire that person. . .”

Get it? Thank God these men have women in their families so they can muster enough empathy to recognize that forcibly grabbing them by their genitals is not an appropriate precursor to the presidency. Then again, neither is calling blacks lazy or denigrating Muslims, Jews, the disabled or the Pope. It’s just that those demographics don’t have a seat at the table in most white Republican households. Some foibles are easier to overlook, but this talk of groping white women really hits home with these guys.

It harkens back to some really messed up gender role stuff, a quid-pro-quo known as The Art of a Very Bad Deal. In days of old, when men ruled the roost, social norms required that they protect and revere their womenfolk. House Speaker Ryan actually touched on that notion when he explained why the Trump pussy tape “sickened” him. Said Ryan, “Women are to be revered and championed, not objectified.” The basic deal was that men would open doors for women, pull out their chairs, lift them to their pedestals and forever protect them from harm. In exchange, men called all the shots, held all the power, owned all the property and cast all the votes.

So here we are, in a new era. Not only can women own property and vote, one of them is on the verge of becoming the next U.S. President, thanks in large part to her blustery, braggadocios, bloviating, blowhard of an opponent. And his penchant for grabbing women by their pussies. Although we may not necessarily live happily ever after, there could not be a more delicious ending to this very grim fairytale.