November 2018 Archives

Dear America,

It has been noticed by everyone who listens to the news that Donald Trump's favorite epithet is "disgrace."  The Mueller investigation has been deigned to be a disgrace by our peremptory leader, which is ironical though he probably doesn't know what the word means.  He is a man who allowed his father to enrich him and his siblings while circumventing the federal system of taxation on inheritances. His casinos declared bankruptcy on at least three occasions after selling junk bonds to investors, the proceeds of which he used to pay off contractual obligations of those casinos to other Trump owned entities with which the casinos had management contracts.  He lies with impunity and thus preys on the gullible supporters who think he is on their side in such a fashion as to be obviously devious--he had the biggest crowd in history at his inauguration when photographs demonstrated graphically that his crowd wasn't more than half what his predecessor had, for example--and he does it almost daily on Twitter.  He claimed to have won election easily when he lost the popular election by nearly three million votes and won even the electoral college by the lowest margin since Ronald Reagan with the possible exception of George W. Bush, who also lost the popular election but won the presidency in the electoral college.  The list of palpable lies goes on and on, yet he presumes to call others and the things they do disgraces.  How does he get away with this?

The answer is that he hasn't gotten away with it yet.  He claims to be popular, but the 2018 mid-term elections demonstrate that he wields no sway over the majority of the American people, who rejected Trump's Republican Party at the polls quite decisively despite Trump's claim that in actuality, the election was between the Democrats on the ballots across the nation and him personally.  Yet, it feels like he is popular, and the reason is this: the news media.  Trump has played them like a fiddle in that he is on television almost every day, usually for something that would be...yes, a disgrace...if someone else did it, but he is in our faces every day.  It is the television news media primarily, but even liberal outlets like PBS and NPR and world-renowned outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, who make Trump's ubiquity possible.  They cover every little foible and peccadillo, every contretemps and baseless accusation, every boast and bombastic self-promotion with the punctilious accuracy missing from every thought he utters and presumption for which he claims credibility.  He appears popular because he is half of everything that everybody--including me--talks about.  He has capitalized on the old Hollywood saw: there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Donald Trump is the embodiment of disgrace, and he thrives on being so.  And those of us who think dread the prospect, ever greater we imagine, that this fool will win reelection in 2020...that we will be the laughing stock of the world for not just two more years, but six, but here's the thing.  The election in 2020 seems far more likely to validate the aversion to Trump of the majority of Americans than it seems on any given day.  The most recent election demonstrates that interest in our demagogue-in-chief is prurient in most of us and sincere in only those whom the hapless Hillary Clinton denominated a "basket of deplorables."  He is the head deplorable, and the loudest voice among them, but in total they aren't much more than 25% of all of us.  Trump's popularity among Republicans continues to run at about 90%, but his national approval rate runs at about 40%.  That is because Republicans comprise only about a third or our polity, and 90% of one third is only about twenty seven percent of the total populace.  About ten percent of Democrats, who are also about one third of the total electorate, approve of him.  That is about 3% of the total populace.  So, of the independent third of our electorate, only about one third, which is the remaining 10% of the 40% of those who approve of Trump, are at all likely to vote for him.  That leaves 60% of the nation that is likely to vote for somebody...anybody...else.

So, while you shouldn't take Trump's defeat in 2020 for granted--every vote will count and every vote must therefore be mustered--there is no need to lapse into apoplexy now in fear of the persisting plague we refer to as the Trump administration.  Have heart America.  The future is in the hands of the majority of us, and that majority knows better than to allow the worst to happen.  I always say that on election day the American people get what they deserve.  While some of us may have been deceived last time, or more likely God was playing a little trick on us just to show us how fragile democracy can be, I think most of us, by a lot, now realize that.  Let the media talk.  They are about to disprove the old saw and demonstrate that bad publicity is bad, at least when it comes from Donald Trump. 

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

Donald Trump had two brothers, one of whom died young of alcoholism and who never participated significantly in the Trump real estate business, and the other of whom ran the business outside of Manhattan until he retired.  He also has two sisters, one a federal court judge, now retired, and another, ostensibly a former banker, who married a movie producer.  All of them seem to have led comfortable lives other than the deceased brother, and it seems that the family business was either the source of their sustenance or perhaps a contributing factor in their finding other sources of lucre, such  as the major bank for which the second sister either worked or got paid to lend her name to in some way in New York.  They all have lived privileged lives, and the federal judge seems to have had a credible career as a conservative jurist except for her connection to the family scheme involving  the All County Building Supply & Maintenance Company, which Donald's father, Fred, used to funnel his fortune to his children while alive so as to avoid inheritance and gift tax.  How much she benefited isn't clear, but she was apparently, as they say,  "in the room" when the details were decided on.

I bring up the Trumps because none of them seem to be riding the Donald Trump band wagon, much less appearing with their mountebank brother to give him credibility.  Of course, research might yield an answer as to why, but it seems peculiar that Trump never enlisted any of his relatives except for his daughter, Ivana, and her sister, who gave a brief speech at the Republican convention in 2016.  As to the research, there isn't much to go on at the obvious, internet level, but there are some hints even there as to why the siblings are so ghostly politically.  The judge was outed with regard to her participation in the sham business funnel that made all of the Trump progeny rich to begin with.  Similarly, Trump's younger brother has kept a very low profile, responding to queries about the family tax avoidance business only by saying that all inheritance and gift taxes due were paid.  As to the other sister,  there doesn't seem to be much information to find on the web.  What I have found all seems to have been written, like much of the material about the other Trumps, by someone whose native tongue isn't English.  I'll leave you to draw your own inferences from that observation.  But the bottom line is that, considering what a flagrant publicity hound Donald is, his siblings apparent reticence, even about their brother, invites speculation.

In more than one source about Trump's older sister, federal judge emeritus Maryanne Barry, reference was made to her advocacy of abortion rights and liberal immigration policy.  And given that she was appointed to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals by Bill Clinton, she may diverge quite sharply from her president brother's political bent.  As to the others, I get the feeling that Judge Barry got the brains in the family while the others just got the money.  Certainly her brother in the White House is no genius, and given how little the rest of them say publicly, it seems fair to speculate that they aren't part of any brain trust either.  So the only Trump sibling about whom we know anything of significance doesn't seem to be a Donald-style true believer.  For all we know, she doesn't even share the Trumpian version of "American Exceptionalism" of which Newt Gingrich most the most recent acolyte.  So for her to speak on her brother's behalf would likely require a compromise of principle toward which she might not be inclined.  With regard to the other Trump sister and the living brother, there is a suspect vagueness to the information available about them.  I won't speculate further, but let me conclude with the fact that presidential siblings often sit in the shadows, but there has never been a president who eschews the shadows more than our current president, so it's a little surprising that his siblings don't seem to enjoy the limelight at all.

With the mid-term elections coming up tomorrow, the news is all Trump, all the time, so the characters of his family members would probably be too little too late in terms of affecting current politics.  But 2020 is coming up, and it will be here sooner than you'd think.  Maybe the family tree will be worth climbing some time between now and then.

Your friend,

Mike