October 2024 Archives

Dear America,

There is a feeling rampant among members of the electorate that this election cannot be over soon enough.  Among the Harris supporters there is a residual sense of dread over the prospect of a second Trump administration, but better to get on with it so that if such eventuates, we can start getting it behind us as soon as possible.  And both that weariness with the pejorative pettiness of the dialectic and the fear of the outcome probably pervade the election related sentiments of the Trumpers too, accompanied by excitement over what Trump has promised them.  Unfortunately, they remember the first Trump administration for what he promised rather than what he actually did, but that is to be expected from what Eric Hoffer called "true believers."  If there has ever been a book perfectly suited for a political era, it is Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements," which he published in 1951.  It was the middle of the "red scare" precipitated by the success of communism in Russia and China and was led by a demagogue named Joe McCarthy who was a U.S. Senator elected in the mid-forties.  McCarthy's paranoid, hyper-religious sway lasted for about a decade, just like Trumpism, I hope.  The True Believer was a book for its time, and if people started reading it again, they would see the past decade as just as apposite a historical reference point.

Unfortunately, the people who could most stand to be enlightened by Hoffer's work would be the last to read it, and if they ever did they would see it as nothing more than derision directed toward themselves and their leader.  Given that frame of mind, it is useless to hope that they will ever realize that Trump is promising the same things in principle this time as he did in 2016, and he is no more likely to deliver on them than he was the first time.  He promised to build "a big, beautiful wall" on the Mexican border and that Mexico would pay for it, "believe me," he added.  Neither eventuated except for about 52 miles of new wall along a 2,000 mile border with Mexico...and Mexico paid not a single cent of the cost.  And it is notable that he took money from the defense budget to fund that 52 mile addition to the extant few hundred miles of renovated wall on the border because he couldn't get any new money from  congress to dedicate to the project.  Then there's "Obamacare."

One of Trump's campaign promises in 2016  was the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.  He promised to create a better form of insurance coverage for the millions of Americans without health insurance, and he had a Republican controlled House of Representatives with which to keep that promise.  But even with his brow beating of his own party members and their leader in The House, Speaker Paul Ryan, he could never get over the hump that his own party represented, and he isn't more likely to be able to change the law now than he was then, though I haven't heard him mention the ACA in 2024.  Maybe he had a flash of intelligence and recognized that if he did bring it up he would be doing nothing more than pointing out one of his past failures, which by the same token would constitute another failed promise for his next administration.

Then there's immigration and inflation.  I raise them together because they are integrally related.  My wife and I spend vacation time on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, a primarily resort area of the state.  You can't go into a restaurant and order without hearing a foreign accent from the wait staff.  Then there's the meat packing industry, which relies on not just foreign labor but minors as well, foreign and domestic.  American adults have no interest in those jobs at the wage being paid.  And there are many other aspects of Trump policy promises--tariffs against foreign goods, Chinese goods in particular, tax cuts (presumably favoring his rich friends like the last round he precipitated, and deregulation to name a few--that will allow inflation to rear its ugly head again despite Trump's promise to eliminate it, but Trump true believers will never foresee any of that even if their noses are rubbed in it.

So the die is actually cast as far as the election is concerned.  Trump's sophomoric, pejorative rants will continue to fuel the fervor of his supporters, but I doubt that anyone other than his acolytes will be drawn to the cause.  I believe we could vote today and get the same result that we will get next Tuesday.  But unfortunately, the law won't let us just get it all over with today.  I voted already, so I'm going to pretend that it is all over.  Maybe I can get some sleep tonight.

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

I fail to understand why no one, not even those who oppose Trump, ever seems to confront him with the vagueness and grandiosity of the promises he makes.  For example, he has said over and over again that if he is elected...rather, when according to him...he will put an end to inflation.  It surprises me that no one ever asks him how he will accomplish this feat that, he says, Joe Biden seems not to have been able to as of this date.  I should point out that the current inflation rate is under 3% and that the conventional desirable rate is 2%, not zero.  And it is also to be noted that the current Federal Reserve Board has managed to cut it to this level from the 9%+ it was at a few years ago with its fiscal policy adjustments.  As far as I know that is the only systemic method of inflation control available other than restrained fiscal policy in congress.  Of course, the president has the power to persuade at his disposal, such as when Trump persuaded a Republican house and senate to pass tax cuts favoring the economic top 10% of our society and thus expand the federal deficit and the national debt, the latter by about $8 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office at one time.  And in fairness, Biden added about $3 trillion with his bills to save millions of the unemployed from losing their homes and small businesses from folding in consequence of the pandemic that Trump insisted was no worse than the flu, but we all benefited from that smaller budgetary insult, not just Trump and his wealthy cadre. The question would be simple to ask; How are you going to do that?

And that isn't the only such question that someone should be asking Trump.  For example, he insists that he would end the Ukraine war as soon as he took office, Trump insists.  Never mind that it has been raging for over two years and that Putin, the instigator and prosecutor of the war, is unwilling to withdraw from another sovereign countries territory, killing thousands and committing some of the most broadly inhumane war crimes with his forces seen since the holocaust.  Trump says he will prevail upon the parties to the hostilities to just walk away from the battlefield, apparently just because Trump says they should.  Maybe someone should ask him what the magic words will be.  I'd like to know, and I'm sure that everyone, including his supporters would too.

And he says that if he had been president over the past nearly four years, neither the war in Ukraine nor the war in the middle east would have occurred in the first place.  I think asking him how he would have prevented them would be the apposite question.  How could one man by some expression of his will have controlled the acts of nations?  If he couldn't get Mexico to pay for his wall, which he assured the nation they would do with the stock Trump assurance, "believe me."  About three million  voters fewer than Hillary Clinton got believed him, but apparently Mexico just ignored Trump's promise. 

All of this and more reminds me of all of the other promises he made in business only to declare bankruptcy six times and walk away from them.  It seems to me that anyone who believes Trump's promises should just send me $5 so they can have a share of stock in the bridge I'm building in my back yard.  Are all you Trump voters listening?  Just to stay on the right side of the law, only kidding.  I don't have a bridge in my back yard.  But if you want to send me $5, please feel free to do so.  I promise to spend it wisely.

Unfortunately, I don't foresee any of these questions, or any other tough questions being asked before the election. And frankly, I think those who wind up voting for Trump will care because their reason for voting has nothing to do with veracity, candor or honesty.  The people who are going to vote for Trump, including evangelical Christians who purport to be guided by morality and Christian values, will do so despite the obvious truth that Trump is a miscreant liar, cheat, philanderer and amoral bounder because his despicableness is, under it all, shared by them in principle, if that isn't an oxymoron.  Speaking of morons...oh, never mind.  What is imperative today isn't that anyone acknowledge what a despicable villain Trump is.  What is imperative is that everyone who has any integrity at all vote for Harris, not just because she's the better candidate, but as much because she isn't Trump.  His political ascent is an American scandal.  As I say on the occasion of every election, on election day, the American people get what they deserve.  God help us if we deserve Trump.

Your friend,

Dear America,

I can't sleep sometimes because of my consternation over one single fact.  Whether he wins or loses, over 70 million Americans will vote for Donald Trump in less than a month.  Whenever politics is the subject there is hyperbole, but this isn't such.  I have no doubt that Donald Trump is a psychopath, and a dangerous one at that.  And it seems so obvious to me that I have trouble understanding how so many millions of people can ignore it, which suggests that there is something dangerous in them too and in the same way as it is dangerous in Trump.  That he is willing to dissemble and outright lie about what the federal government is doing in response to the storms that have devastated our southeastern states, causing anxiety and dismay among people who already have overwhelming problems to confront--with which by the way the federal government is on the scene trying to help them contrary to Trump's utter lies--makes him despicable if not diabolical, and in the latter case, psychopathic.  He will sacrifice anything and anyone in order to feed his colossal ego, rendering his narcissism dangerous to everyone to whom Trump has access in any way, and that includes those millions of voters who will vote for him, all of which means that the America in which I grew up is a thing of the past.  There is a social virus plaguing us as a nation, and I fear that it is past the pandemic stage.  I fear that we have passed the point of no return, and that win or lose, Trump will have degraded the American Way to the point of rendering it dystopian, which is a loss to the world too vast to quantify.

To some all of my expressions of fear will seem melodramatic, and to others they may seem to be nothing but partisan utterings, but I assure you that what I am saying here is sincere, heart-felt and in my estimation abundantly clear.  Look at the conduct of Trump with regard to the storms afflicting our southeast.  I was speaking to a project manager for a company that repairs electrical infrastructure and he is working in North Carolina now.  He has been dealing with work being done in the mountainous areas of the state where life is often lived on a more fundamental scale than most of us are used to.  He says that FEMA workers are dealing with physical threats from the ultra-rural residents of the area, apparently in consequence of what Trump has been saying about them.  Of course, if what he has been saying were true, the FEMA workers wouldn't be there, but logic often fails to prevail in the midst of an emergency like a land-slide that all but prevents you from leaving your home to replenish necessary supplies.  In such an environment and in such circumstances, bias is easily confirmed, and that seems especially true with Trumpers who adhere to conspiracy theories and have an aversion to those whom they consider elitist villains.  They listen to radios and watch televisions tuned to networks like Fox and hosts like Inforwars' Alex Jones, and give credence without question to the apocryphal bias-fed "news" that they spew.  It is no wonder that after seeing and hearing Trump shamelessly spreading the lies he has continually reiterated about federal aid to individuals being limited to a one-time payment of $750 and FEMA funds being diverted to housing immigrants from disaster programs that FEMA is implementing as he speaks, they believe him uncritically and ardently.  And that kind of blind credence is not limited to those living remotely in the Appalachian hills.

I recently recounted contact I had during a vacation with an otherwise substantial professional man who, while tentatively denying that he believed Trump's lies about the 2020 election, was sufficiently hesitant in his denial that it was clear that he gave them at least tentative credence.  And in light of other things he said about immigrants--mind you he was with his wife who is the daughter of south Asian immigrants--and people who benefit from federal aid, it was clear that he was a Trumper dyed in the wool.  He was a nice guy, but I have no doubt that he will vote for Trump, and ironically, it seemed like his wife might too.

You might think that my glum assessment of our national destiny is an overreaction, or you might even be a Trumper sympathizer yourself.  But the first question you have to ask yourself is whether you want to live your life on the basis of the truth.  I broach that question because it seems to me that those 70+ million who will vote for Trump have abandoned their fealty to truth and are instead ready to be governed by the biases, bigotry and self-serving blather that Trump issues every time he opens his mouth.  If they ascend to power, they will govern all of us on that basis.  I despair for our American creed promising life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I fear that the American democratic experiment is about to fail.     

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

I've been listening to the analysis of the vice-presidential debate over the past two days, and I have to say that I'm mightily disappointed...not in the debate, but in the analysis.  I was similarly disappointed in the interview David Brooks, whom I admire greatly, did with Jimmy Vance.  It appeared in the NY Times opinion section a few weeks ago, and I remember feeling the same dissatisfaction with Brooks's analysis of Vance's...I guess we have to call them answers to David's questions.  No one seems to be able to put a finger on what he does, that slippery old Yalie.  Maybe it's because I'm a fellow alumnus of The Bar that I can fathom what he is doing; it is sort of a legal skill for use when you don't really have an argument.  Used it myself from time to time, I must admit.  But laymen don't seem to be able to identify the tactic.  Rather, they find themselves thinking, "something is wrong there, but somehow it sounds right."  If you listen to Vance carefully, and if you haven't practiced legal argument in court, you might have the same reaction, so I'm here to explain it to you.  It's actually very polemical, and Republicans resort to it often, more often than Democrats do I think, but I'll leave determination of the partisan divide to you.  This is what he does.  It's common name is misdirection.

I only watched about five minutes of the debate about ten minutes in, and I could see what was going to happen so I switched to a movie I had developed an interest in while channel surfing that evening.  What I saw was Vance's answer to an inquiry from Nora O'Donnell about Trump's one-time remark--actually probably more often than once--that climate change was a hoax.  She asked Vance if he agreed with his prospective boss.  Well Vance didn't want to answer that question, probably because--and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here--he didn't want Trump crawling up his you-know-what the next day because Vance believes in science while Trump believes in what will work in the moment.  So Vance misdirected.  In short, his answer was that bringing jobs to the United States, mostly making solar panels, and mostly from China, would be the best thing with which to address climate issues, and that was what he and Trump were up to, not the Democrats, and by the way, Kamala Harris had failed to do anything about that.  You see, no one can argue that bringing jobs making solar panels, or almost anything else for that matter, into the United States would be a bad thing; that's the "sounds right" part.  And as to lambasting Harris for not doing that as if it was something she could control, he diverted his questioner from her original question, though O'Donnell didn't grab that opportunity to ask Vance what the hell he was talking about.  She could have asked him what job proliferation has to do with climate change, but Vance had sufficiently diverted Nora by using solar panels--clean energy...good for the environment, right--to pillory Harris.  That was his nod to climate change, again, something that was beyond argument: more solar power less carbon into the atmosphere.  Of course that is not an answer to the question, but as I said, it was a sufficient nod that O'Donnell just went on to Walz without seeming to notice that she had been had much less what to do about it.  That's how misdirection works; the victim scratches his or her head and says, "what?" but hasn't gleaned enough from the tactic to formulate a new course of inquiry so the questioner just moves on and cuts his or her losses right there.

If you listen closely, or with this example in mind, whenever old Jimmy talks, that's the way he does it.  Every question winds up being about immigration or inflation...the two "I"s.  You can throw in a third I in the form of Israel, but there just isn't much to say there as Trump claims to be pro-Israel and Biden seems to be blindly so, but that's another issue.  The point is, Vance answers every question with his blather about one of those two things, and what bothers me is that I don't think he has any conscience about doing so.  That is how he qualified as Trump's choice for vice-president.  He is as amoral as Trump is, and as remorseless too.  Throw in intellectually dishonest and you've got the whole Vance package.  

Don't misunderstand.  Misdirection is politicians' course number 101.  Democrat, Republican, Other, you hear it all the time.  But lately the Democrats have been on the moral positive side while the Republicans, having cleaved to the Trumpian way of thinking and believing, have no choice but to dissemble.  After all, Trump doesn't do anything that is other than a leg up for himself, which invariably means you have to stretch real far to see how it's food for anyone else.  So Vance has found a home.  The question is, will he get to keep it, and only we have the answer.  We'll know in a month.  See you at the polls.

Your friend,

Mike