Frankly, I could give you a dozen other reasons why Trump should have been impeached months ago. But if this latest WTF! moment — where he’s (apparently) “promising”/i.e. threatening to withhold US military support to Ukraine (a leverage against Donald’s pal, Vladimir Putin) unless Ukraine coughs up some dirt Team Trump can use against Joe Biden — is without question the great rotting egg of Trump in-the-White Houe corruption. It’s an abuse so flagrant and impeachment-worthy that if that if it isn’t the tipping point for Nancy Pelosi to fire the impeachment starting gun nothing ever will.
And I say that as someone who has appreciation for Pelosi playing the calendar — the months between now and Election Day 2020 — strategizing to deliver a maximum blue wave while simultaneously thwarting the shameless mendacity of Bill Barr and “Moscow Mitch” McConnell. But now, with Trump (apparently) caught red-handed corrupting foreign policy for rank personal political purposes, Ms. Pelosi truly has no other choice.
She can expect the volume of outraged (regularly contributing) liberal voices to rise to an air raid siren pitch for her to consent to the Full Monty of Trump trials. (My apologies for the imagery.)
Part of Pelosi’s concern about pushing impeachment to the forefront, and thereby making it effectively The Only Story Anyone Talks About all through the election cycle — screw health reform, climate change, etc. — is that it would alienate voters (blue collar whites, mainly) who think DC never gets around to doing anything for them. To translate that thinking: Pelosi worries voters who never pay any great attention to the details of politics and never will, will digest Trump’s impeachment as just more of the never-ending DC food fight and stay home — or vote for next year’s Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.
The counter argument has always been that No Impeachment makes Democrats look timid and ineffectual (yet again), this time in the face of the most flagrant presidential corruption and incompetence in US history. If you don’t have the cojones to impeach Donald [bleeping] Trump, a manifest fool, you might as well strike impeachment from the Constitution.
Liberals will flock to the polls to exorcise Trump next November no matter what. But lacking an aggressive counter-attack on Trump, their faith in and fervor for Pelosi-like establishment Democrats is going to seriously dissipate. Much of Elizabeth Warren’s appeal is big time structural change and a head-on fight against corruption.
Finally, there’s the fact that Senate Republicans remain so terrified of Trump’s base, the star-spangled twits, bros and goobers hootin’ and stompin’ at his backwoods bund rallies, voting to convict him in a trial remains the equivalent of self-immolation.
For me the answer to that has always been a matter of sequencing and timing — which may turn out to be Pelosi’s game all along. Namely, never give McConnell’s craven Senate caucus a chance to vote. Stage hearings — along the lines of the Corey Lewandowski farce last week — steadily all through the election cycle, laying out more and more (and more) details of Trump’s clown car kleptocracy until — oh, sorry Mitch, no time left on the clock — it’s Election Day.
Does that mean enduring 12-15 more months of an ugly, rancid, hyper-partisan, pigs-in-the-slop brawl right through priaries and conventions and fall campaigns? Yeah, but we’re going to get that impeachment or not.
Does anyone seriously expect anything about the coming year to be precedented and polite? People! It’s going to be insane. You know it and I know it.
Trump long ago went to cornered rat tooth and nail. He knows he’s looking at jail time and financial ruin if he loses the next election. Given a clear existential crisis for a reckless sociopath, I don’t see how Democrats have any option other than girding up and fighting the war they’ve been presented with on much the same (albeit it smarter) terms.
From the moment he “won” on November 8, 2016, I’ve tried to imagine what America’s intelligence and military leaders would do if reality TV host Donald Trump gave an order for a full-fledged, consequences-be-damned attack on some country. (Shooting off $120 million worth of cruise missiles at a mostly empty Syrian airfield doesn’t compare.) Today, we’re closer than ever to finding out.
Frankly, I haven’t heard a convincing explanation for what Iran has to gain from sending drones to blow up some Saudi oil facilities. The only scenario that fits is basically a variation on Osama bin Laden’s (highly successful) strategy to draw the United States into a land war in the Middle East and inflame a new generation of jihadis.
The U.S. military and the vast American intelligence apparatus though are a whole different species of animal. The betting line would be that given an order the militarists and spy world careerists will salute and charge into any breach their commander orders. It’s what they’re trained to do. Certainly the military, anyway.
But I have to think — naively, perhaps — that everyone with any sophisticated judgment of character long ago concluded that Trump is, to quote Rex Tillerson, “a [bleeping] moron” and a highly compromised one at that. Watching him insult their work and value to Vladimir Putin’s face was galling enough, but conceding and cooperating with such an abject fool — for the permanent historical record — doesn’t strike me as something they’re eager to have on their resume.
Trump, who is notoriously gutless about firing anything face to face — note pretty much everyone dismissed from the White House by tweet — is probably hoping the Saudis don’t demand he drop some “shock and awe” on Tehran. I mean, tracking all that rocket activity could really cut into his golf time. And in truth, he may be spared that dilemma by Sultan Bone Saw’s concern that a bigly war with Iran’s air force could quickly demolish much of the rest of the House of Saud’s oil production/cash printing macinery. That would be a serious bmmer. Money (i.e. subsidies to its citizens) being the primary way the Saudi tribe keeps control in their grim, corrupt desert theocracy.
The situation has got a lot of people talking about why exactly the United States owes Saudi Arabia anything? We’ve been handing them billions of dollars a month for well over 75 years — both before and after 15 of their spoiled brat off-spring flew jets into buildings on 9/11 and murdered 3000 Americans.
The old guard Saudis were bad enough and young Mohammed Bin Bone Saw appears to be worse. His coziness with Jared Kushner and the financially bungled Kushner Properties, Inc. withstanding, the Saudis have all the resources they need to fight it out with Iran if that’s their idea of righteous retribution. (And for the record, I still need a lot more cnvincing it is was Iran behind the drone strikes.)
Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that Trump has a “special relationship” with the Saudis that goes well beyond pumping gas into American SUVs. The general publc may be a little foggy about this, but real generals and the wonky spy nerds are certainly not, and up to some point at least that crowd has to decide whether to attach their reputations to kill orders from a bought-off buffoon.
I’m writing this for my granddaughter, but I’m not telling her. I don’t want her to be scared.
Zinnia is 7 years old. She’s small for her age but otherwise precocious. She reads above her grade level and trampolines like a jumping bean. Other kids her age may make “yuck” faces at sight of spinach or broccoli, but Zin already relishes oysters, kalamata olives and “stinky” cheeses. Her favorite bedtime lullaby is “The Sounds of Silence,” which I thought was beyond precocious until her dad explained that the Simon and Garfunkel song is featured in her favorite movie, Trolls. She’s watched it so many times, she knows it by heart.
In the early 1990s, long before Zinnia was born, I was
starting to worry about the impact of the greenhouse gases we were belching
into the atmosphere and the plastic litter that we sent floating down the
rivers and into the seas. I wrote a song
about our dangerous notion that we could consume and pollute all we wanted and
then, if things got really bad, just fly away.
It began:
The
planets and the stars
Will
not be ours
Except,
of course, to dream on
For
all our Star Trek
fantasies
This
island Earth will be our home
Our space-travel capabilities have improved in the
intervening years, but we still haven’t found a destination planet enough like
our big blue marble to aim for or developed the means for even a re-con party to get there.
In the meantime, we’ve created a floating plastic
garbage patch twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. We’re experiencing
record high temperatures. Hellish fires are raging from Brazil to Siberia, and
hurricanes and typhoons are growing in size and intensity. Hurricane Dorian
left much of the Bahamas looking like a land fill.
As if these inconvenient truths aren’t troubling
enough, we know from credible scientific research and computer modeling that if
we don’t significantly reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, the annual average global temperature could increase
nine degrees Fahrenheit or more, compared with preindustrial temperatures, by
the end of this century.
The year 2100 seems a long way off. Most of you who
are reading this won’t be around when that new millennium is rung in. I surely
won’t be. But Zinnia and my other grandchild, Jackson, will be around to suffer
for our short-sightedness and stupidity. So will millions of other kids here
and around the world.
Zinnia is just
beginning to figure out what she wants to do with her life. Maybe she’ll become
a cross-fit trainer like her mom or a podcast producer like her dad. Maybe
she’ll be a doctor or a chef or a scientist or a maker of animated films like Trolls. Maybe she’ll have kids herself.
I want her to have those opportunities. I want her to
be living on a planet at least as beautiful and diverse and healthy as the one
I grew up on – and, if at all possible, better.
No challenge we are facing or issue we are dealing
with today is more important than our acting like responsible, caring adults
and implementing every measure we can imagine to limit further physical
deterioration of the only planet we have.
Not gun control or reproductive rights. Not Latin
American immigrants or North Korea’s nuclear weapons. The environment. Our environment. Our
incredibly complex, life-giving, life-sustaining, shared environment.
We need to do this whether we believe we’re God’s
appointed stewards or simply because we recognize it’s stupid and suicidal to
foul our nest. Pick your rationale, but make reversing damage to the Earth a
personal and political priority.
We were making encouraging progress not that long ago,
prioritizing cleaner energy sources, discouraging pollution, setting aside
nature preserves both land and sea. Now, under new “leadership,” we are in
spiteful retreat. Our president didn’t even bother attending the climate change
panel at the recent G-7.
There are those among us, including some rich and
powerful people, who insist that the dire warnings of scientists like those who
compiled the Fourth National Climate Assessment are a hoax or an
anti-capitalist plot. The former claim is an absurdity that would require a
conspiracy of millions of scientists who’ve never met. The latter ignores the
commerce to be engendered and the profit to be made from cleaner industry.
If the scientists turn out to be wrong, we will still
be living a cleaner, healthier world as the 21st Century speeds
along. If they’re correct in their
predictions and we’ve allowed our leaders to shirk their responsibility, we and
our children and grandchildren will be facing a rising tide of misery.
I would accuse the deniers of playing Russian roulette with our little ones’ lives, but that analogy overestimates the odds in our favor.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
In an article for The Guardian, Stephen King, man of letters and master of horrors, talked about two characters he created who kinda-sorta predict the rise of Donald J. Trump.
I know what you’re thinking, but no, he didn’t mention
Cujo or the clown-faced maniac in It.
In The Dead Zone (1979), there’s Greg Stillson, a snake-oily Bible salesman who flimflams his way to a mayor’s post, the U.S. House and finally the Presidency, where he starts a world war. King also points to Under the Dome (2009), in which he gave readers Big Jim Rennie, a self-promoting car salesman and small-town alderman whose authoritarian tendencies grow stronger and sociopathic when his community is cut off from world by a mysterious, impenetrable bubble.
I can see King’s points, especially the huckster part,
but for me, his more prescient novel is The Stand, an epic tale of life
in America after a laboratory-engineered super-flu wipes out 99 percent of the
human population. Published in 1978, The Stand was soon being hailed for
its uncanny anticipation of AIDS and other virulent new threats to human
health.
That’s not the prescience I’m talking about. The more
interesting parallel today is King’s meticulous laying out of a crisis of
American democracy.
We hear constantly about the “polarization” afoot in our
supposedly United States, of red-blue rifts over immigration, guns, minority
rights and government’s societal role that end friendships, divide families,
even provoke mass shooters.
The website FiveThirtyEight recently posted an
interview with a guy who believes our nation has become ungovernable, “run its
course,” and should be divided up into five or six separate countries: a Left
Coast strip that includes California, for instance, and a Dixie-fried
aggregation that includes most of the old Confederacy.
And speaking of the Great Secession, we’ve all heard
murmurings, nervous speculation, that we could be headed for an actual civil
war. Heard it, or read it on Facebook or Twitter.
In The Stand’s decimated America, the poles are
amplified. Survivors of the apocalyptic disease are assembling under distinct
banners for a war for the nation’s soul. (Heard that phrase lately? If not, you
obviously haven’t been watching the Democratic Party’s televised debates.)
In Las Vegas, good ol’ Sin City, an army’s worth of
the criminal, the bitter, the resentful, the envious and the toady – a basket of deplorables, some might call them
– is in the sway a seductive demagogue-cum-devil who goes by the name of
Randall Flagg and makes them all feel important, useful, wanted. They’ve
happily embraced tyranny.
On the other side of the Rockies, in Boulder,
Colorado, another legion is forming, this one united around the notion of
rebooting the nation that the super-flu has laid to waste, not just the
machinery but the republic that was.
In a key passage, Stuart Redman, a classic reticent-reluctant
American hero, gets down to brass tacks over a jug of wine with Glen Bateman, a
sociology professor who exists as a character in large part to theorize and
philosophize on behalf of author.
Bateman says their first task must be to “re-create”
America, albeit in miniature. He says they’d need to call a meeting of all the
survivors in Boulder and “read and ratify” the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
“Christ, Glen, we’re all Americans…,” Redman
interjects.
“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Bateman responds.
“We’re a bunch of survivors with no government at all. We’re a hodgepodge
collection from every age group, religious group, class group and racial group.
Government is an idea, Stu.”
He goes on to say they need to act quickly. “Our
people here are very soon going to wake up to the fact that the old ways are
gone, and that they can restructure society any old way they want. We want – we
need – to catch them before they wake up and do something nutty.”
We obviously still have a government, gridlocked though it too often is. And Trump is no Randall Flagg; he’s a needy, greedy man, not a supernatural creature. Nonetheless, we do find ourselves in a tricky situation, disorganized and disunited. And arguably the scariest thing, with regard to our Republic’s vulnerability, is that it didn’t take a plague to get us here.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
Based on current rules, Jason Lewis, the one-term ex-Congressman needs three more years in Congress to qualify for a modest but still pleasant Big Gummint pension. I’m thinking that’s one good reason to run for Tina Smith’s Senate seat.
Last week, when Lewis, who is also an ex-talk radio host, announced his latest campaign, I immediately thought of comment by Tim Alberta, the long-time congressional reporter with deep Republican sources. (For years Alberta covered Capitol Hill for The National Review and is now chief political correspondent for Politico. He’s been around a while, knows a lot of stuff and prominent people talk to him in very candid ways.) Alberta’s been making the media rounds for his new book, “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.“
Chatting recently with Ezra Klein on Klein’s Vox news podcast, Alberta was asked (again) to explain Congressional Republican’s astonishing fealty to Trump, a flagrant, blowhard know-nothing. Is it a matter of fear or is it, you know, bona fide principle?
Said Alberta, ” … one of the first rules I learned in covering Congress is that self-preservation is the name of the game. I don’t mean to sound malicious or cruel here, but it’s just a fact. So many of these folks who get into electoral politics and come to Congress know they ain’t going to make $174k doing anything else. They don’t have the skill set, they don’t have the background, they don’t have the education. So when a lot of these folks come to Congress, when they get that job they know it’s going to be the best job they’re ever going to have, and they’re going to do whatever they need to do to keep it. I think at a very fundamental level that informs the thinking that everyone in the Republican party has taken to Donald Trump.”
Put another way, the answer is “No, it has nothing to do with principles.”
Now, as a bit of a disclaimer, I’ve interacted with Lewis over the years and have no problem saying he’s an amusing guy to spar with — either on radio shows or over beers. He likes the rhetorical game of partisan politics, and as an entertainer he’s good at it. But from my admittedly jaded and much less credulous perspective (compared to his true-believing fans) it’s always just that … a game. … and only that. Like Oakland, there’s no detectable “there” there, in terms of bona fide beliefs. He says what sells and what sells is what he says.
There’s always an argument to be made for the citizen legislator. The non-lawyer, non-careerist running to do the right thing.
But Tim Alberta’s description is a spot-on portrait of Jason Lewis. In no way shape or form has he prepared himself for work as a serious legislator. He’s a performer, pure and simple. A self-serving actor very good at following memes and scripts. Never mind the ground-level consequences of the things he purports to know something about. (One my favorites was his “plan” for blowing up Obamacare: a high-risk insurance pool only for the seriously sick. Just don’t get into pesky, fundamental math-y details like how insurance works and what that pool would cost someone with, say, diabetes.)
The highly-ironic connection to the era of Trump is actually kind of amusing.
It’s this: the 30 year-long, self-serving game played by Lewis and all the other regional Rush Limbaugh-wanna be talk show hosts — inflaming the greivances and prejudices of the already ill-informed for “advertiser value” — coalesced in 2016 into a mass of the clueless who installed a corrupt buffoon, the embodiment of the talk radio ethos, in the White House. And now everyone in the Republican party has no choice but to bend a knee to literally everything moronic Trump says. It’s a stark dilemma of self-preservation. To revolt against Trumpist idiocy — you, know nuking hurricanes, raking forests and easily winning trade wars — risks getting beaten at the ballot box by precisely the same sad fools they riled up in their years on the radio.
The issue with Lewis isn’t intelligence. By no means is he a stone-cold idiot like say Louie Gohmert of Texas. Nor is he (as far as I know) a reprehensible charlatan like Devin Nunes of California or Matt Gaetz of Florida. With Lewis it’s more the gaming of “the game.”
Talk radio is all about gaming the issues. It’s about creating a character and costuming up that character with rhetorical flourishes. Modern Republicans love guys like Newt Gingrich, famously described as, “What dumb people think a smart guy sounds like.” So it is with Lewis. You get up in front of a crowd and drop a line here or there about the Bretton Woods Agreement, or something/anything about foreign policy from the Heritage Foundation and, voila!, you’re the next incarnation of Paul Ryan. A real deep thinker. A goddam font of bold notions.
Needless to say, gun control is always a gross infringement on the most cherished of ‘Murican rights and climate change has been happening for millions of years so let’s all calm the [bleep] down.
Frankly, I doubt Lewis has a chance in hell against Tina Smith. (Still, I can’t wait for him to get out there and razzle-dazzle Minnesota farmers with some Three Card Monte justification for Trump’s trade war and the Chinese not buying soybeans.) But Jesus, could you find any two people that are more polar opposites? Nerdy church mouse Tina versus Say-Anything-That-Turns-a-Buck Jason.
Here’s the thing, though. While winning the election would be nice, and guarantee him a Big Gummint pension. Simply running — on someone else’s money — restores his profile and improves his leverage for another show biz contract. It’s “the game”, man! I hear those Sinclair folks are hiring.
Chucklehead right-wing talk radio has been re-relegated to the AM spectrum here Minnesota. But put a “tax and spend ultra-liberal” back in the White House and demand will spike for people with the schtick and chops to offer “clear-headed” rebuttals to “out of control socialism.”
Note: This is a Wry Wrerun, originally posted by Joe Loveland in August 2011. It’s tired and dated, but posting it every few years helps him survive late August in Minnesota.
I loathe State Fair TV news coverage. And just to preempt the question, yes, I’m not “from here.”
The State Fair begins today, but State Fair TV news coverage started in roughly February. I’ve already been through a lot, so allow me my primal scream.
Reasons to hate on State Fair TV news coverage:
Reason #1: Because it crowds out all other news coverage. If in the next ten days the Republican Speaker of the House comes out for a 75% tax on all Tea Party members’ Medicare benefits, the Vikings trade a 73-year old groundskeeper for Aaron Rodgers and Charles Woodson, and space aliens colonize a Mahtomedi strip mall, this much I promise you: You will not hear about it. No chance. Why? Because during the last 10 days of August there is sameness happening in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. And there is an unwritten rule in Twin Cities TV newsrooms: All that is the same in Falcon Heights must crowd out all that is new in the rest of the state. (Though to be fair, the crop art turns over every year.)
“It could be that his head wasn’t screwed on quite right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.”
Reason #2: Because skinny people repeatedly fabricating overeating stories is never that funny. One of the many recurring gags we will suffer through during State Fair TV news coverage involves willowy anchors and svelte reporters exchanging witty repartee about how grotesquely bloated and obese they are from going all Joey Chestnut on Commoner Food all day long. Oh, the humanity! Their image consultants tell them that pretending to be like the binging masses will help their Nielsens. But make no mistake, they are mocking us, as they spit and rinse their Sweet Martha’s at station breaks, and nibble the sensible sack lunches packed by their personal nutritionists.
“And they’d feast! And they’d feast! And they’d FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!”
Reason #3: Because even hilarious jokes lose their charm when repeated the 653,776th time. “On a stick.” “Jokes” using those three hideous words will be repeated hundreds of times over the next 10 days on TV news. Though even Ed McMahon wouldn’t laugh the 653,776th time, you can count on our TV news friends to guffaw uproariously at every “on a stick” utterance, as if they just heard it for the first time. To make things worse, every PR person in town will put their client’s product or service on-a- stick – long term care insurance on-a-stick, get it?! — because it is the one guaranteed way to get coverage for your otherwise non-newsworthy client.
“They’d stand hand in hand and they’d start singing.”
Reason #4. Because Def Leppard hasn’t been remotely newsworthy for at least twenty years. …yet we can be certain that there will be a full length news story about them by every station. Why? Because for the last ten days or August, anything within earshot of the broadast booth is automatically deemed newsworthy. Plus, it’s so adorable when Frank tosses “Pour Some Sugar On Me” segues to Amelia.
“They’d sing! And they’d sing! AND they’d SING! SING! SING! SING!”
Reason #5. Because the 3.5 million Minnesotans who avoid the Fair every year are people too. One of the most fascinating parts of State Fair news coverage – and it’s quite a competition — is regular attendance updates. Spolier alert: The number will astound the reporters. Last year, it was 1.77 million. Though I’ve always suspected that’s probably the same 177,000 mini-donut addicts coming back each of the ten days, for the sake of argument, I’ll accept the number. Even using that number, that leaves something like 3.56 million of us — about two-thirds of all Minnesotans, I’ll have you know — who have chosen NOT to attend the State Fair. And maybe, just maybe, those of us who chose to stay away from the Great Minnesota SweatTogether would rather the news broadcast contain a little actual NEWS.
“Why for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now! I MUST stop it from coming! …But HOW?”
There. I’m better now. Nothing like a good rant. On a stick.
Americans are constantly being nagged by bosses, human resources directors, career coaches, and etiquette police to carefully “manage your social media profile or brand.” Rule number one for said managing? Avoid saying anything “political.”
For instance, a typically shallow article in Medium concludes with very clear and sweeping rules:
1. Don’t post political stuff on social media.
2. Don’t comment on other’s posts even if you have just the right witty comeback.
3. Don’t even ‘like’ anything political.
4. Tell the algorithmic overlords you don’t want to see politics on facebook.
5. Be happy.
Somewhere Bobby McFerrin is smiling. I was surprised that the author didn’t add: “6. If you view anything political, flush your eyes with bleach, ammonia and hydrogen peroxide.”
“Politics” Or Protection?
I get the point, but that is one helluva a privileged outlook. After all, one person’s “politics” is another person’s “protection.”
With grandkids on the horizon, speaking out about deficits, the student loan crisis, unnecessary wars, and the climate crisis is ultimately about protecting my family, not just politics.
With gay people in my family, speaking out on gay bashing masked as “religious freedom” is about protecting my family, not mere politics.
With a viable small business needed to support my family, speaking out about things that weaken the economy — self-dealing trickle-down tax cuts, health care insecurity, childish trade wars, etc. — is about protecting my livelihood, not politics.
With these things in mind, it’s easy for me to see why people of color feel the need to speak out on social media about police brutality and immigration, young people feel the need to speak out about student loan debt burdens and the climate crisis, women feel the need to speak out about wage equality and reproductive freedom, and rural families feel the need to speak out about fighting the opioid epidemic and the trade war.
To the privileged who are doing fine under Trump’s status quo, maybe speaking out about these things looks like distasteful “politics.” But to many of us, speaking out about Trump and his enablers is ultimately about protection of ourselves and our loved ones, not politics.
Historical Resisters
If you still have doubts, maybe this is a useful exercise to ponder. What would have happened if people who resisted past racist, corrupt authoritarians had chosen to “manage their brand” instead of fighting back.
Instead of risking his life by saving over 1,000 Jews from the Hitler’s holocaust, what if Oskar Schindler had stuck to stockpiling “likes” by only sharing adorable jokes?
Instead of leading peaceful protests and armed resistance against apartheid atrocities, what if Nelson Mandela had stuck to building his brand by constantly sharing photos of his dazzling smile?
Instead of leading thirteen
underground railroad operations to save slaves from brutal treatment and murder
in the American south, what if Harriet Tubman had protected her brand by instead
sharing a steady stream of inspirational sayings?
Wouldn’t that have been such savvy brand management for Oskar, Nelson and Harriet?! Think of the “Likes!”
Naomi Schulman made an observation about this “fighting back versus not offending friends” dilemma that has really stuck with me.
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.
You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
“Nice people made the best Nazis.” Maybe being perceived as “nice” by people “not into politics” isn’t the most important thing to worry about in life.
Extraordinary Times
Trump isn’t advocating for anything of the magnitude of the holocaust, apartheid, or slavery. But he is easily the most incompetent, corrupt, misogynistic, and racist American leader of our times.
He’s separating asylum-seeking kids from moms and keeping them in cages. He’s banning people from traveling to America based on who they worship. He’s fueling hatred among unstable white supremacists wielding weapons of war.
If there is no resistance to stop or slow him down, Trump will hurt a lot more vulnerable people in the future. He wants deeper cuts in safety net programs for vulnerable Americans. He wants to force women into unwanted pregnancies and unsafe back alley abortions. He wants to make things worse in the battle against climate change, when we urgently need to be getting better. He wants to take health care coverage from 20 million Americans, and preexisting condition protections away from all of us.
This moment in history isn’t normal. In so many ways, it could be pivotal for the world we leave to our kids.
So in between sharing of baby elephant videos, vacation snapshots, and results of your “what piece of IKEA furniture are you” quiz, maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to occasionally incur the passive aggressive wrath of “not into politics” friends by speaking out about the threats we’re facing. Maybe it’s okay to take that little bit of a hit on your “personal brand.”
It’s more than okay. It’s necessary.
I don’t mean to suggest that speaking out on social media is the only or best thing you can do. By all means, have difficult in-person conversations with loved ones, donate until it hurts, march in the streets, and volunteer on campaigns and/or for nonprofits. But the very least you can do in these extraordinary times is to ignore the short-sighted advice about “staying above politics” on social media.
I keep waiting for some local arts organization of size and standing to mount an exhibition of “Art in the Age of Trump.” Not just some pop-up gallery of struggling artists on food stamps, but a big, region-representing organization like the Walker, the Wiseman or the MIA, that’ll put it’s name on a show exhibiting what Trump and Trumpism has inspired in painters, sculptors, dancers, musicians and filmmakers.
I really gotta stop holding my breath.
To use graphic arts as an example, for three years now there has been a torrent of Trump-related output. My sister sends me a dozen a week. There are literally thousands of pro and amateur-produced cartoons, magazine covers, posters, GIFs and video mash-ups — many profane, vulgar and provocative as well as hilarious. Virtually all are available for curation, that IMHO would draw a very large crowd. Personally, I’d have no problem laying out $20 to see a show of the best of that kind of work, from all over the world.
The assumption is that the membership of a major arts organization like the Walker, for example, would trend heavily toward believing that Trump is an appalling buffoon, and a revolting offense to enlightened sensibilities. But that said, you know and I know a show of Trump-inspired art (some of it could be pro-Trump I suppose, I just haven’t seen as much) is still far … far … too hot a topic for a provincial arts establishment. The Whitney in New York, sure. But proudly progressive Minnesota? Ehhh … we’re not there yet.
Trepidation about going all in with a demonstration of artistic response to the Age of Trump is of course part of the “normalization” process we hear so much about, usually in the context of hyper cautious traditional media organizations. (“Trepidation” of course suggests that someone within a big arts organization has actually considered the possibility of such a show.)
While the standard response from regional daily newspapers and TV stations is that they are simply being judicious and “fair-minded” by avoiding anything “provocative”, it’s nearly impossible for them to dispel suspicions that they simply don’t want to risk the financial impact of blowback from political partisans.
All this was going through my fevered head as I plopped into my seat to see Francis Ford Coppola’s third version of his Vietnam war classic, “Apocalypse Now”, back in theaters this week in a gorgeous 4K digital restoration and with a stunning, enhanced soundtrack.
Shot a year after the fall of Saigon, the film is so much that big American films are not in 2019. As much as the vivid, semi-fantastical spectacle of the film and the ceaseless run of dialogue that is now woven into every day conversation — “Charlie don’t surf!”, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” — you are struck by the sheer ambition and audacity of the project, estimated to cost $112 million in 2019 dollars. There’s nothing shareholder-safe about it. Provocation is it’s intent.
“Apocalypse Now” — and good ahead and niggle with its flaws — is artistic ambition on a grand scale aimed directly into the grill work of a culture mostly content to ignore and quickly forget its worst flaws.
Both Coppola and his investing studios took an enormous gamble on a piece of mainstream entertainment that after a dozen years of the war’s horror and waste adamantly refused to soothe passions and conscience. The indictment of the American military and American culture was both vivid and remorseless. It was, to use a much over-worked critic word, a “searing” experience, designed with great artistic verve to provoke and discomfit. And because of that and Team Coppola’s artistic sensibilities it is a classic.
I ask you, who in Hollywood is doing that today? Quentin Tarantino, a bona fide “A-list” director, has a nice hit on his hands with, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, his reimagining of the Manson era in LA, and it offers a couple lines about the effect of countless hours of B-movie/bad TV cop and cowboy slaughter on impressionable minds. But after 35 years in the movie business Tarantino remains purely an entertainer, with nothing particularly fresh or illuminating to say about who we are and why we as Americans do the things we do. For $112 million, Hollywood in general is content with China-friendly super heroes and Dwayne Johnson disaster flicks, provocation need not apply.
On TV the HBO series, “Succession”, the thinly-disguised satire of the Murdoch empire and family, seems closest to evolving into a tangible and provocative commentary on the Trump era, where the wider, deeper impact of gross cynicism and self-interest on the general culture is not a matter of concern to any of the principal players. (“The Handmaid’s Tale” must also be acknowledged.)
Please offer suggestions of prominent musicians responding to this current era, a la Dylan in the ’60s. I assume somewhere on the Pitchfork charts is a singer or band as disgusted by Trumpism as Coppola was by the signature episode of misanthropy and racism of his era.
Is it too much to dream that just once we got the whole story behind one of these Jeffrey Epstein-like episodes. … and that we got it within weeks, not years-to-decades after the event?
Of course you, me and every pig flying overhead thought “conspiracy” when we heard Epstein killed himself. As every pundit has been saying, the guy with possibly criminal-quality stories to tell about Presidents, royalty, other politicians, Nobel-level academics and god knows who else, was the highest profile prisoner in US custody when — we’re to believe — the overworked, screwed-up jailers in Manhattan just kinda forgot about him long enough for Epstein to hang himself (with what? from what?) in the cell that against standing policy he had to himself.
All that would be highly suspicious enough were it not for the fact that the man who will now “oversee” the investigation into what happened is … Bill Barr, the raw embodiment of precisely the kind of institutionalist corruption that routinely drops a dense official shroud on uncomfortable truths.
Lord knows there are hundreds of truly insane conspiracy theories choking the sluice gates of our infotainment culture. Think Hillary Clinton and that child sex ring run out of a DC pizza parlor as an example of what a certain quality of thinker is prepared to believe. But … but … unlike the self-proclaimed “cooler heads” of media and government, people who protect their professional credibility by reflexively assuring us that, “You know, I’m not a big conspiracy theory guy”, the plain fact is that throughout human history individuals have plotted together to steal, cheat and murder to protect their nefarious interests. Why, it’s almost as basic as breathing and self-defense. Despite what we here in ‘Murica prefer to think, conspiracies are not the sole provenance of medieval royal courts and Russian apparatchiks.
Proof is everything, of course. And that’s where the likes of characters like Bill Barr are so frequently present and prepared to slow the hunt for truth, cloud up transparency and bury come-what-may resolution under a cloud of convoluted legalism, often in the name of “healing” and “moving on .”
Like you, I have no idea what went down with Epstein over the weekend or what, if anything, Barr already knows. But, based on what we do know, almost entirely from the reporting of Julie K. Brown and The Miami Herald, everything about Epstein’s sweetheart “prosecution” in Florida a dozen years ago stinks like an open sewer. And … and … we still have no real idea how Epstein assembled a financial empire that clearly required the liquid cash wherewithall of an actual billionaire, not a false facade like some cheesy con-man making a show with a leased Maserati.
The larger point being that this — again — is one of those episodes where intelligent, fully-functioning adults have little to reason to believe — much like as in Russia — they will ever get the whole story from their government officials. Maybe from Ms. Brown or another news organization … work that will be derided as “fake news” by those of whom we are most suspicious, but not from the most senior people in charge of the “investigation”/creation of “alternative facts.”
Let me then apologize for this eruption of skepticism, cynicism and faithlessness. Maybe it’s just me. But I really don’t think so.
Polls show that a large and growing majority of Minnesotans support ending marijuana prohibition. So why isn’t legislation moving forward in the Minnesota Legislature?
It appears that the size of majority simply isn’t quite large enough yet to overcome a number of factors working against passage, such as:
Fear of Law Enforcement Lobbyists. The war on marijuana has kept a lot of law enforcement officials employed, so they have a self-interest in lobbying fiercely to preserve it. The political strength of law enforcement lobbyists is weaker than it has been in the past, but it is still relatively strong with some legislators.
Minnesota Meekness. The Minnesota Legislature isn’t exactly brimming with bold leadership. When it comes to passing new laws, Minnesota tends not to be the first or last state, but pretty square in the in middle. With “only” eight other states out ahead of Minnesota proving that full legalization is not the disaster predicted by prohibition supporters, it still feels “too soon” to timid Minnesota leaders.
Comfortable Status Quo. Finally, old habits just die hard. So many institutions have been waging a war on marijuana for so long that they just can’t seem to give up the fight.
So what will overcome those significant challenges? Even more public support. Deeper support is particularly needed in Greater Minnesota to persuade a few more Greater Minnesota legislators to get on the right side of history.
“Safer Than Alcohol” Campaign
How will we expand the level of majority support? By going directly to Minnesotans, particularly to Greater Minnesotans, with a thoughtful public education campaign methodically presenting the the mountain of evidence showing that illegal marijuana is safer and less addictive than already legal alcohol.
LESS DANGEROUS. When it comes to harming the user and harming others, illegal marijuana ranks as much safer than alcohol. Marijuana is not benign, and steps should be taken to limit its harm. But British psychologist David Nutt (and could there possibly be a better name for a psychologist?) bundled a number of statistics into a “Harm Index,” and found that already legal alcohol and tobacco were both much more harmful than illegal cannabis.
LESS ADDICTIVE. Contrary to the opinion of many skeptics, marijuana is also much less addictive than alcohol. Psychopharmacologist Jack E. Henningfield Ph.D., formerly of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz MD of the University of San Francisco ranked marijuana less than half as addictive as alcohol. Both researchers found marijuana to be roughly as addictive as ubiquitous caffeine.
Once skeptical Minnesotans have been made aware of these kinds of facts, the question that needs to be posed is essentially this: If you don’t support prohibition for coffee, alcohol or tobacco, why support prohibition for marijuana?
Right now, those facts would be extremely surprising to many Minnesotans. Billions of dollars worth of Reefer Madness– and D.A.R.E.-style propaganda, law enforcement lobbying, and war on drugs news coverage has caused too many Minnesotans to believe the myths that marijuana is somehow much more addictive and dangerous than alcohol. Changing those misconceptions must be job one.
Advertising professionals can improve on this, but the summarizing tagline of the campaign could be something as simple as:
SAFER THAN ALCOHOL End Marijuana Prohibition in Minnesota.
Tone Matters
Beyond having credible third-party proof points, the tone of this “safer than alcohol” campaign matters a lot. Unlike smoking joints on the Capitol steps and other similar self-defeating stunts, this “safer than alcohol” education campaign can’t have a whiff of headshop or hippy to it.
The off-putting counter-culture vibe of many tactics used by well-meaning proponents inadvertently drives away the disproportionately older Greater Minnesota moderates that must be persuaded so that their Greater Minnesota legislative representatives can be persuaded. The campaign needs to put a spotlight on credible third-party expert messengers delivering facts in a measured tone that is comfortable in Greater Minnesota.
Again, polls show that Minnesotans are ahead of their elected officials on this issue. But the majority needs to get just a bit bigger and more committed before enough elected officials representing Greater Minnesotans will have the courage to do the right thing and end marijuana prohibition. A thoughtful “safer than alcohol” public education campaign is a necessary next step.
Every year, more than 500,000 men in the United States undergo a minor surgery to block sperm from mingling with the semen they ejaculate from their penises. As you probably know, even if you’ve not had one, the procedure is called vasectomy.
A vasectomy doesn’t affect a man’s ability to get an
erection or to ejaculate. He still produces seminal fluid; there just aren’t any
squiggly-wiggly swimmers in it. The body absorbs the sperm produced by the testes
so, in slang terms, a guy fire blanks.
According to the American Urological Association, a
vasectomy prevents pregnancy better than any other method of birth control (except,
of course, abstaining from sex). Only 1
to 2 women out of 1,000 will get pregnant in the year after their partners have
had a vasectomy.
Ponder that statistic as I sketch out a modest
suggestion for reducing the number of abortions in our country to near zero, a
goal espoused by both pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates.
Almost all vasectomies can be reversed. That being the
case, what if we required all males, upon turning 18, the age at which they can
vote, to undergo vasectomies?
Once their tubes – they’re called the “vas,” by the
way – are snipped and tied and their negative sperm counts have been confirmed,
they can resume whatever sex lives they had before the surgery. They’ll still
be wise to take precautions, such as condoms, to reduce their chances of
spreading or contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
If a man subsequently decides he wants to be the father
a child and is intimately acquainted with a woman who wants to be the mother –
or if a woman requests a man to make her pregnant – they can apply for a
license to reproduce and complete a contract that establishes the
responsibilities they expect from each other over the course of the first 18
years of whatever child they bring into the world.
The would-be father will then undergo a vasectomy
reversal which, because the healing typically takes 1 to 3 weeks, imposes a de
facto waiting period during which he, the would-be mother, or both can have
a change of heart.
Unwanted pregnancies under this system would be nearly
nonexistent, and abortion, while it would still be available under the same
Roe v. Wade terms as now, would be an option seldom exercised.
Downsides?
Well, the mandatory part does violate privacy rights
(though not as much as the state commandeering a pregnant woman’s body for nine
months). If vasectomy could settle one of our most polarizing issues, isn’t it
worth putting to a vote? If the initiative failed, we could always go the
voluntary route, backed by a clever advertising campaign and incentives — free
football tickets, craft beer, perhaps even cash. It wouldn’t be quite as
effective, but it would still improve on the status quo.
No doubt there would be those who would argue that
mass vasectomy will increase promiscuity. Perhaps, but recent studies indicate
that Americans are engaging in sex less frequently than in the past, when it
was more of a taboo and birth control was less accessible and effective. That
worry seems moot.
That leaves male fear, which is just plain silly. I
had this procedure decades ago. It was a temporary inconvenience. I’ve had no
problems and no regrets.
The “V” sign has long stood for victory. Let’s give it another meaning. Let’s win one for the snipper.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
A couple weeks ago, in a sleepy hilltop hamlet, (Pie Town, New Mexico), I was served a slice of pretty good pie by a big white dude packing a gun. Forty-something, 6’2″ or taller and weighing at least 250, I kinda had to wonder what exactly he was so afraid of that he needed a revolver ready on his hip to serve … pie and coffee to tourists?
In our now thoroughly-ritualized reaction to what have become daily mass shootings in the USA, (literally, folks), we hear the same exasperated demands for Congress to “do something”. “Exasperated” because we know with absolute certainty that Congress will do nothing, because Mitch McConnell will not allow Congress to do anything.
When the net result of a guy killing 20 grade-schoolers and six teachers was states and McConnell’s Congress further relaxing gun laws, we all know we’re living in a bizarro world where quaint notions like majority rule and common decency carry no weight.
“What to do” about America’s gun-worshipping insanity has never been too difficult. There is no end of ideas, ranging from the modest — “red flags” allowing judges to confiscate guns from certifiable crazies — to the definitive — making private gun ownership illegal. Given a Congress — and a state poitical environment — that actually represented the thinking of the majority, something would have been done long before this. But we aren’t living in that world.
One of the ideas that keeps rattling around my alleged brain is a television campaign describing gun owners … to themselves and their neighbors. Think of billionaire Tom Steyer’s PSA avalanche demanding Trump’s impeachment. Then redirect that to a series of deadly serious but also semi-comic ads spotlighting the painfully obvious racial, sexual and gender issues motivating “gun enthusiasts”.
I don’t anything about the big pie guy’s fear factor, but I do know our up north neighbor, who I’ll call “Steve”. He’s lived his entire life 20 miles from town, out in the woods along your classic burbling creek. Peace, quiet and fresh air. He worked construction until he retired (union pension) and was without question a devoted caregiver to his invalid wife for 15 years before she passed away.
But as his retirement years have gone on his sense of threat and vulnerability has steadiy increased, to the point that now, even while walking his dog through the woods, he packs a gun. Shooting, in fact, is his default activity. It’s his primary social recreation with his backwoods pals.
Steve’s the kind of guy who regularly drops the line, “Now, I’m not prejudiced … ,” as a starter to a conversation about some black guy’s mug shot he’s seen on the evening news. Not to mention his “this proves what I’m saying” riff on three black guys he saw in line at the Walgreen’s pharmacy down there in town.
Now mind you, in the 25 years we’ve had a place near Steve, nothing has ever happened. A window was broken once 20 years ago, but nothing was stolen. The biggest threat to anyone’s life and limb are the occasional drunks — all of them local and white — careening up and down the highways and gravel roads.
Point being, Steve embodies everything we understand about conservative rural America.
Fear of some relatively high degree is what kept them within miles of where they were born. Hence, they’ve had no real, routine person-to-person interaction with blacks and other minorities — other than what they see on television, TV being their primary if not sole source of news, just as pulp entertainment has informed their role-modeling since they were children.
Then you compound all those anxieties with the physical deterioration and sense of vulnerability that comes with age. The result is a profoundly fear-based psychology for which a relatively inexpensive arsenal of guns salves almost all their wounds. Several of Steve’s buddies have upgraded their “collection” to include AR-15s, “an AR” in the vernacular. Steve may have, too. I don’t know.
The time came long, long ago when responsible politicians and media “leaders” needed to not only call white nationalist terrorism “terrorism”, but lay out for the public what so many reputable studies have shown about the roots of some people’s affinity for guns. And it ain’t video games.
As this study shows, racial animus is umbilically linked to gun ownership, certainly gun fetishism. Then there’s the virility surrogate effect of weaponry and the status-enhancing/rejuvenating effect that comes with gun ownership. And, as we’ve seen with the explosion of the internet, the powerful “community” effect on people who for whatever reason — lives lived apart from urban-style diversity or this bizarre INCEL culture — feel psychologically isolated and rejected.
A prime TV campaign featuring the science of gun affinity as well as the rancid money game behind the manufacturers, the NRA and the Russians would at least spark a different conversation, one that America’s conservative thought leaders — the hosts of “Fox & Friends” and Rush Limbaugh — would have to respond to.
Or we can express “thoughts and prayers” that Kentucky’s rural militia will rise up and vote Mitch McConnell out of office next year.
Yeah, it’s a new mugshot. Trump has aged me twenty years in three.
It’s a simple fact of human psychology that people see leadership in a lot of ways that have nothing to do with integrity, good judgment and basic decency. History is littered with characters who possessed none of those virtues yet were elevated to positions of power and influence because … well because … they create a special tingle in their audience.
As much as Democrats want to jockey for position by going Deeper Into the Weeds Than Thou over sub-sections of Obamacare, the lamentable but indisputably true fact of almost every kind of existence, especially politics, is that you have to make the people see and feel something special in you. Voters, no matter how wonky and nerdy and policy-driven, want you to project back on them an image of “alpha” … whether male or female.
As the years go by I’m more and more convinced that brain chemistry and brain structure is one of the most credible explanations for the tribal division between liberals and conservatives the world over. There’s nothing racial or ethnic about it. But there is an evolutionary aspect, I truly believe.
That said, liberals, (which does not describe every Democratic voter), do react very differently to the “strong man” concept of leadership than conservatives. In my humble opinion we lefties do inject our choice of leaders with a disproportionate factor of wonky bona fides than typical conservatives. How exactly does he/she plan to get us to universal health care? How “criminal” should it be to enter the U.S. illegally?
But it is the rare, wonky liberal who doesn’t still react, instinctively, like a man-ape on the African savannah, to the feel of a “leader.” I give you, Barack Obama, as opposed to Hillary Clinton.
Obama had it all. Everything about him projected that rare but essential quality of, “I got this.” Call it “The Cool Factor”. Call it “charisma”. He had and has it. Hillary didn’t. She projected “competent management”, which is great if you’re going to run Buffalo Wild Wings, but not enough if you’re trying to stir positive-to-rapturous emotions in 130 million potential voters.
Which brings us to a key dilemma in our current environment. While there is no question whatsoever that 42% of the public feels a once-in-a-hundred-years alpha male leader quality pulsing off Donald Trump, there’s no one yet among the Democrats emitting a similar quality to possible Democratic voters.
It goes without saying the specific qualities attracting conservatives to Trump and liberals to … whoever … are dramatically, qualitatively different. Therein lies your deep tribal divide.
But one component is, again without question IMHO, the factor of confidence, which is fundamental to establishing dominance. Confidence instills the same in those seeking to be led well. It imbues a calm that allows our still primitive emotions to relax so our brains can sort out the various options to problem-solving. And it soothes us.
Specifically, this is another problem with Joe Biden. There’s a “vigor” factor involved in “confidence” and humans’ choice of leaders. Very little about Joe projects vigor or, “I got this.”
It’s also the quality still missing from my pet fascination, Pete Buttigieg.
(Very) smart. Thoughtful. Expressive of good judgment. A calm and imperturbable demeanor. Yes. All that is there and eminently valuable. But “alpha male”? Mmmmm, not yet. In the parlance of show biz, Mayor Pete needs to make himself “bigger.” But liberals can’t do bigger like Trump does bigger. Strutting around like an absurd, obese Mussolini courts immediate, richly deserved mockery. The liberal alpha also has to express authenticity to acquire the ineffable magic of “alpha.” That’s tougher. You’re not allowed to fake it.
As for the women, Kamala Harris may have it. But like Buttegieg, it ain’t there yet. Unfortunately for Minnesota, that “alpha magic” is something Amy Klobuchar lacks entirely. With her, we’re back to selling “competent management.” And there’s no inspiration that comes with that.
We tend to forget that the “alpha-ness” of Barack Obama wasn’t fully formed until he began winning. After that point we saw and heard much more of him. Winning, which is to say actually demonstrating dominance, is a critical feedback loop firing human neurons. “He has done it!”, we think, and swoon. “He will always do it!”
This week’s Democratic debates certainly didn’t do anything to establish anyone’s “alpha-ness”. But let’s thin the herd and spend more than 30 seconds per topic with these people. A couple of them may have the instinct to convey, “I got this.”
(P.S. I’m a big fan of Ezra Klein’s podcast. Via his Vox network. Here are links to two recent shows.
One with Pete Buttegieg, which includes a very interesting conversation about structural reform, all the real world obstacles to it, but the need for it to be framed and regularly reaffirmed for voters.
And another with U of Delaware prof and author Danna Young. Klein is clearly struggling with the “biological” explanation for tribalism, but here again he and his guest pull right up to the line trying to explain it. )
As promised — (ok, “threatened”) — you have here the first of a new Wry Wing Politics recurring feature. Your Democratic Presidential Candidate Power Rankings. (Insert flatulent tuba sound effect.)
As briefly as possible, this is the shtick:
Candidates are given two percentage scores. One for their real world potential, based on the fact that at this point in the game most voters only really know two or three of them. (Biden, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren to a lesser degree.) Then there’s a second ranking for, shall we say, a somewhat more informed opinion (mine) of each candiate’s ability to compete with Donald Trump and his despotic allies, which is to say Russian troll farms, North Korean web hackers, Saudi bone-saw artists-cum-financiers as well as wholly corrupt and nefarious American actors like Bill Barr, Mitch McConnell and the vast, echoing right-wing sewer.
The two scores are then averaged to produce … Your WWP Pow-pow-pow-errrr Rankings!
#1: 91% / 42%. (66.5%)Joe Biden. Biden is pretty much all name recognition. Which normally counts for a lot. His “blue collar” cred — (which is baffling since the guy’s been prowling the starchiest white collar halls of DC power for what, 50 years?) — still has detectable cachet with the much-anguished over “Reagan Democrats”, i.e. white guys roughly Joe’s age in the Rust Belt. But they truly are the crowd paying very little attention at this moment. The big downside with Joe is his (very) old school judgment. From Anita Hill to the gamed-out credit card system in Delaware, Joe has forever played the give-a-lot-to-get-a-little DC influence game. The fact that he was unprepared and taken aback by Kamala Harris’s busing shots in the first debate proves again he is nowhere near nimble enough to deal with a campaign cycle already veering into shamelessly reckless histrionics and corruption.
#2: 65% / 61%. (63%) Elizabeth Warren. Less name recognition than Joe and Bernie, but a whole lot more than the bottom dozen, plus the most fully thought-out policy proposals keeps Warren high up in the rankings. She’s smart, principled and tireless. But as a performer, a bit too single-note in her (well justified) indignation and outrage. Democrats are thoroughly disgusted with Trump, but the general population tends to gravitate to candidates who they feel are “cool” and “in control” and yet still capable, even in the face of epic stupidity, corruption and racism, to crack a smile from time to time. Another demerit is, like everyone else, Warren shows no sign of having a plan for neutering Mitch McConnell. Which means her grand, laudable policy proposals are DOA.
#3: 38% / 85%. (61.5%)Kamala Harris. In my capacity as all-knowing seer, Harris checks most of the boxes required to soundly defeat Trump. Essentially, they are these: no other candidate offers as dramatic a contrast to a lazy, corrupt misogynist and bigot as a black, female former state attorney general. Her relative youthfulness also signals to Millenials and younger (75% of whom vote Democrat) that she may also be aware of and concerned with issues 20 years down the road as well as the degradation Trump has wrought today. Moreover, Harris best signals, as I’ve said before, a wiliness — a higher level of enemy recognition and preparation for the truly foul and unexpected — then almost all of the others. She knows how to play the game to win. And … I’ve seen her smile.
#4: 21% / 80%. (50.5%)Pete Buttegieg. Mayor Pete I believe is the real deal, and in a normal world, (which has never existed), a nearly ideal candidate. Someone with Buttegieg’s remarkable intelligence and thoughtful demeanor is desperately needed to guide the world through climate change and reset key fundamentals — Supreme Court, electoral college — of our gamed-out, less-than democratic order. The appeal of a (really) smart gay guy to sophgisticated urban voters may well outweigh the inevitable troglodyte bigotry of rural Trumpists. Also, of all the mano a mano debate scenarios, Buttegieg v. Really Stable Genius is the one I’d like to see most.
#5: 52% / 43%. (47.5%) Bernie Sanders. Who doesn’t love Bernie? His Medicare for All idea is wildly implausible. (Let’s imagine for a second what UnitedHealth would do if President Bernie served up a bill putting them out of business in four years.) But, as The Stranger said to Jeff Lebowski, “I like yer style, dude.” Bernie is simply too old and too easily identified (and caricatured) as a “wild-eyed Socialist”, never mind that no one accusing him of that has the faintest idea what Socialism really means in 21st century USA. And like Warren, I’ve never been able to imagine Bernie beating Mitch McConnell at anything truly devious. His light is dimming as we enter the next round of debates.
#6: 27% / 62% (44.5%)Julian Castro. A pleasant surprise in the first debates. I had forgotten how articulate the guy was in Obama’s cabinet. (Remember when cabinet officials weren’t just a pack of decrepit grifters running up fat tabs on the taxpayers’ dime?) I see no path for him to the top of the ticket, but a smart, honest Hispanic from Texas as VP? Interesting. Very Interesting.
#7: 36% / 51%. (43.5%)Cory Booker. If Barack Obama hadn’t already broken the race barrier for the Oval Office, Booker might be given more consideration. But, he just doesn’t compare all that well to Obama. Maybe it’s the New Jersey thing and having to play paddy-cake with all the Wall St. fat cats living in his suburbs, but he’s too slippery for my tastes and, ironically, not nearly as quick on his feet as Harris or Buttegieg in the face of jaw-dropping stupidity … of which there will be a superfund-sized waste dump to deal with in 2020.
#8: 18% / 44%. (31%)Amy Klobuchar. Our gal hasn’t created any forward motion for herself. Her relatively high-standing here is more a reflection of the stark inadequacies of everyone lower than she is. Her performance before the NAACP convention in Detroit this past weekend exposed a potentially fatal flaw in her record, certainly in terms of inspiring the minority vote. By oh-so carefully threading the needle between supporting cops (appeals to rurals) and acknowleding an “outrageous situation” (sorta satisfies urban voters) with regard to cop conduct, she’s got dime deep support among blacks.
#9: 11% / 36%. (23.5%)Beto O’Rourke. Is this guy still even running? Talk about a vanishing act. As the past months have gone by I’m more and more convinced that the fanatical enthusiasm for his Texas Senate race last year was all about how much people despise Ted Cruz. There should be a “lane” for a candidate speaking the lingua franca of contemporary Americanese, peppered wit readily understanable pop culture references, metaphors and aphorisms. Passionate but common verbiage, in other words. Instead, the O’Rourke of 2019 sounds like he’s had his head injected with a quart of Stepford Candidate gelatin. Dude!
#10: 6% / 36%. (21%) Michael Bennet. Bennet is actually someone you could make a case for, if he were running against, umm, Bob Dole or George W. He’s intelligent and decent. Unfortunately he is about as compelling and inspiring as a “Clean Government Now!’ leaflet handed out on a street corner. Stay in the Senate and figure out a way to publicly de-pants Mitch McConnell. (I apologize for the imagery.)
#11 9% / 25% (17%)Kirsten Gillibrand. This woman reeks of un-modulated personal ambition. Is that me, a white guy, calling a woman “pushy”? Yeah, I suppose it is. So sue me. As much as she wants to deny it, her — ambition-driven — putsch against Al Franken really is a defining factor is her campaign. It was indelible proof of what a lot of Democratic party insiders thought she was all about as she clawed her way up the party ranks in New York. Just go away.
#12: 5% / 24%. (14.5%) Jay Inslee. Agreed. Climate change should be Issue Number One. Unfortunately, until all of Trump’s Griftopia is in cinders and (here I go again) Mitch McConnell is caught in bed with a live girl AND a dead boy, the topic won’t get so much as a committee vote in the Senate. Your candidacy is futile. But by all means keeping beating the climate drum.
#13: 3% / 18%. (10.5%) Steve Bullock. Why? You’ve been a reasonably popular governor in a mountain west state (with a third the population of Brooklyn) where the majority of men like to think they’re the Marlboro man incarnate. Go back to Montana and run for Senate against Steve Daines.
#14: 2% / 13%. (7.5%) Tulsi Gabbard. Again, I’m not sure what it is she’s really after? A Senate run? The Governorship of Hawaii? Apology withstanding, her anti-LGBT rhetoric forever places her in “deep outlier” land among 21st century liberals.
#15: 2% / 10%. (6%) John Hickenlooper. What I said about Steve Bullock. Faced off against the right candidate, Cory Gardner is an easy, fat target in Colorado. Go home and get yourself elected to that job.
#16: 2% / 8%. (5%) Andrew Yang. Okay. Another book deal and speaking engagements. I get it. But beyond that, you’re part of the season’s comic relief.
#17: 1% / 6%. (3.5%)Bill DeBlasio. He has progressive bona fides. But apparently no one actually, you know, likes the guy. Other than that, the country may have maxed-out its appeal for big, self-agrandizing Manhattanites.
#18: 0% /3%. (1.5%) Tom Steyer. I’ve seen your commercials. “Impeach the moronic racist now!” (TM David Simon.) As a billionaire, your job is to keep buying TV time … for someone else.
#19: 0% / 1%. (0.5%)John Delaney. Why is anyone listening to this guy at all? Or wait, what I mean is, “Is anyone listening to this guy, at all?”
#20: 0% / 0%. (0%) Marianne Williamson. Listening to her is like what I imagine Gwyneth Paltrow would sound like as a candidate. “When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat.” (Actual Paltrow quote.) But, unlike Kirsten Gillibrand, I’d have a couple glasses of organic wine with Williamson — and not throw one in her face.
On the first night of the first round of
debates among Democratic presidential aspirants, Julián Castro, who was
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, had a
spotlight-grabbing moment when he upbraided fellow Texan Beto O’Rourke for not
supporting his plan to end criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants
crossing our southern border from Mexico.
On the second night, when a different 10 hopefuls
fanned across NBC’s Wheel of Fortune stage, the impact of Castro’s
attack was obvious. Aked if they backed Castro’s plan, nine candidates raised
their hands. All 10 said they would back federal health subsidies for
undocumented immigrants, an idea President Barack Obama nixed a decade earlier.
The candidates’ stampede to out “left” each
other reached its most bizarre point when Castro volunteered that his universal
healthcare plan would cover abortions, including abortions for trans women. At
least this would not be a benefit that would significantly affect the deficit.
Since those nights, one of the hottest topics
among the commentariat has been whether Democrats are going to blow their
opportunity to dethrone President Trump by catering to their most progressive
constituents.
Writing in The Atlantic, Peter Beinart asked, “Will the Democratic Party go too far?”
“I’ll vote for almost any Democrat, but lurching left won’t beat Trump,” read the headline on a USA Today editorial by Tom Nichols, a national security professor at the Naval War College and a self-identified “Never Trump”-er.
“Democratic candidates veer left, leaving
behind successful midterm strategy,” read the headline on a Washington Post analysis
piece by Michael Scherer, one of its national correspondents.
Hogwash, say others,
among them Keith A. Spencer, writing in Salon.com about “hard evidence” that supposedly
proves a centrist Democrat will belly flop in 2020.
Other op-ed’s have warned
Democrats to beware of Republican trolls trying to trick them into pursuing
foolish moderation.
So, what are Democrats to
do?
Well, what if they
borrowed a phrase from “A Clockwork Chartreuse,” Loudon Wainwright III’s
tongue-in-cheek paean to an anarchist: “Let’s burn down McDonald’s/Let’s go
whole hog.”
Here are few things Democratic candidates can advocate at the next round of debates – July 30 and 31, CNN — if they really, really want to test the notion that the way to deny Donald Trump a second term is not moderation but a triple jump to the left. In no particular order:
Claiming “originalist” interpretation, ban private
ownership of all firearms designed after 1789, the year the U.S. Constitution
was ratified.
Ban bacon and big-ass pick-up trucks.
Remove slave owners’ heads from Mt. Rushmore.
Outlaw Mountain Dew.
Expand national park acreage to include Texas.
Along with abolishing private health insurance and
replacing it with Medicare for All, reimburse patients for parking at hospital
ramps.
Mandatory kale consumption.
Stop construction of Trump’s wall; commence
construction of automated “people mover” walkways.
Change national anthem to Neil Diamond’s
immigrant-friendly “(Coming to) America.”
Abolish apple pie as the national dessert. I’m thinking rhubarb.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
For mid-summer we’re looking at a busy week, scandal and resistance-wise. Robert Mueller testifies tomorrow. (I couldn’t have lower expectations. Bill Barr has ordered him not to say a word beyond his report, so even if by now Mueller knows he’s being played, he’ll do what his superiors tell him to do.)
Then next week the Democrats go at it again, this time Detroit. (WWP Democratic Power Rankings to publish soon.)
And right now we’ve got the reevaluation of Al Franken and them that done him in. With Jane Mayer’s storytelling in The New Yorker, we get a reiteration (with considerably more depth) on the hit job that took out Franken, (and to which he acceded). It was, as we already knew, the rawest of political calculations.
Franken the Accused had to go — and chop, chop — because Democrats had to present a face of unimpeachable #MeToo purity at that precise moment, since Alabama was in the process of deciding whether to send an accused child molester to the Senate. Whether the business with his USO pal Leeann Tweeden was true or yet another episode of classic Roger Stone ratfcking (to borrow from Charlie Pierce) did not matter a whit. Nor did whether there was really anything to the other accusations of butt-grabbing and groping served up by various women, including the one who said Franken pawed her at the State Fair while her family was taking their picture together. (Whaaaaa … ?)
Because everyone who follows The Game must offer a hot take in moments like this, otherwise liberal (to hyper-liberal) pundits having been feverishly feeding the furnace of opinion.
Over at the well-empowered gals website Jezebel, Esther Wang writes, “If Me Too has shed a light on the spectrum of abuse that women have been systematically subjected to, then it has also served to flatten a wide variety of experiences under one imperfect and unwieldy umbrella, giving those who would already tend to dismiss women’s claims or are uneasy at the idea of a ‘good’ man committing gross acts an easy way to defend their positions. ‘This isn’t Kavanaugh. It isn’t Roy Moore’, the comedian Sarah Silverman pointed out in the piece.”
Likewise, at Vox Matt Yglesias, lays out the basics of the political pageant, the need to appear fully supportive of every claim of sexual harrassment in the Roy Moore moment and the not-inconsequential certainty that Minnesota would appoint another liberal Democrat as Franken’s replacement.
But Yglesias then concludes by saying, “Yet the facts of the case are simple — his conduct was wrong, and it came to light under a series of circumstances when the best option for the causes Franken believes in was to step down, and so he stepped down. It’s true that he could have fought on, and perhaps from a purely self-interested perspective, he should have. But politicians aren’t supposed to be purely self-interested. At a critical moment, Franken actually did something selfless and correct. He deserves to be congratulated for it, but instead, he’s chosen to trash the potentially redemptive thread in the story and make things worse. “
But here’s “the thing” for me, and maybe for you. How do we know, and how can we judge, if what Franken did — whatever it was — was actually “wrong”? Everyone can interpret and surmise. But what really happened? What is true? Who among these folks has made an attempt to find out?
Unlike Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh and Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves and Charlie Rose and on and on, there has never been as far as I can tell any kind of serious investigation, official or journalistic, of the accusations made against him.
Even worse, and a very good reason for Franken to consent to a long interview with one the country’s most credible investigative joyrnalists, is that very few of his colleagues cared … at that moment. The corpse of his career on a public funeral pyre was the image the party decided it needed at that moment, (and could accept with Tina Smith in the wings). Nothing less was going to send a grander message to anyone undecided about whether to vote for Roy Moore or Doug Jones.
Out on the broader canvas the issue remains whether the Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer but catalyzed by an extraordinarily ambitious Kirsten Gillibrand, were played by fairly recognizable right-wing characters and tactics.
Again, we don’t know if they were. But the likelihood that Democrats sacrificed Franken — a truly aggravating thorn to Republicans — in hasty reaction to a political con is at least as plausible as Franken grabbing constituent butts in public and in front of their families.
None of this will change the fundamental of the story. Franken’s out and he won’t be back in that job.
But Jane Mayer’s story — by far the most fully told story of the episode — has to serve as an admonishment the next time the skittery herd feels pressure from such a remarkably loose collection of accusations.
Damn but it is hard not feel all elitist and superior while watching this Pledge of Allegiance business next door in St. Louis Park.
As a proud member of the Not Much of a Joiner sub-group of the human race, I pretty much always look at these herd-like explosions of group-think with a mix of curiosity and embarrassment. (Don’t get me started on get-a-life, “I bleed purple” football partisans.) Such spectacles seem to me to lack, mmm, what’s word? Self-respect? Dignity?
In fairness, “both sides” of the political spectrum are susceptible to the kind of mass psychosis we see playing out at St. Louis Park City Hall. The significant difference being that pissed-off liberals tend to flash mob over stuff like the latest cop killing of a black guy, some incident that reignites the fight over equal pay for women, or, you know, an American government running concentration camps for toddlers on the southern border.
Not so much over hoary, perfunctory symbols lacking any real impact on our quality of life.
But from moment word got out that “The Park’s” City Council was going to pass on The Pledge of Allegiance at its (wildly popular? Heavily attended?) meetings you could see not only where this was going but who was going to carry the message and who would join up for the Army That Saves the Pledge.
Maybe it’s the utter predictability of this stuff, the rote, robotic gesturing and blustering and performative histrionics that embarrasses me.
Now, I would agree with anyone who says The Park goosed this march of raging bovines by offering as a reason for dropping the pledge that it didn’t want to discomfit new immigrants or others who might not be so cool with pledging fealty to “one God”, a phase patched into The Pledge back in the Joe McCarthy-era to rile the Rooskies. I mean, they had to know that mentioning anything about “new people” was like waving a red flag in the (white) face every Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson zealot in a 100-mile radius.
Next time try something basic, like, “We need to speed these meetings up. Four hours is long enough to argue over pothole assessments.”
One other thought, after reading the Star Tribune’s lastest editorial about this episode, the one where the paper of record boldly declares, “What’s clear for elected public officials is that decisions about the pledge must be made carefully, in consultation with the communities they serve.”
Am I wrong or isn’t part of the job description over there the obligation to form and defend a definitive argument? Bravely admonishing public officials to “make decisions carefully” isn’t even the paper’s usual view from between the 40-yards lines. It’s more like threading a needle down the chalk-stripe at midfield. Sheesh.
The paper does get points though for printing a letter from Plymouth resident Harold Onstad, who said, “We have become fixated on going through the motions of standing for the anthem and listening to ‘God Bless America’ for the seventh-inning stretch, forgetting that it is much more important to fight for what is measurably best for the majority of our citizens with our words, our funds and our votes.
“Let us quit wasting time on our silly showpieces of patriotism and move on to the effort that is really needed to assure we will continue striving to be one nation with the best of futures for all.”
Clearly though we can assume Mr. Onstad is a godless, ‘Murica-last eltitist who probably doesn’t even own a pair of star-spangled socks.
I’m a big fan of Governor Walz’s proposal to give Minnesotans a new MinnesotaCare (MNCare) buy-in option. If it passes, it would be a signature part of his legacy as Governor. But he has a lot of work to do before he gets it passed, and he should start by wiping the slate clean and dropping the name “ONECare.”
To be clear, the name ONECare is hardly the biggest problem Walz faces. The much bigger problem is an army of well-connected health care lobbyists and industry-employed donors pushing legislators to stick with a status quo that reimburses the industry at higher rates than MinnesotaCare, an argument that legislators who are serious about cost-containment must reject.
To pass this proposal, the Governor is going to need to use his political capital and get a lot more personally engaged in the fight than he has been so far.
But the name ONECare certainly doesn’t help the cause, a cause I’ve been supporting over and over, and it’s easy and painless to fix.
When selling ideas and policies, words matter a lot. Think “estate tax” versus “death tax.” “Tort reform” versus “lawsuit abuse reform.” “Medicare-for-all” versus “single payer.” We’ve seen it over and over: Words impact clarity and emotions, and clarity and emotions impact voting behavior.
For three primary reasons, the brand ONECare doesn’t help Walz to convince anyone to enact perhaps the most important policy proposal on his agenda, and instead inadvertently hurts it a bit.
ONECare DOESN’T DESCRIBE, OR DISARM MOST DAMAGING CRITICISM. I prefer the very boring, literal name “MinnesotaCare buy-in option.” I know, I know, it obviously isn’t very lyrical or concise, but it instantly explains the patient benefit, and that’s the most important advocacy need.
This is a concept that almost no one understands, so they need a concise description. ONEcare is not the least bit descriptive. If a Minnesotan heard ONECare come up in a shorthand way, they would have no idea what is being discussed, and very likely would assume you were talking about a corporate health plan.
After 27 years in existence, “Minnesota Care” has a bit of brand equity, and “buy-in option” explains the concept much more clearly than “ONEcare.”
Even more importantly, “MNCare buy-in option” also shines a bright spotlight on that key word “option.” The word “option” disarms the most potent critique of the proposal, the false claim that Minnesotans will be forced to use “government-run health care” against their will.
In a year when Medicare-for-All is being lambasted on the national stage for being mandatory and coercive, it’s critically important to be repeatedly stressing the disarming key message that this is merely another “option” for Minnesotans to take or leave. Stressing that selling point in the name is the best way to achieve that kind of repetition.
ONECare SOUNDS VERY CORPORATE, WHEN IT’S THE ANTITHESIS OF CORPORATE. Also, ONEcare sounds very much like a corporate health care brand. In fact, if you search the internet for “onecare,” numerous private health ventures pop up.
Adopting a corporate-sounding brand name confuses and sullies an initiative that’s actually all about providing an option for relief from corporate insurance. That makes no sense.
ONECare IS TOO WALZ-CENTRIC AND PARTISAN IN TONE. Finally, ONEcare politicizes the proposal by using a derivative of Walz’s 2018 campaign theme “One Minnesota.” ONEcare comes across like a partisan advertisement, as opposed to a sincere effort to help Minnesotans get cheaper and better health care coverage.
Governor Walz likely intended ONEcare to be unifying – “we’re ‘one Minnesota’ and this gives everyone the same option in all parts of the state, including areas where there are few options.” I get that. But the fact that the “One Minnesota” sloganeering was so central to Walz’s recent election campaign makes ONEplan feel like it belongs to one political tribe only, instead of something that people of all political stripes should support.
Again, dropping the ONECare name obviously isn’t going to guarantee passage. For that to happen, legislators are going to need to have more courage, and Governor Walz is going to need to really use his political capital to fight for this. But dropping “ONECare” will help make their explanation of this excellent idea feel a bit more clear, direct, disarming, and apolitical.
Of all the sleazy sideshow acts in our long-running carnival of fools and scoundrels, this business of Jeffrey Epstein is something I’d pay to see play out in all its lurid horror.
Epstein, a multi-millionaire financier, friend to the likes of Donald Trump. Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz is, I think we can agree, one colossal creep. He’s another example of dead-on perfect casting for the #MeToo era, besides playing like an over-the-top villain from that Showtime series, “Billions.”
What we know for certain is that the guy “frolicked” with girls “on the younger side”, to quote his buddy and repeat companion, Donnie Trump. And by “younger” we mean … well below legal age for naked rub downs and whatever else we can imagine, for which he compensated the children involved “hundreds of dollars”. In 1% jargon “hundreds of dollars” is also known as cash you don’t even stoop to pick off the pavement.
Last fall The Miami Herald sniffed out the rancid sweetheart con — orchestrated by Trump’s current Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta when he was doing the people’s business in south Florida. If you missed it, despite a stark and corroborated list of felonies involving said sex trafficking of minors, Acosta cut Epstein a 13-month work release sentence … without notifying the kids who he had molested. And … and! … clamped off any investigation into any pals of Epstein’s who might be involved.
Only “the best people”. (Rather than “calling” for Acosta’s resignation, Nancy Pelosi should drag him before Congress for public testimony.)
The Herald’s work on the case — fed by outraged sources in the Florida judicial system — failed to make any new waves under the state’s Trump-friendly new Governor, Ron DeSantis. But prosecutors in New York, where Epstein has one of his five homes, (a $70 million mansion just off Central Park), apparently failed to get their check in the mail from whoever bought off Acosta. (Okay, that’s not proven … yet.)
Along with thousands of pages in Florida’s files, which includes the feverish back and forth between Epstein’s lawyers and Acosta’s “prosecutors” to minimize any penalties, suspicion is running high that New York’s new information/evidence is so substantial, with so many new targets that bought-off MAGA hacks cannot dismiss it as “old news.”
This of course is where it could get (very) dicey for Bubba and Dershowitz and god knows who else. (Hell, there are even social connections — at least — to Britain’s royals. Imagine the dilemma for the royals-obsessed morning talk shows!.) Epstein’s alleged madam and procurer is the daughter of the British tycoon Rudy Perpich once wanted to cook a deal with right here in Minnesota.
So yeah, it’s a hot, juicy, perverted, disgusting mess. Very much in keeping with everything else about the Trump era. Plus, as they say on the infomercials, “there’s more!”. Bill Clinton! And, you gotta guess, other rich, pervy big shots.
Clinton’s office has issued a statement saying every time he consorted with Epstein he was accompanied by either staff or his security detail. Still, “frolicking” with underage girls on Epstein’s private jet or private island? Unfortunately it doesn’t strain credulity.
Here though is the thing I’d like to argue in the context of messaging for Campaign 2020. Anyone trying to exploit bona fide populist outrage could do worse than craft a campaign strategy on the nearly universal awareness and disgust with how routinely the 1%, (hell, make it the 5% just to round things out), slide off the back of felony justice in this grand democratic experiment of ours.
Democrats, Republicans, tinfoil hat Hannity dupes … all of them and everyone know this for a stone cold fact. The farce of “no one is above the law” is slapped across our faces every day.
Hell, Trump super-pal/NFL owner Robert Kraft of “happy ending” massage therapy in south Florida has so thoroughly gamed out the legal system down there, the only people facing serious punishment in his sleaze-and-squeeze are … the women who were trafficked in from Asia to yank on pudgy dirtballs rolling up in their Bentleys. They are the ones facing charges and crippling financial penalties.
Trump’s flagrantly bogus “drain the swamp” battle cry appealed to this deeply ingrained cynicism toward everything about D.C. politics. It was an obvious sham. But the essence of it had bi-partisan appeal. The trick to tapping the near universal disgust with how the rich and connected can game any system in which they play is in laying out the argument out in non-ideological terms.
Reality of course says that if you make an issue out of a “war” on every lizard in a Brioni suit gaming the system — be it the legal system, the tax system, the health insurance system, etc. — you’re eventually talking about new regulation, or at the very least, aggressive regulation/enforcement of laws already on the books.
And we know how the 1% – 5% feel about anything that sticks a wrench in their god-given right to exceptionalism.
Laugh if you will. I realize it’s more than a little ridiculous, the notion that the most science-averse U.S. President of all time would bequeath his corpse to the medical school at Harvard or Emory or the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater.
But I’m serious. He’s an unusual human specimen, and he owes it to the nation — to the world – to make himself available for posthumous study.
First of all, there’s his body, the ample corpus that, clothed in white tie and tails for his recent state dinner with British royalty, led wiseacres and fashion critics to suggest that he wouldn’t be out of place leaping for mackerel at a Sea World show pool.
What life-extending secrets could medical science learn about longevity, energy and endurance from dissecting an overweight septuagenarian who stays up half the night watching cable news and tweeting angry insults, gets little exercise beyond walking to Air Force One and his golf cart, and eats mostly the sort of fatty fast foods that are the foundation of America’s obesity epidemic?
How is it that a walrus with the added weight of the world on his shoulders can make it through day after day of cabinet meetings, sit-downs with foreign dignitaries, medal ceremonies, interviews, photo ops, and campaign rallies without even taking regular naps? His performance on such occasions – his logic and lucidity – may leave many of us scratching our heads and grinding our teeth, but you kind of have to admit that his stamina is impressive.
I don’t know about you, but I’m two years younger than he is, close to the ideal weight for my height, an exercise buff and a healthy eater. I take a siesta most days and still can’t stay awake for Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Fallon. And I don’t have the added stress of Nancy Pelosi or Rachel Maddow talking about jailing me.
More challenging, but also more rewarding potentially, would be the study of Trump’s brain. He says he’s a genius, and a stable one at that, but his declarations of mental prowess sometimes seem at odds with his erratic behavior, his childishness, and his very, very limited vocabulary. What could dissections and tissue scans discover about the wiring of his brain?
Some people believe that Trump is a narcissist, a liar, a con artist, a crook, or even a psychopath. He says he isn’t, and that he only interrupted his lucrative business career to take a relatively low-paying government job because America’s greatness needed restoration. Objective scientific study of his brain could, among other things, settle such debates for posterity.
In an article for the website Live Science, writer Clara Moskowitz reported about a Mayo Clinic study of people with antisocial personality disorder, a condition commonly found in criminals and characterized by an indifference to laws and the rights of others.
“Brain scans of the antisocial people, compared with a control group of individuals without any mental disorders,” she wrote, “showed on average an 18-percent reduction in the volume of the brain’s middle frontal gyrus, and a 9 percent reduction in the volume of the orbital frontal gyrus – two sections in the brain’s frontal lobe.”
Another study Moskowitz cited compared the brains of like numbers of psychopaths to non-psychopaths. “In the psychopaths,” she wrote, “the researchers observed deformations in another part of the brain called the amygdala, with the psychopaths showing a thinning of the outer layer of that region called the cortex and, on average, an 18-percent volume reduction in this part of brain.”
“The amygdala is the seat of emotion,” she was told by a member of the research team, Adrian Raine, of the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Psychopaths lack emotion. They lack empathy, remorse, guilt.”
A close look at Trump’s orbital frontal gyrus and his amygdala could add to our understanding of how he came to be who he is – and possibly exonerate him.
Finally, there’s the fame factor. Very few celebrities have donated their bodies to science. Not only could Trump join that short list, but he would be also the first President. He really ought to do it. Let’s hope he does.
The big reveal could be the basis of a prime-time special, like The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault. The ratings would be huge.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
