I
am writing this piece because, during his campaign for the Presidency, Donald
Trump, rather than being an example of what we should strive to be, instead
exhibited all of the qualities of the Ugly American. His ignorance, his crass innuendo laced language,
his devaluation and predatory attitude towards women, his fear mongering, his
racist taunts, his call to round up Muslims, to place them in camps and to
exile them, his characterization of Mexicans as rapists and criminals, his
distain for American commitments made to other nations, to meeting the needs of
other peoples in the world community, reveal someone who is a threat to our
very values and institutions. Rather than his words and behaviors being seen as deviant, repugnant and
obnoxious, they were treated, instead, as being unconventional, novel, getting
around political correctness and reflecting “plain talk.” His lack of character
was, for the most part disregarded. The media was cashing in on this political
aberration.
Added
to this list of concerns is his continually saying things that are not true. When he is called on this, he reaffirms that
what he has said is the truth. He
has, over time, implied that President Obama has a “birther issue,” which
raised the race card during Obama’s candidacy for the White House. He has also asserted
that climate change is a bogus issue that was created by the Chinese. He has
accused three million undocumented immigrants as having committed voter fraud
in the 2016 Presidential Election. He
has claimed that this is the reason that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote
by nearly three million votes.
He
says things that are designed to stir the pot.
His referring to “Crooked Hillary,” his assertion that “he is smarter
than the generals,” “that he could kill
someone one and not lose any votes,” that we are going to increase our nuclear
forces, that other countries should develop their own nuclear defense
capabilities, this, when decades of efforts have been made to stop nuclear
proliferation.
Then
there are the people with whom Trump associates. Steven Bannon an Alt-right white supremacist
and racist who has become his Chief Strategist and has become a member of the
National Security Council. David Duke the head of the KKK, is another supporter
of Trump and asserted that, with Trump’s election, we, Trump along with the KKK have become a part of the main stream.
The question becomes, who or why would anyone vote
for a person like Trump? There seem to
be three groupings of Trump supporters.
The first are the people who view life, women, immigrants, people of
color, white supremacy and lying as Trump does.
In Clinton’s terms these are the “deplorable.” Her estimate was that
this element was about half of Tump’s following.
Then,
there are those who are the curious.
Like, what is this guy really all about? Finally, we have the hopeless. If government has been in gridlock for the
past six years and my lot in life is being flushed down the toilet, any change
might be better than the perceived status quo. Sadly, Hillary Clinton was
perceived as a politician and the status quo, rather than being, in partnership
with Bernie Sanders, truly a champion of the working and middle class.
What
is Trump’s appeal? He offers glib,
nonspecific phrases like “we’re going to make America great, again.” “We’re
going to build the wall and Mexico is going to pay for it.” “America is under siege, we are going to
protect America.”
His
“I am the only one who is able to fix things” smacks of delusional thinking
that plays well to con those who feel totally out of control or have a craving
for a parent figure who will say, “trust me, I will take care of everything.” For
others, who are not a part of his following, he is seen as a blowhard of the
first order.
His
pledges to make America Great again refer to what part of our history? Does he even know about American political
history or the issues with which Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower or
Kennedy had to deal? Could Trump begin to comprehend the three-ring circus that
was the world stage during the depression, the World War II, the Cold War, the
nuclear stand off between Kennedy and Khrushchev? Could anybody imagine how
Trump would, with his perchance for twitter tantrums, stand up to a provacative Nikita
Khrushchev? Instead of Kennedy paving the way for the removal of missiles from
Cuba, with Trump’s temperament, we might have had a nuclear exchange between
the United States, Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Trump’s
words and behaviors are showing themselves to be the opposite of what he has
pledged to the middle and working class families that are struggling to make
ends meet. His pitch to voters was a
combination of lies and a con. Instead
of working for the middle and working class, he is favoring Wall Street over
Main Street. Simply look at the Wall
Street Billionaires whom he has brought into his Cabinet. His Secretary of Labor is against unions and
minimum wages. His Eneregy Secretary
does not believe in climate change. His Secretary of Education, a billionaire,
is against public schools. His Cabinet
is made up of the wealthy ones who are going to gain tax cuts that will enhance
their profits.
As
for the rest of us, among other things, Trump is attempting to overturn governmental
regulations like the fiduciary requirement that requires that someone who is
managing a client’s retirement plan has to have the best interest of their client as the focus of their efforts. He, also, wants to roll back regulations that
will allow industrial waste to run into our waterways and airborne waste that will pollute the air that we breathe.
What
he is not telling his audience is that the jobs that were available in the past
have been replaced by robotic technology or work forces that expect workers to
work for less. The world of the 1950’s does not exist today. We are in the “new
normal” phase of our American history. In order to buy merchandise, we need
money in our pockets to pay for merchandise.
Where are we going to get that money?
For the most part, our wages have been frozen for the past 30 years.
People are working shorter hours, with irregular work schedules, often times
with no benefits. Retirement is out of
the question for the majority of seniors.
In
addition, Trump wants to eliminate the safety net that President Roosevelt
created to protect citizens for the possibility of an economy that might tank
as it did in 1929 and again in 2008. Trump wants to privatize social security, Medicare and health care services.
Trump
is also using scapegoating as a way to mobilize people. The Nazi’s did this with the Jews, Reagan did
it with the “evil empire,” Trump is doing it with immigrants, the media and
anyone else who serves to rally support against his delusional world. ‘Them is the
bad guys’ is the ploy and for a fraction of the population it works. And, don’t
forget facts. In Trump’s delusional
world, opinion trumps facts, there are alternative facts and the world,
according to Trump, is defined by what Trump wants it to be. Why? because he
says so. Is this a democracy with checks and balances or a Trumpty-Dumpty
dictatorship in the making?
As
Tavis Smiley says: “Keep the faith.” In addition to "keep the faith,"I would say, don’t settle for Trump’s
status quo. If we are not going to get compassionate
adult leadership from a man-child, we will have to rely upon the adults within
our communities to speak truth to power and bare the responsibility of true
citizenship, until such time as we have a true adult in the Oval Office.
And
finally, Trump’s “election” demonstrates an imperfection in our voting
process. We have no way to filter out an
emotionally unfit or duplicitous person from being elected to the
Presidency. If someone, like Trump, gains
enough Electoral College Votes, they are elected regardless of their fitness to
serve. This avenue to potential disaster needs to be revisited. The consequences for allowing someone who is
emotionally unfit to enter the White House are potentially
cataclysmic and, we require and deserve better.
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