Labor in Trump's Pocket

Sean McGarvey and Terry O'Sullivan met with President Trump at the White House today.  They head unions which represent sheet metal workers and laborers. They were delighted with Mr. Trump, who wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure projects which their workers can build with "American steel." They don't care much if that trillion dollars comes from taxpayers or private companies who will then own the roads and bridges and airports. All they care about is their members will get jobs and wages for the next few years. 

They were also moved by Mr. Trump who asked them to round up a working sheet metal worker, a plumber and a pipe fitter after they got off shift and to bring them to the White House so he could meet them and tell them how much he loves them.

The labor union leaders were delighted to hear Mr. Trump nixed the Pacific trade deal and will soon kill NAFTA.  Trade deals make corporations money, increase stock prices, lower prices for goods here in the USA, improve the overall economy, but trade deals send jobs (of some sort, likely manufacturing) overseas, the union leaders believe.

Now, exactly how a car plant in Mexico or a cell phone factory in China costs the sheet metal worker in Washington, DC his job, or costs the pipe fitter in Wilkes Barre his job, is not yet clear, but the unions have clearly drunk the Kool Aide. 

If Mr. Trump can get his Republican Congress to spend a trillion dollars on a stimulus package like this, he will certainly have accomplished something Barack Obama could never do.  He will likely also insure his own re election.

It may not matter he throws 30 million people to the wolves without health insurance if he can put 5 million people to work on roads, bridges and railroads and airport construction. 

I'm not actually sure the numbers add up that way. But, I supposed, it's conceivable, if all those construction workers get jobs, they may get health insurance with those jobs and so the loss of Obamacare may matter less to them.

It took Nixon to go to China. Maybe it takes Trump to get the government spending money again. 

Of course, while he's promising to protect Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid,  his appointed officials are busy killing those programs, but we are building things again, so who cares?

Of course, Mussolini made the trains run on time, Mayor Daley plowed the snow off the Chicago streets and Hitler built the Autobahn and the Volkswagen, so sometimes these guys show a flare for knowing what matters to the masses.

As long as people are happy by 2018, President Trump will be well on his way.

The Popular Vote Vs The People's Will

Sick of all the whining about Hillary Clinton having "won the popular vote." The implication is that the "people" really wanted Hillary, not Trump.


Of course, this presumes we know the mind of the people by counting the votes of those who went to the polls.

The fact is, as we are all aware, voters in "safe states" may not go to the polls because they know how their state is going to go, so voters in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana who were all for Trump will say, "I'll go hunting" that day, rather than vote. Or a Trump voter in Massachusetts may say, "What's the use?" and go fishing rather than cast a meaningless vote for Trump in a state he's got no hope of winning.


This is all about psychology, not simple counting.  If you throw open the bank vault on Main Street and wait for a day and not a single dollar has been taken from the vault, that doesn't mean people don't want the money. It may have something to do with those two big guards holding their big guns which discouraged people from taking the action and expressing their desire.


When you have the electoral college standing there, it affects the behavior of people, and they may not act on their desire.


Knowing this we have to agree there is no way to know what the majority of our countrymen really wanted.

What Is a Country?

Thinking about the marches in all the cities this past weekend, I began to ask myself: Are they marching in all those rural counties that flipped for Trump and put him in the White House?

Counties that flipped for Trump (from Obama)

The answer, of course is: No, they love him in the rural parts of America, in Idaho, rural Pennsylvania, the empty places where few people live. When David Brooks roamed about Idaho, all the people he met were sure Trump would win because everywhere they looked were Trump signs and Trump voters. When Mark Shields drove across the open spaces from Maine to Georgia, all he saw along the highways through the open spaces were Trump signs. But Brooks and Shields thought: Well, but in the densely populated cities, in the large metropolitan area, they cannot abide Trump. 

Turned out, those ragged people now are in control. All those cities where the marches occurred over the weekend--those masses don't control their own destiny. The crazy people in those counties where people don't read newspapers, they are in the driver's seat. 

But are they the nation, those dimwits out there?  If Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Trump--is that the nation which chose its leader, or something else?

So if the masses of people, who live in or around the cities are marching against Trump, who voted to put him in in the first place?

And why should a state, which is, after all nothing but land defined by borders, get two Senators?  Do grassy prairies need health insurance?  Do the deserts of Arizona need free trade?  Do the Great Lakes need to be protected against sexual harassment?  

I've lived in rural parts. I spent a year on a potato farm, after leaving New York City and I looked around at my neighbors and thought, "Wow, these people are here for a reason."  

There are plenty of people living in those empty places who simply could not make it in New York. They had that strange blend Hannah Arendt talked about, a blend of cynicism and gullibility which characterizes certain populations: so there are people who  would not believe in evolution, or global warming or science or in data which shows that the crime rate has fallen, that employment has risen to high levels, but they will believe that most Mexicans living in America are rapists and that Muslims want to behead every American and all the non believers. 

So my question is this: What is America, if it is not its people? 

Well, you will say, it's a people living in a geographic area defined by agreed upon borders. But if geography is part of the definition of a nation, then you can say the land itself is part of what constitutes a nation. And if you agree to that then you agree that that vast chunk of land called Montana is entitled to two Senators. And those two Senators should be able to tell people living in Baltimore they cannot limit gun ownership, because in Montana, people love their guns, even if in Baltimore, guns are destroying neighborhoods.  And Congressmen from the wide open spaces of Texas can tell women living in inner city Philadelphia they cannot have abortions because in Texas life begins at conception and Praise the Lord, we don't like abortions none in Texas. 

But then those two Senators from Idaho can tell all those millions of people living in Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, DC, New York San Francisco, Los Angeles, that they cannot have national health insurance.

But why should a small minority of people living in states where the Aryan nation has its roots, or where people believe in living off the grid, or where people don't believe in vaccination or public schools,  why should those deranged souls living out there in the wind swept plains of Kansas be able to tell the mass of people living along the coasts what is possible for them?

If people living in rural parts of Pennsylvania believe in home schooling, should they be able to tell the citizens of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh they have to home school their kids?

Look at that election map: Those great stretches of "the country" are empty, occupied by half wits, and those half wits rule.

There is something amiss here, and whatever that is, it's what explains President Trump.

Trump Brings the House Down, at the CIA: Wild Applause

Did you watch Trump at the CIA, standing in front of that wall with the names  and stars of dead CIA agents? 

I would have served, but I had these heel spurs.

Did you wonder who was doing all that raucous and enthusiastic cheering, especially when he said the "Media" consists of the world's most dishonest people?
 You could not see more than the tops of a few heads but you could hear the laughing and clapping.

No faces. Just laughing heads. Very Spooky.

And I thought: Wow!
I knew dozens of CIA employees during my years in Washington, and I never knew any who would allow themselves that sort of display.
It's true, I did not know any of the CIA "ops" people--all those I knew were analysts, who tended to be bookish, very analytical, open minded, sophisticated, worldly types who tended to smile faint, economic smiles, to betray moments of private amusement, and you often didn't know what you had said to amuse them.
But belly laughing, raucous types, no. These were more Smiley types than James Bond types. But even Bond would never carry on like that. They sounded like a bunch of drunken Russians who just discovered and washed down the agency's secret stash of Stolichnaya. 
Some FBI agents might be like that. 
FBI agents were more like cops, when they weren't bookish accountant nerd types. 
But CIA?

Our fearless leader.

That scene simply baffled me.
I've read on the internet that crowd standing in front of the podium were a group of Trump's own White House entourage.
That would make sense, although it seemed like a rather large entourage. I suppose a dozen men, amplified with microphones, could sound that thunderous.
This is the first mystery about Mr. Trump's first day I'd like to see resolved. 
Why doesn't the media ask about who those guys were who were stomping and cheering? 
Are there not any crowd shots?
Might not be, of this particular crowd. 
Even the stars on the wall do not always have names attached. 
The Spooks want to remain unseen, unidentified.
But, really, who were those guys?
If they were not CIA employees, but were, in fact Trump stooges and plants, is that not a story? Is this not a bit of manufactured news, Trump style?

Trying to Understand America

We live in a marvelous age, the information age.

Grief and History, Washington, D.C.

So, trying to understand the Trump election, I googled a map of the country which showed a map of the country with counties which "flipped" from Obama to Trump in 2016.






Counties which flipped from Obama to Trump

Then, having some names in hand, I went to each county and entered: Newspapers for ...whatever county.

Counties in Red, for Trump

Scanning through these, I found stories about the annual chili cook off, auto wrecks, bizarre local crimes--one, in Wisconsin, involved a beheading--auto accidents involving police officers or fire department officials, all sorts of local color, but almost no stories about Washington, D.C. and the national news. Trump's name appeared nowhere.

I will have to refine my technique apparently.
But, if I push this more and find there really is little national news in these papers, it might help understood how "low information" voters put Trump into office.
They really do not have information, from newspapers at least.  Where are they getting the opinions which drive decisions in the voting booths?
Does anyone know?
Here are the counties I found:
1/ Fayette County, Iowa
2/ Eaton, Michigan
3/ Shiawassee, Michigan
4/ Juneau, Wisconsin
5/ Itasca, Minnesota
6/ Luzerne, Pennslyvania
7/ Bladen, North Carolina


This is a first step, but I do think we need to think about how to find and learn about our countrymen.
So far, looking at the on line papers from these areas, it is not an encouraging sight.
I understand, my scan was superficial. Had I done the same for the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald, I would have missed the "Daily Police Log" the best thing about that paper. But even the Herald has stories about national politics.


If you are feeling particulary masochistic, go google any of the names on this list , then, as an exercise choose one:  key in "Newspapers for Juneau, Wisconsin" for example, and read what people there are reading.


Looking at the images of Americans in these places is startling. They do not look like New York City people. They do not look like people you see in commercials on TV. They look, well, you go look. Tell me what you see. These are the people who listen to Donald Trump speak, and they are smiling.


It may be few people actually read local newspapers any more. It may be this is the wrong place to look for opinion formation.
Maybe I should simply turn on Fox News.

Voices from the March

Joan Baez was nowhere to be seen. If Bob Dylan was there, he wasn't visible.
But Elizabeth Warren was in Boston and Gloria Steinem was in Washington.
What is clear is that neither Donald Trump nor his liberal opposition thinks the election settled things.
Mitch McConnell famously said, after Barack Obama's election the main thing Republicans had to do was to be sure President Obama was not successful, and was limited to one term; after 2 years, McConnell and the Tea Party now nominally the Republican Party succeeded.

Yesterday Senator Elizabeth Warren, 68,  rattled off a list of goals she hoped the aroused crowd will take action to support: raising the minimum wage, supporting the unions which built the middle class, opposing building "that stupid wall," opposing a Supreme Court which overturns Roe v Wade and effectively outlaws abortion, and so on. I love Ms. Warren, but she is not a young 68. 

I wondered, as President Trump remarked: where were all these people on November eighth?

Notably diminished, if not absent, were non white faces in the crowd. To be sure, there were some, but did crowds turn out in inner city Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Pittsburgh?  Had those people turned out on November 8, we would not have President Trump today.

Gloria Steinem, now 83, referred repeatedly to her long life. She is old now and her voice is an old lady's voice. But she has not lost a single neuron; all synapses were firing and many a ringing phrase sang out. She mentioned a message she got from her "sisters in Berlin" saying, "We, here especially,  have found walls do not work and they do not last." She referred to Bernie Sanders (now 75 years old) as a man who would carry forth the torch.

She noted, as bad as facing Trump as President, a man who has narcissistic features, who harbors delusions of grandeur, who is detached from reality, we have seen worse times in our country and got past them.  She noted she had seen the murders of Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and she said the loss of these men cleared the way for Richard Nixon and extension of the war in Vietnam, the bombing of Cambodia, but in reaction to that progressives rose up and progress was made. She reminded us how we feared Barack Obama would be assassinated, and how grateful we ought to be he was not. 

Disturbingly, President Obama is the youngest leader among liberal Democrats, and he is no longer in the game. Michelle Obama may yet emerge as an energetic, young voice, but are we really ready to risk another former first lady running? Personally, I would be. Of all the speakers during the last election and since, she struck me as the best, clearest and most resounding voice. 

Time will tell. We have less than two years until the election of 2018. 

Trump Care Naming Contest

Repeal and Replace has such a nice ring to it.
Republicans have always been masters of the phrase: So the estate tax (which sounds like a good thing, sticking it to those wealthy enough to have "estates") became the vile "death tax."  End of life panels became "death panels." Union busting laws became "Right to Work" laws. Oh, they are good, those Republicans.

But how to describe the plans for health insurance with which the Republicans propose to replace Obamacare?

Of course, we do not have clear details, so it's tough, but among the broad outlines of some which have been floated resurrect the old idea of "health savings accounts." Here the citizen can set aside dollars which get subtracted from his or her taxes in an account to pay for whatever health expenses might arise. So, if you set aside say, $14,000, it's there for you, untaxed, to spend on unexpected health expenses, like, say that $500,000 heart surgery, or that $1,000,000 kidney transplant, or that cancer therapy, including all the radiation therapy, chemotherapy and multiple hospital admissions.
Oh, the health savings account, well, that ought to take care of the housekeeping and bed linens for your heart surgery hospitalization. 
We might call this "Bare, naked insurance," or "Phantom Care," or "Evaporating Care" or "Trumped Care."
Perhaps the New Yorker ought to run a naming contest, like its cartoon caption contest.

Paul Ryan has spoken vaguely of coupons with which citizens could purchase insurance from the HUGE, YUGE, GIGANTIC array of choices which private insurance companies will rush to offer, now that the dreaded Obamacare ogre is gone.  
Problem is, before Obamacare, before the government started providing subsidies for premiums, there were very few health insurance policies and few companies offering anything at all beyond Catastrophic insurance--which paid up if you needed that heart surgery, but not if you got diabetes or hypertension or if you broke a hip and needed multiple visits to the doctor.
Of course, the problem the Republicans are having with health insurance is that old problem of any insurance policy, the problem every insurance company faces: The one customer you want to avoid is the customer who actually needs you. So every commercial insurance company of any sort will do anything to eject from its roles the person who might demand a payment. Auto insurance, home owner's insurance--the first claim you make will be your last. Your rates will sky rocket, as if the company is determined to make back in your premium payments all the money it just shelled out. 
Health insurance companies, of course, are no different. They want only young, healthy people who have never been sick, do not plan to be sick and, if at all possible, will never be sick. The ideal health insurance company customer is 18 years old, has never been ill, stays healthy his entire life, pays premiums for 60 years and then is hit by a truck crossing the street at age 78 and never makes a claim. For that customer, every company competes.
But if that 18 year old has diabetes or a congenital heart disease, or asthma or is a smoker, he need not apply. 
If the Marines want the few, the proud, the Marines, then what these health insurance companies want is the few, the proud, the dropped dead before they could be hospitalized.
Maybe that's the tag line: Drop Dead Care. 
Or maybe Don't Call Us Care.

Stay tuned--once we have the details on the table, the names may suggest themselves. 


Personally, right now, I'm leaning toward "Donald Don't Care."