The Donald: Connecting the Dots

Smug Elitist 

Resentment is au courrant.  It is the operating principle most talking heads use to explain the appeal of Donald J. Trump.

The underlying current is the people who resent their position actually deserve to be in the underclass. Typical of this attitude is the widely reported comment from Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard and high mucky muck in President Obama's administration, an economist of MIT pedigree. He said people resent being paid what they are actually worth, which is to say, the underclass deserves being an underclass.

While it is probably true many people who have never been able to make much money are poor because they are simply incompetent at mastering remunerative jobs, there is another story when it comes to fairness in the economic and financial life of this nation. 

Truth Speaker: A dangerous Man

This is at the heart of Andrew Hacker's accidental masterpiece, "The Math Myth" in which he demonstrates how irrelevant math tests have systematically eliminated many capable people from jobs across a broad spectrum of occupations from becoming a physician to passing the licensing exam to become  an electrician. 

While it has been easy to  dramatize how pernicious "tests" can be used to perpetrate social injustice, the math test scam has been underappreciated.

Never took a SAT exam

It is easy to see how "poll tests" were maliciously applied to prevent Black voters in the South from voting. The scene in which a Black woman (played, I believe, by Oprah Winfrey) goes to vote but the white clerk asks her to recite the Declaration of Independence and when she recites it, he asks her to recite the Constitution--all this  is absurd enough to drive home the point that almost anyone can be failed if the exam is arbitrary enough. 

It's harder to dramatize the injustice of exams which eliminate some people and not others, but the injustice is just as real and destructive. 

How many people have been thwarted by the American system of eliminating applicants by means of arbitrary "tests" by insisting we have a "meritocracy" when in fact, what we have is an aristocracy of wealth?  The rich typically can afford the tutoring which stacks the deck in their favor.

Those people who were told they could not be electricians or vets or doctors, people smoldering with resentment,  now hear the call from someone who says, "Yes, you were cheated, and I'm going to stick a finger in the eye of those elitists who did this to you."

He feels Their Pain

I have no polls, no data, only anecdotes, only the experience of sitting in a room with a man who has failed his electrician licensing exams because he could not work irrelevant math problems and he now faces, after years of apprenticeship, the prospect of never being able to be licensed as an electrician, of having to remain an indentured servant to a man who did pass those tests.  This makes the wannabe electrician burn with shame, but he also burns with resentment because he has seen for years the work actually required of an electrician and he knows he can do that work and never need any math at all.  So he thinks the game is rigged. And he is correct.

Things may be coming home to roost here in America, for a lot of reasons. But if Mr. Trump is swept into office, we can add this to the list.

Mr. Trump and the Underclass

The Donald appealed to people who thought themselves losers until he told them they were winners; there will be so much winning; but they've been stabbed in the back by the winners, who won by cheating them out of what was rightfully theirs.

When I listen to people who intend to vote for Mr. Trump, I despair, listening to those voices come across the radio.  Then I decide the best therapy is shock therapy; really dive deep into the river of despair and when you know you've got as low as you can go, you bounce up to the surface.

This post will reveal how deeply poisoned I have become by class in America. My grandfather, who believed the people and the workers were noble and their capitalist masters evil, would turn in his grave.

But then I remember what my father said:  "I'm all for the workers. But these people are not workers."

So where is the river of despair?  It's a website called, "Shoppers of Walmart."  

I see these folks crossing in front of my car down at Hampton Beach. Sometimes they come into my office. 

They do not care about well formed thoughts, evidence, questioning; they look at me with defeated, defiant eyes and they try to play me.

I do not ask them which New Yorker article from the current issue they enjoyed.  I do not try to discuss the most recent Gail Collins article with them.  Sometimes I tell them about what Rachel Madow said last night, but they stare back with uncomprehending eyes.  She said--what?

 But they love the Donald, who tells them they are winners. When he is President, there will be so much winning, people will get bored with winning. And they will share in all that winning. 

 And they don't care if they are being conned, because they think they are suckers and if it's not the Donald, it will be Hillary or anyone else.

In Deo Speramus. 
E Pluribus Unum. 
Illigetimi non carbarendum.

How The System Gets Rigged

NPR did a wonderful piece on the way the Michigan legislature dealt with a federal welfare program  designed to encourage states to deal with teen age out of wedlock pregnancies.  The MIchigan legislators reasoned keeping girls in college would reduce unwanted pregnancy rates, since, apparently, coeds get pregnant less often than girls who do not go to college, as if it was being in college that convinced girls to engage in contraception while those girls who went to work or just sat home, got pregnant a lot. 

A very odd interpretation of cause and effect, in Michigan.

So NPR interviews a family which has sent both its kids to private colleges using this loophole, and they interviewed the dean of the college which got the money and they interviewed the legislator who got it into law.

When the father was confronted with the reality that the grant he got from Michigan for his kid's tuition was a welfare program, he said, well, this college education will mean my kids earn more money, eventually and will pay higher taxes, which will benefit the poor, eventually. 

When told she was sending her kids to college using welfare, the mother said, well, it's really hard on a family to have two kids in college at the same time, and they are really pressed, financially. Of course, their joint income is $225,000 and they live in a 3,800 square foot house with an in ground swimming pool, but she said it was really hard keeping things going on that income with two kids in college. What about sending the kids to a less expensive state school? Well, but then they wouldn't be as happy there. 

The daughter said she was sympathetic to people on welfare, who needed welfare to buy a winter coat, but then when she was a college graduate she'd pay more taxes to buy more coats for more welfare kids.  When asked whether she thought the money had served its purpose, to prevent her from getting pregnant before she was 20, before she was married and economically secure, she laughed.  "Does going to college keep me from getting pregnant? Well, I think maybe the birth control pills have something to do with that."

The son said, "Hey, if they want to give me money, I'll take it."

I liked his answer best. 

As the NPR reporter said, "There you have it in Michigan: Trickle down from the welfare program."

The college dean said his college was highly ranked and deserved money from the government, which he needed.

The legislator said, hey, if the federal government approved using welfare funds for college expenses, it was legal.
Sadly, nobody asked the legislator how he had voted about funding Planned Parenthood.

All this reminds me of that study in which students were given Monopoly games to play, but some of  the students were given twice as much money and lots of hotels at the start and when the students were questioned after the game, the advantaged students said they had won the game because they were smarter, took more risks and were more worthy.  

The capacity to rationalize injustice is wondrous to behold. 

That Certifiable Forty Per Cent

Walking my dog on the beach this morning,  I ran into Bernadette, who walks her dog at low tide along with about a dozen other regulars who know each other by their dogs.  I know all the dogs' names but Bernadette is one of the few owners whose name I know.  Bernadette is French, and she has a little black dog which is one of those little dogs who doesn't know she is a little dog and she gives no ground to bigger dogs, much like her owner.

I asked Bernadette if she had any relatives in Nice, and she said no. Her family is from the West Coast of France.  But, it turned out Bernadette grew up in Morocco and read the Koran in school.  She said France has tried the "tough" approach to Islam, declaring that France is a secular country, which officially embraces no religion and as part of that forbids expressions of religious belief in public places--so no ha-bib or veils or head scarves in public schools paid for by public funds or in other places of public business.  But that has not worked very well, in terms of forcing a more civil society, as the attacks in Paris and now Nice reveal.

In fact, there are "ghettos" which encircle Paris, populated by French Muslims of North African descent, often places of poverty, resentment, ferment.  Some might say, this is the price of colonialism, just as American inner cities were once the legacy of slavery. 

What has astonished Bernadette is the appeal of Donald Trump, who is the alienate-or in chief with respect to Muslims. Why would you want to institute an approach which has failed so miserably in France?  As if by marginalizing, scapegoating people you can make them behave better?

For Bernadette all religions are pernicious--people do things to be good Muslims or good Christians they would be horrified by outside the context of religious action: A man can shoot children, blow them up with a bomb because God demands it. 

It's the old story of Abraham and Isaac.  God told me to kill this child and you never stop to ask: Wait, would God really demand such a thing? Could I be mistaken about having heard the voice of God on this one?

I pointed out something I heard David Brooks say:  Trump has been polling at 40% from the very beginning. His numbers never vary. Which goes back to that infamous Mitt Romney statement about the 47%.  But in Trump's case, that seems to apply. Forty percent of the citizens of the United States are certifiably insane, and it's simply up to the other 60% to actually go to the polls. 

Bernie Sanders got that right.

The wonder is about portions of that 60%.  I hear people say they could never vote for Hillary.  As if not voting for Hillary is not voting for Donald Trump. 

What are they thinking?

It should not be forgot Adolph Hitler won his 1933 election with 33% of the vote. 

Paul Ryan was pressed yesterday on whether he thinks Donald Trump would make a good President. And he insisted that is not the question. "The question is whether Donald Trump would make a better President than Hillary Clinton."

The same question has got to be asked by the Democrats: "Do you think Hillary Clinton would be a better President than Donald Trump?"

Ginsberg wimps out

Ruth Bader Ginsberg says Mr. Trump is unfit to be President and then considers this is a violation of decorum and apologizes.

She is being politically incorrect and then becomes politically correct.

The right thing to do is to say, "Hey, Mr. Trump is all about being politically incorrect. Now I'm doing that. How's that work for you, Mr. Trump?"

The problem with liberals is we are wimps.  Was Justice Ginsberg inappropriate? In one sense, of course. But why apologize?  Let that shot across the bow sail by.  Congress is misbehaving toward he Court.  Trump misbehaves toward everyone. Why should you just sit there and take it?  This guy is behaving way beyond acceptable norms, and sometimes you have to say, look the system works if we all cleave to some rules of behavior, when you stop doing that, we adjust.

Of course, the problem is, nobody in a position of power is going to convince any of Trump's supporters or those who claim to be wavering. There can be nobody on the fence here.  Sure, Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler built the Audubon and the Volkswagen and got the farmers in better financial shape, but you ought not have accorded him the same deference you would afford a normal political opponent, after reading "Mein Kampf"or listening to him at a Nuremberg rally.

That is the rule every progressive/liberal should use in relation to Mr. Trump.  What would have been appropriate if you were around in 1934 and faced Hitler? Would you have spoken as if he were some normal opponent or would you have said, "This is really different and has got to be stopped?"

Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?

Mr. Welch

My father believed the turning point in the demagogue, Senator Joseph McCarthy's career came at the televised hearing when the Senator was confronted by a decent man, a lawyer named Welch, who famously said, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Sleaze bags, McCarthy and Cohn

I've watched this exchange on TV and never been as impressed, never could see why it seemed like such a cataclysmic event for McCarthy, but googling it, it seems to have been.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eA5bUzVjA

Oh, how we need Herblock now

But now, driving along Rte. 27 from Exeter, on my way back to Hampton, I've seen two lawn signs with the simple question: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" and there can be no mistaking the message. The most effective lawn signs I've ever seen in any campaign. 

I wanted our local Democrats to print up stickers with the word "Chump" so I could paste them on any Trump lawn sign I saw, but faint hearted as they are, the Hampton Democrats refused, saying this was defacing an opponents signs, and if not illegal, at least dirty pool. 

At least one Dem suggested to me I might be shot by the owner of the sign who might feel he had to exercise his Second Amendment right in my direction. 

Rep. Jordan, House Oversight Committee

I will attempt to capture a photo of these lawn signs soon, but until then, I'll content myself with pictures of Mr. Welch and pictures of current day Republicans who are vying for the McCarthy combustible award of pseuo dramatic political personage. 

Pin head simian Gowdy

I do want that lawn sign. In fact, if we could get enough of these signs, we could start a movement, and people who never heard of Joseph McCarthy might start asking why all these signs are sprouting up all around Hampton, New Hampshire. It would be, as they say, a teachable moment.

Police

Does she really frighten these robocops that much? 

Police, it must be admitted, have a tough job.  

I've known plenty of cops over the years, from New York City cops who were cops because their fathers and uncles and brothers were cops, to suburban cops, to undercover cops, to FBI agents, to small town cops. Women cops, men cops. Old cops, young cops. There are lots of different types of cops, but most of them shared a pretty jaded point of view of humanity. They saw the raw side of life and had to deal with some pretty insane people and some pretty stupid people and some violent nasty people and some who were all three.

The "Police Log" which runs in a the Portsmouth Herald, unadulterated, gives some insight into what cops have to deal with. My favorite posting was: "Called to see woman who claimed her neighbor called her 'obese.'"

We also know cops from "The Wire," which is the best portrait I've ever seen of cops, and matched what I saw completely, and this is no surprise since the show was created by and written by a police reporter (David Simon) and a cop (Ed Burns.)

But one thing which typifies American cops is they are different from English cops, and different from the cop on the beat so many of us knew in our youth.

Now they are the heavily armed cops who look like they are in the employ of the Empire, those robo cops with the body armor.

His father murdered by police

For some time, I've thought, "We'd be better off without any of these guys around. Keep them in the station house. Call them in when things really get hot."

Of course, the other problem is the station house, where cops can strip down your daughter if they drag her in for rolling through a stop sign.

When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he listed the affronts to dignity and human rights perpetrated by the King, but he did not list strip searching. That omission was addressed in the Bill of Rights, with the fourth amendment which prohibited unreasonable search and seizure, but in the 18th century they were not talking about the virtual rape of women in jails; they were talking about soldiers ransacking your house--a violation to be sure, but nothing compared to what goes on daily in our local jails across the country.

And now we have murderers with badges stopping cars for broken tail lights or for no good reason at all, the real threat to life and limb today.

Bad cops: Nothing really all that new

We really ought to think again about how we arm our police and about what their job and their personality should be.  

Unthreatening: The Very Image of a Good Cop

If Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton could return today, how appalled would they be by what we allow our police to do in what they conceived as a "free" country.

Hamilton

Maybe, what we ought to do is to disarm our policemen, or allow only a Taser and a club.  If we are really worried about their safety, keep one cop with the gun back in the car and let the less threatening, unarmed cop walk up and get the driver's license.  For cops walking the beat, let them walk in pairs. 

If we were really worried about their safety, rather than their egos, we'd disarm our police.