In Front of The Mirror: A Trump Re-Set

It's time for a Trump re-set, a cultural and societal look into the mirror.  Let's begin with the givens.  Trump is a puffed-up, bloviating, crass and brash media whore, billionaire asshole who has turned our national politics into a Barnumesque showpiece that expresses the kind of honesty that the political elite sneer at as disgustingly déclassé.  I say honesty, because the rest of our so-called choices to be the voice of our so-called democratic "experiment" are prima facie liars (Cruz, even before Trump gave him the appellation) or very practiced and very stealthy dissemblers  (Hillary Clinton, all the time everywhere).

And why do so many people like Trump?  He is  true-blue American, as much and more than Jeremiah Dickson (more so especially than Delmore Schwartz could possibly have imagined).  In fact Trump embodies the very chest pounding, can-do attitude that we most admire.  And his lofty self-aggrandizing position in our society represents what many among us—perhaps most—aspire to.

Remember:  We're looking in the mirror, all by ourselves, honesty time.

Did I say "asshole?"  Can we seriously elect an asshole for our president.  Why not?  We've done it in the past.  Did it twice in the 1920s—Harding and Coolidge.  And we should all be relieved (but we won't be, because we don't know enough about him) that Andrew Jackson, not only an asshole but a philandering, murderous asshole, will be off the $20 bill.  And of course, Tyler and Buchanan fit the mold, as well as many more.  In some sense I think asshole is almost a prerequisite.  

As for Trump's spurious ways to wealth and the ethics implicit in his "art" of the deal, think of other wealthy people, who awe so many of us.  The names Walton, Broad, Gates, Adelson, Koch and so on represent the pantheon of what we hold most dear.  In fact, if it were not for these people we most likely would not have this kind of two-party faux electoral process.  And that is just exactly the way we seem to want it.  If we don't—remember the mirror here—then why is it so much a part of our societal DNA?  If we don't think the money machine is the best/better way, then why do we so eagerly support it?

I truly don't think we need to be headed for the same old lesser-of-two-evils elections.  As I'm suggesting, I don't think Trump represents the worst parts of us.  I think he simply, well perhaps, vaingloriously, represents us.  From his bleached, duck-tailed, plastered hair to his overly long necktie, from his reality TV personality to his pretentious policy vamps, he is the image of what, I think, Crevecoeur foresaw of how the American democrat, the new world person would evolve, rough-edged and what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

Perhaps all of this is too much for us to accept.  Perhaps we feel we have evolved to a better sort of community.  But I look around, and I read and listen, and so much of what happens is what Trump is and what he promises.  Please, remember the mirror.

No, Bernie, We Don't Like Revolutions

And we never have.  We don't want to change what was promised to us.  We don't want to lose our belief in having more than we need.  We still want to have it all.  That's the way we are.  Basically, unconscionable.  A little like children—fearful, envious, dreamy, and trip-wiry angered.

I'm an old man, a little like you, so I wanted to believe one last time in the pursuit of doing the right thing.  And that's why I sent some cash your way.  That was in the early moments of your campaign's illusory days.  We're both veterans of the halcyon 60s and carry the baggage of those illusions.  That also means we have a large capacity to forget to remember.  We forgot big time that the last visionary in the Oval Office got killed before he could begin to realize his visions.  Barack and Hillary got that message bold-faced.  Your stumble regarding the subway "token" was a symbol of that dreamy forgetfulness.

Oh, about those youth brigades that have stuffed your rallies but not  the ballot slots, you might recall the "power" of Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.  You might want to do some research among your vocalizing dreamers: Ask them which among the various toys they rely on to distract them from the dreariness of their various plights they would be willing to sacrifice for the sake of some of the specifics in your proposed revolution.  Plus ca change, plus etc. etc.  I have conversations with several young people ages 25-35, and at bottom they are as pragmatic and as cynical as most of us.  What they like, as we did in the 60s, is the thrill of the spirit of revolution, not the specifics.  That's why they don't bother with the specifics of your policies.

By the way, that same exalting is behind Mr. Trump's success (have you noticed that since he's donned a more acceptable demeanor the info media granted him that Mr honorific?).  The biggest difference between Mr. Trump and you is that he understands the hoi polloi; he's been exploiting them his entire career.  You want them to rise to the level of your expectations.  Even if they wanted to, I don't think they would understand the concept, because it's not an immediate phenomenon.  They seem not to have rising expectations.  They prefer immediate phenomena.

So here we are.  Two old guys contemplating the inevitable.  Most likely, you and I will slide back into the routines that consume the time of our days.  I will continue to try to understand why my fellow citizens can't see and hear what's right in front of them, and I suspect that's how you'll feel working the vineyards of DC.  You mustered a valiant effort.  In fact,  I marvel at your energy over these recent weeks.  I know I could never have done that.  

And I thank you for doing what you did.  Your greatest contribution to the country was to awaken all of us to how trifling we have become, how little concern we have for the institutions that made us what we once were and how blindly most of us move in our meandering towards a future that has so little actual promise. 

Some of us might even look back and say, "Yes, that was a brief period of responsibility...and we squandered it."

What Will They Get After They Get It All?

I had heard about "dark money," sure, but I lacked the temerity to discover what it actually referred to. I suspected, because of the names and groups associated with it, that it would not be good for my country.  But so many things these days are not good for my country that I simply added it to the list. Then today, I finally had the time and courage to find out.  And I guess I wish I hadn't.  A wave of despondency washed over me.

I'm not naive.  I've known for some time who and what controls the U.S., but I always assumed that those people and entities felt they needed the U.S. to be a viable country, if for no other reason than that they needed the place to remain healthy enough for them to exploit according to their whims and avarice.  But as I thought about how this dark money uses and abuses our institutions, apparently with the full force and enabling of those who are supposed to keep us a healthy country, the more I thought that dark money has no such concerns.  Dark money cares about two things: Unbridled money, and the power that the money exerts.

All of this has emerged in the immediate context of the current political circus.  And, as some pundits have observed, both the Sanders and the Trump campaigns have serendipitously shown the spotlight on what many of us have been sleeping through.  Examples abound.  Yes, the 90% really are getting screwed.  Yes, our electoral process has nothing to do with one-person-one-vote.  Yes, the two parties exist solely to keep the two parties in business.  And here's the stealth reality beneath the circus—the reason you don't hear anything from the Koch brothers and their networked co-pirates is that they don't care who sits in the Oveal Office; they know Congress and the Supreme Court will do their bidding.  Thus, we don't even have an ineffectual republic anymore.  What we have is a prima facie criminal enterprise with law enforcement operating at the behest of the criminals.

Well, yes, I can hear the howls of the moderates who still must believe that this is a gross exaggeration and barking into the wind.  In fact, I understand the futility of this kind of focusing on the obvious and accepting how it will be ignored.  So be it.

But consider this.  As those who control this country rabidly continue their avarice, where will it end?  If they have no concern for the country, per se, it follows that they will drain it of its natural and human resources, a la a sort of Grand Disruption and move on to the next place to be exploited and despoiled.  These people don't care about this country.  Most of them have the bulk of their bilked money bags carefully hidden in various other countries.  America has always been considered as the exploitation capital of the world (even and especially before the first settlers arrived).

So, looking at all this mess, what can we expect to happen down the road?  We've had some pretty hefty rebellions in our brief history (American "Revolution", Civil War, etc.), but they were able to be quashed by promises of better things and the hope implicit in the integrity of The Union of the people wrapped in the wholeness of the City On The Hill.  That's all now being placed in severe doubt.  You can hear it in the young voices at the Sanders rallies and the angry voices at the Trump rallies.  This is a shout out and call out regarding the darkness beginning to shroud their lives and the futility that they know in their bones can never do something about those who actually control their lives.

And the dark money doesn't give these voices a nano second of thought.  They don't need to.  But I have a question for those holding the bags of dark money:  What do they think they'll get after they get it all?  They can't build enough jails for the 90%.  They've made guns and bazookas available to the 90%.  They're making basic living untenable for the 90%.  What do they think they'll get, and how long do they think they'll keep it?