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?

A Remarkable Thing

The rational news media and commentary have apparently gone full throttle in their dark visions of a Trump presidency.  All seem to be puffing a desperate sigh of resignation.  Each signifies a subtext of helplessness.  One could even say they have yielded to soft irrationality.  In his recent column deconstructing Trump’s musings on foreign policy, Roger Cohen lamented that such thoughts represent “a real recipe for cataclysm.”  And, in fact, I basically agree with Cohen.

But all of this mediated maundering has led me to consider a different set of circumstances.  Perhaps we reporters and opinionators (especially we opinionators) fail to look beyond the November election.  First, we can all agree that Trump’s “candidacy” has mustered a considerable number of fellow travelers.  And the pollsters and their employers have rushed to explain that those numbers certainly and factually do not represent a sufficient tally to yield an election victory.  OK.  Let’s accept that as a probable conclusion.  But, second, let’s consider what the consequences of a Trump defeat might look like.

Virtually all profiles of Trump’s fellow travelers share a commonality: They are prima facie evidence of the arrogance of ignorance.  What is that?  Ignorance is not necessarily a shortcoming.  I, for example, who have a fair level of intelligence, am fundamentally ignorant of most mathematics beyond simple calculations (addition. subtraction, multiplication and division).  I sort of learned geometry, but algebra remains a foreboding to me.  No.  Ignorance is not stupidity.  But the arrogance of ignorance is.

The arrogance of ignorance is the attitude that a person knows he or she is ignorant of something(s) and takes pride in that ignorance.  That person, in fact, feels superior to those who know something(s).  This feeling often leads to contempt for those who know something(s), a contempt fostered by their seething feelings of jealousy, envy and, thus, inadequacy (especially the men).  And when such people have the integrity of their ignorance challenged, they tend to lash out.  U.S. history has experienced bouts of multitudes seething with the arrogance of ignorance.  The most famous was the Know Nothing movement, formally the American Party, of the mid-1850s, which boasted nationalism, based in anti-ethnic and anti-immigrant sentiments.  Sound familiar?

Now, based on all the reports about Trump’s fellow travelers, we can see a profile of this arrogance of ignorance.  The question for me, reflected in the title of this post, is what happens when these people have their fervor frustrated by the democratic process; i.e., how do they react to a Trump defeat at the polls?  The Know Nothings had a great deal to do with what were known as the “draft riots” in New York City in 1863, which were long simmering expressions of fear grounded in loss of employment to immigrants and free blacks.  This could become our domestic cataclysm.

The rabble at Trump’s rallies are buoyed by the feeling that they are witnessing and participating in what they feel is Trump’s best, good feeling reality TV of 2016.  They feel like something is happening for them rather than to them, for a change.  They are winning apprentices, because Trump spouts all the empty truisms that give fleeting substance to their beliefs.

 But how, then, will they respond when actuality punctures those beliefs?  What happens when the child’s most cherished understandings are dispelled?  Where do these people go to receive the fantasies that Trump has projected for them?  The answers, I think, will be America’s next most remarkable thing.

A Ballad For Our Times

Mr. Wade died today

With a rabbit on his brain

And a green light beaming

Through his pale, blue eyes.

Mr. Wade died today

With his wife in the kitchen

Banging dishes, singing hymns

A smile of grace, in her place

Mr. Wade died today

His kids chasing glory,

Playing war in the yard

Screeching “bang” and “crash”

Mr. Wade died today

His Olds left in neutral

Drifting toward his shed

Near the blossoms, at the edge

Mr Wade died today

With a cool breeze blowing

Through his long straw hair

Over his cheeks, down his chin

 Mr. Wade died today

Bound up tight to his

Automatic tie rack, a hint

Of gimlet on his tongue, a faint

Grin for his dry lips, just a little

With his wife in the kitchen

His kids in the yard

His car drifting to an edge

His green light beaming

His fault in his dream.

Our A.D.H.D Nation

Symptoms:  Easily distracted, difficulty staying focused, prone to physical hyper-activity.  And who was smart enough to tap into this trend in our cultural body?  That's right, Donald Trump.

I don't think anyone can honestly say we're a particularly cerebral or contemplative people.  We like our experiences quick, easy and often...and we don't like to be required to explain what we're doing and  why.  We like the surfaces of things and thoughts.  We've always been in a hurry to get to the bigger and better, but now we don't much care about the substance of the bigger and better.  If they have an appropriate veneer of strength and in-your-face that challenges whatever is opposed to what we think we want, then that's our next bigger and better.

We like all the institutions of society—religion, government, education etc.—to be easy to understand and quickly realized to our personal benefit.  If we need to think about any of these things, we regularly turn to something less thoughtful, like a 240 character message or the most recent smooth-it-away prayer sent via Facebook by one of our latest and distantly vague "friends."  Or we scan Youtube to get some yuks and Instagram to get some cutes.  Or flick on the latest installment of NCIS to enlist ourselves in their 15+ million audience.

We tend to be both physically and mentally slack-jawed.  Thus we accept our newly acquired oscitant countenance.  We like to shout and laugh loudly wherever we are at whomever has behaved more uncivilized than we are.  For that reason virtually all our overly abundant entertainments are keyed to provoke the noisiest response from us...no matter where we are.

These keys have evolved into our 21st century shibboleths.  We react quickly and loudly to "socialism," "Muslim," "politically correct," "immigration," "free trade," and so on.  And we feel the need to cover these keys with some sort of grand negative behavior, loud booing and stomping, turning public information venues into gobsmacking mosh pits.  We follow the leader who provides the least amount of information and the most amount of entertainment, the greater distraction from the spiritual ache and pain of our psyches.

If the throngs who jam themselves into public spaces to worship at the Trump altar and the millions who watch the "debate" debacles to see the latest outrage in real time (and boost the coffers of the 24 hour "news" programs)...if these people were in a school they would be required to attend behavioral counseling and therapy.  And they would probably require various forms of stabilizing medications.

But we can't look only to Trump for our cultural slough.  We have been nurturing this for a long time and under varieties of huckster and trickster types.  Ronald Reagan was our first media con man.  Then came Bill Clinton.  Then came the absurdist version, George Bush.  And we bought our merchant of peace version, Barack Obama, who entertains our lust for glorious vengeance with sanitary but indiscriminate drone wars.  Given this recent history and our penchant to believe the various cons, we ought to feel some sort of fay sympathy for Bernie Sanders' trumpeting a revolution to the ears that are shuttered by ear buds.  Do we dare consider what new distracting con will be offered to assure that we keep from focusing and asking?  I don't think so.  We're very proud of our willful ignorance.

So Fun

We hear that, don't we?  And it rolls off most of us.  But not me.  For me, it acts like those mini-shocks you get during very dry weather, when you forgot that you're wearing something synthetic, and that synthetic something generates an electric charge in the dry air.  This is that pinging reminder that I'm a 20th century person, far removed from the bosom of my 20th century childhood home.

My mother was a strict adherent to traditional English grammar's rules of usage.  Thus, each time we kids opened our mouths to speak, we were subject to a testing of our understanding of those rules.  I'll go way out on a limb and assume that few American households in the 21st century hew to the subjunctive mode in their common conversations.  So that if people in those households heard me say, "If I were he..." I might get a raised eyebrow or furrowed brow.  Or if someone from that other time said, "I hope if anyone wins, I hope that it be she."  I heard a news anchor recently say to a guest, "Thanks for stopping by and sharing with Bill and I."  Ping!  I closed my eyes and let it pass.

Traditional grammar is as much a part of me as my bone marrow.  And unfortunately for me, I have lived long enough to have experienced the contortions American English usage has suffered.  One such suffering has been what has happened to the pleasant and innocent word fun.  This word, like some other English words has viability as various parts of speech.  Commonly people use it as a noun: "We had fun with them."  And that has been from its start, arrived into English from German.
Here's how that  happened and the morphing followed:

"fun (n.)  'diversion, amusement, mirthful sport,' 1727, earlier 'a cheat, trick' (c. 1700), from verb fun (1680s) 'to cheat, hoax,' which is of uncertain origin, probably a variant of Middle English fonnen 'befool' (c. 1400; see fond). Scantly recorded in 18c. and stigmatized by Johnson as 'a low cant word.' Older senses are preserved in phrase to make fun of (1737) and funny money 'counterfeit bills' (1938, though this use of the word may be more for the sake of the rhyme). See also funny. Fun and games 'mirthful carryings-on' is from 1906."   (from Online Etymology Dictionary)

I'm fascinated that the word had its origins and some subsequent usage as a negative signifier. That seems to have been maintained in its verb usage (to cheat).  So fun, in its seeming simplicity, in fact has a very complicated lineage (the wrong kind of lineage for Dr. Johnson).

OK, and now we're in the 21st century, and we're confronted by the so fun construction.  The simplest way to deconstruct this is to observe (a la the 20th century) that a word (for purposes of speed and comfort) has been deleted from the normal expression so much fun, revealing just another ellipsis regimen so popular among American speakers.  We are known internationally as stingy speakers—we speak mostly in single words or brief phrases, very rarely in complete sentences.  For example:  "Are you ready to go?"  "Yep.  All set.”

My guess (based on a professional life studying the language and its changes) is that the ellipsis regimen explains the issue.  But what of the actual grammar?  (For those who might be interested.)  So is commonly an adverbial intensifier (intensifying the meaning of a verb, adjective or adverb).  The logic of traditional grammar would suggest that fun is not a noun in this construction (i.e., a pleasurable experience, perhaps) but rather some form of displaced adjective (displaced from We had a fun time?).  

In any case, as I would say to my writing classes, we should all be aware that if a word has a broad reach of meanings, it actually ceases to function as a channel of communication.  Fun is, so to speak, in the experience of the user of the word.  Some people ask me if I had fun going somewhere or doing something.  In fact, as I've been told, I'm not a terribly joyful person.  I do laugh about and at things, but I usually do that, because those things are absurd, not because they are pleasurable for me.  So, when someone smiles at me and says, "Will you be doing something for fun, today?"  (Though they typically say something fun today.)  I don't really know what to say, because I know that we would not be communicating in the same experiential universe.

When I was in elementary school, I had to be diagnosed by what was probably some sort of speech pathologist.  The diagnosis was "lazy speech."  I guess I mumbled a lot.  This gave my mother something else to focus on in addition to my grammar.  Now we could be careful not only to select the correct usage but also to enunciate more clearly.   (I learned very early the meaning of enunciate.)  And people wonder why I lack a sense of joy.

Well, this has been a nice experience for me, and I hope it has been for you.  I'd even say it has been so fun!