My Last Trump Essay
"Eureka! Eureka!" Legend has it Archimedes, while at a public bathhouse in Greece back in the day, yelled those words when he discovered the mathematical formula that buoyancy of an object in water is equal to the water it displaces.
Actor Spencer Tracy, one of my fave's, also back in the day echoed old Archimedes in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. When he discovered he has been a narrow minded liberal hypocrite because his daughter wants to marry an black guy, he mulls, ponders, then mumbles, "Well, I'll be a son-of-a-bitch."
Kind of the same thing happened to me this week. No Eureka, no son-of-a-bitch exclamation, but, because I'm almost by myself here, it was more a silent evolution of thought. The clouds cleared, the sunlight came out and I was wiser than before. It also helped that i chatted with an old friend, too.
The eureka moment dawned on me like a kick in the nuts: you can have it. This will be my last Trump essay. For much of my voting life I was mostly progressive in my outlook. My mother was a compassionate lib who colored a lot of my thoughts. Father, meanwhile, like his Dad, was firmly Republican. I found a new appreciation for him when he, in the last dash toward the finish line decided to become a Democratic voter. I was proud not because he came over to my side, but that after a lifetime of thinking one way, he allowed himself to be open to change. No small feat, then, even harder now. Back in those days I didn't think there was that much difference between one administration and the next. Checks and balances, reasonable elected officials, and an American citizenry I believed would react to any attempt to dislodge The American Way. I learned that from watching Superman on TV, the old black and white ones with the waving stars and stripes. I also learned from the exile of a devious Nixon and the rise of college marches against the Vietnam War.
As I matured I learned to examine the issues, not the party. I voted for Republicans, Democrats, Democratic Socialists and Independents. Issues change from election to election, and to vote straight ticket was blindness to current events. I believed that and I still do. I once voted for a Bush and once for a Clinton. I shook hands with Mo Udall and waved to Carter when he floated past Keithsburg on a riverboat. When the nation needed a conservative, I voted for them. When the nation needed liberalism, I voted for them, too. No blind loyalty for me. It's the issues, stupid. (Because everyone is so easily offended these days, I'm not calling my readers stupid, this is the remark made by James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid.")
When I was a kid our house had a sand box. Other kids' houses had them too, but it seemed they always came over to ours. One of my personality traits came out when things got heated over sandbox space, or toys to share or whatever ticked a kid off. I grabbed my stuff and left. You can have it.
Sometime this week between another episode of Narcos Mexico on Netflix, or walking to the kitchen out of habit rather than hunger, or going out to the front porch and looking at an empty street, I decided something. Nothing focuses the mind quite like catching a virus and being dead in two weeks. Or a phone call from an old friend.
I have been reaching out to old friends in this time of separation, and old friends have reached out to me. This guy used to work with me and I always considered him a reasonable, thoughtful fellow. After our conversation had exhausted the family, the virus, baseball and old work stories, he stumbled into politics by repeating a phrase often uttered by Fox and Trump confederates: something about the cure being worse than the disease. Strike one. Then he said he doesn't take too much seriously, it's just politics. Strike two. And then when pressed he admitted to voting for Trump before and would do it again. Strike three.
After I hung up I pondered the conversation. A lot of people voted for Trump in '16. Not the majority of folks, mind you, but a lot. Middle-class disaffection, segments of society forgotten by mainstream politicians and Washington, an unlikeable opponent and all the other reasons for voting Republican all made Trump an attractive candidate. I get it. I flirted with him, too. Voted for the nasty lock-her-up Hillary and would do it a thousand times more. And, as is my wish for every new Pres, when he won I hoped upon hope he would be a great one. If he is great, then we are all doing well, right? And from Inauguration Day till today, he does things that astound me, sickens me, and makes me sad for our country. Just politics? No, naming a post office is politics. The dismantling of a nation, my nation, is something else all together. To see the destruction and double down on it in November is somewhere between terrorism and outright traitorous. And then it dawned on me. You can have it.
Who would have thought mild mannered Uber-dink Mike would become a mouthpiece for a political party? Got himself a blog and plasters anti-Trump shit every week. Well, I'm not going to anymore. Oh, I'll plaster anti-trump shit like funny, cutting memes but no more rhetoric, essays, or desperate pleas. I'm done. Hey, Cool Cats and Kittens (oh you guys are smart), I've done my homework, my evaluating, my analysis. And I have found Trump wanting. He's a peddler of fear: fear of women with power, fear of skin other than white, fear of anyone not born in America, fear of science, fear of academics, fear of institutions, fear of unity, fear of religion, fear of globalism, fear of responsibility. I don't like liars, I don't like cheaters, I don't like bullies. It's more than just politics when the free press is pounded and belittled, and the Truth is scuttled. Yeah, I didn't like Hillary. I don't much like Biden, but I'll vote for him, because its bigger than his bumbling rhetoric. Because, frankly, I'm not sure there will be much left if Trump gets another 4 years to do his thing.
I don't much like being a shill for a political party. I don't like being boxed in to a certain platform, a required line of thought, a marching automaton for a fevered Party. Republicans, Democrats, fuck both of you for bringing this country to a point of division that escalates a Party affiliation over the larger needs of the Country. Fuck Fox News for being an agent of the State - a strong-arming manipulation device to mold its aging viewers into loyal, unthinking, armies of hate. The GOP a cult? Well, dunno. If you look up the six sociological characteristics of a cult you can make a good argument that it succeeds in 5 of 6. But that's too easy. Trumpism is deeper and more insidious. Fine people following a banner of Party but marching side by side with the hurtful wounded haters of our land. Sociologists will study us at this time and their findings will brand us for what we are. If the generation before us was the best, perhaps we will be seen as the worst. It is our generation that has erased and bastardized the writing on the Constitution and the Statue of Liberty. It is we who have locked up children at the border, snarled at our global friends and embraced authoritarian dictators. It is we who have died from a pandemic for inaction. We have kicked out of service loyal officers dripping with integrity and brought back kicked out military individuals who killed innocent children. We have fired officers who only sought to save their men, along with whistleblowers trying to keep it all clean. And yet we remain silent. You can have it.
This old guy is returning to the mundane. I'm going to rediscover the joys of a quiet house without MSNBC blaring its brand of panic. I'm going to throw a leg over my motorcycle and ride the roads without benefit of noise, other than that which comes from the engine and the occasional meadowlark. I'll think of a tune I won't be able to shake and find an inner peace as the pavement flies by. My truck has no operable radio to speak of so those miles will be clean and pure as well. I'm going to sit and have a beer with a friend or family member, and if politics comes up, I'm going to relieve myself. Pavlov's dog to the extreme.
I've done my work. I've given it inestimable time for reflection, done my homework and will be proud to step into the voting booth and cast my ballot for America. The America I remember. You will have to do your own homework, and live with it. One lonely voice is turning itself off. I'm going to go out there and see if there is anything left worth remembering. Worth fighting for.
And if there isn't? Then you can have it.
Well said Michael.
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