A NEW YEAR'S LETTER TO JETHRO

Dear Jethro:

We are 40+ days into PEOTUS territory.  Your guy won, my gal lost. You are anxiously looking forward to January 20, I’m dreading it. You are high-fiving with the other camo-wearing bro’s down at the hardware store, while me and my left-coast liberal elites are sobbing into soy latte’s at our local, non-Starbucks coffee joints.

But after much consideration, I’m writing this letter, a month after the election, not to point an angry finger at you and curse your choice, but rather to thank you. You and your side has done something that quite simply, my left-wing associates and I could not do on our own: You have guaranteed a return to power of the Democratic Party in a massive and convincing fashion.

Your unwavering and rabid support of Donald Trump and your feral hatred of Hillary Clinton over the past year has coalesced to deliver a beautiful and sacred gift to all of us progressive, idealistic folks. For in two to four years’ time, a tidal wave of regret and recrimination will sweep through your rural and suburban environments which will affect real and lasting change in American politics and make the 1960’s progressive era look like a John Birch Society cocktail party.

For you have unloosed the great and might Trump – soon-to-be destroyer of the Republican Party and unlikeliest hero to liberal democrats from sea to shining sea. If Newt Gingrich was our pony on Christmas morning back in the 1990’s, Trump today is our fire red Ferrari parked in the driveway with a giant bow perched on the hood.

Don’t get me wrong.  I realize there will be tremendous pain for the country during Trump’s first and only term in office. The environment, the economy and the social contract that makes America great will suffer tremendously. The middle class will fall further and further behind the One Percent and a great many minorities, women and marginalized populations will live in fear and hopelessness. Indeed, dark times lie ahead.

Yet, it is always darkest before the dawn – as they say – and a great light and hope will soon emerge on the horizon. That light and hope will come in the form of crushing buyer’s remorse among the white, under-educated voters who actually believed that a fabulously wealthy con man who sees the world through a Manhattan penthouse window was some kind of regular guy populist.

Once that buyer’s remorse sets in, and sets in deep within the pit of your stomach, you will all do what you do best – robust apathy. You’ll do nothing. Just like you’ve done little to nothing to improve your lot in life and lift yourself out of the working class malaise you’ve been stuck in for 30 years, you’ll forget all about the energy and emotion that brought you out to the rallies and the voting booths to support your orange-haired messiah. In short, you’ll stay home in 2018 during the midterms and certainly you will stay home on the second Tuesday in November of 2020.

And with you sitting out the elections, or at least phoning in your efforts, my side might actually get our act together and really move in to enact change. You see, democrats and just as responsible for Trump as you are. We blew this last election in a lot of ways. We were overconfident and unlike you, we simply went through the motions without putting our blood sweat and tears into the process.

Understand; even if we somehow eked out the win in 2016, damage – perhaps permanent – would have been done to our party and our philosophy. My God, the lapdog media, conservative zealots and Republican-led House and Senate would have been absolutely giddy at the prospect of savaging every move or decision Hillary made over the next 48 months. A Clinton victory would actually set back the party more than four years of Trump will, without the future upside.

A Clinton win would only exacerbate our problems at the state and congressional level. Our own apathy during midterms and our lack of a coherent response to the Republican’s bag of dirty tricks, voter suppression and ALEC legislation would simply be kicked down the road like an old can. We would limp along – holding onto the White House - but letting go of everything else.

No, the juvenile behavior, laughable policy missteps, sham strategies and overall international embarrassment that will be a Trump administration, portend much better for my party’s long-term viability. You’ve broken our arm by electing him. Yet, as any physician will say, a break grows backs stronger than the original bone.

So thank you. In this season of giving, you have truly bestowed a wondrous present to all of us liberals. And while I fully realize it’s a gift you didn’t want to give, my thanks are heartfelt all the same.

Happy 2017!

THE GREAT DISCONNECT

THE GREAT DISCONNECT

After the incredibly surprising presidential election and the ascendency of Donald Trump, there have been thousands of columns and millions of words written about what it all means.

·         America was fed up with the swamp of Washington

·         Hillary was a deeply flawed candidate

·         Obama failed to rally supporters

·         The media is dishonest, therefore a “tell it like it is” candidate was right for the times

And all these explanations have a role to play in comprehending one of the most seismic shifts in American politics, but it seems to me that consensus is forming around one central point: white, under-educated, working class voters truly believed that the elites in the government, corporations, Wall Street and the media abandoned them years ago and therefore a true populist outsider was their only hope to maintaining their relevancy in a diverse global economy.

When one removes the more offensive characteristics of Trump – the racism, misogyny and general crudeness – it is fairly easy to understand this sentiment. Trapped in a cycle of stagnation, where the jobs of their parents are gone forever, and (rightly or wrongly) believing that liberal America neglects them and siphons their tax dollars toward underserving urban minorities, working-class whites saw Trumpism as their salvation. To them, “Make America Great Again,” meant making the American system work for them like it used to.

But there is a crucial rub that I just can’t wrap my head around – the great disconnect I see in this way of thinking that, in short, upends my past worldview.

After all, like many, I grew up believing that the great hallmark of America’s rural working-class was that they were rugged individuals who would always pull themselves up by their bootstraps and “get er done.” No matter what, they could rely on their grit and determination to succeed, completely without government hand-outs and public assistance. Conversely, I was fed a steady diet from a young age that  poor minorities in big cities are inherently lazy welfare kings and queens unwilling to lift a finger in order to improve their lot.

Yet, if one looks closely today, isn’t the plight of the white working class, stuck in dying rural communities, a hell of their own making? Do they not now share an equivalent level of blame as the urban poor for their own stagnation?  How come, as coal receded (not by regulation, but by market forces) years ago and factories moved to Asia decades ago they didn’t actively engage in that whole boot-strap-pulling thing?  How come they didn’t tap into their rugged individualism and learn new skills and new jobs? How come, for example, they didn’t tighten their belts and forgo the purchase of a new tractor in order to afford computer classes at the local junior college?

And why doesn’t Red America seem to cast the same skeptical eye toward the meth addicts, pregnant teens and government-assisted unemployed factory workers in the small communities of Iowa or Kansas, as they do the inhabitants of big cities of New York or LA?

How come rural whites haven’t – as they are so fond of advising the urban poor – broken the cycle of poverty?

For years, I have heard my welfare-bashing conservative friends point to individuals who escaped the ghetto to become successful as proof positive that anyone willing to work hard can leave the inner city behind. Yet, millions upon millions of angry and disaffected whites voted for Trump in the hopes that he could do something they haven’t been able to do: save them and their impoverished communities. How come, instead of filling stadiums to hear him rail against crooked Hillary, they didn’t access their great self-determination and work harder to make their communities great again?

Why does conventional wisdom suggest that poor urban minorities are failing in America, but poor rural whites are being failed by America?

Don’t get me wrong. I am deeply saddened by poverty in America’s heartland. And I do believe that government assistance and publicly financed education and skills training in rural America ought to be a huge priority for the next administration. However, perhaps it is time for a great leveling of blame and ridicule.

Yes, there are poor minorities stuck in the inner city who are unmotivated to change. Yes, there are black and Latino predators in Chicago or Detroit who exploit the crime-riddled streets and hopelessness for personal gain. But so too are there unemployed factory workers in Nebraska who are content to live off welfare checks and there are OxyContin dealers in Alabama who prey on going-nowhere teenagers with little or no potential for upward mobility. 

It seems to me that in America, everyone has a chance to succeed and everyone has an opportunity to fail themselves and their community.

For my entire life, conservatives have pointed to inner city minorities and said it’s their fault they are poor and liberal elites need to understand the nation does them no favors by providing public assistance. And for the last eight years, conservatives have pointed to the Obama Administration as the manifestation of failed policies and philosophies about welfare and entitlements.

It’s strange, but in that same span of time, I’ve never heard conservatives rail against the absolute failure of rural America and rural Americans to innovate, grow and overcome. In fact, I’d argue that rural America has become an innovation desert, while the vast majority of true invention and American exceptionalism happens within the same zip codes of the inner cities they rail against.

So now, rural white America has its prophet in Donald Trump soon to occupy the White House. Will he be the magical leader who somehow unlocks the suspended potential of his devoted fans? Will he waive a diamond-encrusted wand and vanquish the hidden forces that have held down the factory worker, farmer and gas station attendant for all these years?

History has a funny way of gently tugging on our sleeve and pointing out how wrong many assumptions can be.  When Barack Obama was elected, he swept into office riding an incredible surge of hope and change. Without going into the details and justifications, I will simply write that millions of Americans probably feel disappointed that he didn’t change their fortunes like they thought he might. Safe to say, our nation’s first black president did not remove the problems of poor minorities in America. And now, history will see if millions of poor rural people have the ear of a New York billionaire elite who has never spent a day of his life being anything other than spectacularly wealthy and urban. 

Somehow, some way, we have created a great disconnect in America today. The narrative continues to be that inner city minorities allowed poverty to happen, but rural whites had poverty happen to them. It will be fascinating to see if that narrative remains the same four years hence.

In case anyone at all is interested, here is my recap of the 2016 Summer Olympics

Hundreds of athletes and thousands of visitors were decidedly NOT done in by mosquitoes, raw sewage and desperate violent criminals. In fact, the crime and the deplorable conditions were much more on display in Sochi Russia than in Rio – but Russia is far whiter and therefore it’s a lot easier to forget about squalid conditions in a European setting than in a South American setting.

Speaking of Russia – yes the state sponsored PED cavalcade of that nation was a huge story going into Rio, but then again, so was the more subtle hues of drug-enhanced individual athletes by their coaches and teams (USA included – I’m looking at you Justin Gatling!) who proved once again the universal truth about competition fueled by money and fame: If your aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.

Being an American and watching NBC coverage of the Olympics reminds me of that famous New Yorker cover that shows how Manhattanites see the word – 9^th Avenue looming large in the foreground while China and Japan appear as mere blips on the map. Just like that illustration, NBC execs think all we see or want to see is gymnastics, swimming and beach volleyball, while all the other sports are tiny far off islands of not-worth-our-time outliers.

Charisma counts – big time. Yes, Michael Phelps is technically the greatest and most decorated Olympian of all time, but he simply cannot carry the jockstrap of Usain Bolt when it comes to commanding worldwide attention. Phelps has the backing and support of the world’s only superpower and a sizable army of marketers, image-makers and publicity folks, yet Bolt, from tiny and poor Jamaica is far, far more of a cultural, social and sporting icon then Phelps will ever be. Michael seems like a nice enough guy, but his vanilla personality fades like a Bulgarian weightlifter running the 100 meters against an athlete built to streak across the track and also streak across every newspaper, magazine, computer and TV screen in the world.

Ryan Lochte is THE American athlete for our Post-Trump era. He possesses real talent, but it’s not nearly as potent as he thinks it is. He’s dripping with white male privilege and bro-centric douche-baggery, yet he can really turn on the charm when needed. He has the functional IQ of a house plant, yet he’s smart enough to know how effective thinly veiled racism can be as a cover. After these Olympics, Lochte in US sports, like Trump in US politics, has become the living embodiment of American confusion and angst before the rest of the world. We can’t explain either of these men and we feel someone dirty even having to try.

The Rio and Sochi Games both proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Summer and Winter Olympics should be forever tethered to a permanent location – Greece in Summer and Switzerland in Winter. The corruption, cost overruns, colossal waste, and financial ruin that haunt the host cities has become an almost masochistic ritual in civic emolliating. It’s no longer interesting to wonder about which Olympics was best, but rather more fascinating to ponder which city lost the most money. Please, let’s all band together and force the IOC to anchor future Olympics to two sites. Let’s save billions, crush graft and cronyism and simply enjoy the athletic completion – in two really nice places!

Finally, while men are still stronger and faster, these Olympics demonstratively showed that women athletes are just much more compelling. Because their sports are not huge money-makers, women athletes aren’t coddled brats with an Olympic-sized sense of entitlement. They often work harder because they don’t have the same money-fueled support system to pave their way. They routinely demonstrate gold medal-worthy levels of sportsmanship that is almost unheard of in the male sports. And more often than not, women are WAY more balanced and grounded then their male counterparts. Need proof? Don’t make me bring up Lochte again.

CLINT EASTWOOD: “GET OFF MY LAWN MINORITIES!”

This was mildly disturbing, yet wholly predictable. A decrepit old white actor who’s lived in a platinum-plated bubble for more than 60 years decides he is going to tell minorities and women to get over this whole discrimination thing.

Basically Clint Eastwood’s entire interview can be boiled down to: “Hey look, Trump says some pretty bad things, but c’mon, making fun of blacks and dames was fine when I was a kid, so let’s just go back to the days when a privileged famous white guy could yuk it up with his buddies and tell off-color jokes and spew sexist rhetoric, safe from the persecution of political correctness. Whatdaya say?”

Don’t you just love it when someone who is literally and figuratively separated from the wrath of racism by bullet-proof glass, concrete walls and – probably – a moat with crocodiles, tells blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and women to stop complaining? Don’t we all feel better knowing that Dirty Harry is on the case making sure that minorities and women don’t get too big for their britches!

Of course being a loyal democrat, I am kind of glad Mr. Eastwood is wading back into the presidential election.  I think we all remember his great foray into the 2012 campaign when he snagged the best actor nod for playing a beloved senile has-been, delivering a cringe-inducing monologue to a piece of furniture.

Keep talking Clint. Your status as a fallen A-lister who has the power to crush republican presidential dreams is secure.

 

OF COPS AND FISHERMAN

This story troubles me. Police waited three hours to take out the Orlando Nightclub shooter?  Three hours in which he shot more people and also allowed some wounded people to bleed out and die?

Obviously, the whole terrible ordeal bothers me. It was gut wrenching and almost impossible to imagine.

 

But the fact that police officers waited and waited to engage – seemingly with no real negotiations going on. Seemingly with no hope to get him to surrender. Seemingly, the cops waited because they didn’t want to engage with an armed man in tight quarters.

Now of course that makes sense.  I wouldn’t want to engage with an armed man in tight quarters – but here’s the thing.  I’m me. A civilian. I’m not supposed to engage with an armed man in tight quarters.

Police are.

We are told time and time again that police risk their lives every day to protect us. We hear that from cops, the media, senators and the president.  We are told that the cops are brave men and women who risk their lives to protect people.

But do they really? 

Let’s unpack the blanket statement that cops risk their lives to protect us.

·         On one hand, of course they do. They wear a uniform that identifies them as police. If you are a bad guy, that uniform can certainly look like a target.

·         The carry guns and Tasers and mace and are sworn to uphold the law and go after the bad guys. That is inherently dangerous and therefore meets the test of someone who is a life-risker.

·         They also engage in high-speed pursuits, domestic violence incidents and traffic stops – all considered highly unsafe events.

But on the other hand, do cops inherently go above and beyond their sworn professional duty to risk their lives for complete strangers?

·         I would love to see legitimate stats (say from the FBI) with painstakingly detail about how many hostages, or injured shooting victims have died in the last ten years because cops were prohibited from directly engaging a bad guy in order to keep themselves out of harm’s way.

·         I would love to see legitimate stats on how many people have been killed or injured by accidental police shootings because the cop’s training and personal decision prompted the use of a gun over non-lethal methods.

·         I would love to see an exhaustive investigation into the possibility that systemic fear of black men by white cops leads to the over-use of deadly force in such encounters.

First caveat: I’m not a cop, never have been. I can only imagine their job. Second caveat; I’m not a cop hater and am profoundly glad they do their jobs and protect people. Third caveat: I don’t want cops taking unnecessary risks in order to stop bad guys.

However, my point of this post is as follows:

Do we overdramatize the role of “hero cop” to their detriment?  If we constantly hear from our leaders that, “our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives every day,” isn’t it inevitable that we feel let down when they don’t? I read the above mention story and wondered: did those poor souls in that Orlando nightclub bathroom go to their deaths believing the cops abandoned them?

I was a lifeguard in high school.  The first thing they teach you in lifeguard school is this: never go into the water unless you know for sure the drowning person is not going to drag you under. If it’s a choice between saving them and risking your life, back away and let them drown. 

Let’s be honest. Cops are taught the same thing. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I believe that the only way you can have an effective police profession is to mostly guarantee cops that they get to go home at night unscathed.

I’m just advocating that we stop with this unattainable level of hero worship that revs up the expectations far beyond the ability of cops to save everyone.

In Orlando, people died who otherwise might have lived because the cops were not going to risk their lives to save them. That is horrible to comprehend and horrible even to write, but it is the truth. No hero cop with a lantern-jaw and rugged good looks shouted to his brothers in blue: “damn the regulations, I’m going to save those poor people!” and stormed that bathroom in front of a hail of gunfire. The cops waited until a relatively safe tactic was found and then they executed.

Cops have a dangerous job. It turns out however, theirs is not the most dangerous job - that belongs to loggers and commercial fisherman. Cops rank 15^th in most dangerous professions.  Yet we don’t lionize guys who cut down trees or haul in fish. Hell, probably 99.999 percent of all Americans don’t even know those ARE dangerous jobs. And no politician stands before a crowded arena shouting about our nation’s patriotic duty to blindly support the brave men who chop down redwoods or reel in halibut.

And as far as I know, the loggers and fisherman of the world don’t have union leaders, senators and mayors decrying any person who dares criticize their tactics, mistakes and judgements. Nor is there a huge competition between Republicans and Democrats to show which party is more supportive of tree cutters and fish gutters.

Cops deserve our respect and support – no question. However, let’s show them respect and support by accurately acknowledging who and what they are: professionals who do a job and then go home, just like the rest of us. Can cops be heroes? Of course! But so can the logger who risks his life to feed his family or the fisherman who risks his life to pay for his daughter’s education.

 

THE OLD LION CAN STILL ROAR

He looked old and feeble.  Too thin. Slightly reminded me of Paul Newman before the end.  But I can’t think of another speech where physical weakness was so outshined by verbal power.

Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton, can still bring it in front of a large crowd. As great as Michelle Obama was, and as unifying as Bernie Sanders tried to be – it was William Jefferson Clinton that provided the port in the storm for all democrats during the tumult of their own discord and fear about “that other guy.”

If you are a democrat fence-sitter about Hilary occupying the White House, you have absolutely no doubts the country and the world would become of a better place if he re-took residence in the People’s House.

Look, I get it.  When Bill talks about his love and pursuit of Hillary all those years ago, most of us of a certain age, cringe a little bit and think about a dark-haired intern and a blue dress.  We know the love story of the Clintons is one where a huge chapter bespeaks shame, infidelity and massive public embarrassment.

We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that ALL of our heroes are flawed and human. We know that a “perfect” person is just someone whose secrets have yet to be revealed. And we know that as Bill went on and on about Hillary’s intellect, caring and self-sacrifice, the political image-burnisher was cranked up to 11.

But the man can use a speech like a firefighter uses water to vanquish flames. If our political house is on fire and “that other guy” is wielding a can of gasoline like a drunken madman, Slick Willy can rain down his words of comfort and optimism and extinguish the fire of fear and hate.

I’m old enough to have heard so many political speeches. I came of political age during Reagan, slept through most of Bush Senior’s one term, laughed and then cried at the feebleness of his son’s language butchery and even got to witness in person one of Obama’s stem-winders. 

Clinton is simply the best in modern times. His voice isn’t particularly soothing, his genuineness is questionable and his personal history can tug on the words like a pesky fly – but them man is pure smooth hell behind a podium. End of story.

He’s like Lawrence Taylor bank in the day. Yes, Taylor was a pretty despicable person off the field, and left his fans with a bad taste in their mouths, kind of like the way Clinton’s personal life did for many of us. But come game day, there was no one on the planet you’d want more then LT rushing the left side of the offensive line, and there is no one on the planet you’d want more making the case for our next president than the man from Hope Arkansas.

Like a proud old lion with few, if any, hunts left, Bill Clinton dragged his tired bones onto the stage and let out a resounding and singular roar as only he could.

Blame it on Nat Turner

If I said to you that last night I drove through a “bad neighborhood,” what image would immediately pop into your mind about my stated location? I believe with every fiber of my being that if you are white, the image in your mind would contain one singular element with stark clarity – the presence of multiple black males hanging out on the streets.

Sure, your mind’s eye would be collaged with graffiti, trash, neon liquor store signs and bright marquees for payday loans. But, those are just scenery in a drama where the starring role is occupied by dark skin contrasted against “wife-beater” t-shirts and baggie blue jeans.

If we are being honest with ourselves, we can’t escape the fact that we white men are terrified of black men.

And I think that, more than any other factor, is the heart of our modern day prejudice and racism in America – and more – the singular reason why so many white cops stop, frisk and kill black men. The cop on the street doesn’t hate the black man, he isn’t repulsed by him – he fears him.  In fact, the cop fears the black man more than he fears the possibility of losing his job or losing his freedom if he puts a bullet in the black man’s head.

You can hear the fear in Darren Wilson’s testimony about shooting Michael Brown. "I felt like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan,” he said in testimony. You can see and hear it in the cell phone video of Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile. These white men were terrified of the black suspects before them.

Juxtapose these two tragedies with what happened a few years ago in Nevada with rancher Clive Bundy.  When you boil the entire standoff down to its essence you have a situation where a bunch of white men in violation of the law and with guns were allowed to go about their law breaking so as not to spark a volatile situation. Even though they were armed – with some even taking up sniper positions – the lack of fear on behalf of law enforcement was obvious.

To white cops, a white civilian with a gun is problem to solve. A black civilian with a gun is a nightmare to wake up from.

We all learned about Nat Turner and his rebellion in school. An angry slave and his followers took the law into their own hands and killed dozens of white slave owners. We learned about it alongside thousands of dates and facts and names of historical significance in High School.  And then, many of us, simply forgot about it.

Or did we? Indeed, we forgot about the facts and the how’s and the when’s, but did we forget about the visceral feeling – a black man exacting revenge for mistreatment and abuse and enslavement at the hands of whites?

I don’t think so.  I think many of us feel – at an almost reptilian brain level – the fear of that revenge. We know that through our birthright and through perhaps our own actions, we are guilty of that mistreatment and abuse of black peoples. And we fear it. We fear the revenge, our comeuppance. We fear it because we are great at it, exacting revenge. It’s part of our white American lore. Against Santa Ana at the Alamo, Against the Germans in WW1 and the Japanese in WWII we were hurt, but we can back stronger and vanquished our foe.

Won’t black people eventually seek revenge against us? For what we’ve done or what our ancestors did? We would, if it happened to us.

And so, because of Nat Turner, and because of millions of terrible abuses and mild slights later, we know the bank account of racism and oppression is full.  We live in fear of a withdrawal that, truth be told, we would have made decades ago, if the shoe was on the other foot.