Trump's delusions are non-partisan grounds for impeaching him.

Today I concluded that the only way we can avoid catastrophe here and abroad is to impeach Donald Trump on the grounds that he is unfit for the office of the presidency.

This is not a partisan issue. Forget Trump's conflicts of interests etc.

And forget your own worthy causes, even the ones Trump supports.

Trump's unfitness is caused by mental illness, plain and simple. He is, in a word, delusional (to say nothing of being a pathological narcissist, sexual predator and liar).

His delusions have spread to his enabling closest advisers, whose moral immune systems have been suppressed by their own lust for power.

I wish I could say this were a metaphor, but it is literally true, Alas, there are no Trumpian “alternative” truths. Ask any mental health professional.

Regardless of where we stand on the issues, we have a patriotic duty to be laser focused on impeaching a President dangerously unfit for office by virtue of his mental illness.

Trump, Postman, Orwell and Huxley

In the introduction to Neil Postman’s classic “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” the author draws several distinctions between the dystopia of George Orwell in “1984” and that of Aldous Huxley in “Brave New World.”

As Postman described it, Orwell’s vision was of an oppressive dictatorial mind control that “flipped” human values. Vis. “War is peace. Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.”

Huxley, on the other hand, described a world in which we ourselves choose to escape through drug-induced fantasies. “…most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”

On the status of truth, Postman wrote: “Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

There’s more that Postman contrasted and it’s well worth reading, but at the end of his introduction, he concluded: “This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

Looking at the 2016 election and the on-going Trumpian transition to power, I conclude that both Huxley and Orwell were right…but there is much, much more going on.

Certainly Orwell’s fear of truth being concealed from us is true and has been throughout our history. But, likewise, as Huxley predicted, truth has become “drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

Indeed truth itself seems irrelevant, not because it is concealed, but because what passes as truth is fabricated and, even after being unmasked, still manages to retain its power.

So we have “fake news.” We are dizzily forced to tease reality from “reality.” Fact from fiction. If we have the time or inclination for it….

The consequences are clear and dangerous beyond the results of the election.

Yesterday’s news of the armed “self-investigator” set upon threatening a pizza parlor is a case in point. The pizza establishment had been falsely portrayed by trolls as being at the center of child sex ring operated by none other than Hillary Clinton. The gunman bought the lie.

Such rampant lies result from financial as well as political incentives.

Witness the entertainment business. Entertainment, much of it violent and outlandish, is richly rewarding. That has been true for decades, but, amplified by new technologies, it has escalated in brutality.

Society and civility are far the worse for it.

And so we have the president of CBS, Les Moonves, confessing during Trump’s profane, violence-prompting, news cycle-grabbing campaign. "It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

Solitary trolls have made small fortunes concocting “fake news” (ie. lies) to attract internet “clicks” and hence money on Facebook and other sites.

In such an amoral environment, lying overwhelms truth in the marketplace of “ideas.”

Just as “truth will set us free,” today’s rewards for lying have doomed us to enslavement.

So who was right? Huxley or Orwell?

While I wouldn’t wish our predicament upon Postman (who died in 2003), Orwell or Huxley, I yearn to put the question to them.

Sibling vote deal amended! Hillary gets my vote

This just in!

My previous post was about how my sister, a North Carolina resident and avid Bernie Sander’s backer, was strongly considering writing in Bernie’s name on her North Carolina ballot.

I offered a swap. The deal was that she’d vote in the Tar Heel State, a crucial “swing state,” for Hillary if I would write in Bernie here in Oregon, a solid Blue state, on her behalf. I was previously intending to vote for Hillary here.

But events of the past week, including Trump’s saying he may not accept the results of the November 8 election, have convinced her that the strongest anti-Trump message needs to be sent at the polls — everywhere.

My sister and I have agreed that Hillary Clinton, for all her weaknesses, should receive every vote possible, including hers and mine.

In short, I just mailed in my Oregon ballot, casting my vote for Hillary. My sister vows to vote for Hillary too.

Note to Hillary: Never again do I want to find myself voting primarily AGAINST a candidate, rather than FOR one. Four years hence, Hillary, give us more — many more — reasons to vote for you than the fact that your opponent is deranged, dangerous demagogue.

This Oregonian is voting for Hillary in North Carolina

Want to defeat Trump but not vote for Clinton?

Consider the deal I struck up with my sister Kate.

I’m a resident of Oregon; she lives and votes in North Carolina.

We were both avid Bernie Sander’s supporters during the primaries, but after Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination, I decided to swallow hard and back Clinton.

(I’m the little-known founder of “Nose-holders for Hillary.”

My sister is a die-hard Sanders backer. The other day she told me she was writing in Bernie’s name on her North Carolina ballot. (I have a cousin in Washington state who has taken the same vow.)

Add to this electoral equation my sister’s learning recently that her step-son, who also lives in North Carolina, is voting for Trump.

She and I had a little back and forth on the phone recently exploring the political landscape and our “consciences.”

She asserted that in all “good conscience” she can’t vote for Hillary. I asserted that in all “good conscience” I couldn’t see how she would pass by cancelling out her stepson’s Trump vote.

We agreed that True Blue Oregon is going for Hillary and that North Carolina is still a question mark.

So we struck a deal. She’s voting for Hillary “for me” in North Carolina; I’m writing in Bernie “for her” in Oregon.

Sound interesting? Do you fit into a similar scenario? Are you looking for a vote swapping partner?

There’s an app that can help you find one.

Its web site is http://apps.trimian.com/nevertrump

For Republicans who want to block Trump but can’t stomach voting for Clinton, there’s help here:

http://www.r4c16.org/steps-1-1-1/

Both help you vote without violating your conscience.

Yes, you can defeat Trump without voting for Clinton.

A post-election, populist coalition must find common ground

A red swath of Trumpism still winds a lazy “S” curve from Idaho and Montana down across the nation’s “Heartland” to the Deep South to Georgia and South Carolina. Add in the “islands” of Alaska, Indiana and West Virginia.

How could this be in light of revelations in the past few days (and, really, weeks) about the sickening pathology of Donald Trump?

The answer lies in what these states have in common. They are largely rural, they are grounded in a strong sense of individualism and White nativism. Several feed on a history of racism and xenophobia.

Their economies remain stagnant or threatened or both. Several are economically dependent on the maintenance and expansion of a toxic fossil fuel industry.

They are grounded in a “gun culture” and swayed by media-hyped fear and machismo.

We can safely surmise that “locker room talk” like Trumps is more likely to occur here.

For all of this, most proclaim themselves Christians. That’s one reason I’ve concluded that the last thing a returning Jesus, a Jew, would do is convert to Christianity. The biblical table tossing of Jerusalem will be child’s play compared to Jesus’ fury in the “Prosperity Gospel” mega-churches.

Whether Trump’s predatory behavior toward women is more common in these Red states is an open question. But in such rural settings, the role of women has been relatively frozen for decades. It is vital but uncelebrated in the culture. (The children know better! Thank you, Mom!)

Community celebrations are saved for Friday night high school football games, preceded by adolescent “locker room talk,” which may or may not take the form of an absurdist prayer for victory. God is my quarterback etc…)

You would think that Trump’s behavior to women alone would shift these states to purple.

It hasn’t.

Apparently the “girls” accept letting the “boys” be boys…even when they are no longer boys.

So what else is going on in the sweeping Red “S”? Why does Trump still run so strongly in the Red “S”?

One explanation stands out.

On November 8, Hillary Clinton will not win the election; Trump will lose it. Our next president will be a non-loser, not a winner.

Clinton’s “victory” will have mostly to do with Trump’s scrambled, depraved and dangerous mental state.

But Trump did stake out several spot-on positions that the Red S took to heart, and rightly so. Who, for instance, would deny that political and economic elites are in league and “run the country”? NB: Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address.

Several of those positions, by the way, were shared by Bernie Sanders, but more thoughtfully and civilly.

Sadly, they are already forgotten amid the campaign chaos. Clinton’s base support is among the economic elites and the military establishment. They are the real winners of this election. The rest of her campaign support has come from folks, like me, left with no other realistic candidate to turn to.

My guess is that events of the next four years will revive these “Populist” issues.

After this election, we need to pivot and rethink what we are about. We need to think about who “we” really are. “We” need to listen and get to know each other.

That “we” is a coalition of the disaffected in the Red states and those in the Blue states who voted for Sanders in the primaries. Minorities of color need to be welcomed and recruited to join the coalition.

The Red State legions being victimized by political and financial elites must shake off the misplaced and false fears of racism, sexism and immigration. Reformers on both sides must coalesce, not around hate, but justice for all. Those “Christians” must search their souls and live in the way Jesus commanded them to.

After November 8, we must find a common ground that defines the political landscape of 2020.

Stop the cross talk and interruptions in the debates

Note to the Commission on Presidential Debates:

When candidates talk over and interrupt each other, the whole purpose of the debate — to communicate and inform — is utterly lost.

What the audience hears is verbal static. What it witnesses is rude behavior. Interruptions are like throwing spit wads in the classroom.

My reaction is to walk away from the whole thing. Thousands of others likely have the same reaction. 

And that is exactly what the Commission wants to avoid.

The solution to the problem is obvious: classroom management.

The moderator should have the power to warn and admonish an interrupter/cross talker. If the warning is disregarded, the moderator should be empowered to deduct time from the interrupter’s time to speak.

Those rules should be agreed to in advance by the participants and their campaigns. Agreement is for the good of all: the participants, the Commission and the viewing public.

For the record, the two biggest offenders in the debates so far have been Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine.

Finally, I can find no way to communicate with the Commission to press my concern and share my solution. The Commission’s web site http:// www.debates.org/ has no “contact” link. That too is a barrier to communication that Commission must address — for the good of all.

The Debate in your Living Room

During the Vietnam War, New Yorker television critic Michael Arlen coined the phrase “Living Room War” to help readers understand television’s role in shaping the public’s “experience” and perception of the disastrous conflict.

Hillary Clinton and her advisors seem unaware of Arlen’s perceptive analysis.

When candidates speak, be it in a debate or in a convention hall, their primary and overwhelmingly largest audiences sit in the comfort of their homes. In essence, the public has invited these strangers into their living rooms.

As our “guests,” they should act accordingly. The best candidates do that. Their tone is polite, congenial, informative, respectfully challenging and conversational.

Think of television-age candidates whom the public has felt “most comfortable” having in its living rooms. Kennedy, Reagan and Obama come to mind.

And whom are you inclined to invite to leave? Do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton come to mind?

And why might that be? With Trump, the answer is obvious. Trump is an egotistical raver/ranter. He offends most who see and hear him. He appeals to the worst in us and, in our heart of hearts, we know it.

Will he be able to modify his “gut” reactions and impulses in Monday night’s first presidential debate? It’s unlikely. He seems addicted to the adrenaline rush of hatred and self-aggrandizement.

As for Clinton, her problem is that she relates to those she sees but is oblivious to the living-room multitudes she can’t see.

Witness her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. She began calmly enough but she soon forgot about her unseen TV audience. Instead she directed herself to the convention crowd. The result was a routine, haranguing stump speech in millions of living rooms.

Clinton should be smart enough to change her approach. She certainly knows how to relate one-on-one to people. Trump relates one-on-one only with Number One, himself.

But if Clinton and Trump engage in a brawl, I for one will treat their behavior as disrespectful of my home. I will invite these two less-than-desirable candidates to “take it outside.”

In other words, I’ll hit the off button.

If Clinton gently and forcefully calls Trump on his behavior without being condescending and scolding and without insulting his followers, I may hang around.

Then again, my viewing habits might well be hopelessly old-fashioned. Television is entertainment. Increasingly mass audiences invite and even encourage the medium in its various forms to bring into their living rooms “entertainment” which we would never allow to actually take place there.

And therein lies the problem. Audiences have substituted the reality of the living room with “reality” as defined by media. Clinton and particularly Trump have fallen prey to it. They play to that substitute, artificial world.

The question is this: whose “reality,” as presented in our living rooms, best describes and speaks to our reality, its future and to our lives and values.

My hope is that the “winner” of Monday night’s debate will be the candidate I would welcome back to my living room to learn more. And there is so much more to learn….

Nose-holders for Hillary

It’s pretty clear that the fate of the Republic, and perhaps the world, rests in the hands of one group of people who have yet to organize.

Their main barrier is that they lack an identity, a name that conveys a conflicted message.

The group, mostly Bernie Sanders supporters, is hyper-conflicted about Hillary Clinton.

They desperately want to vote their consciences, but they know in their heart of hearts that they don’t have that option.

They know that voting “for someone else” puts Donald Trump, a megalomaniac, in the White House.

Now there’s a REAL weight on the conscience!

So this disaffected, conflicted group needs a way to signal that while they don’t like (read: "have serious reservations about," "are suspicious of," "flat-out distrust") Hillary, they are voting for her to keep a mad man out of the White House.

Welcome to….

     Nose-holders for Hillary!

And, yes, you guessed it. I’m one of them. Even enthusiastically!

Bring on bumper stickers, yard signs and banners!

Spread the word. Nose-holders, unite!

Mental Health Assessment of Donald Trump

I have just received the following self-leaked mental health assessment for one Donald John Trump, candidate for the presidency of the United States of America.

Mental Health Assessment:

Patient/Client: Donald John Trump

General description: Caucasian, exceedingly wealthy American male of privilege and executive status.

Mr. Trump is at the extreme range of personality traits frequently associated with this cohort.

Assessment of behavior: Like many others in this group, Mr. Trump is self-centered, isolated and detached from reality. He is prone to be insensitive to and manipulative of others.

He has sexist tendencies and acts out his sexual insecurities with “macho,” “conquest” behavior that is disrespectful of women and threatening to men, women and children.

As a physically imposing man, he can be intimidating. He is habitually impulsive and demeaning in word and gesture. As a public figure he encourages violent behavior among his followers.

Because of his insecurity, he seeks nearly constant affirmation and deference from those around him. His ambition is entirely self-serving and self-centered.

Mr. Trump fits the textbook descriptions of a pathological narcissist. He has demonstrated sociopathic traits.

In part because of his television acting career and fiction-based celebrity status, he has confused  artifice with reality. This and the above-mentioned character traits, explain his compulsive contradictory statements and disregard for truth in general.

Conclusion: Mr. Trump has a dysfunctional, delusional personality. He is not mentally or socially fit for military service of any kind. In possession of presidential power, including the power to wage conventional and nuclear war, he would pose an extreme security risk not just to the nation but to the world.

Political discernment using Quaker testimonies

As a Quaker, I am helped in turbulent times by considering the five Quaker “testimonies.”

The testimonies are: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community and Equality. (You can remember them with the mnemonic “SPICE”)

Recently I’ve weighed the three major presidential candidates against the testimonies and tried to assign grades to them. ABCDF.

I found it difficult because media reporting on the candidates often fails to provide necessary information to make a judgment on these topics.

Then again, much of the news coverage is relevant and helpful.

I also realized that I first needed to revisit the “SPICE”s for myself, particularly with regard to politics and public life.

It was a humbling experience. The “grade” I gave myself was, at best, a “gentleman’s C.”

Here are some of the questions I pondered.

Do I measure “simplicity” guided by my spirituality or do I surrender to cultural/political norms?

Am I at peace with myself? Am I at peace with paying taxes to support American military involvement (which includes atrocities)? Am I at peace with our system of "justice"?

Do I understand the word “integrity” in all its meanings, “strength” being one of them?

What community, or communities, am I part of? What are my responsibilities to them. What are my responsibilities to other communities beyond my own?

Do I truly believe we are equal? If so, how?

Now to the presidential candidates....

How do the testimonies apply to being president of the United States? It's easier to answer for some ("integrity" for instance) than others ("simplicity"?) Or are the testimonies simply important as measurements of personal character? Should we consider the "personal" and "presidential" as one? Are presidents forced to make decisions they would never want to make as individuals? Decisions about life and death, for instance. What does personal/presidential bifurcation say about "integrity"?

In an earlier draft of this little essay, I actually assigned “testimony” grades to the three leading candidates. Now I realize that my assessment is helpful only to me. It is filtered through my unique experiences, values and discernment.

What’s most important to you is yours.

So have at it. Take your time….

Donald Trump

Simplicity?
Peace?
Integrity?
Community?
Equality?

Hillary Clinton

Simplicity?
Peace?
Integrity?
Community?
Equality?

Bernie Sanders

Simplicity?
Peace?
Integrity?
Community?
Equality?

Trump, Demogoguery, Indecency and Us

This frightening political season has been rife with demagoguery and indecency.

The prime demagogue has been Donald Trump but there have been examples of other much more subtle demagoguery. Much of it has been in a biased establishment press that reports a favored half of the story — the half that pleases its corporate owners and feeds their greed.

Earlier this week it was widely reported that Bernie Sanders’ supporters had threatened to the chair of the Nevada Democratic party with violence, but we never find out what might drive them to such extreme measures.

Nor are we even certain that the threats originated with them. Dirty tricks of just this sort are not unusual in American politics. They are the by-products of big money, desperation and power.

Question: Could the threats be from agents provocateurs?

Once, the press sought to get to the root of events. Not today. The mainstream media are now controlled by the powerful and the greedy.  The news, in its search for profit, is drawn to entertainment and spectacle.

The the quest for truth goes begging. The maw of NOW must be fed.

The words “demagoguery” and “indecency,” take me back to this nation’s hither-to most public and dangerous bully and demagogue, Senator Joseph McCarthy. The time, the early ’50’s, is known to this day as “The McCarthy Era.” McCarthy’s lies and innuendos ruined the lives of thousands. The senator’s message was of fear. It was fueled with scapegoats.

Unlike the passive, self-serving role of the press today, back then the press was instrumental in bringing McCarthy down. The unblinking eye of television broadcast live the Army-McCarthy hearings and the Army’s attorney Joseph N. Welch exposure of McCarthy.

Consider his scolding of McCarthy. “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” intoned Welch to an arrogant, dismissive McCarthy.

Consider Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly’s famous, meticulously crafted McCarthy exposé on CBS Reports. You can find the transcript here: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html

In the broadcast’s coda, Murrow noted that McCarthy had once cited Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” in warning of the dangers of Communism.

Murrow, eyes fixed on the camera and his audience, read: “Earlier, the senator asked, ‘Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?’ Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare's ‘Caesar,’ he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

And so it is today as we stand on the threshold of “The Trump Era.”

There’s plenty of “fault” to go ‘round, but the prevalence, acceptance and even celebration of indecency in this culture explains much of it.

If we were to ask Trump, as we should, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” he might well answer with his branded arrogance, “What does decency have to do with it? What does decency have to do with ANYTHING. I don’t DO ‘decency!”

Indeed his millions of followers love him for his indecency. Once decent Republican politicians, caving to power, have now embraced indecency in their support of the presumptive nominee.

In an earlier time this political season would be considered a spectacle of the obscene. Utterly repulsive.

Today, the media thrives on it. We laugh at rude put-downs. We fawn over hate-mongering talk radio hosts, who make millions off their venom. The most popular films today are bloody displays of brutal violence and foul language.

This is called entertainment. Over the years it has grown and melded with politics and, yes, produced unchallenged war and riches for the arms industry.

We are literally amusing ourselves to death, as author and critic Neil Postman warned years ago in a book of that name.

Murrow and Friendly were right: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

The Problem unfolds for Democratic Convention Delegates

Today's polls on Real Clear Politics show what I believe will be the beginning of a growing trend. If Donald Trump can beat Hillary Clinton in places like Ohio, and Bernie Sanders can prevail over Trump there, the Democratic Party's superdelegates gathering in Philadelphia in late July will have a tough decision to make. Do they dump Clinton for Sanders?

Here, with weeks to go until the convention, is what today's polls look like. Call this a partial benchmark and a caution.

Try this one: Super Delegates, faced with a faltering Clinton, will choose Sanders.

Bernie Sanders should stay in the Democratic Presidential race. He may win it yet.

The media is once again creating its own myth when it predicts Clinton being nominated. 
The outcome of this primary season is far from set in stone as the media would have us believe.

Today’s stuck-in-the-moment media narrative is similar to what editors and pundits concocted for Trump as recently as three months ago.

No, the situation in both political parties (and in the electorate in general) is highly dynamic. Tomorrow shouldn’t be judged by today, just as next months shouldn’t be judged by this month.

The flux is particularly apparent with the Democrats and the Clinton-Sanders contest, which is still very much alive and will be right up to the time of the convention delegates vote.

As noted in my last post, public opinion polling in the nearly three months before the Democratic convention could spell real trouble for Hillary Clinton.

The entire electorate is unpredictable at this point, particularly since both Trump and Clinton, the "given" November match-up, have such high negatives.

Will large portions of the public simply abstain from voting at all? And, if they do vote, what will motivate them to?  Fear? Anger? Sweet reason?

And then there’s Sanders who is actually liked.

People may not agree with him but they respect him.

But what about this socialist business? Indiana and Michigan, hardly left-wing hot-beds, had no problem problem with Sander being a democratic socialist. It’s a non-issue.

Perhaps voters know more about the social/political history of Western Europe than the pundits do. Perhaps they know more about universal health care and free education than the lobbyists want them to. Perhaps they know that nothing changes until change is proposed and debated.

So here’s the deal: Given Trump’s obvious cartoonish, show-biz persona and its broad zany, nativist appeal, and given Hillary Clinton’s dynasty-bound, boring, predictable “establishment” stances, I fully expect polls in the next month to show her slipping behind Trump, and then falling way WAY behind.

Call her the Jeb Bush of the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, Sanders will continue to top Trump, if narrowly. Virtually every poll so far shows Sanders faring better against Trump than Clinton does.

Obviously these “shocking” poll results will not escape Democrats gathering in Philadelphia in late July. The unelected Democratic Super-delegates were created for just such an eventuality. Nominations are made at the convention and reflect reality at the time of it is held.

The nominating decision at the convention should be informed by the long, bizarre (and dated) primary season but not bound to it.

And as long as Sanders stays in the race and contests places like Oregon and California (and wins!) he will become a viable option as Democratic delegates face the consequences of nominating a deeply flawed and likely-to-lose Clinton.

The Distrust Test for Voters in November

One of the most important questions a voter should ask is whether a candidate can be trusted.

But as this frightening presidential primary season unfolds, in the Fall we likely will not have the opportunity to ask the question.

Instead, with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the ballot, the question will be, tragically,  “which candidate do I distrust the least.”

That’s a sad state of affairs for the body politic, but polling supports just that level of  distrust.

Still the answer is clear. Trump himself has said that what he is saying today will be different once he is actually nominated. In essence, he is telling us that he is a liar, and, worse, his saying it doesn’t matter. Lying is a "justifiable" means to his ends.

Indeed, the most frightening thing about Trump, beyond the question of his sanity, is that he is utterly unpredictable…even  to himself.

Clinton, for her part, seems spineless in her pursuit of victory. If Bernie Sanders is driving her ever so reluctantly to the Left, just think of what Trump will do. In desperation, will she cave on immigration? Will she waffle on climate change? Will she play to the nativism of the Trumpites. Will she, like Rubio, play the bodily fluid card?

She has already adopted the Trump’s meme about “America’s Greatness.” He says he’ll restore it; she says it was never in question.

Really? Talk to Native Americans, talk to farm workers, talk to college graduates saddled with debt, talk to the homeless, talk to kids trapped in impoverished, overcrowded schools, talk to victims of police brutality, talk to veterans contemplating suicide because of PTSD.

No, this country is about promise, as yet unfulfilled. I don’t trust any politician unwilling to say so. And that’s why I’ve been sending checks in dribs and drabs to Bernie Sanders, who is nothing if not trustworthy.

But for reasons that seemingly have nothing to do with trust, “The People” seem set on offering you and me Clinton and Trump this Fall. Which one do I distrust the least?

Clinton by shameful default. He greatest strength steps over the lowest of bars: she is NOT Donald Trump.

The Panama Papers: Waiting for the other shoe to drop

And now, in the middle of this wild political season, we are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I speak of the “Panama Papers” revelations. We are told there are more to come.

And could the “more” shake up the already shaky presidential primary races?

Could Donald Trump, who has yet to release any of his tax returns, be mixed up in the off-shore tax-evasion? What are the odds? Would you be surprised if Trump paid no taxes at all?

Trump has already confessed his proud affinity to greed. Hiding assets would be just another manifestation of it. Oh, and the evasions, as they say, are “perfectly legal.”

That true enough. But are they ethical. They means that the rest of us who are “stupid,” in Trump’s eyes, are making up for the lost tax revenue through the checks we responsibly write to the IRS.

That’s right, you and I could be paying Donald Trump’s tax liability, which is passed on to us.

The lost tax revenue also means that our schools are underfunded, veterans are forced to live on the streets and the nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble. The list goes on and on…

And then there’s Hillary Clinton.

Of course we don’t know (yet?) if the Clintons have been hiding assets off-shore, out of sight of the IRS, but we do know that they are cozy with the Saudi Royal family. The Saudis are big donors to the Clinton Foundation. It should come as no surprise that Saudi King Salman is in the massive data base of the Mossack Fonseca law firm, which administers these tax dodges.

And what about the big-dollar donors to the Clinton campaign? Could their contributions be ill-gotten gains stemming from off-shore tax dodges? If so, will Hillary give the money back or perhaps turn it over to the government?

If (or when) the other shoe drops, in the words of Bernie Sanders, it could feed the much-needed “revolution.”

The Political Consequences of Suspending Disbelief

Those who have studied media literacy know the concept of “the suspension of disbelief.”

Here’s how it works. When we read fiction, watch films and most TV drama, we shut down our disbelief and critical abilities. We permit ourselves to accept fiction as being true. How can we enjoy fiction if we are constantly telling ourselves it’s not “true”?

And so we “accept” lies of a sort. At its best, fiction becomes “art” and reveals larger truths. At its worst, and all too often, it is a lie appealing to our baser instincts. If we have suspended our disbelief, we often can’t, or won’t, appreciate the difference.

The suspension of disbelief comes at the cost of making us vulnerable. We find it difficult and even impossible to switch back to critical thinking after hours of having shut it down.

That’s why advertising, with all its visual and associative manipulation, is so effective. We actually believe if we buy this car or that soap, we will be better, just like the “beautiful people” in the ads. We carry these fictions into the market place and put our money on them.

Enter Donald Trump (and most other candidates for that matter). They hit us with their advertising when we are most vulnerable to its distortions (grainy footage, patriotic symbols, reassuring voices, creepy music etc.).

Trump does his distorting largely without advertising because he is, at root, a oddly and crudely engaging performer. Those who are most unquestionably believing of him become “true believers.” They idolize him, accepting uncritically whatever he says – even when he contradicts himself, even when he offends and demeans “others.”

In so many ways, Trump is no more harsh, cruel or obscene than much of popular media today. Note that he speaks in the truncated, venom-laced language of the internet.

In short, Trump’s behavior is made to order for our media culture. Those who have become immersed in it (and many watch TV or are glued to the internet for hours on end) feel right at home with a bullying, bigoted, thoughtless brute. (Rush Limbaugh also comes to mind....)

Trump, like much of media, plays upon and amplifies the dark, fearful, hateful, violent side of life. (There’s even a name for the phenomenon: “The Mean World Syndrome.” (vis. the late George Gerbner.)

if you can’t, or won’t, return to a questioning state of disbelief (which, be warned, requires work), you find yourself accepting distorted, outrageous and even immoral solutions.

Exploring the real causes of problems facing us just doesn’t lend itself to 30-second TV spots and 140-word tweets. Besides, who wants to know that we ourselves are part of the problem and will have to change?

Why else would global warming be seemingly unworthy of public discourse in this campaign?

Instead, sound bite “solutions” (torture, walls, intolerance) threaten to make  "real world" life for all of us and our progeny worse…much, much worse.

A Republican 'Firewall" against Trump

We are beginning to see a plausible Republican “firewall” against Donald Trump. You’d expect to read about it in the New York Times, but the paper is too busy helping the Clinton campaign (Bernie can’t win, Bernie faces cool reception from Blacks, etc) to strike out editorially against a clear and present danger to the Republic: Donald Trump.

No, I first ran across the vision of a blueprint for blocking Trump in The Washington Post. In early December the Post Editorial board wrote:

“As Mr. Trump’s fellow Republican candidates now acknowledge, there is a real-world cost to a campaign that gains traction by spewing hatred, bigotry and rage. Criticizing Mr. Trump is no longer sufficient. It is time to say clearly he is anathema to the Republican Party, and to the nation.

The full editorial is HERE.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ending-the-gops-season-of-denial/2015/12/08/b8549424-9dd3-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html?tid=a_inl

Then, yesterday (Feb. 21) Danielle Allen, a Post contributing columnist, gets down to cases urging those Republican candidates who have dropped out, or should drop out, to, as a “great act of public service” revoke their pledge to support whomever the Republican party nominates.

“Be bold,” she writes, “stand up and shout that you will not support Trump if he is your party’s nominee. Do it together. Hold one big mother of a news conference.”

She calls for the also-rans to endorse Marco Rubio, not because she does (she plans to vote for Hillary Clinton), but because Rubio is NOT Trump, whom she calls an opportunistic demagogue. Trump’s tactic of exploiting a divided nation are akin to Hitler’s, she says, citing Hannah Arendt’s book “Men in Dark Times.”

In closing, Allen calls on Sen. Ted Cruz to withdraw as well and to support Rubio. Addressing Cruz directly, she writes,  “You are drawing too close to Trump’s politics. You too should change course."

She points the finger at the non-Trump Republican candidates, saying, “You are the ones on whom this burden falls. No one else can do it.”

Her column can be read HERE:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/moment-of-truth-we-must-stop-trump/2016/02/21/0172e788-d8a7-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

The dilemma for anyone-but-Trump Republicans is clear. Should the Republican convention reject the billionaire bully, Trump no doubt would launch an independent campaign that would ensure victory for whomever the Democrats nominate. On the other hand, with Trump carrying the Republican banner into November, there’s no certainty either Clinton or Sanders would win (although the polls, for what they’re worth in this wacko year, suggest that Sanders has a better shot.)

So the Republicans have a choice: Do they want a wing-nut, unstable, racist Republican demagogue in the White House or one of those shifty, lefty Democrats?

Trump's contrived "disgust" with Hillary's trip to the toilet

Anyone who has ever majored in college psychology knows that the big pay-off in the field is in advertising. The 2016 presidential campaign is about to unleash the full force of psychological manipulation on the vulnerable voters in Iowa and New Hampshire…and South Carolina etc.

Opponents will be portrayed in grainy black-and-white, nightmare footage. We’ll hear creepy voices. We’ll see candid, hand-held photos of opposition candidates exposed in unguarded moments. Sound bites will flash by utterly out of context.

It all taps into our psychological vulnerabilities, needs and fears.

It is also a dangerous charade. Without a “media literate” electorate, a functioning, rational democracy is impossible.

But wait, there’s more!

This year’s campaign has introduced and entirely new psychological element beyond advertising manipulations. It arrives courtesy of the one, the only, Donald Trump. Although he would deny it, I’m guessing it is the product of invisible, high-paid geniuses — those psychology majors—hired by his campaign.

I’m thinking this is no less than the work of the candidate’s psyops (psychological operations) team. It is also a hand-and-glove fit with the candidate's own weird psychological profile and acting skills.

It works on several fronts. I’ve mentioned before Trump’s use of the non-verbal. Without “saying” anything in words (allowing deniability) he speaks volumes in gestures. The smirk, the pause, the nod, mimicking (of the disabled no less), the flailing of arms, flagrant ignoring of “boundaries.”

Others include overt bulling and outright lying. (We are seeing increasing references to Hitler and “The Big Lie” in expressed concerns about Trump as The Leader.)

I’m particularly intrigued with Trump’s technique of producing off-the-wall and crudely vivid mini-images. Their being indelible attaches them permanently and subconsciously to Trump’s victim. Because the images are disgusting, to use Trump’s own word, they have a particular deep psychological resonance with conservative voters.

See research reference: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/10/30/your-brains-response-to-a-gross-photo-can-reveal-your-political-leanings/

You can bet that the Trump psyops team is well aware of the research.

And so we have Trump citing and critiquing Hillary Clinton’s trip to the toilet in the recent Democratic debate. Without going into the scatological details of the non-event, Trump simply labeled her break as “disgusting.”

He leaves his audience to fill-in-the-blanks.

As noted above, disgusting images set off conservative subconscious alarms.
The image, of course, provides a graphic association to Trump and his backers’ views of Clinton and her campaign.

Clever, huh? And oh so funny.

Would any other Republican candidate invoke Trump’s own biological need to defecate, let alone label it “disgusting”?

In the odd world of Republican politics, they would seem to be missing a psychological opening to right-wingers.

Beyond drum-beat citations of  “American Exceptionalism” and the nation’s seemingly divine mission (God bless America!) and the dangers of terrorism, they should be invoking Donald in the toilet.

This, fellow citizens, it what we call democracy in action.

Trump's Narcissism and the Suspension of Disbelief

If you search “Trump” and “narcissist” on the web you get dozens of hits linking the two words. Many posts are from therapists.

(Vanity Fair recently posted an overview story on the subject.)

But a therapist I know says dismissively, “Every politician is a narcissist.” It comes with the turf, she maintains.

The difference is that Donald Trump is a pathological narcissist. He lies, he bullies, he is self-absorbed, he has little or no empathy…and he flaunts all of that in public. None of that “comes with the political turf,” at least not publicly.

Clearly Trump is not fit for polite or political company, let alone the oval office.

But significant numbers of people don’t see it that way.

He has the backing of roughly 30 percent of polled Republicans. One poll has him winning 41 percent of the vote in a match-up with either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.  Thankfully, Democrats “win” over Trump in the poll. (Interestingly, Sanders draws more votes that Clinton against nearly every other Republican hopeful…but that’s another story)

So what’s the deal?  Why doesn’t Trump’s extreme public narcissism sink his candidacy? Indeed why does it seem to have contributed to his being the Republican front-runner.

The list of reasons is long, but right up near the top I’d put our media-manipulated culture.

Much of the public “understands reality” from what it gleans from TV and radio. A media fantasy world becomes “reality.” "The News" is a distorting mirror of politics (and crime, and success, and war, and health....)

Celebrities (and Trump has made himself one) are unquestioningly worshipped. For the media, they attract audiences and that attraction translates into advertising dollars.

What Trump and other celebrities say is taken as a priori truth, often because of their perceived “success.” Fans relish celebrity errors…and forgive them: “My celebrity, right of wrong.”

Deception becomes the stuff of plot lines, humor and scripts. When Trump demeans others he seems serious. But then he answers criticism by insisting he was “joking” or “acting” or “misunderstood.”

The public is willingly being gamed, largely to be entertained. (The absurdly popular Rush Limbaugh exhibits much of the same narcissistic public profile. He too is entertaining, particularly if you harbor prejudice and tolerate lies. Like Trump, he is self-obsessed, dangerous and panders to and feeds hatreds.)

When we enter the world of entertainment and fantasy we sometimes knowingly, but more often unknowingly, “suspend disbelief.” In other words, we let down our guard. We make ourselves vulnerable. And that’s what a sizable portion of the American public has done with Donald Trump…to everyone's peril.

The world of politics and governance is no fantasy and no game. It should be no place for celebrity worship and game-playing. Frankly, governing is not much fun, but it is important, vitally important.

Think global warming, war and peace, terrorism, poverty, inequity and injustice.

Now think of Donald J. Trump and his pathological, posturing, psychological state.

A losing Trump will declare victory and quit

Putting aside how high the stakes of the Republican presidential nomination race are, I find that trying to read the mind and psyche (to say nothing of the popularity) of one Donald Trump is an intriguing puzzle.

In recent days I’ve concluded that Trump will drop out of the contest…and soon.

Consider his recent pleading with Iowa voters to return him to the top of the Republican Caucus polls in the Hawkeye state.

Trump reportedly feeds polls, but his portion of the numbers is dwindling. He’s beginning to starve for political popularity.

In his plea to Iowa Republicans, he, in full egotistical fervor, doesn’t continence that he, The Donald, may himself be doing something wrong, No, he blames Republicans who now prefer the mild-mannered Ben Carson to the petulant, mercurial Trump.

Accusations do not win votes.

Blaming “the other” not withstanding, Trump must sense that he could be — gasp!— a LOSER. That must be a nightmare scenario. Trump’s oft-repeated label for those he deplores is “loser.”

So imagine the shock of the narcissistic Trump’s looking in the mirror of polled public opinion and suddenly seeing a loser.

His answer has to be to blame the mirror, both it (the polls) and what it reflects (purportedly voter sentiment).

Which gets us to why Trump will certainly drop out. Rather that be stuck with the loser label, he will want to do what leaders of losing causes frequently do: declare victory and quit.

Somewhere he’ll find a new mirror with a new image that distorts his self-absorption to his liking.