The Election and Fox's 'Ocean of Light and Love'

On the eve of this frightening election, words spoken more than 350 years ago have helped me.

They come from George Fox, who founded the Quakers.

England was in the throes of a tumultuous, bloody civil war at the time. Fox was a young, uneducated, deeply troubled man. He was literally adrift in the war-torn country, and searching for “Truth.” He could not find it anywhere. Not among the “professors” (read “pastors”) nor in the Bible.

Nonetheless, in this time of peril, he had a vision (one among many) of an “Ocean of Darkness and Death” being covered by an “infinite Ocean of Light and Love.”

He continues in his journal that the “darkness" compelled him to learn the “conditions" of all so that he could speak to them. From this darkness, the Light leads him, and us, to “openings”  — leads us to love.

This 2016 political campaign, terrible as it has been, terrible as its outcome could be regardless as who wins, may be the “opening” we all need.

Strangely, many, perhaps a majority, of us are united in voting not for one candidate but against the other — the lesser of two “evils” as we see it.

For there to be reconciliation, it’s not helpful to argue over which candidate is which. Our pain in the darkness of negativity is shared regardless of how we voted.

If we can move beyond finger-pointing and blame, yes beyond hate, we have the opportunity to draw closer together, to find unity and even agreement on the nation’s needed course.

Clearly we all suffer from our “bubble” lives….from our isolating “conditions” as Fox described them. His vision tells us that Light will lead us to explore our differing “conditions” and find healing in understanding and love.

It’s worth reading the “Ocean of Light” passage in his journal: If it helps, you can embrace, or merely accept or read past Fox’s religiosity.

Here is the passage:

"I cried unto the Lord, saying, “Why should I be thus, seeing I was never addicted to commit these evils?” and the Lord answered that it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions? and in this I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings….”  1652

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.

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!

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?

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.”

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?

Asking Democrats a question usually aimed at Republicans

For the past 30 years, political pundits have wondered why working-class Republicans vote against their own interests. For their GOP backing they get “trickle-down” economics that never trickles down, cuts in social services, lay-offs as jobs go overseas, a rigged tax system benefiting the wealthy, and war, endless war, etc.

Now the same can be asked of Democratic voters supporting Hillary Clinton.

It’s easy to see where Clinton’s loyalties lie. Just look where her money comes from. Those mega donations from anonymous PACs and from the super-rich will call the shots in her administration.

The “little money” is going to Bernie Sanders for obvious reasons. He’s a populist in the best sense of the word. He’s not afraid to talk about inequality and a rigged and corrupt political/financial system.

So why is Clinton considered the odds-on favorite to win the nominations…at this point in the campaign?

Primarily because the media are creating an environment of inevitability about her success. And why would they do that? Because the power brokers, who buy ads that keep media fat, happy and blind, back Hillary, their protector. Indeed, much of the media is owned by those same power brokers.

Last year I watched Clinton quietly breeze into this city for a day and head straight for the blue-stocking, gated community of Dunthorpe. No visits to daycare centers, women’s shelters or pediatric wards. Hillary held a reception in a mansion and raked in a few hundred grand from Portland’s richest. And then she left, headed for LA. and you know who.

Just days later, Sanders rented the biggest hall he could find here, the MODA basketball stadium, and filled it to overflowing. The crowd count was 28,000. The donations were pocket change compared to the checks written in Dunthorpe for Hillary.

Then consider those six-figure speaking fees that Clinton gathers from corporate lobbyists interested in having her in their pockets. And what about the mega-donations the morally-challenged Saudi Royal Family funnels into the Clinton Foundation?

What’s the pay-off? Vote for Hillary and you’ll find out.

Meanwhile Sanders wants to break up the “Too Big to Fail” banks to avoid yet another financial meltdown and taxpayer bailout. He calls for affordable higher education and universal health care. He wants to put people to work HERE in decent paying jobs that will repair and improve our infrastructure.

So the question is the same for Democrats as for Republicans in this election year. Will you vote to solve pressing societal interests or to continue and expand welfare for the rich?

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.

New York Time bias bungles story of Bernie and Hillary in Portland

First, a disclosure. I’m an active supporter of Bernie Sanders for President and I am seeing media coverage through that lens.

What I see is coverage of his campaign by The New York Times that has been stunningly biased.

Item: Sanders draws the biggest crowd of any candidate yet. It happened right here in Portland on Sunday. Somewhere in excess of 25,000 converged on the MODA Center. The Times noted that the crowd was large but doesn’t point out that it is far and away the largest yet for any candidate. Instead the Times focuses on characterizing Sanders’ base as narrow — predominantly white and liberal. The paper ignores that Sanders support is also overwhelmingly young, enthusiastic and committed. We are talking about ENERGETIC. The Times also fails to see that Sanders is staking out positions well to the Left of Hillary Clinton on “youth” issues like college debt.

Item: A study in contrast goes unreported. The Times ignores that four days prior to Sander’s big rally in Portland, Hillary Clinton quietly comes to town and heads straight to Dunthorpe, an exclusive sanctuary for the wealthy where homes are mansions often gated off and hidden from the public. There Clinton gathers a reported 140 supporters capable of ponying up the required $2700 to hob-nob with Hillary. Clinton stashes the cash, says not one word to the citizenry beyond Dunthorpe, and leaves. It’s on to the next deep-pocketed, secluded enclave. In short, Clinton is practicing political business as usual. While she was pandering to the rich in Dunthorpe, Sanders’ scruffy local team works out of a warehouse scrambling to rent the cavernous MODA Center. The young organizers fill the place. There is no entry fee. The overflow spills out into the surrounding plazas in the thousands.

Item: Hillary’s poll numbers, which still run around 50 percent, are in steady decline.  Her “negatives” poll high and reveal a lack of basic trust. Sanders’ numbers continue to climb. He’s above 20 percent and rising. If Clinton is the “front runner,” as the Times likes to remind us, she’s starting to fade (as The Times fails to report). Moreover, this campaign is just “out of the starting gate.” Will Hillary even make it to the “finish line?” Ignoring the question, The Times focuses on an prospective Biden-Clinton contest. Sanders isn’t mentioned.





(Update, Aug. 12: A Boston Herald poll released yesterday shows Sanders moving ahead of Clinton in New Hampshire.)

I see another dimension to this. The New York Times brings a myopic East Coast bias to events on the West Coast. The Times portrays events here as suspect, slightly bizarre, misguided and removed from East Coast perceived wisdom, in this case political perceived wisdom. If 25,000 people pack the MODA Center to hear Bernie Sanders, it is just another West Coast aberration. The real “truth” resides in New York and Washington, D.C.

We’ll see about that….

Cat Diplomacy

Jacques Von Lunen, a former student of mine from PCC, has taken over the pet column in The Oregonian. Over coffee and croissant today, he shared that a whole new world is opening up to him. Covering the domestic animal kingdom is no small task. But for someone who once dreamt of being a vet, Jacques seems to have landed a dream job — at least as long at The Oregonian survives.

Part of his assignment is to contribute to the inevitable Oregonian “OregonLive” pet blog. While blogging, he’s discovered that the mere mention of the word “pit bull” is a reader magnet.

His weekly column appears in the paper on Tuesdays, and today’s topic immediately grabbed my attention. It is about getting a cat to accept new arrivals (nuisances, interlopers, intruders, mortal enemies) to its domain.

We have a cat, who now owns the house we once thought was ours. Occasionally I have wondered whether Izzy (seen above) might accept another cat. After reading Jacques' column, I’ve concluded that The Great One, who barely accepts me, would go ballistic if we tried to introduce him to a “new friend.”

But Jacques did offer some intriguing ways to try to get a well-established cat at least to consider allowing another cat — or dog, or baby — to enter its world.

As I read the advice, my mind wandered to diplomacy. I wondered whether Hillary Clinton might pick up a pointer or two from the column.

There are an awful lot of human beings out there who have trouble sharing real estate. They’ve been known to fight like, well, cats, to keep each other at bay — and, coincidentally to keep the arms industry thriving.

So take Jacques' suggestion that two strange cats initially should be placed on opposite sides of a closed door but let them eat near the door so they can hear each other munching away. That’s like putting human adversaries at opposite ends of the table. “Hey, he’s eating the same food; he can’t be all that bad. I wonder how he likes the shrimp cocktail?”

Then there’s the ploy of tying two cat toys at the ends of the same string and threading the sting under the door. The cats can both “play” with trying to pull the string away from the other without actually seeing the rival. In this scenario, the game’s the thing, not the rivalry.

Diplomats do this with agenda setting and preconditions. They never have to see each other during the give and take.

The suggestion that there be a “pheromone exchange” is a little hard to imagine. It entails rubbing a towel or sock over the cats’ faces and then putting one’s rubbed cloth in the other’s room. I suppose this is worth a try with humans. What if Shiites and Sunnis or Israelis and Palestinians took in each other’s laundry? At the very least it could lead to some serious cuts in defense spending.

The next suggestion is to open the door between the rooms but put up one of those protective, telescoping baby gates. I think the Pakistanis and the Indians have something like this along their borders. There’s a good deal of ritualized posturing, grunting and snarling, but nobody gets killed.

Finally comes the moment of truth when you put both animals in the same room. Jacques recommends keeping a squirt gun handy, just in case. With humans, squirt guns would be novel, but fire hoses, Mace or tear gas might work better.

Jacques adds that it’s also good to create an upbeat, good-times mood “with toys, treats and play.” With humans that might translate into bribes, beer and back rubs. Whatever.

Finally, he says, if none of this works “separate them again and start the process over.”

Patience is the order of the day. Think Ireland, Korea, the Holy Land, Pakistan and India.

Hillsdale is ObamaLand

I found myself over in the inner east side today so I dropped by the county elections office to see if they had the detailed results from the May 20 primary. Those are the tallies that have the local political goods: a break-down of the vote precinct by precinct.

They did have the detailed results ready. In fact the clerk hit the wrong button on her computer and printed out more than 100 pages of county precinct voting data for me.

I had asked for the results from only two precincts — those that cover most of Hillsdale.

Oh well.

Before each election, I put out “Hillsdale Votes!” signs to encourage voting.

I like to think the signs make a difference. There’s no way of telling what the signs do, but while voter turnout county wide was 60 percent, 73 percent of registered voters voted in our two Hillsdale precincts. (Kind of makes me wonder what the other 27 percent were doing. Bowling? Alone?)

We are predominantly Democrats in precincts 1205 and 1224. Of the 7443 registered voters here, 60 percent are Democrats, 20 percent Republicans and 20 percent independents.

Hillsdale Democrats resoundingly favored Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

County-wide, Obama got two-thirds of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary. Here in Hillsdale, he got 71 percent of the 3811 votes cast in the two precincts.

Don’t ask me what this means. I suppose that someone could accuse me of being blind to local sexism, even as I accused southern counties in Kentucky and West Virginia of being racist.

I doubt whether those same Kentucky and West Virginia voters, who voted four-to-one for Clinton, were really intending to vote for Clinton in the fall had she won the nominations. Call them "McCain Democrats." My guess is that they were voting AGAINST Obama, as an African-American, not FOR Clinton.

Here in Hillsdale, the vote was decidedly for Obama, not against Clinton. Oregon's November results will tell whether Obama's backing is sincere. I'm dead certain it is.

Another political note: I am pleased to see that national political pundits no longer are calling Oregon a “battleground state.” Or, preferably, a "toss-up." Ditto Washington state. The Obama campaign would be smart to focus its resources somewhere other than the Pacific Northwest, including — particularly including — Hillsdale.

In that regard, when I participated in a local Move-On phone bank two years ago, the organization had us calling voters in a hotly contested congressional race in ... the wilds of Nevada, of all places.

We Obama-istas shouldn’t become complacent about Oregon but be prepared to make your voices heard in Missouri, Virginia and New Hampshire. It’s kind of fun. You meet a lot a nice people, albeit telephonically.

Is America "ready" to fulfill its promise?

Looking at the Democratic presidential primary returns from parts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio is a sad, sobering experience.

Hillary Clinton racked up mega-majorities in some rural counties —70 percent, 80 percent, even 90 percent. Stunning numbers.

It should be a sad, sobering experience for her as well. All the numbers mean is that many voters in those lop-sided counties are more racist than they are sexist.

You know — “hard, working-class whites.” Come November, those same voters, if faced with a woman on the ballot, would generate the same numbers for a white man, John McCain.

Even if, in some nightmare scenario, the white man running against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were George W. Bush, undeniably one of he worst presidents in American history, these patriotic American bigots would vote for him too — again.

There has been a lot of talk in the press about whether America is “ready” for an African-American president. Whether the country is “ready” for a woman president.

Ready?

Were we “ready” for George W. Bush? Are we “ready” for John McCain? And through that same clear lens, are we “ready” for Hillary Clinton? Are we “ready” for Barack Obama?

Never mind gender or race. We are voting for a president here — the person with the power to make life-and-death decisions about the future of this country, indeed about the fate of this planet.

Which one are we “ready” for — based on character, ability and political belief? Nothing more, nothing less.

The problem is that many Americans are voting their prejudices. Does it make you feel good to hate candidates because of race or gender? Then get your racist/sexist jollies off by going to the polls to vote against them.

The country be damned.

Here a little voice asks: But aren’t you being unfair? Aren’t you stereotyping white voters in these states? The polls don’t suggest so. Large numbers admit that they would not vote for a black to be president under any circumstances. Combine them with those who are too embarrassed to express their racism, and you have a country whose November presidential election could well be determined by racists.

But how about all those black voters who voted for Obama because he is black? Isn’t that a racist vote? Ask yourself, are those black Obama supporters voting FOR someone or AGAINST someone. Are they voting out of hatred — or pride? Black voters don’t despise whites. They’ve been voting for white candidates for years. But they do fervently support the first major black presidential candidate. Oh, and, on his merits, they also believe he would make the best president.

It’s a choice they’ve never had before, and they are going to take it. Wouldn’t you?

But unlike black voters, say in North Carolina or Virginia, large numbers of white voters in the primary elections I’ve mentioned above weren’t voting FOR Clinton, they were voting AGAINST a black man for no other reason than that he is black.

That is racist voting.

Don’t lump me in with the “America” that “isn’t ready for an African-American president or a woman president.”

I am “ready” for an America that is “ready” for a president, black, brown, yellow or white, man or woman, whose words, leadership and actions will end the bigotry, divisiveness and hatred that still haunt this nation.

When America is “ready” for the best, it will, at long last, live up to its promise.

Untenable: Why a top McCain ad strategist quit

The resignation of Mark McKinnon, John McCain’s “chief advertising strategist” (an ominous title), carries the scent of something rotten.

McKinnon’s stated reason for stepping down is that he doesn’t want to work against Barack Obama, even though McKinnon disagrees with the Democratic candidate on several issues, including the Iraq War.

Last summer in a Cox News Service interview, McKinnon had vowed not to work against Obama in the general election. Tuesday, he acted on it.

The putrefaction comes from the “work” McKinnon would have been doing for McCain in the months ahead.

Think “Willie Horton,” “Swift boating,” and most recently “appeasement,” “lapel pinning,” and “albatross hanging” (in the form of Obama’s pastor and acquaintance with a ‘60s radical).

Read between the lines of the New York Times story about the resignation. My interpretation is that McKinnon didn’t want to be party to the character assassination of Obama, a man McKinnon has described as having “deep character and good judgment.”

McKinnon said of Obama in the Cox News interview, “I also think he’s wrong on some fundamental issues. But I believe he is honest and independent.”

If Obama is “wrong on some fundamental issues,” why can’t McKinnon continue working for McCain, with whom McKinnon agrees on those issues?

Silly me. I forgot that politics isn’t about fundamental issues; it’s about red-meat "attack" ads, distortions, innuendos and smears.

I'm guessing that McKinnon has concluded that he wants no part of the Republicans’ strategy against Obama.

Which raises the question of why McKinnon presumably would have stuck with McCain if Hillary Clinton were the Democratic nominee. Is it somehow OK to tear down Hillary? If so, why?

The Times story is laced with hedging and fudging. Take this line: “Mr. McKinnon had told friends, and some journalists, that he did not want to be part of a hard-fought campaign against such an historic candidacy.”

Not part of a “hard-fought campaign”? What did he want, a half-hearted, leisurely campaign conducted from the Bahamas?

No, “hard-fought” is political code for “smear.”

And what does history have to do with it? McKinnon had told Cox that an Obama presidency would “send a great message to the country and the world.”

Did McKinnon not want to be remembered by history for waging a racist campaign against a black man capable of bearing such a great message? Could the “race card” be what McCain’s “strategists” are preparing to deal? Maybe McKinnon thought it was OK to go after Clinton because she and her “strategists” are using the same tactics against Obama.

Sounds to me as if Mr. McKinnon was having gastrointestinal problems during McCain “strategy” sessions. Maalox wasn’t working. It was time to invoke last year's vow.