“Blame It On The Hair Dresser”

It all started the day my wife came home from getting her hair done and told me that her hair dresser voted for Donald Trump.  In the weeks leading up to the election I'd been following the race almost compulsively.  After seventeen years teaching in the public schools I quit my job in late September.  That allowed me the opportunity to devote my every waking hour to the train wreck that was our presidential election.  What a mistake.  I wondered what kind of person would have voted for Trump. Then Jenny told me about Steve.  

Steve's a great guy with a wide range of interests.  He's an engaging conversationalist and a deep listener.  He's also one of the few people with whom I could easily agree to disagree when the discussion came around to politics. And it wasn't even so much that we disagreed as it was that we came to our world views from two very different vantage points.  He's a small business owner and until recently I was in public education.  His driving issues were taxes and the economy while my focus was on education and improving our nation's social safety net.  I never saw him as cold or calculating because his bottom line was his bottom line.  And I hope he never saw me as a naive bleeding heart because my priorities were different.  

We're living in a time when it's almost impossible to hold a conversation with friends and family about the state of our union without it devolving into a shit storm. During the campaign our presidential candidates often looked more like angry feces-fisted howler monkeys than statesmen vying to be leader of the free world.  They've done us a disservice.  We could blame the media but they're just following the story that sells.  We are ravenous consumers of media and we love today's Jerry Springer approach whether or not we like to admit it.  

Much as the mainstream media may have seen the recent election as a two ring circus with Hillary as magician (just watch her hands as those emails disappear before your eyes) and Donald as the sideshow barker drawing in the hayseeds as he promises a glimpse into the wondrous world of his freak show, in hindsight she never stood a chance.  How can a little sleight of hand compete with a whole menagerie of pinheads and regurgitators?

It was all too much.  But as I watched election night unfold it struck me that the rest of the country must have seen something very different.  Where I'd seen Trump as nothing more than a spoiled, mean spirited bully (remember I'd been an elementary school teacher so I had years of experience with bullies) tens of millions saw an agent of change.  

The following is an abridged list of reasons why I think Donald Trump is wrong for America.  I had to get this out.  Unlike our president elect I don't typically think people are stupid because they disagree with me.  It doesn't take a big man to admit his mistakes it just takes an honest one.  

Years ago when I was a union thug at my elementary school I sat down with my principal and we discussed how we would work together.  I shared a favorite quote with her by Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese poet, philosopher and writer who has shaped my own thinking.  "I have no enemies, but if I am to have an enemy let his strength be equal to mine that truth alone may be the victor." So Steve, thank you for pushing me to organize my thoughts on this momentous time in American history.  As always I'm open to the possibility that I'm completely wrong here - for the sake of the country I hope I am.  

Why Beating Mexico Like a Pinata is Wrong

Did you know that Mexico is our third largest trading partner?  According to Wikipedia they are ranked below only Canada and China.  So why would anyone want to jeopardize that valuable relationship?  That's easy:  we need a scapegoat. Despite that fact that immigrants are less likely not more likely to commit crimes Trump obviously struck a chord with the American people on this topic.  There's a reason for this.  America is going to become a majority minority country by mid century and that scares the hell out of white people. They've become convinced by a major party candidate that we need to build a wall to save their daughters from being raped.  

The Obama Administration deported around 2,000,000 undocumented immigrants during his two terms without making an international crisis out of it.  If you're here illegally AND you sell drugs out of a stolen car while grabbing white girls by the pussy I don't have a problem with the deportation process being fast tracked.  But before we call a posse and start the round up I'd like to share a bit of information about our home state that I found well, interesting.  I call this "Cheeseheads and Crackers."

In February a group of Latino community leaders in Wisconsin held a "day without Latinos" in Madison to increase awareness about the contribution of Latinos to the state's economy.  Did you know that nearly half of the state's dairy farm workers are immigrants?  Either did I.  It turns out that while politicians have been spreading manure about immigrants on the campaign trail the immigrants are spreading the actual manure that helps keep our state's most famous industry running.  Without immigrants the only cheese we'd be producing would be the foam cheese heads you see at Lambeau.  

So let's talk about our neighbors to the south.  While we're at it we should also talk about the irony of building a wall to keep Mexicans out of territory that was taken from them by force by us.  What the United States calls the Mexican-American War Mexico calls the U.S invasion.  Sure we stole it from them fair and square in a war that any international tribunal today would characterize as nothing more than an obvious example of naked aggression.  You may think to yourself that happened before the Civil War - that's ancient history.  Well, any God fearing Christian will tell you in these weeks leading up to Christmas that even events from 2,000 years ago are relevant to understanding today's world.

The point is that Mexico is an ally, a neighbor and our third largest trading partner. And while there is always room to renegotiate the terms of that long standing relationship it should be done with grace, dignity and tact.

Yes, He Has a Whole Basket of Them, and Yes They are Deplorable

When Hillary Clinton described a part of Donald Trump's base as a “basket of deplorables” she ignited a firestorm among people she wasn't talking about.  She was referring to the alt-right and Trump is their new standard bearer.  But don't take my word for it.  Just read the headlines from the "Daily Stormer" where Trump is referred to as the "glorious leader."  Or KKKknights.com where you'll find a picture of Trump with the banner "Trump's Race United Our People," emblazoned on the bottom of the page.  

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a civil rights organization that has been tracking hate groups in the United States for nearly half a century.  They've concluded that the nation's extremist groups have rallied behind Donald Trump more than any other major political candidate since the overtly segregationist governor of Alabama, George Wallace ran for president in the 1960s.  It's little wonder that Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News CEO was Trump's campaign manager and is likely to hold a prominent role in the new administration.   Breitbart is the clearinghouse for the deplorables.  From their website you're just a click or two away from swastika sporting frogs with Trump-like orange comb overs.  Even if Trump bows to pressure and removes Bannon the statement has been made:  the alt-right has the ear of our forty-fifth president.  

We shouldn’t even have to say black lives matter.  You wouldn’t think a phrase like that would be controversial or that you’d have to argue in favor of not killing unarmed civilians regardless of their skin color.  Did you know that the White House and the Capitol were both built with slave labor? There has been a black presence in America for four hundred years.  Slaves literally helped lay the foundation for our republic.  And yet white nationalist groups who have wholeheartedly embraced Trump as their voice act as if they have a greater claim to this country than those who came long before them.

I bring this up because I believe Donald Trump and the movement he's spawned are not good for American race relations.  He played a leading role in the "birther" movement which had as its sole purpose degrading our first African American president.  It was mean spirited and completely wrong. His embrace of the alt-right is going to be a major setback for our country that may take a generation or more to overcome.  

Why it’s Wrong to Declare Jihad on Islam

We have this huge statue in New York that's devoted to liberty.  I forget what it's called. Anyway, the statue was given as a gift to the people of the United States by the French who more than a century ago appreciated the role we played in the world as a beacon of hope.  Muslims make up nearly one quarter of the world's population - 1.6 billion people. Trump's proposal to replace that beacon with a stop light threatens to reopen a dark chapter in our history.

In the 1840s and 50s the group was called the Know Nothings (I'm not making that up). The Know Nothings later named themselves the American Party but their platform remained the same:  they were anti-German and Irish Catholic.  History has proven the Know Nothings were correct:  they knew nothing about American tenacity and adaptability.  Today they're little more than an embarrassing footnote in American history.  

In the latter half of the nineteenth century a new menace threatened:  the Chinese.  Despite being recruited and brought to the United States by the thousands to help build the transcontinental railroad our collective fear of the "Yellow Peril" was so great that Chinese immigration was curtailed for decades.  The Chinese literally laid the foundation for the railroad that would bind America's coasts together and transform our country into the economic powerhouse we are today.  But instead of receiving a wholehearted thank you from the American people we shut the door on them.  

During the First World War German Americans were looked upon with suspicion and in the Second World War Japanese Americans were herded into prison camps for the duration of the conflict.  None of these episodes are shining examples of America at its best, and each of them represent times when fear of foreigners clouded our collective judgment. We're on the verge of making the same mistake and Mr. Trump is fanning those flames.  

I understand the fear that millions of Americans must be experiencing.  We are living in turbulent times.  It's a natural reaction to want to circle the wagons and look inward for protection.  But turning our backs on war refugees is not the answer.  If you think that refugee camps are breeding grounds for cholera and dysentery - which they are - then wouldn't you agree that they'd also be an incredibly effective incubator for radicalizing young people scarred by the ravages of war?  What kind of message are we sending to the rest of the world?  Of course we should have a responsible immigration policy.  Of course there should be a thorough vetting process for admittance into the country.  But demonizing one and a half billion people isn't going to make the world a safer place and anyone with any common sense and any real regard for our actual safety would see that.  

This is a good example of a time when we should do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.  But it's also in our best interest strategically.  Nearly one quarter of the world's population is Muslim.  If we alienate and demonize them through our divisive rhetoric we are going to lose them when they could be our allies.  We have a common enemy.  It is the Islamic world that is the victim of extremism.  Trump may think he's found another piñata to hit but this one is a hornets' nest.  Anyone worthy of the office of the president should have the compassion to identify with the plight of the victims of aggression around the world not try to make nice with the aggressors.  Even if Trump is right to think that Russia and the U.S share a common enemy in ISIS the Russians are fueling the refugee crisis in Syria so he's only batting .500.  That's great in baseball but I wouldn't want that success rate for my pilot.  

I'm not an expert on anything but I do believe that even though it's easier than ever to find yourself buried  in bullshit the truth still ought to matter and it's worth pursuing.  I find myself rereading the conclusion of the Atlantic article written before the election titled "Against Donald Trump."  The author noted that Trump is "so spectacularly unfit" to be president that the people "should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent."  The Atlantic is not in the business of endorsing candidates.  In 157 years they'd only done it twice before - and one was Lincoln.  Their credibility is solid to me.   They came to the same conclusion I did and Trump still won.  So where did I go so wrong?

The cornerstone of Donald Trump's candidacy was his assertion that only he could make America great again.  Does anyone genuinely believe that a man who has never shown any regard for the working class people in this country is pursuing our nation's highest office for any reason other than to fuel his own insatiable ego?  Do you really think he is doing this for us?  He's shown such disdain for so many of us that we should start counting who he hasn't offended yet.  He's almost pathologically incapable of admitting blame or showing remorse.  He's exhorted his supporters to turn on the media for daring to verify the veracity of his statements.  

The United States under President Trump is likely to be a very different place than the country I grew up in. I fear history will reveal our greatest days ended when Donald J. Trump rode down the escalator from his penthouse to tell the American people that he had all the answers to the troubles we faced in these admittedly uncertain times . . . and we believed him.

juan w

Next installment:  "How Donald Trump Fracked America"

After that:  "Life in Post-Truth America”