A Tale of Two Geniuses

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, the Michael Wolff tell all book on the inner workings of the Trump White House tops the best-seller list and, at face value, seems to confirm all the worst fears of the Trump resistance. What's less than clear is how much of Wolff's work should be passed off as gossip and how much is fact. Wolff has faced some controversy around the accuracy of the some content but some of the most damning quotes against Trump came from former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon who has apologized for some but denied none of them.

In the end, it is Trump himself that has given the book the most credence by replying to the questions it raises about his mental fitness in a way that gives anyone pause to question his mental fitness:

....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

The label of stable genius with which Trump brands himself is too close to Wile E. Coyote's self proclamation of super genius not to be found ironic and comical. Yet there really is nothing comical about Trump or his administration.

While the sensational highlights of the book has captured public attention the past week, the Trump administration continues its malevolent march into history. Thursday, the administration unveiled a plan to open vast new stretches of federal waters to oil and gas drilling going against decades of bipartisan agreement to the contrary. On Friday, federal immigration officials said they will proceed with the deportation of an Ohio man who is the sole provider and trained medical caregiver of a 6-year-old paraplegic boy.

The former continues the doctrine of pillaging the planet for profit Trump notably began with the Paris climate accord withdrawal. The latter continues the deliberate torture of individuals Trump sanctions at the hands of the common thugs into which he has transformed agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The values demonstrated by those two decisions do not reflect those of much of the nation but they were enacted by the man rightfully elected president. Or were they? The most concerning question raised by the Wolff book may not be about the President's mental fitness to govern but rather, while Trump flails about in a childlike manner, who is actually drafting and executing policy?

Fire and Fury purports Senate Leader Mitch McConnell allegedly saying, “He (Trump) will sign anything we put in front of him.” However, during the press tour for the book Wolff also said of the administration, "the train will hit the wall." It's easy to believe the cabal of GOP leaders are deliberately trying to squeeze as much loot out of the country for their rich contributors before the end of the line. Trump and his disorganized band of ideologues and lackeys provide the perfect cover.

Trump finds himself in a spot familiar to that of fellow genius Wile E. Coyote. The latter is no stranger to train wrecks. Two geniuses, one a cartoon, the other a coyote. Both have illusions of grandeur destined to fail, often being out thought and out maneuvered by those around them.

Beep Beep.

A Happier New Year

It's the end of the year 2017 and what a year it's been. During the last two weeks much has taken place that will cement a future of more of the same for those disenfranchised enough to have voted for Donald Trump and the Republicans. To be fair, the working class men and women that represent the populist Trump movement are not entirely responsible for the reward, or lack thereof, they will reap. After all, there were not enough of them for Trump to win the popular vote. No, the Republican tax bill passed last week is a gift to the Donald and the rich GOP white men that authored it on behalf of their even richer donors. It was the one percent constituents, not the working class, that got a big return on their investment in the for-sale public servants they purchased. 

Those that voted Trump should take note that the tax legislation has nothing to do with guns, abortion, immigration, or any of the other hot button issues that Trump populists speak of when talking about their man. The bill doesn't bring coal jobs back or raise wages. It doesn't improve education or public infrastructure. Instead, Trump's single legislative accomplishment lines the pockets of the rich, strips healthcare from the poor, and expands the divide between the haves and have nots to a size not seen before in American history.

Those realities will go unnoticed by the average Trump supporter and that blindness is the only fact that matters when it comes to the public discourse. Given all that's happened in 2017, it's clear that once a Trump supporter, always a Trump supporter. This constituency has made a conscious choice to deny fact and ignore reason. They have woven a low information fairy tale where distrust is king and reality has no place. There will be no happy ending to this grim (not Grimm) fairy tale yet there is no reasoning with pro-Trump protagonists over the why.

So, as 2017 comes to a close, Trump is still the president and the GOP is still unchallenged as it divides and loots the country. What's next? It's a question that I've spent time wrestling with for weeks. It would be very easy to cut and run. From a personal perspective, the tax bill won't hurt me nor will the healthcare mandate repeal.  While I'm certainly not the one percent, I'm comfortable enough that even if this bill costs me more I won't feel the pain. It would be easy to sit back and say, "I told you so" once the inevitable pain does hit working class Trumpers.

However, 2017 has been all about incivility and as easy as the I told you so defense would be it does not represent the kind of person any of us should aspire to become. It mirrors the vindictive, reprehensible behavior of the president and the worst of his supporters. In 2018, there is still hope. There is hope that a majority of Americans believe we are better than Donald Trump. There is hope that the large percentage of eligible voters that sat out in 2016 will choose differently in 2018. We may not be able to change Trumpers' minds but we also don't need to debase ourselves to affect a change away from the ugliness they've embraced.

I hope the promise of 2018 does not wind up being my own fairy tale. I simply don't know what the future will bring but wish us all a happier new year.

America Censored

This list of atrocities committed by the Trump administration is nearly as long as the list of excuses the low information voters that continue to support him use in pathetic attempts to justify the unjustifiable. Those excuses are often laced with the word "freedom", at times purporting Trump's defense against some mythical deep state conspiracy. Turns out, Trump himself may be leading something of a deep state conspiracy to censor the dissemination of scientific information to the American public.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the Center for Disease Control was prohibited from using the following seven words in preparation of materials for the FY19 budget: vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based and science-based. It's easy to draw lines from those words to issues that Trump has taken a position against but unfathomable that in America words tied to those issues be banned.

Since the initial report, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, said the reported decree on banned words was a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process. CDC director Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald tweeted Sunday there are no banned words from the agency's vocabulary.

Mischaracterization or not, even the suggestion the administration is attempting to use ambiguous language to advance a political agenda is concerning. The implications of such a move jumps to  terrifying when the target is a non-political agency charged with securing public health. Ambiguity has no place when it comes to addressing threats to the public health. Delivering anything short of specific, evidence-based information puts lives at risk.

The Trump administration has a demonstrated history blatant of censoring facts that do not support its policies. The words climate change and global warming have been disappearing from government websites since January. This simple censorship exercise has been executed with the aplomb of Trump's boss Vladimir Putin across no fewer than four federal agencies.

Censorship by the American government is not American. Trump's willingness to use censorship to advance his agenda is further demonstration of an authoritarian style that continues to divide the country at every turn. Censorship or ambiguous language does not change the truth, it merely masks the inevitable discovery of the facts.

That discovery will come for Donald Trump. It may be delivered soon by Robert Mueller or it may be delivered years from now by future historians. Either way, the lies Trump passes off as alternative facts will not stand the test of time.

Accountability Lost

This past week saw two Democratic lawmakers announce they will leave congress after allegations of sexual harassment. Last week also saw President Donald Trump go all in on accused sex offender and pedophile Roy Moore's candidacy to join congress as the junior Senator from Alabama.

Just another week in what has become the most disappointing exercise in democracy in history. The fact that a sexual predator sits in the oval office using the power of the presidency to advocate for the election of another sexual predator is astonishing. Even more astonishing are the closed minded voters in Alabama that have ignored the facts, formed baseless opinions, and, when confronted, utter hypocritical religion laced statements justifying their support of a man who has violated women and children. 

The Democrats, albeit rudderless since the 2016 election, have taken the appropriate steps to sanction the offenders in their ranks. Both Congressman John Conyers and Senator Al Franken have done great things during their respective years of service, the former reaching icon status in the civil rights movement. Their transgressions do not take away the good they've done in public service but the inappropriate behavior of which both men have been accused require their storied congressional careers to come to an end. Without accountability there is lawlessness.

Accountability is not in the Republican vocabulary. The GOP leadership, sans the idiot Trump, is a shrewdly calculating bunch lacking both conscience and character. It's very possible Mitch McConnell has no intention of seating Roy Moore in the Senate should he win Tuesday's election. McConnell may well send Moore packing on the grounds of conduct unbecoming but such drama will be only for show. The true GOP intent is to make sure Democrat Doug Jones does not win even if the cost of attaining that goal requires condoning a pedophile for now. It's all about the end game for Republicans. If Moore wins, the Senate can reject him and rely on the Republican governor of Alabama to appoint a marginally less offensive Republican white male to fill the seat. Win/win for McConnell. Lose/lose for the country.

The wanton disregard the GOP has for the foundational tenants of American democracy is sickening. The justifications provided to excuse reprehensible behavior are abhorrent and the message such behavior sends to generations to come is that greed, ideology, and political victory reign supreme above character, accountability, and democracy.

There is a place in America for those that believe in conservatism. Yet those conservatives that identify themselves as members of today's Republican party or supporters of Donald Trump are anything but American. They are characterless, complicit, ideologues split between the rich leaders that are driven by greed and the disenfranchised angry masses looking to blame others for their woe. It's a toxic circle where the increasing wealth of the former is directly proportional to declining prosperity of the latter.

The masses would be advised to look inward and upward. You are accountable for your woe as evidenced by the human garbage you've abandoned all moral compass to follow.

A Handmaid's Tale

Last night, I saw the future and it was terrifying. It was an America where the Constitution had been suspended after a terrorist attack, where the name of God had been used to justify the unjustifiable, where women where subjugated, reproductive rights nonexistent, homosexuality punishable by death, and the powerful procreated in a bizarre ritual where a husband would impregnate a surrogate who was being held in his wife's lap.

Literally, the first thing that came to mind was this is the ideal image of America under a President Pence. It was crafted perfectly, right down to the detail of not being alone in a room with a woman other than your wife. Yet the story laid out in the Hulu production of A Handmaid's Tale well precedes Mike Pence and the President he is eagerly waiting to replace. The Margaret Atwood novel of the same name on which the series is based was written more than 30 years - and that's the scary part. 

First published in 1985 during the Reagan revolution and the birth the modern conservative movement, A Handmaid's Tale demonstrates there were clear signs of what the country could look like if that movement continued unbridled and unchecked. Is America one terrorist attack away from suspending the Constitution and starting on the road to dystopia? In a world where Kim Jong Un continues to test ballistic missiles capable of being zeroed in on the United States and the President continues to become more unhinged on Twitter every day, the scenario is potentially closer than we may want to admit.

Let's also not forget the groundwork the GOP has meticulously laid to justify the unjustifiable. At every turn they have sought to marginalize the LGBT community through discriminatory legislation from the various versions of "bathroom bills" to banning same sex marriage. Women continue to see their right to make decisions about their bodies chipped away by the predominantly white male GOP majority. The evangelical right is fine defending a man like Roy Moore because he stands against abortion despite being a sexual predator on the hunt for children slightly older than a fetus.

The GOP also just put the finishing touches on the setup to pry open the class divide in America to its largest proportion ever by approving the HR 1 tax reform bill just last night. This bill is single purposed. Reward Republican donors that put GOP legislators in office. It was payment for services rendered and has very clear winners and losers. The winners: rich people. The losers: everyone else. 

So what is the possible outcome? Those low and middle class Americans that were angry enough to elect Trump in the first place will retreat further into anger and despair.  The disenfranchised ranks will seek a new charlatan, even more extreme than Trump, to lead the way back to an idealized vision of the past that truly never existed. What they may wind up with will not be the Leave It To Beaver version of the American dream but Margaret Atwood's version of the American nightmare.

The Religion of Voting

"I'm torn between voting for a pedophile and voting for a person who believes in abortion." That's  the take from Mountain Brook, Alabama resident Ellen Tipton on the state's upcoming special election. Tipton and other Alabamans voters gets to pick between conservative Republican Roy Moore, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault, and Democrat Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney, who has been accused of having integrity and a sense of duty by former Vice-President Joe Biden.

Alabama's economy ranks 44th in the nation. It's educational system is 3rd worst, and the state's infrastructure was given a "C-" by the American Society of Civil Engineers. What's unlikely from looking at those numbers is that voting largely on the anti-abortion platform as implied by Tipton is the smart play toward improve anything. However, the evangelical Christian vote in Alabama may do just that and send a man that has allegedly violated women as young as fourteen to Washington as their Senator. What could be more Christian? What could be less American?

Moore has never shied away from ignoring the law to promote his own Christian beliefs. He was twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for ethics violations centered around his enforcement of the bible as the rule of law rather than the Constitution. With thinking like that, Moore has more in common with those that seized power in the Iranian revolution than those we expect to execute jurisprudence in the United States.

Jesus isn't registered to vote in Alabama or anywhere else. It would be better for everyone if others didn't attempt to vote in his name. Jesus was poor, disenfranchised from the system (Rome), and likely bore a resemblance closer to that of Osama bin-Laden than the fair skinned white guy DaVinci and other Renaissance artists portrayed. He also didn't speak English. All of that would have made it hard for him to even register to vote in states like Alabama with restrictive, GOP supported, voter-ID laws.

It's uncertain what Alabamans will do on December 12th. Moore remains defiant in the face of overwhelming calls for his withdrawal. Astonishingly, polls have the candidates within five percentage points of each other. 

It seems asking to keep religion out of the election isn't going to work so maybe leaning into it really is the way to go. God gave mankind freewill. That means the right to make personal choices. Doug Jones supports that fundamental belief. Therefore, the choice voters get is between a person that believes in the the God given right of freewill or a pedophile. Which one is going to stand up when judgement day comes? Pretty sure standing next to Roy Moore that day isn't going to go well. Seems like an easy pick Alabama.

A Year Later

I began writing Read Reid a year ago. It was the week after the 2016 election and America had just hired a failed casino owner and reality TV host to be the 45th President of the United States. I needed a day to day coping strategy that didn't involve bourbon; writing seemed like better therapy.

The year that has elapsed since has been difficult. That was not unexpected but Trumpism has significantly exceeded my lack of expectation. The incivility, partisanship, and ugliness on display in the political arena has stained the fabric that weaves us together. Social media is a cesspool, families have lost the ability to rationally talk to each other about differences. Compromise and empathy have become four letter words. Public discourse starts out loud, turns visceral quickly, and usually panders to the lowest common denominator.

Donald Trump isn't the cause of everything that has turned America sour. The ugly unleashed since last November didn't grow overnight. However, the Trump presidency is a testament to America's failures. The Trump presidency would not exist if America invested in education, infrastructure, and broadening the middle class. The Trump presidency would not exist if the aura of public service wasn't so toxic that qualified individuals run the other direction. The Trump presidency would not exist if Americans congregated into communities that celebrated diversity, equity and inclusion instead of congregating into fundamentalist enclaves celebrating a traditionless set of "traditional values" that most only selectively practice.

But the Trump presidency does exist and the country appears to be vomiting after a year of swallowing its own bile. Two mass shootings resulting in 83 deaths in just over a month, widespread sexual harassment/assault admissions by powerful men, charges in the special prosecutor case against former Trump campaign officials, continued fall out over the racism in Charlottesville, the hurricane in Puerto Rico, and immigration reform are all spewing out at once. Trump isn't directly responsible for everything bad that has happened on his watch but America hurts and Trump has demonstrated no ability to heal.

There have been some glimmers of hope. This year's November elections swung the pendulum a little bit back to the middle with Democratic gubernatorial victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and mayoral victories several major cities. Change will take more than a few Democratic wins. It will take a Democratic commitment to speak to the issues that allowed the Trump presidency to exist. That is a difficult task for a party that still doesn't have a message beyond "anything but Trump."

Yes, it's been a difficult year. More may follow and I don't have a quick fix solution. The best strategy I have is to try and maintain civility in the delivery of my message for change. Not everyone agrees with my point of view and those differences have distanced some friends and family. I welcome any fact based conversation that might bridge that distance. In the end, we still may agree to disagree but we will have done so comparing apples to apples and not Fox News to CNN.

Thus concludes blog entry 46; coming up next...