Do Women Get It? Not Enough of Them.

Every candidate running for political office is by definition flawed. After all, they’re human. It comes with the territory.  Still, just as the excitement in supporting a candidate can mask obvious imperfections from that supporter, so also the scrutiny applied to a candidate can magnify or even concoct imperfections a voter might not even have considered.

The higher the office sought, the more we get of both – adoration and imperfection.  There’s nothing new and nothing different regarding the candidates that are in the arena this political season.  Therein lays the importance of listening and reading what the candidates actually say and less about what is said or written about them. 

Unfortunately most of the American electorate goes to the polls with that homework incomplete. Such promotes an entrenchment of opinion that leaves Presidential elections pretty much decided by a handful of people in a handful of states. 

However, this Presidential Election is different…or at least it should be.

Without regard to policy differences, party loyalties, temperaments, history, or personality quirks there is one monumental difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – gender. Trump writes off the difference like it was just another card in a campaign poker deck – the woman card he pronounces it.  Clinton has only just started to address this reality.

The fact that a woman is running for the Presidency of the United States, representing one of the two competing political parties, is more than a big deal…it is a mammoth, colossal, gigantic, enormous deal.  It is even more consequential than Obama’s historic ascension to office as an African American, and it impacts the entire world. That it is being given short shrift is driving me nuts.

The subjugation of women has its origins at least beginning with recorded history, who knows before that.  Since that time women have been the chattel of men and still are throughout much of this planet’s civilizations.  Vast population centers in the Far East, India, Central Africa, the Middle East, and underdeveloped social pockets frozen in time still engage in total control or even misogynistic behavior toward women as an acceptable standard.

Enlightened “free” nations, notably in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, tout their record of equality between the genders.  Oh really?  Women were barely allowed to even participate in the governing process until well into the last century, despite that they represented more than half of all nations.

The US, considered by “patriots” the most freedom loving of all, has been a bulwark in resisting equality for women throughout its history. To this day Conservatives fight the transition to female equality on the floors of nearly every legislative body in the land, refusing to address or outright opposing economic and health care discrepancies.

In the US Congress today women represent less than 20% of both the House and Senate.  There are only 5 elected female governors, and state legislature percentages are equally dismal. This is not an accident or simple choice.  It is caused by a restriction of opportunity and historical inertia.

The gender deficit in business is appalling in the US, yet that fact is consistently delivered as ho-hum news. What does it take in this Country to embrace the fact that human social development regarding the equality of women is far from complete?  Why is it so easy to ignore the obvious?

The head scratching part for me is that the problem is not gender specific. It is not just Conservative men that want to retain the status quo. A significantly large subset of women in the US is indifferent to Clinton becoming President or opposes the idea because she is a woman!! I am not making this up.

“I’m not crazy about Trump, but I’m not going to vote for that Hillary” said a woman I know in her late 60s (who I happen to like a lot). “Why?” I asked. “I can’t see her as President.” she answered “She’s too conniving.” Conniving??  Clinton conniving, Trump not?

Donald Trump is a fool, with a dangerous narcissistic personality disorder.  However, he gets a pass from a major segment of the American electorate, including a wide swath of women. Why? He does because he sells his persona as the authoritarian male.  Frankly, it is a dated model that in recent decades has had little success and needs to be put out on the village green, like an old Sherman Tank, as an historical relic.

Why are women in the United States so tacitly accepting of the suppression of women around the world?  You attack that repressive and discriminatory behavior by seeking to eliminate it in the culture you live in.
 
Every woman in the US should start with the assumption that she is going to vote for Hillary Clinton if only because she is a woman, then build the case why Trump is the better choice (good luck with that). 

I have four granddaughters, the oldest only three, and I will only consider them growing up in a nation where they view their opportunities at any level to be no different from their male counterparts.  A female American President is a giant step in that direction, and the time to take that step is now.

Another Perfect Storm

In my gym’s locker room a fellow, I’d say in his 40s, was spouting off about radical Muslims being a universal scourge as he related it to the killings in Orlando. He didn’t use the term radical  but I’m “sure” he meant it.  Given his further pronouncement that if the other patrons in that nightclub had been armed the tragedy wouldn’t have happened I could guess he wasn’t a Hillary supporter.

It was an interesting and perhaps predictable encounter given that I had watched Morning Joe (MSNBC) earlier, while on the treadmill, seeing the blanket coverage on the shooting was almost entirely on Isis, based only that the killer had apparently made verbal reference to the “Islamic State”.  The topic was enhanced, of course, by inane rhetoric from Donald Trump.

It is entirely disturbing to me that politicians, the news media, and nut jobs like the nice fellow in the locker room can so blithely focus on a single issue when the horrific event that precipitated the news is so obviously more complex.  However, even within its complexity it can be dissected, primarily because of the similarities that have occurred in so many other like events.

There are (at least) four factors that create the perfect storm for man-made, violent tragedy on any scale, not just a large massacre as what occurred Sunday morning.  It’s too bad we seem to only pay attention to the big catastrophes.  Perhaps though, as in this most recent heartbreak, it can be more easily illustrated:

First. In any society there is a lunatic fringe, and in a society of 330 million that number is not small.  This is irrefutable and unchangeable.  Mitigating this reality is an issue of health care. To the extent a free society does nothing to make health care readily available and accessible to the society as a whole then we do little to nothing in addressing the malady. 

Mentally ill individuals will often attach their twisted thoughts and actions to external events to carry out anti-social behavior.  To attack the external circumstance as a way to curb mental behavior is misguided and unproductive.  Perhaps Trump would have us ban marriage and cohabitation in order to curb domestic violence.

Second. The hate that has its origins in the fear individuals have of people not like themselves is too often buried under simplistic rhetoric.  This hate and fear is quite different from the natural tendency that all humans share in their desire to gravitate toward other individuals who they feel are like themselves.  It is a fear of loss of identity which they are taught, at a young age, is being perpetrated by people who are different.

There is now coming out some evidence that this Orlando killer was himself a latent homosexual.  True or not, it would make sense that the pervasive hate that Conservative, often religious, homophobes broadcast (remember, Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on gays) is consuming for some, and in the lunatic fringe dangerous. Add to that the conflict of one such individual unable to reconcile his own homosexuality in that toxic atmosphere and it becomes explosive.

That kind of hate pervades Conservative America and it takes generations to purge.

Third. What is the simplest way to make a mentally ill, dangerously hateful individual into a catastrophic living time bomb?  Well…how about giving him a semi-automatic assault rifle with, say, several 30 round magazines?  Yeah, I think that’ll do it.

Even the conservative nut cases that think (as per Trump) that Hillary Clinton is single handedly going to erase the second amendment to the Constitution and collect the 350 million guns that are awash in America know, at some level, the folly of their concern.  Further, the liberals who believe they can somehow legislate instant retraction of gun violence know, at some level, they are blowing sweet nothings across desert air.

Those foolish yet seemingly intractable positions need a champion to address the real problem; that the United States needs to change its collective attitude toward guns. It needs to change, not to eliminate what we’re currently experiencing in both mass and minor gun violence, but for the next generation, or possibly the one after that.  The die of what we experience now was cast at least two generations ago.

We do need legislation (sorry Trumpsters), but even as we begin to make changes that everyone hates (for Conservatives too much, Liberals to little) we start to alter the national perception of what gun ownership means.  Perhaps my grandchildren will become adults who will find it queer that any civilian should want to own a high capacity assault rifle, and within that generation there will be mentally ill adults who will, not surprisingly, feel the same.

Fourth, and lastly. The least important, yet the most media grabbing is the evolving reality of Terrorism.  The major problem with Terrorism is the collective inability to understand and disseminate the definition of it.

Terrorism is the manufacture of either a threatened or actual act of violence which creates a reaction disproportionate to its actual threat.  Unfortunately, the only combating of and victory over terrorism is not to be terrorized.   That statement should not be viewed as silliness or stupidity.  No act of Terrorism in the US to date, including 9/11, has directly affected government or business in any significant way, nor posed a threat to any one given American greater than swimming pools or ladders.

In 2004 John Kerry made the statement during his Presidential bid that this Country had to reduce terrorism down to an acceptable level.  He was viciously lambasted by a wide swath of voters, including Democrats.  Acceptable?  Yes, he was correct.  The more we view terrorism, domestic or international as a problem to be solved (not a war to be won), like car safety or infant mortality or drug overdose or whatever, the more we neuter the perpetrators. 

The Donald Trumpsters in this Country feed Terrorism. It’s like we all lived in some kind of Terrorist Jurassic Park, knowing some of the beasts are going to escape (because we’re shown the trailers).  They ignore their illnesses, they supply them with weapons, and they perpetuate their hateful objectives.  As a result they keep multiplying, the carnage doesn’t end, and the anxiety has no limits.

Trump Prediction

I’m not one to publish predictions.  Speculate yes, publish no. More than seven months ago I predicted that Tim Kaine would be named as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in this year’s election.  I’m still feeling pretty good about that one.  Yet, as far flung as that one might have seemed then, making predictions about Donald Trump is probably even more precarious. 

It seems the national media grinder has been engaged in endless predictions about the Donald since he entered the race only to end up incorrect and with the facial egg treatments to prove it. The atmosphere has been more like a game show than political analysis.

That said, I’m going to throw my prognostication into the ring anyway. I can’t help it, though in my case I base my prediction not on some in-depth understanding of political science, but rather on a simple (albeit non-professional) understanding of human behavior. Here it is:

For personal reasons I am somewhat familiar with the psychological condition known as a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).  The characteristics of this disorder, in part or in whole, are not uncommon.  However, when the characteristics of this disorder seriously impact both the psychological and physical well being of an individual, or those around them, it is relatively rare.

The conclusion that the “disorder” actually exists in an individual really requires diagnosis by a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist.  Of course that requires that the individual with NPD submit to treatment, which the condition itself makes unlikely.

 Frankly, in my layman’s opinion (and because of it) I believe Donald Trump has a NPD. It may be based only on the common-man axiom of; walks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., but I feel it is close enough that to consider otherwise could be catastrophic for the Nation or the entire World…wow! Really??

Here are the characteristics of NPD that I pulled off the Mayo Clinic website. Other sites post characteristics that are essentially identical:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

Picture Donald Trump and read each one of these characteristics again. Can it get any closer?

Okay, there is a really scary part to this and, I believe, an interesting reason not to find it frightening.

The scary part is that the individual with NPD cannot psychologically take responsibility for his or her actions that are in conflict with the condition. In other words, if something goes wrong they cannot see their role in the problem or failure.  Bold face lies are standard fare.

As such they can become paranoid, looking to blame others for the predicament. In failure to find others to accuse (which is likely) they create imaginary villains. That’s where things get really dicey.  Existing in someone with power is dangerous, in a President….well; I don’t even want to go there.

So what is the not-so-frightening aspect of Donald Trump having NPD?  That’s where my prediction comes in.  I am predicting, at this point a full 6 weeks before the Republican Party Convention, that Donald Trump will not be his party’s nominee.

I believe Trump is already showing an inability to cope with the criticism being leveled against him.  His responses are becoming increasingly defensive and erratic.  All of us would have a problem with this, but for someone with a NPD it is like a poison IV, literally.  I am predicting that Trump will find someone, something, or a combination of both as a reason why he has no choice but to drop out of the race.

If I’m wrong is my prediction dead?  Not really. If his ego is sufficient to carry himself into the general election, then I further predict he will drop out of the general election before November for the same reason, to avoid the highly public pain and erratic behavior associated with having a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 
 
What will that mean? If my predictions are correct it will be political dynamics that even the most fanciful writer for reality TV could never dream up. But if they try, I’m sure the Donald will audition for the lead role.