It Could Get Dangerous

I am trying desperately to ignore the “Trump transition” just to have a brief period of peace, but it is getting so, so hard to do. Restricting my news consumption to NPR didn’t help. One of the latest news blurbs violently tipped me from my lotus position.

Trump decided to have a “summit” meeting with television news executives and on-air news personalities (TV news anchors and reporters with high exposure).  He demanded that the meeting be off-the- record, and, for reasons I cannot fathom, they agreed to it. When I heard this I felt foundation cracking beneath my feet.

There are exactly two things that comprise the bedrock of American Government as a successful long term social design, at least if success is defined within the context of world history. They are (1) the making of open and free speech sacrosanct, and (2) the establishment of and faith in an independent Judiciary.  I don’t know how many legs hold up the American “stool”, but either one of those two go and the whole thing falls into something else.

The meeting was unprecedented and rightfully so. It had never happened before because it should never have happened in the first place. For a President or President-Elect to hold such a private meeting is, literally by definition, intimidation of a free press, even if all they talked about was Thanksgiving recipes.

As it happened (as leaked) they didn’t talk recipes, instead the news people were lectured to by both Trump the bad cop then Trump the good cop. He first expressed his displeasures with the news media singling out specific people , then showed them how fair he was (it was leaked that he said he “likes Obama”….please). It all had shades of The Apprentice.

That Trump would want to do something like that is no surprise. It is quite consistent with his modus operandi and reality TV mentality. What is so surprising is why these news media people agreed to the terms this government mogul set. Why, why, why would any of them agree to an off-the-record meeting?  

For God-Sakes…these are news people! They, if anyone, should know the importance of the public not being shielded from how it (the public) is to receive information. In case anyone noticed, some television news networks didn’t even report on the meeting, nor commented on it when someone else brought it up in an interview.

This all harkens back to my previous post that the Trump Administration is on track to become the most opaque in history, possibly run by someone who is isolated and mentally unstable. If Trump goes to war with free speech (hell, he’s already attacking Saturday Night Live and Broadway) then the uncertainty of what is making our Government tick could become a cancer.

How could this create havoc? Economically it could hurt, but the reality is the President has limited power over the Economy directly, except for his inability to successful react to crises and thwarting progressive change.  It is internationally where Trump’s isolation could make this world a different place.

The goal of Terrorists is simple. There are no conquering Armies in the extreme Islamic world to march over nations like 12^th century Mongols. They seek through individual actions the disruption of Western society. They don’t care how or what it leads to, just that it happens. Their end game is irrational because their ideology is irrational. They have to love the idea of an American President that has the potential of being so malleable.

How do you think they (terrorists) might deal with an unstable American President who has his name in huge letters on 33 buildings around the world? How would Trump react to an assault on him personally?  How are the American people going to know about how they are being led when the press and news media are shut off from the President’s administration? When his primary concern is his own financial empire, how would he act in response? Who would pay the price?

The news media cannot abandon the American people. They should overtly back the First Amendment to the Constitution by publically and aggressively demanding transparency of the Trump Administration, and attacking disinformation. Not enter into his Tower with their tails between their legs. If, God-forbid, Trump and his Republican Senate can pack the judiciary with beholding individuals, it could blind the American people for decades.

Kum Ba Yah? I Think Not

Via social media I was directed to an uncharacteristically serious soliloquy by Stephen Colbert given the evening of (what will forever be known as) The Election. He, of course, was trying to publicly react to this event for which humor had no place.  For him, like many, many people, the election of Donald Trump had been elevated to the level of tragedy.

His presentation was similar to other statements by well know people, including Obama and Hillary herself, but with equal or better eloquence and some attempts at distraction. He chose to accept and look beyond The Election, reflecting with remorse on a divided America and encouraging hugs for your politically erstwhile neighbors. 

They all sounded to me like kum ba yah moments, directed at those who are limping through the various stages of mourning.

These comments are not much different than claims consistently made by politicians through election cycles, albeit with less gut retching incredulity. Even Donald Trump has claimed to be the one guy to pull everyone together. Fortunately for Trump, according to him, he’s loved by everyone, so perhaps his task is less challenging.

I felt the same when John Kerry lost his bid for the Presidency.  With a son in Iraq I was truly devastated when the Nation decided not to change course. Yet I still felt that we could move on without fear to change the future even if it wasn’t going to happen in the following year.

I’m sorry, but this time it’s different.  Kum ba yah won’t cut it.  Buckle your seatbelts for we are in for a rough ride.  We’ve just forced the pilot to parachute out and turned over controls of the plane to the loud mouth guy sitting up in first class, whose most accomplished skill is hitting a flight attendant’s butt with smoked almonds.

Still, it is entirely possible that The Donald may, in fact, bring everyone together for we all sit in the same plane, Conservatives, Liberals and Independents alike.  We may all learn that there is nothing that brings people together like the communal fouling of breeches.

There are two aspects to Donald Trump and, therefore, his Presidency to look for, both of which I have repeatedly brought up in this blog. Each is a dominant characteristic, likely uncorrectable, and capable of profound National disturbances.  Other than duck and cover I don’t know how Americans are to prepare.

One of the few honest and accurate claims Trump has made about himself, maybe the only one, is that he is unpredictable.  He views that as a virtue, and in certain circumstances he has probably used that characteristic to his advantage. However, for the new job he assumes next year that lack of predictability will have far reaching negativity.

If Conservatives think they can predict that he will respond to their issues with vigor I believe they will be more than mildly surprised.  Trump was never a Conservative ideologue.  He is a free floating pragmatist.  The press and the pundits will be spending their time trying to apply meaning to his last action or statement.  He might support the fight against climate change one day and the next advocate a return to coal fired electrical plants. There will be no wall, but immigration…who knows? I wouldn't be the least surprised if his nomination for the Supreme Court was Merrick Garland.

The problem, of course, is that the world, especially finance and business, runs on some semblance of predictability. As time goes by markets will suffer badly and the economy will face puzzling challenges, inflation for one as currency markets are destabilized.

It will be much like a busy intersection where the red, green, and yellow lights change at random times and in random order. There will be accidents.

Internationally that kind of uncertainty creates its own set of problems, even dangers. There will be insurgent aggressiveness on the part of immerging powers such as Russia and China.  Without the stabilizing effect of the US, the European Union could slide back further (post Brexit) into its own nationalistic isolationism causing its dissolution.  NATO and the United Nations will both be made less relevant if not actually neutered.   

There is no way to underemphasize the importance of reasonable predictability in a world of uncertainty. Without it the result is chaos. If Trump actually performs as promised, he will lower the flaps and our plane will take a 45 degree nose dive toward Mother Earth.

The second, equally scary, aspect of President-elect Trump is that he has a clinical narcissistic personality disorder.  I mean that.  He is not like someone with that problem, he has the condition.  That means, among other things, he cannot accept responsibility for his actions which result in something other than (his concept of) personal success, and he must overtly find someone or something else as the cause.

There are numerous characteristics to this disorder, but for a President there is one (not to be puny) that trumps them all: paranoia…spiked with delusion. 

The American Presidency is like a line that connects a bunch of dots, each dot being a crisis. Given that Trump, through no fault of his own, has virtually no experience running a small bureaucracy let alone one as massive as the most powerful nation and biggest economy on the planet. Remember, all his experience was within his own little fiefdoms.  To use a metaphor; he hired and fired at will and whim. Bottom line is he is going to screw up either by his own choice or by choosing the poor advice of the incompetents he may surround himself with.

The buck will not stop with him.

He will begin to blame anyone and everyone around him or take unprecedented actions against institutions like the Press. That will distance him from members of his Administration which will intensify his irrational fears of, for example, conspiracies against him. The only exceptions will probably be his children. It is no accident that this man who claims that everyone loves him has no real friends, as has been published. The dangers of this condition in a President with extraordinary powers are frightening, much of which we may not know until it’s too late.

The opaque nature of his Presidency will make the Nixon Administration look like Saran Wrap.    

I for one am quite glad that he has already announced that his three older children and son-in-law are to join him in managing his Administration. They may be the only bulwark that keeps him from running amuck or doing something cataclysmic due to his own isolation.

Both these interpretations of a Trump Presidency sound horrific…because they are.  The end results could vary widely.  If we’re lucky he’ll decide to be a one term President, which would be consistent with his personality. We would not have to face his being President and running for office simultaneously…just think about that in the context of what we just experienced. Hopefully we can get out of this tunnel without avalanches at either end.

For Stephen Colbert: well with Trump and notables such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christy, and Sara Palin as the flight crew, we should have a few chuckles even if the plane never reaches the tarmac. Just don’t let Trump see you laughing. 

Sorry Bernie

With hindsight it is not difficult to make the argument that Bernie was correct back in the spring. He did have a better chance to win the Presidency than Hillary Clinton. Even considering the beating he would have taken as a “Communist” and “anti-Capitalist” for his ridiculous need to label himself, I now truly believe that Trump could not have cast a big enough shadow over him had Sanders been his opponent.

The populism that supported Bernie would have more than cancelled out Trump’s bizarre following.  That fact could be seen during the primaries, but I still didn’t support Bernie though I liked him and what he stood for…a lot.  I favored Clinton over Sanders because I thought Bernie was too old, a factor that really has no intrinsic substance.  I thought his claims to Socialism to be too toxic and unexplainable to an undereducated Nation. I felt he didn’t have the depth of international experience as did his opponent.

However, the main reason I supported Hillary over Bernie was because she is a woman, and I personally believe America is woefully late in putting real teeth into what has been to date lip service in dealing with gender inequality. Besides, male political leaders over recent decades have generally failed miserably and I don’t discount testosterone as being an underlying cause.

No do-overs unfortunately.  Sorry Bernie…sorry America.

I have to consider why I was so wrong to let head overrule my heart. I saddled up to the TV election night figuring I was going to watch the New England Patriots play the Virginia Cavaliers and I had happily bet my granddaughters’ futures on the Pats.  Here are, to my mind, the six primary reasons I lost my bet (in ascending magnitude)

6) Abortion. It was barely touched by either campaign but a continuing loser for Progressive Democrats. They fail to understand that there are tens of millions of Christian Conservatives who vote on this issue alone, virtually blinding them to anything else. Pro-choice advocates continually fail to see the common ground and validate the emotions of those who believe there is political solution to this issue.  Hillary was no different.

5) James Comey and the FBI. As the election ended up extremely close (60,000 votes switched in the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and probably Michigan would have changed the outcome) it is perfectly reasonably to claim that Comey’s editorial rant against Hillary in July and his late October letter, which caused speculation on post-election indictments of a President-elect Clinton, was clearly enough to either sway large numbers of voters, keep them from the polls, or motivate them to vote against Clinton. No single individual did more to elect Donald Trump than James Comey...period.

4) The Media. Perhaps the nearly comical irony is that Trump riled against a Media that was the major supporter of his campaign. Seeking cash producing ratings gave Donald estimated $billions of free coverage. Bad or good was irrelevant.  There was so much coverage that no one idiotic bumble by Trump could have an impact. After a while all anyone really heard was the Trump name, which of course has been the secret to his lifetime success (not having to hear that name after November 8^th was my single biggest glee of anticipation). 

Do you remember the virtually insane insistence that he saw thousands of (supposed) Muslims in(specifically) Jersey City, NJ cheering as the NY Trade Center buildings went down on 9/11? It never came up again by Democrats, media, or otherwise.  Why? When the media publishes hundreds of similar statements, or when Politifact burns more pants on Trumps account than there are pants at Macy’s, it all becomes a blur…to Trumps advantage.

Had the 38 year old Fairness Doctrine not been jettisoned by Reagan in 1987 this one sided coverage would never have happened.

3) The polling and prognosticators. There is a lesson in here that will hopefully surface by the next national election.  What national polling did this year made me wake up November 9^th feeling personally violated.  The reasons why the polling was so wrong deserves its own analysis, but the impact of inaccurate polling I cannot understate here.

Two weeks before the election the media analysis of polling was speculating on a Clinton landslide.  There is no way you can go, especially with voting already underway in many states, from landslide to loss without there being incompetence.  The effects are huge. It kept away unenthusiastic Clinton votes because they viewed it as a done deal, it motivated moderate Trump supporters just to make their own statement.  There was undoubtedly a “Brexit” style vote where people voted for Trump to register their protest of (whatever) because they were confident from the polling that the nut case would never be elected.

2) The Clinton Campaign.  Perhaps over time we will learn who the prime mover was, but the Clinton Campaign was ill-conceived and poorly executed.  They were handed possibly the most undesirable and easily beatable opponent one could conceive.  They then proceeded to feed the beast and starve themselves.

The character and nature of Trump was baked in and out of the oven by the end of his Keystone Cops convention.  Still, the Clinton Team spent (I’m guessing) 90% of the rest of their campaign arguing what everyone already knew.  They failed to see that the extensive history that Hillary had, good and controversial, needed to be told…and sold.  They really never fought to give us reasons to vote for Hillary. 

In the 2^nd and 3^rd debates she should have dismissed Trump outright and not brought up a single negative, rather to focus on issues and national pride.  Even though she was considered the “winner” each time, I felt disappointed and nervous.  She won the anti-Trump vote, but she never sealed the deal on the “for Hillary” vote. The fact that she is personally a mediocre campaigner made that essential.

So what is my number 1 reason?  Simple. The main reason Hillary lost was because she is a woman…it’s just that uncomplicated.  Change that one fact, with all other things being equal, and “Mr.” Clinton wins. If Trump had fouled up his email to no consequence it would fallen to number 783 of all the reasons to reject him. This is obvious by the immediate facts of the election but over time will become more obvious.  This Nation is currently not ready to see women as leaders and that attitude is true for both American men and women.  The ramifications of this reality have their own trajectory in business, but opponents are gaining ground. It still lags, though, in Government and certainly lags compared to the rest of the Western World.  You’ll find it far more consistent in places like Russia and China.

As I’ve written before in this blog, the real problem with this issue is not men. The problem is American women. There is a view primarily among those pre-Vietnam and baby boomer generations that being a feminist is essentially un-feminine.  They are unable to see or perhaps even accept the changes that are taking place in our societies, or they are often guided by antiquated religious dogma.  Therefore, they consider the issue of gender inequality as it affects them, rather than to think of it as they look down at their daughters and/or granddaughters.  I am profoundly sadden to believe that at age 67 I might not live to see an American woman become President and Commander-in-chief.  It may have to wait until half the baby boomers have passed on or living on Ensure IVs.

To think that I’ve got Donald Trump instead is nothing but proverbial salt in the wound…and plenty of it.