The Last Arrow?

As I was entertained by the film series Lord of the Rings, I would occasionally wonder what the Elf Legolas (played by Orlando Bloom) would do if he ran out of arrows. In at least most of his combat scenes he never did. Just as with the 20 shot 6 shooters of Westerns past, fiction allows the action to continue unabated, with plenty of hope for a positive outcome.

The real world is far less forgiving. As we face continued adversity against progressive ethics, ethics held by a clear majority of Americans, I wonder if the next attempt to solve our problems is our last arrow, or perhaps worse…that the quiver is already empty.

Although Howard Schultz had been floating (at least publicly) the idea of running for President for the past 6 years, given the charged political climate his recent “float” made the kind of news he hadn’t previously received.  Here was a man with a modest sales background who at age 32 got backing to start a coffee shop, then 2 years later rallied those backers to help him buy a Seattle retail business called Starbucks for $3.6 million.

Schultz took a risk, as did his backers, and turned himself and others into billionaires. Good fortune certainly smiled upon him, but arguably his best reasons for success was his positive treatment of employees, mostly low wage and unskilled, and the millions of Generation X’ers and Millennials who were eager to spend their money on high-priced caffeinated foam.

So I’m watching one of his recent interviews where he chuckles, unsolicited, on what a “stupid” proposal Elizabeth Warren made with her pitch to tax the assets of the mega-rich, as opposed to their income. That one response encapsulated for me the dire situation this nation is in. Here was a supposed center-Left multi-billionaire egotist, who touts himself as a fiscal Conservative, wanting to be President so everyone can have the chance to be just like him. Sound familiar?

Since I started this blog 10 years ago I have several time tried to point out the fallacy of dealing with the inequity of wealth in the United States in terms of income. Anyone who has worked in the field of Taxation, as I did, knows that taxation of income is mired with special interests. The tax laws that govern the simple wage earner are not the laws that impact the mega-rich.

Schultz may be a multi-billionaire, but that wealth was not accumulated with after tax dollars. If Mitch McConnell and Republicans have their way with eliminating Transfer taxes (Death taxes as they call them) Schultz’s earnings may never be taxed.

Warren’s proposal, the first I’ve heard elevated to a National level, merely calls for an annual 2% tax on assets over $50 million and 3% on assets over $1 billion.  Sounds simple, right? It would impact less than 3 tenths of 1% (.03%) of the population. It would generate enough revenue to underwrite health care, expand economic growth with needed infrastructure, and retire most of the National Debt in one generation. The assets of the super rich would grow at a measly 3% to 5% instead of the 5% to 7% percent they currently enjoy. Poor babies.

Could this happen? Not likely in today’s America and certainly not in the Republitrump Party.  Money continues to drive our political system and because of an ultra-Conservative Judiciary (thanks to the Republitrump Party) it would probably take a Constitutional Amendment to make it reality. But does it deserve the sarcastic ridicule of a self-proclaimed Progressive (and self-righteous) billionaire?? It certainly does not!

There are tax laws on the books that have already passed Constitutional muster. They are the existing Transfer Taxes (Estate and Gift taxes). Currently they capture tax revenues like a colander collects water, but revamped and strengthened they could turn around wealth inequity in the Country significantly.  Can that happen? It will not without a revolutionary change in the American view of how Government works.

The wealthy generally and Conservatives specifically have successfully turned the term Taxation into a noun found only in hell.  The world we are currently in with its massive populations and enveloping, lightning-fast communications is like no other period in human history. Yet a majority of Americans have been programmed to view collective revenue in Biblical terms. The fact is that Taxation may be the last arrow in the quiver of a free democratic society, if there is an arrow left at all.

When a proposal such as Warren’s is met with disdain by legions of Americans who would never be adversely affected by it, all because it contains the T-word, we are running out of options. They are somehow more comfortable with the Nation’s wealth, held by a select few, simply compounding on itself.

The idea that taxing such wealth would inhibit the “job creators” turns foolish into tragic. You see, the great engine of economic prosperity happens when wealth (assets and income) are primarily in the hands of those willing to take risks, large and small, just as Howard Schultz did, even if that risk is simply to look for a better job, buy a car, or seek an education. Those who have tens of millions or billions of wealth have moved over to the protection/accumulation phase and are primarily interested in reducing their risk.

The great irony is that the mega-wealthy will suffer under the weight of inequity, just as they would be the greatest beneficiaries of a bottom up economy. When 99.97% of Americans hear a proposal like Warren’s they should at the very least ask: why not?

The Case for Reparations

There has been a tussle between Liberals and Conservatives for decades on the question of reparations for slavery in the United States. It has never managed much traction because it has always been relegated to an intellectual debate.

It has been over 15 decades since the ratification of the 13^th Amendment ending slavery, so it is difficult to see how specific losses can be quantified to apply to currently living individuals. At the end of the American Civil War there were approximately 4 million freed slaves. The current estimate of African-Americans in the US is 46 million.  How do you do the math?

In fact, it is too simplistic to look at the great American stain of slavery and assume that there is some means by which the Nation as a whole could compensate its way out of that shame. Further, there are virtual armies of Conservatives who view individuality as having no historical foundation. They believe that any given person has the potential wherewithal and opportunity to lift themselves to social and fiscal success.  No social help necessary and certainly not with their tax dollars.

Liberals who see reparations as only fair are stymied by how to distribute such largess and are muted by questions on how such reparations would be used. No wonder. The problem is that the injury cost is viewed, and often attempted to be calculated, based on what was essentially stolen (i.e. freedom) prior to 1865. The big mistake is believing that something could get repaired today by simply throwing money at it.

Yet here we are, still a segregated society. Too many Black Americans continue to occupy a sub-culture which includes a disproportionally large segment of the lower middle class and poverty portions of our Nation. Black Americans populate a highly disproportionate segment of an incarceration “system” that is nearly as shameful today, by worldwide standards, as slavery was 155 years ago.

One can travel nearly anywhere in this Country (and everywhere in the South) where poor, undesirable, or simply “bad” neighborhoods are vocalized synonyms for Black neighborhoods. This fact overflows into schools, perceived crime, and use of public services.  It is the mother’s milk of social Conservatism whether it’s the simple vilifying of the term “welfare” or marching for White Supremacy.

That Liberals want a quick fix is as useless in solving this national conundrum as Conservative’s focus on self-interest.

Where we are today is less a problem of former Slavery than it is about how the Nation (and especially the Southern states) reacted to the end of Slavery. The horrors of hate, terror, incarceration, Jim Crow, Ku-Klux-Klan, and general discrimination notwithstanding, the underlying issue which today creates this great racial divide is primarily economic…and cumulative.

The hostile application of prejudice since the mid-19^th century compromised the economic evolution of Black Americans in two important ways; education and the accumulation of real property (real estate or land).  Today’s white American stands atop a history of education and real property transfers that span literally hundreds of years.  It can be argued that Black Americans can count any equivalent success in a few decades at most. Combine that with our National penchant toward economic inequality across all sectors and there is nothing I see that signals a real change in direction.

Reparations for Slavery? You bet! But even more so for Post-Slavery. However we need to solve the problem, not just pay damages. It will take a generation or even two to bring the Slavery chapter to a close. It would also require politicians not to act in their own pragmatic self- interest, something our Government is ill-equipped to accomplish.

Two “reparations” could be as follows: 1) for the next 50 years (two generations) every Black student would receive tuition-free education to any (non-profit) college, university, or training school simply because they have a Black biological mother or father, and 2) for the next 50 years every adult who had a biological Black parent would have access to a one-time, Government guaranteed mortgage (at the same rate as VA mortgages – no equity needed) and where the only criteria for acceptance is the ability to make monthly payments and that the sales price doesn't exceed appraisals.

The elimination of prejudice is probably impossible.  Human beings will always gravitate toward those for which they feel a common bond.  However, discrimination should be, if not eliminated, fought against as the struggle for our better selves. There is no reason to think that simply adopting preacher elevated ethics will get the job done. When mistakes are made you need to correct them with dollars and sense.

The Writing is No Longer on the Wall

The slow-motion-corrosion of the Trump Organization, the Trump Administration, and Donald Trump himself has not garnered much satisfaction.  Both his opponents and those supporters who drank the Kool-Aid two or more years ago are tired of the speculation. What will the Mueller investigation reveal? How will the Republican Congressmen react?  How aggressive will the Democrats be? It engenders a National equivalent of The Rumble in the Jungle , only without a timeline.

Well, now I feel there is something that is emerging as predictable.

With the recent wrapping up of the Michael Cohen case, along with the immunity granted to AMI Inc and Trump Organization’s chief financial officer (Allen Weisselberg), there is no more doubt that Donald Trump, and possibly his three oldest children, are guilty of a crime: conspiring to and violating campaign finance laws.

Of the variety of speculative crimes that Trump might be guilty of, this paying of hush money to women with whom Trump had engaged in sexual relations while his wife was still nursing his youngest child is at the bottom of the pile.

Important Republicans, Senators and Congressmen alike (no Congresswomen I believe), are already on record with two conclusions: first, “…campaign finance violation? Big deal!” and second, “…why wouldn’t he want to suppress the comments of immoral women? What would any red-blooded billionaire do?” Amazingly these politicians, who so vigorously court the Religious Right, are just fine with the underlying behavior that motivated the crime. After all, it’s just Trump.

Republicans will claim the focus on Cohen needs to be his associated tax and financial violations.  However, the bell cannot be un-rung.  Campaign finance violations are part of Cohen’s conviction and he’s going to be doing three years in prison and paying a couple of million dollars in fines and restitution.  Further, Cohen accusations that Trump personally directed his crime are now backed up by AMI Inc., and it appears the money trail (which constitutes the conspiracy) is going to be revealed by Weisselberg. 

At least on this crime Trump is toast…no more speculation. You can erase those speculations off the wall.

Does that mean it’s full steam ahead to impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate? Don’t hold your breath.  The new Democratic House may be so emboldened, but the Republican Senate would never convict on that alone. Mueller will have to come up with a lot more before that happens.

However, I believe we can confidently begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, namely the end game for The Donald…and quickly.

I think it is likely we will soon see Republicans begin their quest to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020, even before we hear a discouraging word from Robert Mueller.  Flake, Kasich, perhaps Corker and who knows who else. I believe it’s going to happen and because the time frame for mounting a Presidential campaign is so long we should start to hear about it very soon, probably in January 2019.

The result of an insurrection in the Republican Party to de-throne Trump would eliminate him in the summer of 2020, cause him to quit under the threat of losing the nomination, or so split the Party as to make his candidacy, should he get the nomination, the least effective in the history of this Nation.

The thought of it being orange jump-suit time for Donald Trump doesn’t make my Christmas list.  However, the vision of the TRUMP name being removed from buildings around the world is the equivalent of sugar plums dancing in my head.

Merry Christmas

Another Death in Vietnam (revisited)

The following post was published on this blog 20 months ago, less than 70 days after Trump inauguration. It was striking to me how so little has changed since then that I felt compelled to re-publish it:

My brother Bobby was killed in Vietnam. We didn’t know it at the time, for that matter neither did he. It took 43 years for the herbicide that entered his body at age 21 to end his life. The Agent Orange causing the particular lymphoma that killed him was just as reliable as the bullets, bombs, accidents, and illnesses that took the lives of the 58,220 Americans that were recorded as dead “in-country” during that military engagement.

There’s undoubtedly no accounting of what the real number of Americans lost was, any more than the incomprehensible number of non-Americans who died with them and since. There’s also no telling when it will end.

Lately I am weighted with pangs of responsibility in realizing I am of the last generation of Americans to remember firsthand what we as a nation were experiencing at that time, roughly between the years 1965-1972. What should I be sharing…what should I just forget?

The historical experience of World War II was quite different, as I was taught by my father’s generation and in countless stories and films.  There was near total engagement by the American population. Even with carnage that pales all military conflicts that have followed; the unification toward a common goal resulted in a remembrance that is mostly Romantic. The somewhat unique American post-war euphoria that resulted from that Romance is the “Great” in Donald Trump’s “Great Again”.

Vietnam was essentially its antithesis.  It was ill-conceived, non-transparent, over-weighted in politics, ultimately divisive, and too easy to discount and disregard.  If it weren’t for the existence of a draft carried over from WWII and Korea, the whole conflict might have been relegated to second page news and its opposition might have more resembled our recent fiasco in Iraq.

Thankfully the lessons it left are not clouded in Romance and their relevance has never been more important than they are today in Trump’s America.

What I remember from the Vietnam War era and how it relates to 21^st century America is not the foolish ideological tools that were used by equally foolish leaders to begin and sustain the conflict. What I’m recalling is how the nation reacted to that foolishness daily and why. Such was the national response to the War that lunacy became lucid and, therefore, insulated from reason.

The presentation of the Vietnam War to the American people was insidious.  It started slowly, utilizing the undercurrent of manufactured fear of Communism to justify deaths and injuries.  Long before the devastation of the Conflict reached its height, the bullshit of falling dominos to the “Red Peril” vanished. It simply became a “them vs. us”.

News reporting on the War basically folded into the routine of people’s lives.  There was little to report daily other than the number of dead and wounded, and where in that little country it occurred. In 1968, an average of 46 US soldiers were killed every day, with 6 to 8 times that many wounded or injured…every day. The Pentagon and the White House released whatever they could to make it sound acceptable. The most common was to list North Vietnamese (and Vietcong) killed and wounded in numbers so large the accounting was not believable. But few expressed skepticism and it was hardly questioned.

You see, as a Nation, we got used to it. Protesting was considered unpatriotic and didn’t really take hold among ordinary Americans until the 5^th year of the War. Nixon was elected in 1968 by the “silent majority”.  Like Iraq, if people didn’t have someone in the conflict the news of the War was just and only that. The current day's news made yesterday's vanish into desert air.

Donald Trump has not (yet) drawn us into an extended military conflict, thankfully. His “playful” attitude regarding nuclear weapons gives pause, but for now the lesson of Vietnam doesn’t actually relate to how we are reacting militarily.  It relates to how we as a nation are reacting to the fundamental functioning of government.

If Donald Trump feels he has a mandate it is based on an irrational concept that he was elected to dismantle whatever he can and by whatever means he is able.  He has no more ideological basis for his attack on the existing US Government than Johnson or Nixon had in perpetuating the Vietnam War.  He is freewheeling and his disabling narcissism has resulted in him being surrounded only by his family and those who were loyal when anyone with a half a brain viewed him as scary clown.

The truly serious problem is that the Nation and the media have gotten used to it. His and his administration’s bizarre actions have become habitual and routine. There have been so many instances of disinformation, distasteful antics, subversive behavior, incompetence, nepotism, pandering, lying, and psychosis over the course of the election and the first few weeks of Trump’s term no one is keeping count anymore. And those are just the public ones.

Nearly any one would have torpedoed a prior administration.

Just like another death in Vietnam, the next Trump shoe to drop hardly moves the meter, and even then only briefly.

The danger is that complacency to incompetence, indecency, corruption, and (most of all) dishonesty may take many years to undo. In nations that find difficultly in thriving, these factors seem often insurmountable, especially where public division is encouraged.

We should be raging against legislators who think they can personally benefit by supporting this dangerous new “normal” and to media moguls who are devoted first to ratings.  To want and expect something better from government we need a better government, not its elimination in favor of some kind of chaotic oligarchy.

Reject any legislator who supports Trump, restore the Fairness Doctrine (ended in 1987), and seek with an open mind to understand why overall health care in the United States (and ONLY in the United States throughout the developed world) is an abject fiscal failure.

We don’t want another Vietnam lingering around for another four decades or longer.

My Daughter Trulicity

I find it curious the creative nature at which new parents name their children these recent years (or even decades). Where do they come up with those names? Where can they find more? I have one thought:

 I came home the other night forgetting the slumber party my daughter had arranged for that evening. I walked in and was gleefully accosted by my daughter’s two best friends Cymbalta and Pamelor.  They were immediately joined by Lyrica, Latuda, and Humira all very anxious to introduce me to their new Latino friend Fetzima.  I went into the family room to meet her and first saw Eliqus (a bit mature for her age) lounging in front of the TV. Before I could say a word the doorbell rang. I went to answer it with my nervous looking daughter and there on the doorstep were three familiar boys Paxil, Lipitor, and Cialis, plus an Italian exchange student named Entresto. I said “not tonight fellas”, and asked my daughter, Trulicity, to close the door gently.

That’s right, in the endless quest to find names that distance themselves from such as Kathy, Susan, Jane, and Amy you need go no further than your flat screen TV. At almost any given time you will be subjected to long, drawn out prescription drug commercial that features a clever name that’s just perfect for your next born. Further, they’ll use the name repeatedly in the most comforting of situations; romantic fall colors, bubbling brooks, colorful kites, loving smiles, you name it. How could you go wrong? Besides, you’ve paid for this creativity…dearly.

In the 1980s, under the banner of deregulated free markets holding sway during the Reagan years, the FDA made no attempt to restrict pharmaceutical companies to advertise on television and radio. Today only one other nation in the world (New Zealand) allows such advertising. Since that time our Nation’s drug suppliers have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on “direct to consumer” (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs (Rx). 

There has been a bit of controversy to this practice surfacing from time to time, but mostly there has been a passive acceptance. The affect of advertising is normally positive in a free market, even necessary, but it is also potentially insidious. We view advertising submissively, rarely thinking about it.  Its very purpose is to create recall only at that the time of or decision to purchase.

The limited debate over DTC Rx advertising has mostly focused on the effect advertising has had on the decision making of the doctor: to what extent does the motivated patient sway the doctors decision making on which drug to use.  I believe that debate is useless and nearly irrelevant. It requires second guessing physicians and cannot be determined in any practical way even if we intuitively know it’s true.  The primary debate should be centered on the economics of DTC Rx advertising, what is really happening and what the obvious consequences are.

Advertising by definition is targeted toward a consumer who might be interested in purchasing the product advertised, or to the individual who might influence the purchaser (such as advertising to small children).  DTC Rx falls loosely into that second category.  The identity of the Rx consumer, however, is the first misnomer.

The patient is not the consumer when it comes to Rx, rather the purchaser is the physician. It is important to understand that the patient doesn’t buy Rx for himself, rather he/she buys it for the physician.  Prior to the development of retail drug distribution, doctors disseminated Rx when the patient was seen and the patient would pay or reimburse the doctor as part of the overall cost of treatment, just as it’s currently often done in hospitals.  As the number of Rx expanded it became impractical for doctors to maintain the drugs and so Drug Stores became a centralized point from which doctors could disperse medications. 

Therefore, DTC Rx advertising is directed toward individuals who can’t buy the product, any more than a three year old can buy that box of Cocoa Puffs she’s seen on TV.  The difference is, of course, the Rx purchaser is an adult who actually thinks they are the one buying the Rx. At least the 3 year old intuitively knows their Cocoa Puffs are coming from mommy. I believe it is this misunderstanding by adult patients which fundamentally impedes this debate from reaching the American people.  It is our profit driven health care system that suppresses the issue.

Cost of Healthcare and Prescription Drug Advertising:   The American health care consumer should constantly be reminded that the cost of health care for him/her is revenue for someone else.  There is a transfer of wealth in the US of over $4 trillion annually.  An estimated $30 billion of that amount goes to those involved with the marketing of Rx (advertisers, media, and the marketing overhead of the pharmaceutical companies).  It matters not what health care plan our current or prospective political leaders espouse, none will work unless the cost of healthcare in the US is reversed. The billions spent on DTC Rx advertising are perhaps the most wasteful dollars spent in our ongoing healthcare catastrophe as they do not directly benefit the healthcare recipient or the system generally. In fact, there is no benefit, direct or indirect, to the patient. The only purpose is to generate profits for the pharmaceutical companies.

Prescription Drug Advertising as a Disincentive for Drug Research: The argument frequently heard from drug companies is that the price of a drug is often very high due to the large investment that took place prior to the drug being released to the public. It is a good point as those costs must be recovered, as well as the costs of research on failed drugs that ultimately are not released.  However, once the drugs are released the revenues can be used for further research on new and improved Rx, but what happens?  The Pharmaceutical Companies continue to invest in these drugs, in the billions of dollars, through mass marketing. Not only are those billions not being used for further research, but they drive up the cost. Further, with the Pharmaceutical Companies continuing to invest billions in a drug to make it more profitable, there is a disincentive to develop a new and better drug that might replace the highly marketed drug. It is simple human nature (and therefore business nature) that they will continue to support these marketed drugs rather than new ones due to the continued investment from which they have calculated an expected financial return.  None of this equates to any benefit for the patient…past, present, or future.

Prescription Drug Advertising Adversely Impacting the Quality of Rx: As the Pharmaceutical Companies continue to invest in a prescription drug they become less likely to continue critical review of that drug, or maintain even a practical semblance of objectivity in any critical review. Again, why would they?  Not only have they invested in the development of the drug, but after its release they continue that investment and now have projected levels of profits to defend.  There is a further element, however:

With mass marketing the pharmaceutical companies have exposed themselves to more liability; both on a retail level which can affect shareholder equity, and on a tort level with possible injured parties.  This has already been made obvious by several highly public drug failures such as with Vioxx and several statin drugs. The heavily marketed drug increases public awareness, which is what mass marketing is supposed to do.  With that visibility, however, comes equally visible news worthiness should a drug fail. This becomes merely a cost of doing business and an indirect expense added to the retail cost of the drug.

There are other less critical reasons why Rx advertising should once again be banned from radio and television:

The information regarding the prescription drug that is supposed to be provided with the advertisements is laughable and completely ignored by the FCC.  It is the audible and visual equivalent of an 80 year old trying to read minuscule type on a label without glasses, she knows it’s there but it has no meaning. Warnings of death or diarrhea while people are dancing in flowered fields or hugging babies are pointless. In fact, it is a practical impossibility for such communication further strengthening the point that drugs are marketed to the wrong people.

We know the uninformed influence of the patient adversely affects the doctor’s best decision making, we only don’t know how much, and we never will. We also will never know to what extent mass DTC Rx advertising contributes to defensive medicine, although it surely does, putting both the patient at some additional risk and driving up cost.

Mass marketing of prescription drugs exists because, for the most part, it accomplishes what it seeks to do.  It gets the patient to influence the consumer (the doctor) to buy the Rx thus increasing sales and profit.  However, in a world where healthcare should be an available standard commodity to all people, like clean water, then prescription mass marketing takes us in the wrong direction.  It is far from an answer to the overall healthcare problem, but its elimination would take us one step further in the direction we need to go, and at $billions a year it would be no small step.

Think about it. How worse off would your life be if you never saw another prescription drug commercial again?  Call or write your Congressional representative.

The Brain of an American Anti-Semite

If aliens dropped in from outer space and absorb American and World history they would no doubt be astounded by the contributions to humanity by one relatively small group of people. No matter the discipline; e.g., social, arts, science, medicine, literature, education, entertainment, or philosophy, people of Jewish decent have had a greater positive impact on the human condition, pound for pound, than any other sub-set of modern Homo sapiens that have roamed this planet.

It therefore begs the question of why many non-Jews are often manipulated to believe Jews should be contained, restricted, and (in historically extreme cases) eradicated.

Jews and those of Jewish decent are no different than any other sub-set of people in that they face the same trials all individuals face. There is no objective or mystical power that isolates them, negatively or positively, from the rest of humanity. Their individual numbers spread across the same spectrum of success and failure, happiness and misery as everyone else.

Why they have had such a genuinely constructive impact on our culture could be due to a number of things; history, education, family structure, values, social support among others, but that is not the point of this discussion.  I want to look at why in today’s American culture they are still used as a threat for those who want to attain or retain power, and what kind of brain is so susceptible to that threat.

By the end of the 1940s the World was emerging from its cultural car wreck and beginning to ask the question, “what the hell just happened?” The term Holocaust really has meaning that goes beyond the horror and tragedy inflicted on Jews. Although prejudice has always been part of the human condition, extreme anti-Semitism, as well has other prejudices, had spread world-wide like an infectious disease.  History is clear that Nationalism, relatively new in a worldwide context, was the vehicle used by influential individuals to drive the world into catastrophic conflict. Targeting vulnerable minorities was their fuel.

America today is not 1932 Europe generally or 1932 Germany specifically.  It is not even 1932 America when it comes to anti-Semitism.  Yet many of the same elements now exist and are getting stronger in this period of Trump and the reactionary effect he elicits.

Overt anti-Semitism, Racism, and bigotry in America today is primarily a product of irrational conspiracy mania created by those who skillfully use fear in order to secure support. The fear generated by those who profit from it does far more than motivate (what I call) the lunatic fringe, e.g., white supremacists, Dylann Roof, or Robert Bowers. It impacts a significant portion of adults in America, some you might call friends. Some, perhaps, attracted to Trump Rallies without a lot of understanding of why.

It appears (and it is logical) that Robert Bowers was just as hostile toward (in Trump’s words) the invasion of immigrants as he was toward Jews. The same would be true of the torch bearing Nazi-types in Charlottesville, although their malice was more focused on Jews and African Americans than Latinos.  As tragic as their actions are toward innocent victims and the emotions they generate among survivors, they are not a threat to the United States or any race or religion contained therein. They are part of the disease that can be seen and treated.  

It is the passive racist or anti-Semite who bears no grudge against any individual, but who harbors fears of an amorphous and dangerous adversary; the Deep State, the “Government”, the “Liberals”, the “fake” press (aka: enemy of the people), welfare, Socialism, taxation, or immigrants are all examples. Each poised to rob you of your property and well being. You could throw space aliens into that mix without missing a beat.

It is not a huge step to surreptitiously link such paranoia to Blacks, Jews, and Latinos. The goal is to retain power. The fruits of that power are another discussion entirely.

Since the removal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 (an FCC doctrine created in 1948 out of the rubble of WWII to neutralize propaganda) the brains of these Americans have acted like sponges, sopping up the sewage that has been pumped out of talk radio, Fox News, and Sinclair Broadcasting for nearly 30 years. Out of this you not only get a Donald Trump, but you also get an entire Political Party that is willing to compromise almost any degree of decency, anti-corruption, international responsibility, or fiscal conservatism in order to keep their individual jobs.

Please keep in mind that almost all those manipulated brains are in the heads of decent people, but this fear-driven misinformation is all they watch or listen to. That reality gives Trump’s “enemy of the people” effort enhanced meaning. Trump and the Republican leadership don’t want them to listen to anything else. It is the life's blood of authoritarianism.

The election and re-election of Barack Obama did much to unleash the fear among many Conservatives.  “How could a Black man become President of the United State” was a small echo in the back of the anti-Semitic brain (no different than the racist brain).  When it came to public consumption they simply pasted “extreme Liberal” over the words “Black man”.

The answer to that question was tendered through talk radio and Fox News with conspiratorial rhetoric. By the time Trump came on the scene Republicans were scrambling to distance themselves from the “conspiracy” known as the Federal Government, or in Trump speak: the Swamp. It should be no surprise that Republicans made the Faustian bargain of aligning with Trump to avoid primary challenges.

Is Trump an anti-Semite or a racist? Not likely, and certainly not in any ideological sense. His Narcissistic Personality Disorder doesn’t allow for objective labels. Does he trade in anti-Semitism and racism? Absolutely. Is he also responsible for the resurgence in America today of anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry in general? Of course he is.

That he refers repeatedly to the asylum seekers from Honduras as an “invasion” (calling out for a military response) or warns of Liberal “mobs” or labels the main stream news media as “the enemy of the people” is simply him ringing the dinner bell.

The brain of today’s American anti-Semite or racist wants serenity, like everybody else’s brain. However, it is so stoked with fears that are fed by conspiratorial language that it will often act against its own best interest (such as supporting last year's inequitable tax bill). Pushed far enough it becomes unstable, especially on the fringes. Yet I hope that fear for personal safety does not become the driving focus in the attempt to counterbalance. That would be futile, indeed. Confidence is the element that needs to be embraced, confident that leaders who represent the truth will emerge because the alternative is not sustainable. The first step is to understand that your vote will make a difference.