Category: Let’s Talk Politics

Some folks love it—others hate it. Such is life.

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The American Cheaters Who Prosper

Isn’t it suspect that one political party systematically needs to cheat in order to maintain power?  

  • In North Carolina, the Cheaters collect absentee ballots in African American neighborhoods and throw them into the trash. 
  • In Texas (and many other states), the Cheaters draw serpentine districts to limit the number of legislators their opponents can elect.
  • In Oregon, the Cheaters flee the state rather than hold a vote on a carbon tax where their opponents hold a legislative supermajority. 
  • In Georgia, the Cheaters insist that their gubernatorial candidate, the acting Secretary of State, should remain the top elections official of his own race. His team then improperly purges 340,000 voters from the rolls and delays 53,000 voter registrations—80 percent of them were people of color. 
  • In Arizona, the Cheaters close 70 percent of polling sites in Phoenix’s Maricopa County and tens of thousands of people wait in line for hours to cast ballots. 
  • In Florida, the Governor—a Cheater—puts his state’s voter registration site “under maintenance” during Voter Registration Week. 

And this is only the past two years. 

Across the country, the Cheaters try to purge American voters from registries using the error-prone “Crosscheck” system.  Fair Fight 2020 found that 1.6 million people were removed from the voter rolls between 2010 and 2018. 

In the Senate, the Cheaters don’t hold votes for any legislation that might make their opponents look good. Rather than doing their jobs, they worked tirelessly to make President Obama look ineffective, denying him a Supreme Court appointment and repeatedly attacking the Affordable Care Act—one middle finger to Americans’ healthcare access and the other middle finger to wasted taxpayer dollars. 

In the House of Representatives, the Cheaters voted to gut the ethics committee. They have no problem deregulating codes of conduct or the corporations which poison our air and water, but yet they want full control over American women’s reproductive health.

In that vein, the Cheaters are the ultimate hypocrites. They contend that they’re “pro-life,” but they refuse to ban assault weapons, strike down capital punishment, improve the lives of the most vulnerable among us, or even make basic birth control readily available. 

They are also hypocrites when it comes to government spending. A few years ago when Obama was in office, the Tea Party Wing of the Cheaters was very upset about the federal deficit and national debt. But recently, the Cheaters passed a fat tax cut for the rich, which the CBO projects will add $1.9 trillion to deficits over 10 years. Federal spending also hit a new record ($3.7 trillion) and deficits are only projected to climb through the end of 2019. Of course, the Cheaters are now silent about our country’s fiscal health, as they are when our astronomical military budget climbs ever-higher. (The U.S. spends $649 billion annually—more than the next seven countries combined.) 

The Cheaters also say they love small businesses but they refuse to support our most entrepreneurial group of citizens: immigrants. On the contrary, they prefer to lock up Latino children in concentration camps to please the rabidly racist contingent of their party—red meat to feed the MAGAts. The racism stoked by Cheaters actually helps them maintain power through fear; it’s one of their most effective tools. 

The Cheaters get very upset when you call them racist, but they refuse to condemn the Supreme Cheater who (in reference to Haiti and African countries) bemoaned “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” The Supreme Cheater also stated that people from Haiti “all have AIDS” and empathized with white supremacists after their Charlottesville rally, which killed one counter-protester.

Worst of all, when the Cheaters hear a fact they don’t like, they brand it with the scarlet letter of “fake news” and treat it as a matter of partisan opinion.

How can Non-cheaters—the people who act with integrity—defeat the party of bad faith who will lie and steal to maintain power? As children, we’re taught that good people win in the end, but we’ve witnessed too many Cheaters seizing control of the American government, fueled by unlimited campaign donations and the popularity of their trusty propaganda network, Fox News.

I feel alienated from people who support the Cheaters and assume that those voters are one of three things: greedy, dumb, or complicit. The greedy ones—the Money-grubbers—support the Cheaters for their economic views and celebrate when funds for education, healthcare, and basic social services are slashed for tax cuts that will never “trickle down.” The Money-grubbers divert those funds into their offshore accounts or into the Cheater campaign coffers. 

The dwindling federal budget for education has helped create the second Cheater subgroup: the Fools. These people believe that humans don’t cause climate change; that brown people are coming to steal their jobs; that immigrant children should be locked in cages; that women should stop invading the workplace and shouldn’t have access to reproductive healthcare; that Christianity is superior to other religions and Islam is bad; and that the USA is better than all other countries and should be able to play by different rules. 

All of these views are destructive and dumb. Perhaps the feeble-minded are hypnotized by middle-aged white male anger or blonde Fox News hosts’ bare legs. They take the Cheaters’ bullshit hook-line-and-sinker and relish in “owning the libs.” (For the record, blowing out our candle isn’t going to make yours burn any brighter, morons.)

The third subgroup is waiting for the Cheaters to wind back the clock and stop being so uncouth. These are the Enablers, otherwise decent people with their heads in the sand. What they don’t understand is that this is not their white grandfather’s political party. There’s no going back from “grab ‘em by the pussy,” creating Latino concentration camps, or the Muslim Ban. 

And most recently, the Supreme Cheater—again, a man who cheats on his taxes, at golf, and on his wife with a porn star—asked the Ukrainian President for the “favor” of investigating his political rivals’ family. Knowing this conversation was damning, the Cheaters tried to bury the notes about it in a separate computer server used for sensitive information—exactly the behavior that had them chanting through frothing mouths “Lock her up! Lock her up!” More MAGAts feasting on red meat.

The Non-cheaters lack a backbone, but the Cheaters lack a soul. The Money-grubbers, Fools, and Enablers are everything we were taught as children not to be: intolerant, hateful, manipulative, dishonest, self-centered. 

What kind of example are we setting to the next generation and to the rest of the world when we elect Cheaters? It’s not a good look. 

Impeach the Supreme Cheater and VOTE. THE REST. OUT.

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NFL: Going Woke or Broke?

It’s a few hours before the Super Bowl. Fans dressed in blue are pouring into sports bars; avocados are being mashed in kitchens across America; and all I can think about is whether the commercials will be woke.

Two weeks ago, Gilette released a short film entitiled “We Believe: The Best That Men Can Be,” which suffered a swift and mighty backlash. The crime? Promoting strong honorable ethics among men—treating women well, standing up to bullies, and being a good father and role model. Incels, MAGA losers, and other lonely men joined hands to decry the reverse racism and possible feminist infiltration of the company itself! These women and people of color simply don’t know their place. 

David Scwartz commented yesterday on the film, “Not only is this absolutely insulting to males but it is absolutely discriminatory. This ad employs the same method of targeting a specific group just as Hitler did to the Jews.” Matt Burkholder added, “Anyone else notice the flagrant Anti-White message in this ad?” 

Other comments presented valid concerns about false virtue signaling and the coopting of a social message by a multinational company accused of various abuses of power. Sure, this can be problematic, but I strongly believe that the merits of promoting social movements,  feminism, anti-racism, and other progressive messages outweigh the detriment.

These companies have large ad budgets and incredible reach. Why shouldn’t they be using that power to promote a positive message, even if they are doing it to make profit? What matters is that they use a position of wealth and influence to get the message out. Think about the alternative: should Gilette really just be selling tired cliches of well-groomed men scoring sexy chicks?

Nike, a company busted for using child labor in the 90s, decided to champion Colin Kaepernick as an athlete-activist and hero and I wholeheartedly applaud their decision. And today, Colin Kaepernick is the elephant in the stadium. He’s the reason the NFL can no longer book first-rate popstars like Rihanna, Usher, and Cardi B to perform on America’s biggest stage. He’s the reason Maroon 5 was struggling to find artists of color for their show to “improve the optics.”

Here’s the thing: as a sport with declining viewership and increased concerns about CTE, the NFL had better start changing with the times. The League can start by updating its rules to better protect players’ heads and bodies; by paying cheerleaders a fair wage and lifting the sexist, patronizing rules governing their etiquette outside of work; and by providing health insurance to retired players who sacrificed their bodies and brains for our entertainment.

I have boycotted the NFL since Kaep was blacklisted, but I’ll watch the commercials to celebrate companies who stand up for what’s right. And if they sell a couple more jerseys or razors because of it, who cares. What’s important is that the right message is out there.

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Dr. Blasey Ford vs. Kava-NO

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will go down in history as an absolute hero. Facing today’s firing squad, she remained poised but nervous as any honest person would be. 

She was, after all, sharing her story of sexual assault with the world. Rachel Mitchell, the GOP’s female prosecutor—a mercenary the Republicans called in to avoid the “bad optics” of an all-white male panel—even believed Dr. Ford as any thinking/feeling person would.

Dr. Ford didn’t claim to have a perfect memory, but she recounted details that sent chills up the spine of our nation:

  • She described the laughter of two young men as she was pinned down on a bed.
  • Her screams were stifled by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hand as he tried to remove her clothes, and she gasped for air.
  • She told us how she finally broke free and locked herself in the bathroom as this drunk young man and his friend Mark Judge “pin-balled” down the stairs.
  • Years later when Dr. Ford was remodeling her home with her husband, she requested a second front door added—an escape hatch from this deep-seated trauma which she lived with for years.

Like most women, she didn’t come forward immediately with any allegations for reasons that were patently clear during the second half of the hearing. Men of a certain type will never believe women. The all-white male Republican team did not even have the courage to confront Dr. Ford directly—again, bad “optics”—but they had no problem joining Brett Kavanaugh in his (dare I say) shrill pity party.

Let’s start with Kavanaugh’s bizarre opening statement: for 45 minutes, he wavered between rage and tears while detailing his fastidious calendar-keeping—throwing in a list of his academic and athletic accomplishments for good measure—and of course, reminding the world of the “binders full of women” in his life. It was an utter disaster.

If any woman or person of color had displayed this Kavanaugh-esque rambling anger, sweating and reaching for their water glass every 25 seconds, observers would have written them off as LIARS. But that’s not the way that some people view well-bred boys from Georgetown Prep; the Brock Turners of the world can commit sexual assault and the most pressing question on many Republican minds is, “Oh, but what about that bright young man’s future?” This was EXACTLY the animating concern of those GOP committee members who fester in bad faith:

  • Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “To my Republican colleagues: If you vote no, you are legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”
  • Ted Cruz (R-TX): “This has been one of the most shameful chapters in the United States Senate.”
  • Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to Kavanaugh: “This is a national disgrace the way you’re being treated.”
  • Brett Kavanaugh: “This has destroyed my family and my good name….I’m never going to get my reputation back. My life is totally and permanently altered.”

I ask all Republicans this: while “Bart” O’Kavanaugh and Mark Judge were laughing at Christine Blasey’s terror in 1982, how do you think she felt? She was 15 years old. And how do you think she feels now with her two front doors—an architectural anomaly born of a fear Kavanaugh baked into her when he tried to stifle her screams? She’s already had to relocate her family twice these past few weeks and still is receiving death threats.

Kavanaugh, the “Renate Alumnius [sic],” may be denied a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court, but does a man like that deserve to be confirmed? Absolutely not. His next appointment should be as a cautionary tale to other would-be sexual predators; Americans will never forget what he did to Dr. Ford, and his shameless lies are unforgivable—as is the partisan complicity of the GOP.

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Uncle Sam Reads Sun Tzu

Glenn Ligon (2014); University of Oregon exhibit on artists responding to “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Note: I like this title, but I can’t promise that you’ll learn anything about the most famous Chinese military strategist in history. In fact, I just peppered my piece with two of his quotes because I believe that “The Art of War” guides more of our government’s policies than the Bible. Thank you for reading this far.]

Like most Americans, I’m afflicted by economic anxiety. For some, it stems from student debt, which is at an all-time high in this country. But for me, it’s worrying about the unforeseen, as if I’m walking a tightrope without a safety net. I may be bankrupted in a moment by a burst appendix or a root canal, despite the fact that I have both health and dental insurance. This gnawing unease prevents Americans from being productive, happy citizens whether we have coverage or not. And I’m one of the lucky ones: I have zero debt and zero dependents. I should feel financially secure but I have diminishing faith that the American government will safeguard healthcare, education, and the environment into our future.

“All warfare is based on deception.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Social security—a program I’ve paid into for all of my working life—might not exist when I retire and need it most. Aetna® and Dental Health Services® will take my money, yet they give me no reassurance that services won’t be massively upended when I need care in the future. At 32, I gladly pay my premiums to support those less fortunate but I question why our wealthy country won’t embrace a single payer system or a better subsidized public option. In 2015, my fiancé got into a serious bike accident in Buenos Aires. He rode an ambulance to the hospital and got stitches, services which would have cost him more than $3,000 in the US without insurance; in Argentina, it was all free.

This incident shows that we need to rethink who deserves the power in our American democracy. We’re supposed to have the power. The people. As it stands, there’s often disagreement between what’s best for the public and what’s best for companies. By illustration, if the profit incentive outweighs the costs:

  • An unregulated insurance company will terminate coverage for a 65-year-old with cancer
  • An unregulated weapons company will lobby congress to put more guns into the hands of American families
  • An unregulated drug company will try to convince someone that he has depression in a TV commercial to sell poorly tested pharmaceuticals
  • An unregulated company will pay academics who have fallen from the ivory tower to pretend that soda, cigarettes, or environmental pollutants are good for you
  • An unregulated company will try to defeat its competitors by any means necessary, even if the competitor does something better, cleaner, or more efficiently
  • An unregulated company feels at liberty to discriminate against women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community

The worst part is that the people who would benefit most from progressive ideas are those who voted for Trump. Red states typically take more federal money than they pay in, meaning that they’re subsidized by the “liberal elites” that they hate. I also believe that red states suffer precisely because their local governments have elevated corporate welfare over the public interest. For example, a Louisiana town recently found out that they have the highest cancer rate in the country due to pollution from the local DuPont neoprene factory. Ironically the Louisiana town is called St. John the Baptist Parish, which reminds me of my favorite line in The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” To the citizens of economically depressed areas in the South and Rust Belt: your Devil does exist, and it’s sure as hell not Planned Parenthood, Obamacare, or the EPA. The real Devil is slippery and here’s his secret: he has convinced people that what’s good for Wealth is good for everyone.

I argue that despite what we’ve been told, economic growth is not a real gauge of our progress. I’d always been taught that the best indicator of our country’s success was the growth of our economy. This is usually expressed as an inflation-adjusted percentage of our GDP. Many people don’t question the assumption that we should be striving for ever-higher economic growth—more businesses, more money changing hands, and more investments equals more sweet, greasy American progress. Presidents from both political parties focus squarely on GDP percentages to guide rhetoric, diplomacy, and policy. Like many Americans, I assumed that this figure somehow represented our national well-being, but this overlooks the most important consideration: what’s actually good for people?

We should be using our wealth to help the public meet its potential through investments in healthcare, education, infrastructure, and the environment. Instead, we enrich defense contractors and we’re in perpetual war because it’s good for business.

War.

Is.

Good.

For.

Business.

These days, Fox News and Breitbart incite just enough fear and xenophobia to make some Americans play along. The problem is that rather that doing what’s best for the people, the US is beholden to the interests of powerful corporations which control our government’s policies while channeling wealth into prisons or the military—already larger than the next eight nations combined.

“There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

How do we fix this? I offer simple solutions:

  • Take money out of politics. Once companies can no longer bribe their way into looser regulations, generous tax breaks, or fat defense contracts, the American government will be more accountable to the people.
  • Shorten the election cycle. The US exhausts and overwhelms us during every election. Canada’s elections last three months at most. Let’s do that.
  • Make voting compulsory. If we want our leaders to reflect the views of the greatest number of citizens, all who are eligible should be voting.
  • Establish a single source where political candidates can weigh in on important issues. We need a bipartisan government website where voters can get their information about politicians’ records, including a user-friendly tool which matches us to leaders based on our views.
  • Stop assuming that unregulated business has the public’s interests in mind. Why don’t we see that we’re simultaneously drowning in products we don’t need and eating up natural resources at an unsustainable pace? High shareholder returns or GDP growth shouldn’t be achieved at the expense of what really matters.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that like many Americans, I’m continually on edge. I’m anxious for myself, my loved ones, and the future of our country’s children. Let’s stop scuffling over abortion, Planned Parenthood, and prayer in schools. Those are divide-and-conquer smokescreen issues which obscure the real problems facing us: healthcare, education, infrastructure, and protecting the environment.

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And the Presidency Goes to… The Flaming Ball of Id

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Sean McFarland, “The Don” (Wandering Goat, Eugene OR)

Hello America!

It’s me, Jocelyn. Now I know we’re all feeling anxiety over yesterday’s election of the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief. Suffice it to say that the Flaming Ball of Id is utterly undeserving of the presidency. His lies and bigotry are well-documented, and there’s no need to rehash his litany of fuckwittage here.

So why did this happen? Personally, I don’t know a single Trump supporter—a factor reflecting the deep division between the coastal progressives and the heartland—although I did see several Trump signs in yards across the country with chainlink fences next to rusted trailers, half-burned garbage, and malnourished dogs. But he couldn’t have risen to prominence based on the ballots cast by the “deplorables” alone. The neo-Nazis and garden-variety misogynists were joined by (mainly) white men who had given up looking for work and felt left out of Obama’s America; by people concerned that “Killary” would start wars or open the borders; by religious conservatives who had never voted for a Democrat; by those who wrongly believe Islam is a terrorist faith; and by people with no college education. Sprinkle in some old-fashioned GOP voter suppression tactics, low turnout, and anti-elite sentiment and boom: here we are. Few saw it coming.

It’s ironic that working class Americans would hurl their support behind a billionaire who has never known want, but as a reality TV star, Trump knew how to sell the dream, riding the tsunami of hate for the establishment. Like my friends here and abroad, I’m gutted over the results of this election, and an incident this morning made me fear for the future in Trump’s America, even in liberal Eugene, OR.

An hour ago, I was waiting in line for coffee and a portly man with a ponytail, grinning widely, stood just a little too close behind me. I turned around to make polite conversation, and then looked me up and down—pausing a little too long on my chest—and exclaimed,

“Wow…you must really work out…”

Disgusted by the way he examined my body, I told him firmly that the way he looked at me made me feel uncomfortable. He soured and said,

“Sheesh. That’s all in YOUR head.” 

Sure, the poor ape had meant it as a compliment, but I can’t help thinking that the man was newly emboldened by the prospect of an anti-PC POTUS who bragged about pussy-grabbing.

Like everyone, I’m worried about Trump’s threats to healthcare, education, and basic human decency. He doesn’t represent my views—OUR views—on anything. On the bright side, reactionary regimes have the potential to inspire creativity and protest pieces in music, painting, and other mediums.

So let’s make good art, America. Let’s show the world that we’re not as stupid as they’re all saying we are.

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The Orange Gaffe Factory

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Sean McFarland, “The Don” (Wandering Goat, Eugene OR)

The following are two short essays I wrote roughly a year apart. If nothing else, PLEASE VOTE IN NOVEMBER. Thank you for being so interested.

August 2015: The Republican Primary

Have you noticed that American presidential elections begin earlier and earlier, kind of like the Christmas shopping season? It’s August 2015 and already the political parties are adorning their platforms with twinkling lights, hosting festive banquets to woo donors, and of course, doling out goodies to citizens who show their support. ’Tis the season for giving (to your favorite candidates)!

The first Republican primary had more than enough players to field a football team with its members broken into two separate debates: a “happy hour” B-squad (i.e., the kids’ table) and the primetime showdown where all of the good ol’ (mainly white) boys could play. Let’s take a look at some of the questions directed to prospective leaders of the most powerful country in the world:

  • Megyn Kelly to Donald Trump: “Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be ‘a pretty picture to see her on her knees.’ Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”
  • Mike Huckabee in response to a question about women and LGBT people in the military: “The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.”
  • A question from Chase Norton on Facebook: “I want to know if any of [the candidates] have received a word from God on what they should do and take care of first.”
  • Marco Rubio’s response to the question above: “Well, first, let me say I think God has blessed us. He has blessed the Republican Party with some very good candidates…And I believe God has blessed our country. This country has been extraordinarily blessed. And we have honored that blessing. And that’s why God has continued to bless us.”

Progressives view the Republican primaries as reality TV at its finest—a fight between Satan and Goliath set in the Coliseum—an embarrassingly entertaining display of xenophobia, arrogance, and greed. I admit that I take pleasure in watching the Beast of the Right devour its own tail, spewing frothy polemics against women’s rights to reproductive healthcare, immigrants, taxes, and anything Democrats have accomplished or championed. When I remind myself that these people have the power to influence my future and that of my children, it becomes less entertaining and more depressing, as if I’m waving the short sword of my words at a tidal wave of campaign donations which pull the strings of our political leadership.

September 2016: The Orange Gaffe Factory

It’s been more than a year since I wrote the first entry on my malaise with the American electoral system and I was reminded of these previously unpublished thoughts this morning. Something bizarre happened. I was riding my bike through a lush park in South Eugene when a bee flew into my face and wedged its fuzzy thorax between my sunglasses and head. I was still in motion and threw my sunglasses to the ground, slapping at my own face like a self-hating (or half-awake) crazy person. The damn bee stung me in the temple. So here I sit at the Wandering Goat sipping my latte, feeling the throb of bee venom like a railroad spike to the head. Naturally, this brings me to reflect on the current election cycle.

Since I last wrote, the unthinkable happened. There’s a hateful lunatic one step away from becoming the POTUS, and to those who say that Hillary isn’t much better: I don’t think you’re evaluating the situation rationally. Yes, I disapprove of HRC’s hawkish background, shady email practices, and troubling ties to the Wealthy & Powerful, but she’s undeniably the most qualified presidential candidate in our history. I need not remind you that this woman has been not only a supremely badass, activist First Lady—one who championed universal healthcare, the Children’s Defense Fund, improving education, etc—but also a US Senator and Secretary of State. Name another POTUS candidate from the past 200 years with superior political chops. You can’t? Exactly.

The thing is that with so many decades in the public eye, it’s impossible to not have an opinion about HRC, and sadly, many people who despise her are unable to articulate why.

  • It’s her lack of charisma.
  • Look at those cankles.
  • Wow, check out her latest pantsuit. Barf.

I’ll tell you what it is: it’s a disgust with the establishment mingling with sexism. Is there any other explanation for the media’s unwavering lambast of her purported dishonesty, nepotism, privilege, health ailments, etc.? Need I remind you that these are the exact same qualities which Trump has embraced with gusto and is forgiven daily by Fox News pundits, WSJ editorials, and other anti-HRC voices?  Not to mention the fact that her male contemporaries hardly face such scrutiny over these distasteful realities of being an American politician. Can you imagine a female (or minority) presidential candidate getting away with saying the following?

  • “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” 
  • “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you; they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
  • “My IQ is one of the highest—and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.”
  • “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
  • “The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”

Don’t you miss the gold ole days when a man could be disqualified from public office for an enthusiastic roar? Speaking of the Orange Gaffe Factory, Trump’s continued candidacy is not proof that he’s qualified for office, but rather a testament to something I learned ten years ago at Berkeley: twenty percent of people can always be counted on to do the unthinkable.

I learned this in Professor Dacher Keltner’s social psychology class during a lecture on taking surveys. He joked that in all psychological surveys (despite the topic), one-fifth of respondents will invariably select the terrible answer, the Joe Bloggs choice—that is if JB were a total sociopath.

A survey about how to address children in poverty? Twenty percent will elect to let the snot-nosed tykes die in the streets if they can’t help themselves.

A survey about gun ownership? Twenty percent will elect to provide firearms to every man, woman, and child without background checks and ample ammunition in the spirit of the Second Amendment.

A survey about American foreign relations? Twenty percent will elect to bomb the hell out of those who are jealous of our freedom.

Sure, my examples are hyperbolical, but I’ve seen this model play out repeatedly in the social psych research, and we simply have to accept that right now, that batshit 20 percent contingent is the Trump voters. So take heart! Although it feels like the pain of Trump’s bee sting to the temple will never subside, it will. He’ll lose in November, and resume doing what he does best:

  • Crowing self-righteously on TV.
  • Harassing women about their appearance.
  • Grabbing headlines with shameless racism and xenophobia.
  • Paling around with rich assholes like Roger Ailes.

Trump will continue to milk the limelight for business opportunities. I predict he’ll usher his 13 million outraged supporters into the audience of a new media organization, and the GOP will officially flatline. While I’d like to posit a few names for his nascent news programs—“Why Liberals Really Chap my Hide” comes to mind—I think we all know where this is headed: TRUMP. Because that’s what the Orange Gaffe Factory does best. Why would an egomaniac forgo a gilded opportunity to slap his name on yet another venture which exploits the poor and the uneducated?

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The Barbarism of 2015

Confederate flag

It’s 2065 and my contemporaries—the Millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y)—are bemoaning the loss of a simpler time, a time before self-driving cars, fully immersive VR internet, robot caretakers, human genetic engineering, ubiquitous product printers, and widespread mind-machine interfaces (MMIs). Of course these developments have presented some unique moral and ethical challenges, but I assure you that the compass of human progress is pointed in the right direction!

Everyone knows that the aggrandizement of the past happens with every subsequent group of aging people. By illustration:

  • Old white men complained to their children and grandchildren that the democratic process had been polluted by giving women—the hysterical and mentally incompetent sex—the vote.
  • Old southerners complained to their children and grandchildren that lynchings went much more smoothly before the end of Jim Crow laws.
  • Old, divorced homophobes complained to their children and grandchildren that gays and lesbians were ruining the sacred institution of marriage.

You see? And I would argue that the world of 2065 is a much more connected, forward-thinking, and generous place than it was 50 years ago.

Let’s talk about the savagery of the United States in 2015:

1) Whistleblowers were imprisoned, alienated, and exiled rather than celebrated as heroes. Chelsea Manning was imprisoned for exposing the war crimes of the American military during the failed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2015, she was threatened with solitary confinement for having a copy of Vanity Fair—the Caitlyn Jenner issue, a small comfort to someone who identified as transgender—and a tube of expired toothpaste. Julian Assange—founder and editor-in-chief of Wikileaks—was accused of “terrorism” by then Vice President Joe Biden and several high-profile Americans in the media called for his assassination. His crime? Providing an outlet for people to anonymously expose and examine the inner workings of their governments. Wikileaks heroically aired various international scandals including Manning’s U.S. war logs, the human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay, and a slew of diplomatic cables which exposed the embarrassing incompetencies and backstabbing among leaders from many powerful countries. Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S.’s National Security Agency (NSA) had been secretly collecting information about American citizens without just cause in conjunction with major telecommunications and social networking conglomerates. Furthermore, the NSA spied on  political and business leaders in countries publicly considered our allies (e.g., Japan, Germany, France). In 2013, Aaron Schwartz—an activist for the freedom of information and net neutrality—hanged himself amidst a tormenting FBI-led investigation and a ruthless prosecution which wanted to make a scapegoat out of the 26-year-old who dared to question the increasing stranglehold of private corporations on access to scholarly journal articles, legal documents, and other materials which belong in the public domain. These are only three of the whistleblowing activists who now are celebrated as men of bravery, but only after being threatened, intimidated, and debased for standing up for what they believed.

2) Law enforcement was deployed with blatant prejudice. In addition to the cases of the whistleblowers, the laws in 2015 were applied differentially based on race, class, and politics. Non-violent users of illegal drugs rotted in jail cells while white-collar criminals who ushered in the Great Recession got off scot-free. People convicted of selling small amounts of drugs were prosecuted while large pharmaceutical companies made billions of dollars off of people’s addictions to opiates (e.g., Vicodin), amphetamines (e.g., Adderall), and mood-altering substances (e.g., Xanax). Finally, unarmed black men such as Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Michael Brown Jr., Walter Scott, and Laquan McDonald were killed by white police officers while Dylan Roof—a white supremacist who slaughtered nine black people at a Charleston Church—was gently taken away from the gruesome crime scene.

3) People believed that owning an assault rifle was a constitutional right. The National Rifle Association (NRA) was one of the most powerful lobbyist groups and a campaign donor darling of many conservative politicians. In December 2012, Adam Lanza gunned down a classroom of first-graders and the U.S. failed to make any significant gun control changes. In 2015, there were over 350 mass shootings involving at least two victims and the government still refused to pass a law which would require simple background checks for gun purchasers.

4) Atheists, Muslims, and other religious minorities were persecuted for not being Christian. Back in 2015, it wasn’t ok to be a non-Christian in a high position of political leadership. To be a non-believer was viewed as tantamount to being without morals. All political candidates, regardless of their party, were forced to say, “And God bless America” at the end of their speeches in order to make God-fearing citizens confident that their leaders were religious enough. In the Republican presidential primary, Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked the 10 participants whether they had received instructions directly from God with respect to how to run a country. And she wasn’t referring to a Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim God. That would have been completely out of the question. In the beginning of the 21st century, being a non-Christian all-but-disqualified you from the upper rungs of political leadership.

5) Working for eight hours daily was standard. Despite the incredible technological developments in machines and robots—not to mention the vast pool of underemployed young people—it was still expected in 2015 that Americans work for at least eight hours daily. And since no mortal was truly capable of working effectively for eight hours, people surreptitiously procrastinated during the gaps in their concentration, perusing Facebook, news sites, or chatting with coworkers. Employers and the employed seemed incapable of recognizing their natural barriers to productivity, affected by sleep deprivation, stress, and other reasonable facts of being human. Rather than identifying the problem—reducing individual working hours, hiring more people, and moving toward full employment—regulations on businesses were lax and company owners instead pushed their salaried workers to work longer and longer hours. Rather than revolt, workers in 2015 reacted very curiously. White-collar workers in particular—feeling the pressure of status anxiety—toiled for 60, 70, and even 80 hours per week and wore it as a badge of pride. We know now that these conditions are inhumane. Working too long increases stress and decreases social connectivity, family togetherness and lifespans, but in 2015, eight hours daily (or more) was standard.

6) The United States had the largest gap between the rich and the poor and highest child poverty rate of any developed nation. Despite these sad facts, in 2015, a vocal and politically organized group of conservatives pushed for greater tax cuts, less business regulations, and other measures that we know now only exacerbated the vast wealth inequality. “Trickle-down economics” was a fiction created to justify the concentration of wealth in fewer hands. Unfortunately, the purported “job-creators” (i.e., companies) squandered their tax breaks on higher executive salaries and shareholder payouts than they did actually creating more jobs. At that time, there was also a myth of class mobility. The idea was that if you worked hard enough, you could one day buy property, send your children to college, and retire comfortably. It was a clever story which shifted the responsibility for individual circumstances onto the people themselves while masking the primary reasons that people fail: inadequate access to quality education, healthcare, and social support.

7) Xenophobia ran rampant in a nation founded by immigrants. Without any hint of irony, many working class, white Americans—whose families at some time had immigrated to the U.S., mind you—believed in Donald Trump, a bigoted billionaire who was running for president. Trump’s plan involved constructing a massive wall along the U.S.’s southern border to protect it from the Mexicans, a group he believed was responsible for all of the country’s ills. Not content to slander only one group, Trump went on to proclaim that Muslims should be denied entry into the United States based on the behavior of a few isolated extremists. Thirty-one governors declared that Syrian refugees—a predominantly Muslim group fleeing a brutal civil war—were not allowed into their states. By contrast, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed the Syrians personally, handing them winter coats as they exited the plane and began new lives.

8) Wars were waged in the name of securing American business interests. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, the U.S. engaged in a number of conflicts around the world to secure its own business interests. The Banana Wars in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Mexico were fought to preserve U.S. corporate interests in Central America. Many wars were fought to prevent the spread of communism—the premier ideological opponent to capitalism—including the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The U.S. fought in the Gulf War to protect Saudi Arabian oil supplies from Iraq. Finally, unbeknownst to many Americans, government contractors profited handsomely from violence around the world, selling missiles, bombs, weapons, and tanks not only to American troops, but also to countries which suppressed democratic dissent such as Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Algeria.

9) There was an inherent conflict of interest between Public Health and Corporate Wealth. This is a big one. What benefited companies in 2015 didn’t necessarily dovetail with what benefited the public. Companies would do anything to turn a profit and survive. Several pharmaceutical corporations were fined more than $1 billion each for paying kickbacks to doctors and marketing drugs for non-approved uses (e.g., GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Johnson&Johnson). The rise of for-profit colleges (e.g., University of Phoenix, Corinthian Colleges) contributed to the explosion of student loan debt which reached $1.2 trillion in 2015. And with more than $3.2 billion spent annually lobbying Congress, various industries held a tremendous amount of power over American leadership. Oil companies lobbied for the right to destroy pristine environments and fragile ecosystems. Pharmaceutical companies lobbied to keep healthcare expensive by keeping generic drugs off the shelves. Weapons manufacturers lobbied for decreased gun control putting the public at risk for gun violence. Large food companies lobbied to relax FDA regulations and block a living wage for workers. Real estate firms lobbied to weaken regulations on mortgage lenders.

10) Toilets. Historically, Americans believed that rubbing one’s asshole with dry paper would somehow make it clean, at least until Japanese-style commodes became widely available with built-in bidets; adjustable water temperature and pressure; and heated seats.

So cheer up and stop pining for the good ol’ days, Millennials! Remember: things were pretty fucked up back in 2015, but we’ve made a lot of progress in combatting discrimination, promoting education, providing healthcare, keeping the tide of corporate interests in check, and optimizing hygiene with amazing toilet technology.

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Donald Trump Made Me Realize Something

Donald Trump

Forty-one percent of likely Republican primary voters say they favor Donald Trump. It appears that the penis-wagging businessman pledging to “Make America Great Again” has tapped into the ubiquitous groundswell of America’s working class discontent.

Of course people are pissed. The top beneficiaries of the “recovery” from the Great Recession have been large corporations and their shareholders. People’s wages are stagnant and they feel betrayed when the oft-promised “trickle down” benefits of supporting big business have failed to materialize. The top-earning 15 Americans have made $170 billion these past two years, more than the bottom 40 percent of our country combined. Politics aside, anyone with common sense can admit that this is an obscenity.

Enter the Trumpnado whose tremendous wealth and America-sized ego have apparently excused him from practicing human decency. And by the way, money has always been associated with Godliness in this country; I don’t care what anybody says. The meek will never inherit the earth because Americans are obsessed with rich people. Look at the roving cast of assholes which our viewership keeps afloat—the Hiltons, the Kardashians, My Super Sweet 16, The OC, Laguna Beach, Entertainment Tonight, The Real Housewives—all of that brain putty which makes us believe obscene wealth is glamorous and sublimely desirable. Trump has the tact of a petulant child, nay, the tact of a lumpy potato, but that doesn’t matter. People see Trump’s name on buildings. He’s on TV. He represents what poor Americans are told they can achieve if they just work hard enough. So he went out and bought the biggest braindead megaphone on the planet—his outrageous presidential campaign machine—and we can’t get enough of it.

He’s tapping into a longstanding American tradition to blame “the other.” Muslims and Mexicans are simply the current targets of our noxious stereotyping and rancor. How have we not outgrown these racist knee-jerk reactions while angry white men continue to stockpile guns in their basements, foaming at the mouths over Fox News’s latest indictment against minorities or women?

The thing is that we need to grow up. There was never meant to be a GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. There’s only one planet and we haven’t been very good at sharing it. Historically, geographic areas in a position of privilege—the U.S., England, the Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire, etc.—have moved into other areas exploiting local people and resources. Most recently, it’s taken the form of economic exploitation, where materials and manufacturing corporations owned by people from one country move into less developed countries, plundering minerals, oil, verdant farmland, and cheap human capital in the name of “progress.” Wealth simply snowballs to favor the upper crust and capital is liquid, finding new homes when one becomes too expensive or politically hostile.

I appreciate Trump’s gargantuan ego for putting into focus one of the most serious issues we face: the intractable conflict of interest between the Public Good and the Corporate Good.

The Public Good is simple. It seeks a strong education for all; ample job opportunities for all; affordable healthcare for all; healthy food for all; clean, crime-free streets and parks for all; well-maintained electrical grids, water treatment plants, and sanitation centers for all; and plenty of social interaction with family and friends for all.

The Corporate Good is simple in its objective, but complicated in its means. The Corporate Good’s main goal is profit and it will do anything to ensure its own survival, lining its shareholders’ pockets at the expense of all else. It will create unaccredited diploma mills for which mainly poor citizens take out massive government loans for ultimately worthless degrees (e.g., Axact). It will make a man raise the price of a life-saving drug 1600 percent (e.g., Martin Shkreli).  It will make cancer treatments, pharmaceuticals, and surgeries much more expensive than they need to be because of bloated insurance bureaucracies. It will elevate sugary, processed foods above healthier options through marketing and low pricing (e.g., Coca Cola, McDonalds). It will create misleading advertisements and TV shows preying on people’s fears, weaknesses, and rage. It will try and merge with companies in countries like Ireland which cater to the Corporate Good (e.g., Pfizer). It will spread harmful chemicals through pristine environments (e.g., Monsanto, BP). It will buy fancy football arenas to keep people placably entertained and aware of its products (e.g., Budweiser). It will create machines for mass-killing and sell them without regard for the Public Good (Lockheed Martin). It will pay attractive, well-spoken people to convince Congressmen to protect its interests. Most strikingly, the Corporate Good holds the reins of government since money—not policy proposals, character, shrewdness, or morality—is what puts our Congressmen and presidents into power. What else can account for the mysterious rise of a loathsome creature like Donald Trump?

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Blore’s Razor Primer for the 2012 Presidential Smackdown

* On Community Organizer, Constitutional Law Professor and Author, President Barack Obama: “There’s always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.” (Vaclav Havel)
* On Bu$ine$$ $uper$tar, Mitt Romney: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power?” (Aneurin Bevan)
* On Legendary Gaffe Artist, Joe Biden: “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.” (Gustave Flaubert)
* On Personal Responsibility Enthusiast, Paul Ryan: “A maximum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue. Poverty is earned and deserved.” (Adaptation of Patrice Lumumba)

* On Political Promises: “Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.” (George Carlin)
* On Political Scandals: “To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight in the blood.” (George Santayana)
* On Political Outcomes: “Before enlightenment—chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment—chop wood, carry water.” (Zen proverb)

* On Bill Murray: “You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.” (Thomas Pynchon)