Tag: Jeb Bush

By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I read a comment by the author of a new book called President Obama Created Donald Trump, claiming that President Obama saw himself and the country as post-racial, and thus didn’t prepare for the consequences of “the catalyst for racial backlash and unrest” that led to Trump’s nomination.

The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau
The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau

Interesting theory. But it sounds to me like blame-the-victim. I’m too young to remember FDR, who I know was adamantly hated by conservatives—and who, despite that hostility, was elected four times. When the Republicans got power again in 1952, their standard-bearer was no radical demagogue. It was Eisenhower, a moderate who feared the oligarchy and was the first to call it “the military-industrial complex.”

Obama has borne the brunt of more hostility than any US president in my lifetime (much of it due to his color)—and handled it with remarkable grace. In this author’s view, he is somehow to blame for racism?

Here’s my contrasting view: When the Democratic Party and especially (Texan/Southerner) LBJ began to get serious about undoing racism, the Republicans, starting at least with Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy (if not earlier) began courting and nurturing the most racist right-wing fanatics in the party. Richard Viguere and his ilk brought fundraising, marketing, and organizing prowess. Reagan came to the party with a new economic agenda geared toward the 1%. Bush II added megalomaniacal ignorance and disastrous foreign and economic policies, yielding two wars and the Great Recession–and a hankering for “change.”

Obama rode that wave but faced an intransigent Congress openly dedicated to sabotaging his efforts. Progressives perceive him (falsely) as not accomplishing much. Yet the Republicans see him as usurping power. Neither accusation has merit, but that’s the public perception.

So people are eager for change. We saw it in the remarkable primary successes of not only Trump but Bernie Sanders (who I supported and voted for, incidentally—and like Bernie, I’m voting for Clinton next month). People feel disenfranchised, powerless, and thoroughly disgusted with the Establishment. Hillary Clinton, destined perhaps to be an even more hated president than Obama or FDR, is the embodiment of that establishment, as is Jeb Bush–one of the first GOP candidates to drop out.

Trump stepped into the vacuum, with lowest-common-denominator messages of hate masked in “Make America great again” rhetoric. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of his statements closely parallel quotes from Hermann Goering:

Trump: “I love the poorly educated!”
Goering: “Education is dangerous—every educated person is a future enemy.”

Trump: “The security guys said, Mr. Trump, there may be some people in the back with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody with a bag of tomatoes, just knock the crap out of them, would you? I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”
Goering: “Shoot first and ask questions later, and don’t worry, no matter what happens, I will protect you.”

Trump: “By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
Goering: “Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning.”

While his psychopathologies and abusive behaviors (not just the groping, but the lying, cheating, physical intimidation, psychological intimidation, threats of violence, etc.) go beyond even the Republican Party of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Trump’s thinking is a logical extension of his party’s reach for the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the barrel. He is the next iteration of a pattern that began in the GOP nearly 50 years ago. He is merely the next step the Republican Party has aimed toward for decades.

 

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In other years, I would probably vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. I voted for Nader twice. I love what Stein says. And I live in Massachusetts, where my electoral votes will go to Clinton no matter what I do—which is why I was able to vote for Nader.

But not this year. I feel in my heart that every vote for Green is one more invitation for Trump or someone similar to come back and try again. I want the margin of victory to be so large that we never have this breed of politics in a national election in our lifetimes–an utter and total repudiation. I also utterly dread the idea that Trump could appoint perhaps three more Clarence Thomases. And I note that the country just barely survived the wreck of the far more moderate George W. Bush’s eight stolen years in office. This one must be too definitive to steal.
Not that I’m calling George W. Bush a moderate. He and his henchmen (should I say puppeteers?) were extremists as we understood the term, until Palin and Cruz and Huckabee et al. came along and redefined it. But even they did not wallow in blatant racism. Even they did not have the chutzpah to openly cheat people in numerous business ventures. Even they knew better to openly make denigrating comments about women while bringing forward their misogynist laws. Even they refrained from attacking John McCain because he was taken captive in Vietnam.
I was just in Canada. Everyone wanted to talk about Trump and how scared they were of him. Literally, strangers would hear our American accents and come up to talk with us. If this country turns fascist, I want to say that I at least voted to block it. I can’t find motivation to work on Hillary’s campaign, but that much I can do.
I feel that Hillary Clinton, underneath it all, has a good heart. She actually does care about people. Yes, she is a flawed candidate. She will be a militarist, pro-Wall Street president, ’tis true. She has shown poor judgment on several occasions. She lacks the charisma and outsider status of both Bernie and Trump. Her ethics are sketchy. But Trump has no ethics at all. And a President Trump would be a living reminder that Hitler came to power originally in an election.
It is very disturbing to me that a thin-skinned bully who has made it abundantly clear he cares only about himself and his own money and power could secure the nomination, even among a group of looney-birds so extreme that Jeb Bush seemed like the moderate (he’s not). If Trump wins, it really raises a deeper question for me than how will we survive his presidency and what do we do if he refuses to step down when his term is over. It raises this: do I want to live in an America that would elect this monster?
I watched three inspiring hours of the convention last night, including Bernie’s speech as well as those of Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and various members of Congress, Latinos, blacks, people with disabilities, and a gay NBA star, usually right after they played a clip of Trump bashing that constituency. It brought home a point that Trump seems to utterly miss and Hillary really gets: that our diversity is a key part of our strength as a nation. It was very effective in showing the vast contrast between Hillary and Trump and made many of the right noises about a progressive agenda, noting over and over again that this year’s platform embraces much of the Sanders agenda.
It made me feel much better about my decision months ago that I would vote for her if she is the nominee, and sparked my decision today to publicly endorse Hillary Clinton.
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics-International, Marketing Trends/News, media-general, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The US presidential race is full of outsiders this year. Trump gets lots of attention in the media–but Sanders seems to be having more of an impact on policy questions, and on bringing disenfranchised-feeling voters in from outside the electoral process.

There are many parallels between Sanders on the left and Trump on the right–both of them attracting attention for being firmly OUTSIDE the mainstream, and both waging far more successful campaigns than the pundits predicted. And they both look and sound like the New Yorkers they are.

But in many other ways other ways, of course, they’re completely different: Unlike Trump, Sanders is…

1. Seriously concerned about making things better for those who are not wealthy, and basing this on a 50-year record of activism (vs. concern only about making things better for Trump and a few others of enormous class privilege).
2. Thoughtful, willing to engage on issues, analyzes more deeply than most candidates with charisma.
3. A populist fundraising champion who does not fund his campaign with–and thus is not beholden to–corporate money or party money, but from millions of ordinary people. I don’t think this has been done before on this scale (vs. Trump self-funding out of his personal fortune and claiming that this makes him honest because he’s the one doing the buying of politicians instead of being bought by them)
4. Someone who tells the truth (Trump has been caught in more lies than any of the others).
5. A successful coalition builder who has a track record of working well with people who think differently

But even Cruz and Rubio (and certainly dropouts Carson and Fiorina) are outliers too. It is scary to see the Republican Party start to coalesce around the very scary Ted Cruz, who only looks rational because Trump is so far in right field that he moves the public perception of what’s mainstream. When Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (a slasher of the safety net) is considered a centrist, we have a serious distortion in perception vs. reality.

So the big lesson I take away is this: when four out of the five most popular candidates this year are outside the mainstream, the mainstream had better look at why, and what they can do about it. With the exception of Clinton, all the mainstream candidates are out of the race–even presumptive GOP nominee (as of last summer) Jeb Bush.

Me? I agree with at least 80% of what Sanders says, and was happy to vote for him in our March 1 Massachusetts primary.

Oh yes, and let’s not forget the role of the media in king/queen making and unmaking. One of Sanders’ other strengths is in engaging millennials who are good at creating their OWN (social) media–while defeating the myth that a self-declared socialist can’t run a serious campaign for national office in the US.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail