Where were you when the most traumatizing presidential press conference in history spewed forth?
While I have adopted the rule of changing the station to avoid listening to Trump speak (his -loquy is too reminiscent of my own mother's failures), I got caught in yesterday's chaos. Infrastructure is our meat, so I was a little slow to change the channel, and then he started calling consultants rich and the root of the problem in infrastructure project/permitting delays. So my fingers were texting my boss about that--who is a transportation facility project consultant, instead of pressing the buttons on the remote. And then it just happened...
As he paused to end his infrastructure speech, the press shouted questions at him, and, after having just heard his own voice--with all the authority and power of the world, booming off the walls of his home turf, the real Trump emerged. In an instant he was transformed, and it was palpable to even television viewers, You could see his anger and ego take physical control of the man even before he took the first question. It was impossible to look away. Indeed, the fight or flight instinct made it impossible to turn away--you feared for yourself, for him, for his staff, for the rest of us. And then he did it, he normalized organized hate, and, in all likelihood (hopefully), converted the countdown to the end of his presidency from years to weeks.
Even FOX called it for the tragedy it was, it was that bad.
So let's talk about some events in the speech that have yet to be discussed.
First, delayed permitting in infrastructure is NOT the problem with our country's infrastructure. Projects have become incredibly technologically advanced, as well as expansive, which means the impact on human safety and quality of life necessitates a thorough design/review and permitting process. Additionally, these projects are inextricable public resources, which means that control of them by persons accountable to the public is essential in this democratic representational government. Further, because the public's money is used to finance infrastructure projects, there is a requirement that the best and brightest talent at the most economically competitive level be employed at specific levels of the process, rather than having one government official or team of public servants half-ass their way through incredibly complex and advanced technologies. Consultants, contracted through competitive bid process, are integral to providing the best infrastructure projects possible to the people of this nation. Consultants on these projects are usually licensed professionals in technical fields. So, what the fuck is he talking about when he says that he his going to remove consultants from the process in order to speed up the permitting process?
Second, is no one also offended by his comment that linked "bringing factories back to the U.S. will be the best thing to improve race relations in this country?" That's a paraphrase, but its pretty close. Ironically, while the press is completely focused on analyzing the racism behind his "moral equivalency"-type comments, probably the most direct evidence of his own racist tendencies is evidenced by this specific comment. To say, in a generalizing way, that minorities will benefit from what will largely be manufacturing jobs is mind-blowingly offensive--and factually fragile, in so many ways.
Third, his comments, as he was walking away from the podium and, sort of, past the press, about owning property in Charlottesville, VA, reflect a mind/personality that has no capacity for thinking outside of his own self.
Fourth, I know why/how Trump can have Jewish family AND call Nazi's "good people". This is where my mother comes in. My brother is a racist, bullying, drug-dealing thug and thief. My sister is a "Christian" homophobe who, when I introduced my family to my first girlfriend, told me her kids were going to be raised in a "Christian" household in which gay would not be allowed. I, on the other hand, put myself through law school--for the challenge, and pride my self on living with integrity and compassion and modeling those traits for others.
Yet, in my family, over and over, I hear the matriarch justify, excuse, enable, and embolden my sister's hate and my brother's criminal behavior--behavior that is too often targeted directly at me. So, in my mother's household, the cognitive dissonance created by her children's conflicting behavior was accommodated by this same kind of normalization of incredibly bad behavior that we heard from Trump yesterday. He has at least one child--a son, that proudly and publicly expresses the same vulgar traits of white supremacists. That son is obsessed with fire power and with killing other beings, and is so morally and ethically vacuous as to agree to take a public office by colluding with the devil -- the Russian government. And, then, there is Trump's Jewish daughter and grandchildren. It is highly likely that, at least at many family dinners/events, the conflict between the two children has had to be "negotiated" by the patriarch, probably with him saying, "Look, both sides brought something to this conflict, so there is blame on both sides, figure it out and move on."
Instead of performing the emotionally difficult task of calling out his son on his bad conduct, he "normalizes" it by alleging a moral equivalency, much like my mother has done for years now.
Now, I want to speak to the several commentators who have discussed the fact that too many voters and Republicans have given too high a priority to any one specific "monetary" based "promise" made by Trump and that they voted out of anger, and so they must get over their anger and re-organize their priorities.
That will never happen.
I have been saying to others for months now that the reason why we have Trump is just because too many voters were too selfish to vote compassionately. I tell them that I sacrificed my vote out of concern for my neighbors and the other people of this country because, while I wanted to vote for Sanders, I knew that vote risked putting an incredibly intellectually underperforming, toxically vulgar, and patently self-serving revengeful person in the president's office would NOT bring change and would NOT be good for us. The people who voted for Trump, and the Republicans that remain silent, have not demonstrated the will, courage, or compassion that it takes to "get over their anger and to re-organize their priorities to put ethics above their own self interest", whether that self interest is a new tax structure, new health insurance mandates, preference for U.S. Steel,....
Next, the media also needs to draw attention to the fact that hate is infusing itself into our culture in more ways than just white supremacist movements. For example, the Alliance Defending Freedom "non-profit" has a legal training program and a $41 MILLION bank for their participating lawyers to draw from to pursue ANY legal action that works to "reform" our country's legal system so that it criminalizes homosexuality and makes the civil and family legal systems inaccessible to gays, lesbians, and same sex families. Right now, our legal systems--and many of our LGBT colleagues, neighbors, family, etc,, are being bombarded with onerous, yet frivolous/dilatory, legal actions that are designed to financially bankrupt the LGBT individual, at a minimum, and to establish a trail of legal precedents chipping away at the LGBT individual's right to seek protection or redress via our country's legal systems.
That press commentators have talked prolifically about the Southern Poverty Law Center's tracking of these hate groups since Saturday's tragic events without also revealing, in an impactful way, the more insidious hate-groups, like ADF, is a serious failure on the media's part. This is because while we are ruminating on the overtly violent hate groups disguised in polos and khakis, we are letting the ones in business suits sneak in the back door to our culture and its values.
Last, I would also like to know, with great certainty, whether Russian bots might also be feeding/trolling white supremacist internet sites in order to help Trump get 63 Million voters and to continue to influence is thought process while in office.
@ 8 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment