Finally, I can sit at my keyboard with minimal pain from
surgery. Also, my head is clearer than
when I wrote my last entry.
This is a two subject piece but they are related as I’ve
come out of surgery pretty beaten up, dark, angry purple bruises on both legs
and staples holding the pacemaker “wound” together on my chest, with limited
range of my right arm, essentially a metaphor for how I feel about the
election.
We all now know that if it were not for the arcane Electoral
College method of electing the president, Clinton was the clear winner. So Trump was right in saying beforehand
(haven’t heard it after the election from him, wonder why?) that the system is
rigged. Can you imagine if the results
were exactly opposite, Trump winning the popular but losing the EC? Instead of the relatively peaceful protests
we’ve seen spontaneously erupting around the country, we’d have Trump’s heavily
armed militia in the streets. Revolution
and bloodshed. So, in a way, for the
safety of our citizens at least short term, this outcome has that one benefit.
Long term, it’s a different deal. There are so many issues where an unrestrained
Trump presidency can wreck the future of this country and the world, that it
would be senseless to detail them all here.
First, though, as much as I thought Trump’s candidacy was
a joke during the initial months of the primaries, I took it quite seriously later, my fear growing in direct relation to his Teflon
ability to say anything and, what used to matter, our 4th estate --
the Press -- having little effect to act as a foil. If I was in a prolonged coma and came out of
it to hear a presidential candidate talk about shooting someone on 5th
Ave. with no consequences, grabbing women by their pussies, etc., I would have
thought the Press would have been able to eviscerate that candidate long ago.
But cyber bullying was the factor in this campaign which
made it unique. Facebook and Twitter had
more to do with the outcome of this election than all the newspapers and TV
news media combined. Trump’s attention span is ideally suited to 140 character
tweets and his reality TV personality gave him entrée to TV coverage whenever
he wanted it, gratis. And in spite of
his racist overtone, he did carry a persuasive populist message, the forgotten
plight of the white middle class male. Whether he can make good on promises to that
minority group is highly unlikely, especially with his tax cut proposals which
will benefit his own economic class most.
(I don’t believe in trickle down prosperity. The “wealth effect” is to
make the wealthy wealthier.)
So based mostly on anecdotal evidence, I thought Trump
had a better chance than the polls reflected. I grew up only a couple of miles from his
neighborhood in Queens, NY and we’re almost the same age. Although more than 50 years have passed since
I’ve lived there, if I close my eyes when Trump speaks I hear street talk I’m
familiar with. Between his celebrity
status and his strong appeal to the middle class, people were willing to
overlook the big picture and especially loved the way he took down the ruling
oligarchy (including the now vestigial Press and traditional mass media). And given the unpredictability of what people
do in the privacy of the voting booth (perhaps ashamed to be backing Trump
publicly, but will pull the lever for him privately), I went into surgery
thinking that this election was a tossup, especially with the FBI making
unprecedented statements to Congress and Wiki Leak’s one sided email revelations,
so ripe for Trump’s conspiracy campaign (imagine if the RNC’s emails were
similarly exposed).
Thus, nothing about election night truly surprised
me. In fact I called the outcome at 9.20
PM, turned off the TV and went to bed with the residual effects of anesthesia still
in my system. I woke up in pain
throughout the night but refused to look at the TV or phone to confirm “my call.” The next morning my heart sank, in spite of
being prepared for the outcome.
So here’s the existential dilemma: how does one, as a
citizen of a country he/she loves, support its new leader, while having
complete disdain for that leader, his policies, his narcissistic disorders, and
fearing the damage he and his administration might do?
While I could go into a long litany of all the specific
issues, I’m trying to look at this from 50,000 feet so they don’t overwhelm. To
me, I see a world undergoing turbulent change, hastened by a technology revolution. The industry I came from – publishing --is
just one example of the incredible forces of creative destruction that
technology has fostered. More books are being
published (including e-books) using far less labor than in the past. The majority of book titles are now printed on
demand. Warehouses are not needed for
those and the process is completely automated. The whole landscape has changed. Robots now make the majority of heavy
industry products. This trend is only
accelerating. Capital finds the most
efficient venues for its deployment.
Anyone who believes that Trump can simply bring back
manufacturing jobs like we once had is self-deluded, abetted by the master
manipulator himself, Donald Trump, who told the victims of disintermediation what they
wanted to hear…….that things would return to the way they were.
I do believe there is a path to expanding jobs and
prosperity for the forgotten middle class, but it means abandoning the past and
embracing the future. America’s export
is intellectual capital and technology.
Our educational system needs to reflect those realities and build our
industries with those as a foundation. Let the manufacturing of goods that require
handwork reside in low cost labor countries, such as those which made Trump’s
hats.
Going further up from a 50,000 foot overview you see a
planet whose delicate atmosphere which protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet
light and governs the balance of glaciers, oceans, and climate – all under
siege. Can we afford to aid climate
denial forces in our society, simply because it is the easy, short term answer
to some of our economic ills? Here again
is both a threat and an opportunity, an opportunity to develop the alternative
energy and mass transportation industries, a win-win situation, jobs and a
healthier environment for future generations.
America has to lead other countries in this effort.
We seem to be at a Malthusian tipping point in the
history of the world. Population is
growing exponentially but while Malthus was concerned about the food supply
keeping pace, little could he foresee the other factor, now a bigger part of
the equation of whether humanity can survive changes to the environment itself
because of our addiction to fossil fuels.
So these are just some of the big picture things I’m
concerned about. I want to support my
President but I fear that progressives will have to fight tooth and nail,
hoping the country can hang on for four years.
If I’m around then, it will because of incredible medical
technology, the kind that allowed me to survive my fourth pacemaker
implantation with the removal of existing leads being the most dangerous part
of the operation. New leads then had to
be implanted, these being MRI compliant which my old leads were not. As I age, an MRI is inevitable. First they had to connect me to a temporary
pacemaker as I am 100% dependent on the ventricle pacing by threading leads
through each of my legs and then to a temporary pacemaker during the operation.
Then they opened my chest to remove the existing pacemaker and begin the long
arduous task of removing the existing leads, an operation of great delicacy to
not injure the heart. Unfortunately, a
small part of the lead in the atrium broke off and the surgeon felt it was just
too dangerous to go after that last piece and thus I lost the MRI compliant
feature. Overall the operation went well
and now I’m trying to rest and rehabilitate,
I’m grateful to family and friends who expressed so much
care and particularly to my wife, Ann, who stayed with me in the hospital room,
sleeping on an uncomfortable cot, and watched over things for me, shaving my
chest, stomach and legs and helping me take the first of two antiseptic showers
before the operation. I can’t say enough positive things about the
nurses at the University of Miami Hospital.
To me they are as important as the surgeon, maybe more so.
Thus, I am slowly getting back to form, but to a political
landscape that has been shaped by fear and intolerance. I have low expectations that Mr. Trump can
suddenly function as the leader we all need to help us coalesce as a
nation. His narcissistic personality
must be fed and that is going to be a constant obstruction to doing the right
thing, such as selecting Cabinet members who are NOT just yes people or those
connected to his business interests or family.
Can one imagine Sarah Palin, a climate change denier as Secretary of the
Interior as rumored? He’s already appointed
a denier, Myron Ebell, as the head of the EPA transition team.
My good friend, Artie, reminded me of H.L. Mencken’s
prophetic quote from nearly 100 years ago: “As
democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more
closely, the inner soul of the people. On
some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their
heart's desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright
fool and a complete moron. Perhaps
that time has come.
Nonetheless I’m desperately trying to end this with
something positive: Trump is now going
to become OUR President and I for one will try to give his administration a
chance to do some of the right things for the nation as a whole.
After I wrote the preceding though, I read David Remnick’s incredible article from the November 9 issue of The New Yorker, “An American Tragedy,” perhaps the most important
of the many I’ve read. Highly
commended.
