Blog Layout

Intolerance Writ Large

February 17, 2023

I would dearly like to discuss with Trumpists, their ideas, beliefs, and understanding of policy without rancor, bitterness and the need to be completely right.  I personally may be guilty of some of this, too.  Listening was never my strong point and I have a tendency to dismiss those who seem to have lost their senses.  But then I must surely admit, they probably share the same disposition toward me.


Some people are hysterical Trumpists who believe that mainstream America is not giving Trump the chance to be a good President. "It's only been a year and a half," they say. Discussion suffers a devolution to a to a netherworld of alternative facts, fire-breathing Obama or Clinton deprecation as justification for their diversion, obfuscation and ultimately, a seething intolerance.  Attempts at reason seem as elusive as understanding with complete clarity the nature of the universe.  They do not listen at all, so intentionally dismiss arguments contrary to their own worldview.


They are true believers, card-carrying members of the Trump base. A frustration settles over me, unable to overcome their confirmation bias.    Among their thoughts (from a recent vitriolic email) include the inherent anti-intellectualism of the Supreme Soviet or a book burning in a square in 1936 Munich.  Last week, I received the below rant:


"I am always amazed by the amount of advice being given to the President from people no where(sic) near the negotiating table.

I truly believe the left will cheer if North Korea walks away. They, including you, hate Trump so deeply that if he cured Cancer you wouldn't release the formula. Please do not email me trash from intellectuals who pray for a sitting Presidents failure. I believe in giving a duly elected President a chance with the support of the country(sic). You don't. (sic) In the article there was not, and never is, the solution or even an alternate solution to any problem. If this summit doesn't happen, it doesn't. But please save your personal dignity and don't go out and cheer for North Korea but Trump, (sic) as every President before him since 1954 has been unable to accomplish. If Trump didn't try, he would further be condemned. Damned if you do, etc. You, with your loss at the election will not rest (sic) until he is out if(sic) office by ANY means. God bless America, because a group of Americans would cheer for any misstep no matter what. We are in a sad state of affairs and you, my friend, are hoping for this President's failure. I am glad I have never felt the degree of hate that you are living with. It must be a depressing state of affairs to wake up daily hoping for devastation."


Their hatred of Hillary and Obama apparently does not count.  And who said I was not sad about the self-destructive tendencies of this erratic, unstable president?  And why would I wish him to fail?


The above screed in response to an article I had sent from the Washington Post of the vicissitudes of negotiating with Kim Jong Un who has conducted an on again off again agreement to negotiate, and has a completely different understanding of what denuclearization of the Korean peninsula means.  Kim, a demonstrably ruthless murderer, is probably no trustworthier than Trump, who, do not forget, seeks not to develop a condominium project in Atlantic City based upon illusory revenues from a gaming table.  A few days later I sent an article from The Wall Street Journal pointing our similar difficulties.  That resulted in a threat to have my email blocked.   "Good," I said to myself, I no longer have to deal directly with this person, whom I can only regard as detrimental to my blood pressure.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon your point of view, I am intolerant of injustice and of people who refuse to respond to rational argument by instead responding with anger.


Apparently, as of this date, our exalted leader is not doing so well with Little Rocket Man.


However, the email above heretofore quoted verbatim:


1. Calculated that I was rooting for the President's failure.

2. Cheering for a Trump misstep.

3. Am consumed by hatred. 

4. Hope for "devastation" for the nation or for the world.

5. Explicitly states that anti Trump people live in a depressing dystopia.

6. Thoughtful people are "pseudo-intellectual" and worthy of contempt.  Answers are simple and easily analyzed.

7.  That Trump is a good negotiator a priori and should not be questioned. (Evidence has proven otherwise.)

8.  Wished to receive no further discourse.


I mistakenly thought I was sending inoffensive articles, calculated to point out the difficulties of negotiating with North Korea on what North Korean leadership regards as an existential issue. (Think about Gaddafi)  Previously, during a telephone conversation containing a good deal of shouting at me about Hillary's emails and how Obama destroyed America, I desired to impart my point of view against some of other stated beliefs including how poor people (except women starving in the streets) should raise themselves up by their bootstraps and be purged from welfare eligibility.  This person's economic position, it seems, allowed them to condemn most others who have not so similarly found themselves in a very secure circumstance, those circumstances not entirely of this person's own doing.


That distasteful conversation cemented my long held understanding that our nation is ideologically imperiled.  If Trump were to open a concentration camp for Mexicans and people from "shithole countries, " Trumpists would defend him by saying that Trump has not been given a chance and that the Democrats lost the election, "get over it."  We who criticize the president are not loyal Americans. (that dreadful 1st amendment)  And the newspapers (except Fox News) are all purveyors of fake news.  Fox news has garnered millions of viewers, and is a true competitor to Joseph Goebbels.


So how does the average moderate deal with such blindness?   Do they try to convince antagonists?  Do they try to converse with them?  Is it useless or is it a premature surrender to unjustified obduracy?  Or is it that some people are so ideologically ossified that they will not even entertain contrary ideas?   I can understand politicians who must pander to their base.  But what of friends who can no longer speak politics to one another?  Political discourse has always been the essence of the American experiment, leading to compromise and laws to help us all.  That seems to be gone with the vanishing middle class.  A brilliant article in the Atlantic this month, by Matthew Stewart, "The Birth of a New Aristocracy,” deals with that shrinkage.  Well worth reading, it argues that the new aristocracy "has mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other people's children."  and that consists of the 9.9% of the population.  Doctors, lawyers, engineers and white collar workers who have grabbed the middle of the income scale.  The rest of the people are stagnating in a fetid, Dickensian future, unable to climb the ladder.


The maxim that one should never discuss politics or religion does not carry water for me.   Politics for news junkies such as myself is the bread of social interaction.  But the problem is that social media has placed us in small groups that only see a Manichean world.  People have divided themselves with the sources of information that they use.    Now places like Facebook are finally attempting to verify some of the misinformation and perhaps raise the accuracy of some of the misinformation that is virally corrupting.


But wait.   I have another Republican friend who does not like Trump, concedes his vulgarity, lack of dignity, but argues that the presidency should be dignified, but that since thugs run the rest of the world, we need a thuggish president who can fight fire with fire.  This Palm Beach 1%er knows the answers and spells them out in short, pithy expressions reminiscent of people who consider themselves wise based upon superficial knowledge.  Yet there is an air of tolerance in his responses and a begrudging concession that some of the positions that Trump espouses are racist, and vulgarly repugnant.  On the other hand, he says, that the entire world is racist, implying that that is an inherent justification for Trump's behavior, ignoring our nation's past foundation of slavery.  At least, in my view, he sets the bar very low for American values, by supporting an unfit president.  He, however, is not irredeemably fanatical, but still his ideas come close to justifying the ends justifying the means, a clear abrogation of utilitarian morality.


Another two Republican friends do not argue, they simply base all their support on whether their taxes have decreased, whether the economy is doing well, and whether their bank accounts balloon.  They care not a fig about social issues, nor the less fortunate, nor a wit of social responsibility for those who have not achieved some criterion of their respectful ideation.



Flummoxed is the wrong expression, I must say, of the difficulty in navigating the rocky shoals of political discourse in this time of inordinate schism.  The expressions of frustration linger mightily on the conscience, the always excruciating challenges of attempting to communicate with one's political adversaries.  The better angels of our nature do not prominently appear; they lurk in some shadowy hollow under a rock of hatred, misunderstanding and polarity of the polity of our great Republic, which, none the better for this situation of antipathy and misunderstanding, is exacerbated by an unforgiving social media, televised propaganda, irresponsible talking heads and people whose wealth clouds their humanitarian judgment of themselves and of their fellow citizens.

Share This Post

Recent Post

GOP Hypocrisy at its Highest

By Engage Team • February 17, 2023
So the Supremes, appointed by Republicans, Bush I, Bush II, and three justices appointed by the Donald, who lost the popular vote by 3 million voters and who probably will soon be indicted in Georgia for election fraud, and maybe Federally for a failed coup d’état, have decided that 50 years of precedent be damned, that there is no constitutional right for a woman to make her own reproductive choices. Never mind an entire generation of women who have grown up under Roe. So let’s socially engineer by judicial fiat, what has been law for generations.N Let’s face the facts. The “justices” make up their own minds, and then build a constitutional rationalization to support their position from an infinite variety of decisions throughout the centuries of common law. And by the way, Bush II, like Trump, was also a minority president, except in the anti- democratic electoral college, designed originally to allow slave states to remain so. Our Constitution also ensured that woman and black people could not vote. So all you originalists and textualists can go back to where we were before Roe v. Wade, to that wonderful mid 20th century where segregation ruled, or the early 19th century where slavery ruled. Why not overrule Brown v. Board of Education to keep America white and segregated Justice Alito, that righteous avatar of Catholic abortion dogma rests at one of the pinnacles of governmental power, believes that American women should be the victim of state gerrymandered legislatures, representing a minority of the American polity. When Thomas Jefferson said famously, “keep the preachers away from government,” he surely should have included Alito. Let’s not forget the notion that the court is or should be not politicized. That train left the station in the early 20th century. When FDR’s National Recovery Act was shut down by the conservative Court, a court packing threat from the Democrats in congress caused the conservative majority to back off from shooting down the progressive programs that were to help the nation out of the great depression. The problem is now that there are not enough votes in the Senate to do any such thing because of successful Republican moves to suppress the vote; instead packing the court with ideologues, the most notable of whom is the handmaiden herself—Amy Coney Barrett, whom the Donald picked to fill the seat of a progressive giant, RBG. Never mind the hypocrisy of dissing Obama’s selection of Merrick Garland, not even given a hearing thanks to Mitch McConnell and his lieutenants, including Chuck Grassley, who should be in a nursing home feeding on double doses of Prevagen. Mitch at the helm has seen to our current “Justices”, helped by disinformation emanating from Rupert Murdoch’s FOX news, a money-grubbing Australian oligarch, no better than the Russian ones. Mitch’s net worth has increased ten-fold since he was elected and not on his Senate salary for sure, his wife benefiting from Chinese largesse to and from her uber wealthy family. Oh, and don’t forget Clarence Thomas, a black man who hates his own people, abetted by his wife, Ginny, encouraging the rioters to storm the capitol, sending emails to insurrectionists and GOP party leaders to stop the certification of the vote by the Senate. Thomas is all bent out of shape because of the dastardly leak, impugning the “integrity” of the court. But he will probably not recuse himself on Trump’s appeal if he is convicted of felonious conspiracy to precipitate an insurrection. Other dramatis personae include the repulsive Ted Cruz and the vituperative Josh Hawley, who voted against the purely ceremonial certification of a lawful election, necessary to enshrine the vote. Also, lets not omit a Bronx cheer for Bret Cavanaugh, the beer swilling frat boy, credibly accused of waving his penis in Christine Blasey Ford’s face at his fraternity house, assaulting her. While admittedly a college escapade, it does not speak well to his character. But no matter, he has absolved himself by joining in this sadistic exercise of Republican misogyny. “I like beer, Senator Klobuchar, don’t you?” Cavanaugh hubristically asked the Senator whose father died of alcoholism. No matter, there is no right to privacy in the Constitution, says the red spider veined nosed icon of the religious right. Now, poor women who live in Texas, Mississippi, or other places of enlightened Republican legislators will have to book an airplane flight or drive to a place where it is legal. But wait! They do not have the money to do so, instead they can carry them to term and drop their newly born at the nearest police station or underfunded Mississippi or Texas childcare facility. Thanks a lot, Amy. Perhaps you want to adopt some more children. This whole sordid episode of “Making America Great Again,” curdles the blood even of the most casual observer.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

By Engage Team • February 17, 2023
"A house divided against itself, cannot stand..." - Abraham Lincoln From California to New York, from Oregon to Florida, a frightening division has descended upon our country. From rural to urban America, people wonder whether the nation and its institutions can survive this polarity. There have been times in American history that the nation was divided, never more so than in 1860. Throughout that history, there had been bitter partisanship and division. From the heat of the constitutional convention in steamy 1787 Philadelphia, the founders fought bitterly to a compromise that actually welded two nations into one in a constitution which just ninety years later devolved into a insanely bloody civil war, brother against brother, father against son, family against family. A partisan press with countless newspapers and pamphleteers spewed hatred and vituperative allegations against their countrymen both at the founding and throughout the years leading to the Civil War. Twitter has nothing on them. A rural south, an industrializing north, both parts of which employed slavery, regarded Negroes as inferior, abetted involuntary servitude and a racist ethos, challenging even the most enlightened of our citizenry. During the time between the founding and the Civil War forged compromises kept the Union together. The Missouri compromise (1820) and the Kansas-Nebraska act (1854) failed as attempts to reconcile admission to the Union of new states as either slave or free. The Constitution itself had slavery baked in to its original ratification (Article 4 sec. 2.3) imposing that, " No person held to Service or Labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any Law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due," Later, the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 imposed the duty on citizens and officials of the individual states themselves to return slaves to their owners or face civil fines, and that persons harboring slaves to criminal penalties. Slave catchers roamed the North, collecting bonuses for bringing slaves in; captured slaves were not permitted a jury trial. Sound like a rickety Constitution? Of course, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments cured some of that, but still, it took the bloodiest war in the history of the Republic, 700,000 dead and wounded to get the amendments passed and only in the last few years was the Confederate battle flag removed from South Carolina government buildings. The Civil Rights act of 1964, race riots in Los Angeles, freedom riders, political assassinations of civil rights leaders, and a frothing George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door shouting "segregation forever!" interceded in the 1960s, almost 100 years after the end of the war and ten years after the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education outlawed segregation in the public schools. Well, that same Constitution has given us the Electoral College, a Federalist exercise in balancing the interests of the various states, and which now presents us with a highly undemocratic underrepresentation of large populations, California for instance, with its 40,000,000 people and North Dakota with its 500,000 each carrying two senators. Do the math on fair representation. Yes, I know the House is supposed to do that, but with present gerrymandering, the Democrats are obliged to win by much bigger majorities than Republicans. With Republicans dedicated to disenfranchising voters in Florida, for example, contrary to the will of the voters, Democrats must win votes in far greater numbers than Republicans to achieve a working majority. We now have entrenched minority government. With an unleashed president, sociopathically bound to his vindictive agenda, extreme anxiety pervades the Democratic Party, fearing that this president will be re-elected, boasting that "he alone" is claiming responsibility for the booming economy, acquitted from his misdeeds by a kangaroo court, comprised of quaking GOP senators afraid of tribal banishment to an ignominious gulag of GOP opprobrium, losing their congressional health plans, positions, prestige and power andthe ultimate loss of the dignity which they inartfully tried to preserve. Instead, they have lost it anyway by their surrender to political expediency. We need either a constitutional convention or a huge movement among voters to recognize that the divisions among us are not the result of a political agenda, but instead, tribal cultism. Many of the policy agendas result from identity politics, rural against urban, wealthy against poor, a displaced working class losing out in the battle against inevitable technological displacement, climate change and nuclear proliferation, the greatest threats to the world. A leader who can heal these divisions and create forbearance and a spirit of compromise is what we need more than ever. A president of either party who can understand reality, not phantasmagorical narcissism. It is said that great crises manufacture an FDR, a Winston Churchill, an Abraham Lincoln. Where may he or she be?

Running from Ennui

By Engage Team • February 17, 2023
Passion seems to be bestowed as a blessing on few people but seeking it is a not inconsiderable chore conferred on the many. I am not officially retired, but it seems that way. The clients call less and the work I did as a trial lawyer has become less and less appetizing. Business has diminished, not only because I am seventy-nine years of age, but because I have zero desire to market myself like a snake oil salesman. I leave that particularly odious practice to well-funded and battle stationed Morgan and Morgan and others, whose legions of paralegals, investigators, paid experts and well-staffed soldiers battle with insurance companies, and “fight for you,” its overworked lawyers all the while complaining to their colleagues and family that they hate what they do. Fifty years at the bar, and I do not mean Flanagan’s, is enough, so I leave the task of transferring wealth from one party to another and taking a piece of the action the alleged passion of the many. I do still consult with clients, if I can be of help them. I wonder if I can achieve a modicum of mastery the piano, considering that when I took violin lessons as a youth, the bandleader working at my dad’s upstate New York hotel, a Catskill fiddler by the name of Billy Rogers (nee Rosenberg) who, admittedly, was not a music teacher, told my father, that I was the “dumbest, most tone-deaf child he had ever met.” But then again, he was no Isaac Stern nor even a music teacher. Music teachers do not scream at their beginning ten-year-old students. The sole reason Dad asked him to teach me was because a guest had left a violin in one of his hotel rooms. Before my dad’s discovered violin aspirations for me, I had expressed neither the interest nor the inclination to play the most difficult, annoying instrument, or torturing everyone within hearing distance. “Press the strings until your fingers bleed and you develop callouses,” said Billy. I do not recall what happened to the violin or Billy, although he was aged in 1952. Dad either sold the violin or most likely, gave it away. Another serial disappointment from his son, I guess. After becoming a lawyer, I decided I would learn to play tennis. And I loved it. I was addicted. I became reasonably competent, starting at the age of 35, and playing regularly until I hit 70 and had spine surgery laying me up a few years. I was never the best, but I was pretty good, had a good serve and tried to play again a few years ago, losing to a younger fellow who had been playing just a few years. I had beaten him soundly before. Never fast on my feet, my molasses-like movements said, time to hang up the sneakers. Life is a series of things being taken from you. At 55 I had taken up golf. I think I have a pretty good swing, but athletically, I needed time to learn, ( a nice way to say I am a slow learner) and time is running out. Although that would not stop me, if I had some agreeable companions with whom to play. Many of the friends whose company I enjoyed have died or fallen away. There is nothing worse than spending 18 holes with someone monumentally annoying. “Nice putt,” they said, as my ball sped past the hole. Plus, most golfers do not share my politics and, inevitably, an afternoon of enjoyment turns into a dumpster fire. Most players who are Republicans, cheat. The shoe wedge or miscounting the score is a frequently insufferable habitude of the right-wing selfish, individualist, “let them eat cake” crowd. Now, when my days are not consumed by interminably long doctor’s visits or some new ailment appears, I am seeking something to do with my spare time. Going to the hospital or delivering goodies to the ill and infirm is too depressing, since I already am depressed about most people walking past me as though I did not exist. I have become irrelevant and invisible, both not particularly enviable results of my wrinkles and weathered skin and increasingly whitening hair. A grey ghost. I suppose I should take comfort that a geezer like Joe Biden could be president, gaining inspiration from him. But he seems so delicate, so frail now, that a stiff breeze would blow him over or he might stumble coming down the stairs of Air Force One. It is frightening to behold. Still, Joe beats the alternative--the orange-colored crook who is still peddling the big lie. The country is in the worst crisis since the great depression, and Joe is not FDR.  Which brings me back to the piano. I asked a neighbor who is a music teacher at an exclusive private school, “Is learning the piano at 79 doable?” He replied, “definitely, it will be good for your mind. Always keep two hands on the keyboard and learn musical notation.” I replied that I had purchased a book that said I will be able to play a Bach prelude within six weeks if I practiced 45 minutes per day. Encouraging. I guess I will find out if it can be my new passion.
Share by: