THIS & THAT #38

TRUMP OR DRUMPF?

Trying to Write World History Now

While Rewriting His Family’s History

 An “immigrant,” who Donald J., the GOP, and “the base” denigrate as part of their daily ritual, and are encouraged to do so by Donald. His latest foray into promulgating extremely negative descriptions of immigrants, include, “These aren’t people, these are animals.”

When it comes to describing south of the border individuals, he unequivocally describes them as “rapists, drug dealers, who are bringing in crime.” He strongly qualifies his off-the-mark rhetoric, by adding, “Some, I assume, are good people.” 

If you look long enough and hard enough, you may be able to find a politician who could be considered “a good person.”

They Came from Europe

Germany, Not Sweden

Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump (or Drumpf) came from Kallstadt, Palatinate, in 1885. It was then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. He changed his name to Frederick in 1892 when he came to the U.S. at the age of sixteen, and started working as a barber. That’s when the Trump tradition of better hair for the masses, first began.

According to Wikipedia, Friedrich (below left) was approaching the age of military conscription in the Imperial German Army, and immigrated to the United States. Avoiding the draft seems to be another family tradition. Because of his wife Elizabeth’s homesickness, the family returned to Germany in 1904, and Bavarian authorities determined that he was a draft dodger, and should lose his German citizenship.

After an unsuccessful attempt to stay, he and his family returned to New York in June 1905, and their son Frederick C. Trump was born that October. As Donald’s father, Fred Trump (center below), told people that he was of Swedish ancestry, concealing the family’s German heritage.

A Family of Immigrants

Friedrich’s grandfather, Johann Trump, was born in the village of Bobenheim am Berg, where his grandson Friedrich was born in 1869, and was Donald’s grandfather.

Trump’s mother Mary Anne MacLeod, came from the Hebridean island of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland.

Of his three wives, Donald’s first wife, Ivana Marie Zelnickova, (left below) was born in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, and his third wife, Melania (or Melanija) Knavs (center below), was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, the present-day Slovenia.

Barron William Trump is the youngest child of Donald and Melania, whom Donald recently referred to as Melanie.

Marla Ann Maples (far right below), Donald’s second wife was born in Dalton, Georgia, making her his only wife who was an American citizen at the time of their marriage. 

      

A Very Sensitive Man

Donald J., whose thoughts, opinions, and items he deems to consider as important, varies according to his mood. He recently cancelled his meeting with Kim Jong-Un, because of what Trump considered to be an insult to America’s great Vice-President. In a North Korean statement cited by Donald J., a top foreign Ministry official referred to Mike Pence as a “political dummy,” for his comments on the North.

Because of Donald’s warm and cozy relationship with Michael, he was offended by the truth of that description. If that benign remark infuriated him that much, neither he nor Pence are ready to deal with the reality of foreign affairs.

Who Shouldn’t Be Here, Donald?

Today, Donald suggested that those professional football players, who kneel during the playing of our National Anthem, shouldn’t be allowed to remain in the United States.

Bravo, draft evader Donald, who never served in the military.

Lest the country forget, oh patriot, that Donald J. attended the New York Military Academy — a high school. After he graduated from college in the spring of 1968, he was eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam. However, the brave, future leader of our great nation, managed to receive a coveted 1-Y medical deferment exempting him from ever wading through the swamps of Vietnam. That’s the medical deferred Trump in the middle of this photograph.

This deferment was one of five Trump received during Vietnam, and it was based on “the fact” that he had bone spurs in his heels. The other deferments were for education. Trump was quoted as saying, “I had a doctor that gave me a letter — a very strong letter on the heels.”

He never needed an operation for that devastating problem, but confessed in an interview with the New York Times. “Over a period of time, it healed up.”

“Time heals all wounds,” sayeth Chaucer in “Troilus and Criseyde,” although the exact olde English words were, “As tyme hem hurt, a tyme doth hem cure.”

Others prefer that in the case of Trump, Menander (342 BC – 291 BC) should be given credit with his Greek Version, “Time is the healer of all necessary evils.” More apropos to Donald and has actions, would be “Time wounds all heels,” and the sooner the better.

Sadly, many of Trump’s wounds seem to be more self-inflicted every day.

THIS & THAT #36

HERE COMES THE SLUDGE

ON THE ONE HAND

Many have been receiving an unending collection of campaign muck and mire, emanating from those seeking to either support or get rid of Donald Joseph Trump and his semi-savvy savants.

Elected Republicans are wary of saying anything against Donald J’s twiddling tweets, fearing that he could reverse his course in a moment, and then attack the source of any anti-Trump message.

His political appointees, whether a member of his rotating cabinet or serving as a messenger, know that their position depends on his mood on any given early morning foray into his vacillating tweet land.

ON THE OTHER HAND

The Democrats, Progressives, and out-of office functionaries who are eager to replace those closely aligned with the Mar-A-Lago runaways, are also wary of what they say. If they attack too much, the response could bite them at the ballot box, when their vindictive opposition starts grinding out their own convoluted, anti-truth messages.

In 2016, Democratic strategists sent out the wrong messages to the wrong people, merely solidifying those who truly wanted to believe in something. It took them a while to discover that along with California and New York, there were needed electoral votes and voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, Texas and Arizona.

AH, HA, THEY SO SAYETH

The four-page letter I received a few days ago from Bernie, spelled out all of the problems the country now faces. While much of the blame is laid upon Donald, blame also has to be given to those progressives who helped him to be elected through their political naivety and weak actions in the 2016 campaign. That includes Debbie, Donna, Hillary, and the DNC.

A NEW COARSE TAKEN

Democrats are going after the dollars of middle-class whites, and the votes of the unappreciated minorities of color and those with an English-language deficiency. Let’s hope that they have a more organized plan then the last one, trying to connect with citizens who will vote on November 6, 2018, and beyond.

There are young people who seem to be attempting to change the direction of our country. Along with Blacks and Latinos and Latinas, the Democrats had better pay attention to the neglected minority of middle-class, non-progressive whites, like the police officer in this photo. The Reverend Sharpton, not withstanding his ability to be on the scene everywhere at the same time, may not be able to deliver the votes needed in 2018 to change the course of the country’s ship of state.

THIS & THAT #34

US VERSUS THEM

Sexism. Racism. Ageism. 
They are here to stay, as long as we let them.

Sexism

As a youth, some seventy-years ago, it was a world where I saw no real battles between males and females. Those in power in my world were principals, and in elementary school the power rested in the control of Mary Sullivan, the larger than life leader at Brady Elementary School. During World War Two, whenever there was an air raid drill, all students and professors would gather in the halls as Mrs. Sullivan pounded on the keys of a small piano, and led us I the singing of powerful, patriotic songs. I can still picture her, sitting on a small stool, as her abundant behind hung over the stool’s edge. That still remains as the strongest memory I have of participating in the War.

Racism

Today, March 19, a distinguished elected black official displayed his innate intelligence. No, it wasn’t Ben Carson buying unnecessary and expensive office furniture, although his inane
actions matched those of most of Trump’s incompetent, inexperience cabinet members. 

It was when DC councilman Trayon White posted a video to Facebook with the following narration: "Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation.” He kept talking about, 'We a resilient city.' And that's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful." That could be considered, by some, as an anti-Semitic remark, and even forget about the quality of his ebonomical language selection.

When I taught at the University of Detroit in the late 1970s, the media reported that members of Detroit’s all-Black Board of Education had cut some of the necessary services for Detroit’s students, who were mainly Black. Yet, many of the board members were being chauffeured around town in limousines. When I spoke with one of my own college students, a Black woman in her mid-thirties, who had two children in the public school system, she defended the practice. “You did this for years, now it’s our turn.”

Believe she was referring to me as the “you,” since I was white.

Ageism

It once seemed semi-flattering to be called “Sir” by teenage girls selling tickets and refreshments at a movie theatre. However, I was a reverse racist before machines were able to tell them the correct change that was due. It was difficult to do so if the costs for popcorn and a drink came to $3.83, and I gave them $4.08. They usually had a problem subtracting one from the other, and handing me a quarter in change.

When I taught journalism at a college, I would send my writing students out to the streets of San Jose, and have them describe a scene. I was in my late thirties at the time, and invariably, one student would write, “An elderly man sat alone at a bus stop.” When I asked the student in her twenties what she meant by “an elderly man,” in most instances the reply was that the man was in his forties.

Sadly, Some Elected Officials

Are Sexists, Racists and Ageists

You can start at the bottom, with the President, who manages to incorporate all of these attributes. Some times he does so in the same tweet. 

However, by the next tweet, he has a whole new outlook on the subject. Some of his supporters are pleased that he is flexible in his thinking; others are frightened, not knowing what comes next.

As Far as Sexism

The women connected to the Democratic Party, are out to take over the world because they believe that it’s their turn, much like the Blacks felt in Detroit. It’s a fine idea, but first you have to learn the basics about political life, and how to run a successful campaign.

I applaud the young women and men who are trying to change the country with their actions after the massacre in Florida, but they should not learn from the actions of the current and former female leaders of the Democratic Party.  The following three “leaders,” helped put Donald J. Trump in the White House.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congressperson, managed to help divide the party in 2016, by refusing to provide Bernie Sanders’ people access to the party’s mailing list.  

When Schultz was Democratic National Committee’s chair, she allowed Hillary Clinton’s Campaign to seize control of the DNC months before Clinton’s nomination. According to Donna Brazile this diverted resources from state parties, and denied Sanders any chance on winning the nomination.

Then there’s Donna Brazile, who was an officer and then chair of the DNC, who contradicts herself in her book “Hacks.” She says she was trying to help make the nominating process honest, yet she admitted that she passed Democratic primary debate questions on to Clinton. 

She obtained the questions through her position as a CNN political analyst. Since she was vice chair of the DNC at the time, it added to the strong impression that the very biased DNC, heavily favored Clinton.

Then you have Clinton and her ill-prepared advisors, who forgot that needed electoral college votes are found outside Democratic strongholds in the far west and near east. While Clinton’s naïve advisors projected her to win the popular vote, they convinced the equally naïve Clinton, that she didn’t need to waste her time campaigning in Michigan (16 electoral college votes), Wisconsin (10), and Iowa (6). If she had won the electoral votes in those states along with her “native” state of Arkansas (6), she would have totaled 270 Electoral College votes, to Trump’s total of 268.

It didn’t help that Clinton alienated voters by calling those who supported Trump as being beneath her station, labeling them as “a basket of deplorables.” At the same time, she was feeding her own coffers with $675,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs.

However, she is consistent and when she recently told an audience in India, that states that supported her in 2016 were more culturally and economically advanced than those that backed Trump. She stated that women who voted for Trump may have been motivated by “ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”

Let the Future Begin

The Sooner the Better

There’s hope for the future with the young trying to change the country, one step at a time. Since most of the older, elected legislative representatives are afraid to do anything, afraid of the NRA, afraid of losing their power, afraid of how Donald will turn on them, then let us hope that the students will bring their energy and enthusiasm and help elect representatives, who have the betterment of our disintegrating society as their goal.

Do not let the weak and cautious people in power steer you away from your goals. Do not trust any official who tells you they are with you, after they have been against you up until it’s time for you to vote.