In the early 70s, I was working for a large, Southern California developer. They had bought a huge tract of land, zoned for more than a thousand houses, from Boise Cascade which who was getting out of the development business because it had almost ruined them. The property was purchased with a small down payment and we would take ownership in stages paying for each stage separately, but once we took down a stage and pulled building permits we had to start paying interest on all the property.
Because payments were only triggered by the pulling of house permits, we were able to work on putting in streets and other public improvements without paying for the land. The company CEO wanted us to start construction on the models and I said that would trigger the payments. He said, “No there was an exception for the models,” and he directed me to the paragraph with the exception. I was a young Director of Operations for Northern California and, while I was high enough in the company to talk to the CEO and had been to his house for company parties, I was low enough in the company to be scared shitless. But I was also cocky and the paragraph actually made it clear that there were no exceptions. I read the paragraph out loud to him.
There was a long silence and then he said, “Somebody is lying, either you are a liar or I am, which is it?” I think I blanked about then because I don’t remember what either one of us said next, but I do remember we pulled the permits for the models the next day.
The point I want to make is that this guy, this CEO was very smart, he came out of Auschwitz broke and he left an estate worth about $1.6 billion dollars. This is the environment that Trump comes from, these are the kind of people he has worked with. It is a mistake to think Trump is stupid or crazy and, so far, the people who underestimated him have not done well.
Going down into the Central Valley; Patterson Pass
A couple of days after the election, Mike Moore sent me an email with an articlecolumn attachment that was written by Peter Coyote. The writing looked long – for internet viewing that is, it is short for, say, a New Yorker article – and the title, OVERLOOKED DRAFT BOARDS FOR TRUMP VOTERS, seemed confusing and awkward so I put it aside to read later which often means never. In this case, it really did mean later, and I’m glad. It very roughly correlates with my election point of view, that Trump is a visible and outward manifestation of a deeper and less visible problem. Peter Coyote is an excellent writer and he more than makes up for the title with a very passionate and sympathetic short essay – for lack of a better word – that makes his case.
I, conversationally at least, have held the opinion that things starting going down hill for labor, and by extension, the middle class, during the Ronald Reagan presidency but Peter Coyote pushes it back:
In 1973, when the Treaty of Detroit—a long-standing deal between management and labor to raise wages as profits rose—was ended to ‘fight inflation’ wages were frozen and have never recovered despite astronomic rises in American productivity. The unintended consequence of this betrayal of labor was that ‘demand’ on industry fell as people felt they could not afford new appliances, cars, and winter coats. Once again the “great policy minds” created an illusory short-term fix by distributing credit cards as if they were Halloween candy. Remember those days? Coming home and finding a sheaf of invitations for a credit card? Easy credit disguised the backwards slippage of millions of Americans and the credit kept the factory lights on, satisfying campaign contributors. Coincidentally, they also delivered millions into the hands of bankers and financiers who were only too happy to advance money at 29% interest rates. When the bills became due and the downturn became a slippery slope further faith in the Federal Government was damaged and future Trump voters were being groomed.
However, this essay is more than a list of grievances suffered by white-male rust belt workers it is also a plea for understanding that they were are the canary in the coal mine:
..mothers found themselves forced to stop caring for their children at home and go to work, with no extra allowances for day-care, transportation, or baby-sitting. “The dignity of labor” meant losing their fingernails plucking chickens at a Tyson processing plant for minimum wage while stressing relatives and friends to care for their children. Millions, who were unemployed through no fault of their own, were summarily dropped off the ‘welfare roles’ and funnelled into substandard, low-paying jobs (which incidentally weakened union bargaining positions for those who remained employed.)Coded, dog-whistle language suggested that food-stamps and welfare “entitlements” were giveaways to African Americans, when in reality it was white women who were the major beneficiaries. These were not minor stressors to millions of people. They were and remain festering wounds on millions of people, weakening their political faith and confidence in government and nourishing deep seeds of resentment towards Washington that sprouted this November 8th.
Coyote is a strong liberal and pro-government but he presents the case that government is, increasingly, not responsive to us and that has been the instigator of the Trump phenomenon. Looking at government as a problem rather than see Trump supporters as stupid or delusional:
When I assume that I am the repository of goodness and wisdom and attack those I consider “evil” or “ignorant” they never listen. They armor up with platitudes and falsehoods and defend themselves just as I do when they attack me. Our political system has degenerated into a blame game of “gotcha” with each side insisting that only they hold the high ground. (One of the things many people do not appreciate about Hilary, I believe.) Only the deep understanding that we are all human and all vulnerable to the birthright of humans—anger, greed, and delusion, can save us from extremism, prejudice, and hasty judgments. The best thing that we can contribute to public life is first of all kindness, then empathy, and compassion, while we struggle to put our own houses in order.
If like me, you want to just go outside and scream at Trump, I heartily recommend this Peter Coyote reading.
The 2016 Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year is POST-TRUTH: post-truth adjective. Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. I love words, I love dictionaries and this is the first time – that I can remember, at least – that I haven’t even heard the word before it became officially enshrined in our language. I think I prefer “selfie” from 2013 or even “” from last year.
As a sort of prolog aside, my last blog post was on August 31st, over three months ago. For about 30 days before that, I kept starting blog posts only to realize I had already said what I wanted to say, or rant about, or whine about. Usually, several times. I began to feel like I had told all my stories and made all my comments. It is the feeling I get when Michele stops a story with “Yea, I know,” or “I’ve heard that story,” or – worst of all – corrects the story’s details. Even though this is the most singular election I can remember, it seemed like I had run out of things to say (or somebody else had already said them). It seems that writing about Trump would have made it easier but, with everybody talking about Trump all day, every day, it just didn’t seem like I had anything new. I also felt completely out of step in the facebook-verse with all my facebook friends who were sure that Trump had no chance of winning, posting things like Five ways Trump’s followers are stupid and Twenty things that make Hillary the most qualified candidate ever, when I wanted to post Holly shit, did you see the Republican debates? This guy is good, he destroyed the other Republican candidates and some of them are better campaigners than Hillary. End aside.
Gratuitous picture of Granddaughter Charlotte – in blue – at a Soccer tournament in Palo Alto
The press takes Trump literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally. Some wag, now unknown to me, a couple of weeks ago.
To start with the bottom line, we need a woman president and the world needs for us to have a woman president. Really. We need new ideas, new thinking, we need a more egalitarian society, and more coöperation, we need more feminine energy if the world, as we know it, is going to survive . We need somebody in tune with our long-term survival, like a strict but nurturing mother. I’m not sure that Hillary Clinton would have been that mother but I am sure that Trump, a self-identified world-class Alpha Male, is not.
But he is going to be our next president and I am just now coming out of the disbelief stage. A friend came over for dinner a couple of days ago and he said that he isn’t reading or listening to anything on the election for the next three months because right now we are either in the I told you stage as in some variation of I told you that Hillary couldn’t beatTrump or the denial/anger stage as in some variation of I can’t believe that many people are so stupid to vote for Trump. It is probably good advice and I am sure I won’t take it.
“Nobody has spread hate more ten Obama he has set race relations back 50 years.” a facebook post
Coming back to the news, my email queue, and facebook, after being gone for two weeks, has been a shock. Not that anything is any different than when I left, it’s just that I had been away from it. I pretty much only used my phone as a paperweight and alarm clock while we were gone and it separated me from the normalcy of violence in my daily life. A coup in Turkey, a mass killing in Germany, another black man killed by another scared-shitless cop in any city USA, fill the papers. Entreaties for more money because a judge has jailed a black lawyer for wearing the wrong pin, or because Trump has said something particularly nasty, clog my email in-basket. And then there is facebook, sucking me into arguments that seem like arguments on morality when they are really only different opinions. I don’t want to say that the sun going down over the Grand Canyon is better than arguing over Hillary hiring Wasserman, it isn’t; but it is more soothing and it is more connected to the Mystery.
” from last year.
