Trump’s 3 Ghostly Visitors: McCarthy, Cohn and Nixon

Donald Trump excels as a speaker. His New Yorkese version of folksiness works pretty well in the flyover states. Trump, a Big Apple real estate hustler, is an unlikely choice as Man of the People but he achieved that status. 

The East Coast and West Coach intellectuals recoil from Trump’s style. His base loves the blunt style and they refuse to be talked out of their enthusiasm for the orange-hued president. They will not be backed off by the left-wing animosity toward their leader. 

Impeachment is a bad choice. The Democrats need to find a candidate and a platform. Trump has them beat on both counts. His “Make America Great Again” is a great case of branding. 

The left suggests they will preserve Obamacare and show respect for women. Those goals are honorable. They do not have an emotional appeal or a breakthrough concept. Barack Obama achieved emotion with, “yes, we can.” The Democrats have not matched that positive message. They seem focused on anti-Trump as a message—and that plays as negative and limited.

If not Trump, what?

I’m not sure. I’ll vote for the Democratic candidate. But I want something more. Notice Obama did not emphasize a pro-immigrant stance. He deported illegal immigrants, but in a quiet way. Obama knew that national identity is not something to be toyed with carelessly. People see huge changes on the horizon and feel threatened.

And then Trump took pro-nationalism to a whole new level—really playing on fears of The Other. But those fears are real. If Democrats take the demographic concerns too lightly they could suffer dearly. 

Trump understands that Americans have been pulled through huge demographic changes and do not feel comfortable about a huge influx of more immigrants. Democrats delude themselves if the argument is simply “we need to love everybody” and not sweat the details of immigration. Trump started with an anti-Mexican immigrant message and has not stopped offering that message since his ride down the escalator.

So, what does Trump really believe? He is not a reader or a philosopher or a policy wonk. He’s all instinct and business savvy and self-preservation. 

Trump learned from three individuals lurking in the dark corners of American history—Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn (his mentor) and Richard Nixon. Trump makes the occasional mention of Ronald Reagan—and Reagan had branding talents of his own.

Trump likes strategists. His role models are men of action. McCarthy accused his liberal enemies communist sympathies, or worse. Roy Cohn, secretive about his homosexuality, taught Donald to go for the jugular. Richard Nixon had the presence of mind to open relations with China. Trump’s version seems to be a Korean love-fest. I think he loves North Korea as a country with much upside. Smart enough to build nukes, maybe North Korea will fly high with just need an injection of capitalism just like the Chinese. Trump’s inquiring mind seems focused on that possible future for Korea. Trump seems bored by more established nations, our traditional allies. He likes to upset the apple cart—and England, France, Germany and Canada—hold little appeal for a guy looking for new markets. Old Europe has given way to an exotic Presidential approach—foiling everybody and everything with a series of insults, muffled threats and a feeling of chaos from above. He’s got us all on the edge of our seats.

                                                                                 

America 2.0: Immigration Conundrum for USA

A little over 14 million immigrants lived in the U.S. in 1980; by 2014, the number had grown to more than 42 million. There is simply no precedent in istory for the sheer number of human being who recently come, legally and illegally, into America. As a percentage of the entire population, immigrants are now very close to the peak of 14.8 percent set in 1890.

by: Andrew Sullivan

New York magazine (Jan 23-Feb 5, 2017)

Andrew Sullivan, the journalist for New York magazine,  emigrated to the United States from Britain. He seems more honest than most writers about the United States' extraordinary ability to absorb the 42 million immigrants, many from Mexico, Latin America, and Asia, and he credits our country with the flexible approach to the demographic and racial shift that has occurred. Pressure seems to be building though, and the rise of President Trump is a clear indicator of the tensions that arise when a population experiences so much change. Trump speaks about wanting people who "love our country" and share our values but it seems like a thinly veiled (no pun intended) reference to racial, cultural and ethnic pressures. The racial composition of the USA is changing in fundamental ways. That's a big deal.

Ironically, the immigrants seem to have made the United States a better place to live. Trump talks about "Make America Great Again" but from my vantage point, living in a prosperous city (Austin, Texas), America seems pretty great already. I remember New York City in the 1960s being a dirty, lousy, dangerous place. Remember Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese cinematic depiction of the mean streets of New York? New York now seems revived and safer and I credit the immigrants as a big part of that improved environment. In fact, back in the 1970s most American cities seemed like dreary, abandoned, economically depressed places with the white middle class having moved to the suburbs. American cities have been revived by a combination of hardworking, law-abiding immigrants and a return of the white intelligentsia back to the urban centers.

Everything works pretty well in America. We have always had great infrastructure-- clean drinking water and highly efficient electrical and utility services. Now we have even more luxury. The land is blanketed with an amazing electronic computer network and almost every citizen has a computer (called a cellphone) in their pocket that would have been the envy of the NASA scientists who put a man on the moon. 

I understand that rural America does not feel it is enjoying the economic benefits of the present day. The jobs have left their communities. The wonderful cars we drive are often built by Japanese or Korean companies. Even in the great Apple iPhone is manufactured in China. If you walk past a construction site the crew of workers usually speaks Spanish. The quality of the work is impeccable on new home construction and in the home improvement projects done by Hispanic workers, legal and illegal. Everything in Austin is humming along-- from great restaurants to clean streets.

None of this solves the problem. Many Americans feel treated and under siege by the vast numbers of people who do not look like the original white European settlers and citizens. The Europeans and African-American population brought here forcibly and enslaved dominated the North American continent from 1600-1950-- a 350 year run of dynamic change and prosperity, though clearly not for everyone. Now we seem to be on America 2.0. And the upgrade, just like computer upgrades, seems to have advantages and flaws. 

The question remains-- does President Trump have any insights into how to work out the bugs and problems that plague and drag down America 2.0?

Climate Change Initiatives-- building an Ark in the 21st Century

Dear Friend,

Thanks for the link to New York Magazine article on rising waters. I like the insights about people's resistance to imagining the unpleasant. I've noticed how much we deny the obvious in these matters.

I mentioned to you that FEMA gave home owners on Long Island with waterfront property lots of money to lift their houses after the destruction caused by Super Storm Sandy. Some homeowners raised their homes to weird heights-- and then found some difficulty in reselling their houses. I'm sure it was a boon to the construction industry to fix up and build new houses along the shoreline and on the canals.

And in Manhattan I notice that the apartment on West End Ave is in close proximity to the Hudson River on the west. The east-west thoroughfare, West 79th St, takes a big rise as the land moves from Riverside Park up into central Manhattan. So I guess Riverside Park would be underwater before West End Ave. Maybe we would have riverfront property-- though our apartment faces away from the river.

I've never really been able to get my head around the rise in ocean levels. I'm a big believer in the validity of most climate change warnings. I guess water level rise is something we can actually do something about-- move further inland.

The stuff that I wonder most about it are the changes in rainfall, temperature etc. that I experience more directly. Just watched a video clip on NY  Times website, an interview of Obama. He points out that Chinese leaders were most motivated to cooperate on Climate Change Initiatives-- due to their concerns about the political stability of their nation. If it gets much harder to breath in Beijing you could have a riot on your hands-- or something along those lines is how I pictured it. Maybe I'm way off base-- and their afraid of food riots or something else?

Thanks for sending the New York Magazine article--  better to discuss it than put our heads back in the sand.

Thanks,

John