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.

                                                                                 

McLuhan’s 5 Tips for Surviving the Internet

Marshal McLuhan’s theories are germane to understanding the internet—the electric media where we find ourselves stimulated and overwhelmed. McLuhan died in 1980 but stands alone as a guide to making sense of our “too much information” world. 

He saw it coming as clear as day. His tips, appear below, numbered 1-5. They come from Understanding Media, McLuhan’s groundbreaking book from 1964. 

McLuhan’s writings help you gain a measure of confidence about “Why Is This Happening” way more than any TV show by Chris Hayes! 

McLuhan correctly identified the significance of the Sputnik launch (1957) and satellite communications systems. We now had the earth in our electronic embrace.

1) Today the action and reaction occur almost at the same time.

The mechanical/industrial era began in 1450 with Johannes Gutenberg and the printing press. We are now in an era of electric technology. The printing press changed the world. The internet is today's revolution-- and cause of anxiety. 

Some folks didn’t get the memo and think cause-and—effect determines outcomes. There is no chain of logic in the electronic environment. It happens so fast, everything is simultaneous.

2) We actually live mythically and integrally, as it were, but we continue to think in the old, fragmented space and time patters of the pre-electric age. 

The electronic revolution has started to feel oppressive—even to the most enthusiastic Facebook, Instagram, Twitter user.  Just as a fish is not aware of water we don’t know what social media does to our lives. We cannot put down the phone and want to know why! 

We are so connected to screens it makes you want to scream. Your mind, body and spirit is flying around with all the other electrons created by the new environment.

3) In the electric age, where our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in all of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate, in depth in the consequences of every action. 

We get too much information, all day long. Is there any escape. Not sure there is. But always remember McLuhan’s great axiom—“the medium is the message.”

McLuhan stated the medium is more significant than whatever the content being produced. 

4) For the “content” of a medium is like the juicy meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.

The content of your phone conversations has little significance; what matters is that you are using the cellphone.  

Donald Trump’s tweets matter less than the fact that he is using Twitter.

McLuhan recognized the difficulty in grasping the internet—abstract and invisible. McLuhan compared his task to Louis Pasteur’s scientific revelations—for germs are also invisible to the eye. 

5) I am in the position of Louis Pasteur telling doctors that their greatest enemy was quite invisible, and quite unrecognized by them.

Do not fall for content the fast-moving hype generated by social media, cable news, etc.. Do remember the medium for therein lives the answer. 

Our very spirit and bodies have become the medium. We extend outward to the whole universe. That’s a lot of electrons to carry on your shoulders. 

Separate from the monster…? Can you not glance at your phone every few seconds…?

Marshall McLuhan is the best medicine—the true doctor for our overworked synapses. 

Read McLuhan before going to bed each night.

Omarosa Manigault: Ultimate Survivor

                                                                                 

                                                                                

Up until now I thought Donald Trump was the ultimate Survivor. Trump has a personality made for reality TV. Reality TV made him a presidential contender. Reality TV .... "been berry, berry good" to Donald Trump.

Trump’s salesman instincts were spot-on. He recognized the pain running through the American heartland. It took a New York real estate developer to figure out Middle America.

Trump put a dagger in the heart of a slew of Republican candidates by being a plain talker. He called them names-- Low Energy Jeb Bush, lyin' Ted Cruz, etc-- and this chutzpah appealed to Middle America.

Remember Robert Preston in “The Music Man” the 1962 movie, about a flim-flam man who conned the the hicks in River City and took their money. Trump has hypnotized all of us. He took the American presidency and turned it into a reality TV show!

Almost forgot about Omarosa Manigault. 

Hunter Thompson, the gonzo journalist, famously said …“when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” 

Omarosa more than almost any other person proves the truth of the weird turning pro. She has achieved an almost stateswoman type media presence. Omarosa plays a Villainess on reality TV, but with Trump's assistance has taken her act to the national stage. 

Omarosa has an ego to match Donald Trump and an iPhone tape recorder to embarrass the hell out of him. Omarosa seems unburdened by conventional moral codes. Who does that remind you of?

If Donald Trump comes back as an African-American female for his next lifetime—can you guess what his name will be?

These people were made for cable TV, in fact made by cable TV, and they’ve lifted everybody’s ratings. They fill our flat screens with drama and everybody likes watching the new train wreck of our national politics now presented as a TV show.

Omarosa does not mind having enemies. Who does that remind you of? She rose from humble roots in Youngstown, Ohio and has survived all the slings and arrows. She truly was an apprentice of Donald Trump.

Omarosa learned rapidly. She appeared on Trump’s “Apprentice” in 2004, the show’s first season. Omarosa was strong in the boardroom portions of the show. In 2016 she was sitting at the around the White House table.

Omarosa’s rapid rise via the television medium has been one of the fastest moves upward in recent political history. Sarah Palin got pulled out of the Alaskan outback by presidential candidate John McCain. She had appeal with the same people that became Trump backers. Like Omarosa, Sarah Palin was a force to be reckoned with. Sarah's act quick ended. She claimed her 15 minutes and was gone.

Omarosa is guaranteed at least 20 minutes. Without Trump, there is very little interest in Omarosa. The White House offered to pay her a salary to keep her mouth shut. Omarosa did not take that bait. She's too much a Survivor to fall for that ploy.

Omarosa’s strategic use of a recording device guarantees a measure more of fame and fortune. She has a book out, Unhinged, at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

Omarosa has turned pro. 

American Objects of Affection: (shared by Left and Right)

                                                                                 

Americans seem very convinced a cultural war between the left-wing and right wing ruins any chance for peace and civility in the public discourse. Balderdash! Bunk I say… for Americans from across the political spectrum share a fondness of many of the same things.

Top 3 things Americans love:

1)  Cars

2) Air-conditioning
3) Cellphones

The Top 3 may seem so obvious as to be not worth mentioning. People in many countries may also love cellphones (laptops, iPads etc/), cars and air conditioning. The less prosperous populations often do not have access to these luxuries.

The Top 3 are not considered luxuries by most Americans. The American populace, left or right wing, feel they must have these commodities. We take them for granted like the air we breathe. 

Cars and Trucks:

The rural American, identified as Donald Trump voters, likes the pickup truck the bigger and more expensive the better. 

Pickup Trucks (Trumpers like): 

1)    Ford F-150

2)  Chevy Silverado

3)  Dodge Ram pickup

Fortunately, American car manufacturers produce well-built pickup trucks. You can buy American, feel good about it and get a great truck. 

Pickup Trucks (Liberals like)

A guy who drives a Toyota Tacoma may just be a liberal. Even left-leaning, bleeding hearts, enjoy the macho feel of a big, steel pickup truck.

SUVs (Obama Liberals like)

1)   Subaru

2)  Lexus RX 350

3)  Honda CRV

Liberals profess a passion for the have-nots but often drive SUVs that prove they “have” plenty. The SUVs listed above tend to be expensive and Japanese-made. Maybe the international flavor of a Japanese-made vehicle appeals to liberals love of globalism? These wonderfully built vehicles cost a hell of a lot—but so do the fancy versions of the pickup trucks listed above.

Right wing Trumpers and left-wing Barack Obama lovers don’t fret about global warming when they turn the key to their ignition. 

Henry Ford turned us on to car ownership with the Model-T cars he mass-produced from 1908-1927. America has never been the same. Ford built the car at a price the average man could afford, even those working on the assembly line.

Ford revolutionized car production with his assembly line. His business genius allowed him to recognize the advantage to making a car affordable to the rising middle class. Henry Ford’s marketing genius got us hooked. The driving habit has been with us for a century. Doesn’t matter your political persuasion—everybody likes having a car/truck.

Air Conditioning

Air conditioning got invented by Willis Carrier in 1902. You might say that air conditioning brought the North and South together-- with the arrangement that Northerners could now more readily handle the worm temperatures of the South.

"The introduction of residential air conditioning in the 1920s helped enable the great migration to the Sun Belt in the United States." (Wikipedia)

Chilled air is so prevalent everywhere in the South and Western United States as to be invisible. You walk into a restaurant, movie theater, super market in Texas, where I live, and feel your just stepped into a produce cooler or a meat locker. Everybody demands central air conditioning, or AC/  We hardly get a winter down here, except indoors, where man has created his own climate. The entire spectrum of voters, from Trumper to Obama supporter, votes “yes” when it comes to air conditioning.

Cellphones

We get even more agreement on the cellphone. Most everybody wants an iPhone. Samsung phones are popular too.

Cellphones can be seen in every hand, from  alt-right believers to their Antifa adversaries. Apple owns the world because left, right and everybody else loves the iPhone. We all have computers in our hand, a luxury valued by all—right or left.

We may be more alike than we care to admit. 

Uncle Rudy Guiliani: Trump’s breakout star

Rudy Giuliani (74 years) is two years older than Donald Trump (72 years) and a fellow New Yorker. Rudy’s age makes him a perfect mentor to Trump. Or just the perfect wing man.

Rudy’s role for Trump seems more bomb thrower than legal advisor. 

Rudy goes out for media interviews and drops the bombs. The bombs reveal some truth about Trump’a actual behavior. Like a defense attorney, he offers his client’s misdeeds before the prosecutors can get to make the accusations:

·     Donald Trump did pay off the Playboy girlfriend…. No big deal!

·     Michael Cohen does have tapes. No big deal! Wait that is a big deal. Cohen's a scumbag.

·     Trump  involved in the Russia meeting at Trump Tower. No big deal!

·     Even if the President colluded, it’s not a crime. No big deal!

Giuliani's rambling, drunk uncle style of communication, is strangely reassuring. I grew up in New York. I recognize the bombastic, circular storytelling of the eccentric relative. Somehow Rudy's rambling narratives feel a little like a TV version of a fireside chat. Giuliani is no FDR but he has some legendary exploits on his resume that make him a venerable, if not always loved, figure. 

Rudy’s Legend

Rudy is the guy who:

·     Took on the Mafia as a prosecutor.

·     As mayor, is often credited with curbing crime in New York City. His “broken window policy” locked up small time offenders and returned law and order to the city.

·     The 9/11 attacks with Rudy Giuliani marching around downtown New York with a dust mask over his face and bringing a sense of calm in the tragedy’s aftermath.

Rudy has the brash style of a New York City, not unlike his boss in the White House. Who could have guessed that the sweet, silent majority of the Flyover States would embrace a cabal of New York City characters? 

The top of the New York heap is—

1) Donald Trump, real estate developer and insult expert

2) Rudy Giuliani, former crime-buster, now flaunts the law and criticizes the FBI and Justice Department.

If I didn’t know better … the spin coming from Rudy Giuliani sounds vaguely like Norm Crosby, the famous double talk comedian. Norm also felt like a dose of normalcy in a world gone mad. 

Norm Crosby revealed day-to-day reality as an illusion. Nothing is as it seems, certainly not if this is the new normal kind of political discourse. 

Rudy now tap dances like a vaudeville hoofer. He doles out spoonfuls of truth  in the middle of Trump's hail storm of lies and distortions. Rudy has been so effective adding to the haze around Trump that the Donald seems content to give him tons of TV time. 

Rudy is the breakout star—the Fonzie of Happy Days in the White House.  

Rudy, like Trump, worked the New York streets and media scene for years. Trump respects that media wisdom and gives Rudy a forum and  his very own screen time. Rudy has a breakout hit in Season 2 of The Trump White House Reality Show. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the other big breakout star.

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Rudy's detractors make a mistake if they underestimates his media performance. Rudy knows the TV cameras. 

The left finally realizes Trump's ability to weave an "emotional narrative" resonates with voters-- even if his is a hate-filled story. The left needs to learn some storytelling skills with maybe a warmer message. Meantime Trump and Rudy run the airwaves like a bull in a china shop.

Archie Bunker in the White House

The New York City borough of Queens has two residents more famous than the rest-- Donald Trump and Archie Bunker. Donald Trump is real and Archie Bunker is a fictional character. Normal Lear, the groundbreaking television producer, named the show All in the Family and cast Carroll O'Connor as Archie.

Trump and Bunker resemble each other in many ways. Archie sits on his throne, a comfortable chair in the middle of his living room. He hurls insults and says the things others are thinking but are afraid to say. Archie has problems with racial diversity, homosexuality, longhairs, war protesters, etc. etc.. Each show ended with a positive message about healing and crossing barriers.

Tump's speeches do not end with that kind of uplifting message.  Trump has his throne to the Oval Office. He shoots from the hip just like Archie. Neither man shrinks from controversy.

All in the Family (AITF)  ran from 1971-1979 and helped heal some of the lingering pain of the Vietnam era. The show confronted American society's prejudices through the voice of a bigoted, white working-class guy. r

Archie's blunt language reminds us of Donald Trump. Both men have a natural, colorful speaking style. Their hate-filled rants have another thing in common, they attract a loyal following of fans. Both Archie Bunker and Donald Trump speak like guys not afraid to offend. Agree or disagree-- you cannot get Archie Bunker or Donald Trump out of your head. Both are born entertainers.

Trump and Bunker are colorful. They speak in the cadences of the man in the street. Trump has a wealthy background but does not feel elite. Archie comes from humbler stock. Archie feels fear about the future. He doesn't like change.

Trump also seems to want to long for the past. He's done everything possible to rollback the Obama year changes. He constantly inflames liberals and reporters from CNN and MSNBC.

Trump may be non-fictional but like Archie he is product of the media. Trump calls the media "the enemy of the people" but media is Trump's biggest friend. A true con man, Trump convinces us that the most outlandish ideas have validity. And foolishly the media underestimates Trump and calls him a fool. One of the conman's greatest gifts is to convince the other guy, the mark, that he is smarter than you.

The TV camera is Trump's real mistress, a gal more loyal than porn star Stormy Daniels and all the other female accusers. The media speak about Trump constantly, from both left and right, from Fox News to the The New York Times and Washington Post.

New Yorkers are famously abrasive. Usually that New York attitude does not play well in the flyover states. The American Heartland has affection for modest people, the "Aw shucks" attitude of a Gary Cooper, who rides into town on a white horse and takes care of problems like it was easy as pie.

Trump builds his own importance with the fever of a narcissist looking in the mirror. He loves to hear his name repeated. The Trump name resonates across the airwaves and social media with metronome regularity. The crude, colorful language

Despite all the odds against them, the two Queens products have hypnotized America to their way of thinking. Archie has bunked us and Trump has trumped us. And we like it!

Cure for Media Frenzy: the right-side of your brain

It's scary out there? People are talking, tweeting themselves into a nervous breakdown. Civility... or Civil War? Above the frenzy we have Donald Trump. Trump savors the sound of dropped jaws and shocked gasps only he seems capable of creating daily to feed the 24/7 news beast.  Donald Trump is operating from the right side of the brain. Let Marshall McLuhan, media guru and the Oracle of Toronto, explain:

Marshall McLuhan felt that the Edgar Allen Poe short “A Descent into the Maelstrom” (1841) about two Norwegian fishermen brothers pulled out of their boat by the swirling waters anticipates our media vortex. One brother drowns. The other survives. The second brother survives the maelstrom. He attains a revelation while in the midst of the whirlpool, a moment of beautiful clarity, an understanding of how objects are moving, being hurled through the water. That is the moment of clarity we need now.

The surviving fisherman’s revelation suggests we can achieve clarity regarding our media situation, or "nightmare" situation, as some would characterize the hurly-burly of social media.

People feel afraid. The natural order seems upended by Donald Trump. Sure he's a fast-talking, constantly shifting New York real estate developer with a penchant for bankruptcy and attacking enemies without conscience. But the fear that this is all Trump may be misplaced.

But Trump may simply be a signal, a blinking neon sign perhaps, that the medium has changed—from analog (newspapers) to digital (cellphone).

Trump may just be the first political candidate to grasp the speed and ferocity of social media. His strategy, obviously, has worked. He is on the lips of all, friends and enemies alike, 24/7, night and day, sun up to sundown.

We’re talking about a change in the medium—from print to electronic—that has turned the world upside down even more than Donald Trump.

On September 6, 1976, Marshall McLuhan appeared on NBS’s Tomorrow Show with host Tom Snyder. Their exchange helps us understand the panicky nature of our digital lifestyle. McLuhan explains that “right-brain thinkers” do better in this All-at-once vortex of electrons we now inhabit.

Snyder: Before I go too far, what is the world of electronic simultaneity?

McLuhan: All-at-onceness. At the speed of light there is no sequenced; everything happens at the same instant. That’s acoustic, and everything happens at once. There’s no continuity, there’s no follow-through, it’s all just now. And that, by the way, is the way sport is. Sports tend to be like that. And in terms of the new lingo of the hemispheres, it’s all right hemsphere. Games are all right hemisphere because they involve the whole man, and they are all participatory and they are all uncertain. There is no continuity. That’s just all surprise, unexpectedness, and total involvement. 

Snyder:Is that okay, do you think?

McLuhan: The hemisphere thing?

Snyder:Yes, but I mean the whole thing, all surprise, all spontaneity, no connection, just all at one time. Is that okay for people?

McLuhan: Well “okay,” meaning is it good for people?

Snyder: Yes.

McLuhan: We live in a wworld where everything is supposed to be one-thing-at-a-time, lineal, connected, logical and goal-oriented. So, obviously for the left-hemisphere world, this new right hemisphere dominance is bad. We’re now living in a world which pushes the right hemisphere way up because it’s an all-at-once-world. The right hemisphere is an all-at-once simultaneous world. So the right hemisphere, by pushing up into dominance, is making the old left-hemisphere world, which is our educational establishment, our political establishment, make it look very foolish. It’s just a flip that is taking place.

Understanding Me, 2003

Lectures and Interviews (page 246-2247)

Marshall McLuhan

Right brain thinking moves the world. The simultaneous environment has taken over. The shift from print to electronic, as massive as the invention of the printed book by Johannes Gutenberg, has all of us by the throat and will not let go. The best plan... try to get some perspective like that surviving Norwegian fisherman from the Poe story. Otherwise, we may all sink into the maelstrom.