We all have them, a close relative or friend who always seemed intelligent, but who nonetheless adores Trump. For those of us who remain more or less politically sane, this seems inexplicable—and maddening. If you’re like me, you’ve attempted to talk to them, using various approaches—the quiet reasoned approach, or the seriocomic approach, or perhaps in a moment of weakness, the angry approach. None of it seems to matter. The results are always the same—no headway made, no inroads, nothing. To borrow a phrase from then Senator Biden, they are “impervious to information.” Every attempt I made regarding this particular relative was met with a solid wall of anger and denial. Talking to them at any length was impossible, so I’d more or less given up. In one last, and no doubt futile, effort, I decided to write them (I use “them” in order to disguise the sex of said relative), starting out gently, not even alluding to Trump, elucidating an incident in my childhood that has no obvious relation to politics whatsoever . . . then revealing its ties to Trump. And then I go on from there. I would imagine that the letter will have no effect, other to than to raise their blood pressure. But I felt I should give it one more effort. I haven’t sent it yet, so it remains to be seen what its effect will be. I have scant hope, but we shall see. The letter in question follows. At one point, I seem to be critical of Biden—my attempt at meeting them part way.
Dear [unnamed relative],
Waaaaaaay back when I was in third grade I came up with the idea to entertain my fellow students during show and tell by cutting my girlfriend in half. I don't recall what inspired me to attempt this, but I imagine I must have seen a magician on TV perform the trick. With my 3rdgrade mind, I had no conception of how this was done (heck, even today my understanding remains limited) but I developed my own idea of how to do it. With the aid of Dad, I built a “sword” out of wood. The “blade” was a board 1” by 4” by three feet or so. A bit was cut out of the blade about two feet long and three inches wide, and then I covered that area with paper on both sides of the “blade” tacked all around the edges. I then painted the paper and the wood brown. My thought was that from a distance, it would look like a solid piece of wood. So I imagined that I would have Nancy (the aforementioned girlfriend) come up to the front of the class, lay across the teacher's desk, and ~CHOP!~ I would bring my sword down, and the paper would give way and she would, obviously, be unharmed. I didn't think anyone would think, even for a moment, that I had actually chopped her in half—even my naïve third grade mind didn't think that was possible. No, I just thought I'd make them wonder how my apparently solid sword managed to slice her in two without actually slicing her in two. My grand efforts sadly never made it to fruition. When I got up, sword in hand, to announce my intention, it came as a complete shock to Nancy with whom I had inexplicably never discussed my plans. To her credit, though surprise and concern clearly registered on her face, she got up and came forward . . . a really game girl. My teacher, however, saw the obvious trepidation on her face, and she asked me if I had discussed or practiced the planned scenario with her, and I confessed, a bit shame-faced, that I had not. Predictably then, my spoil-sport adult teacher suggested that I needed to work it out with Nancy before attempting my feat of legerdemain for the public. So, she and I returned to our respective seats. My memory of the incident ends there. The trick was never actually performed and she and I never practiced it together. The idea seems to have just been dropped and I don't know why.
In any case, the story is illustrative of how a child's mind works. There was a degree of imagination at play, but mixed with a complete lack of understanding about how things work and how things are perceived. It just didn't occur to me that even if my fellow students believed my sword was made of a solid piece of wood—a questionable surmise—as soon as it came in contact with my beloved's tummy, the paper would crumble and the jig would be up. I was unable to fully envision how my plans would actually play out. This did not reveal a defect in my brain, rather it simply demonstrated that I had the brain of a third grader—still a few years away from achieving enough maturity and accruing enough life experience necessary in order to recognize how that plan was doomed.
So, why do I relay this story, and why am I writing to you at all? The why of the story I will reveal shortly, but as to why I am setting fingers to keypad instead of talking to you directly or calling you on the phone is simple: to say what I am about to say would be impossible in person, not to mention futile. I am not the only one to recognize this impossibility. I won't mention any names, but let's just say that a number of others you are close to are aware of this as well, and like me, they scratch their heads in utter bafflement. To mention Trump, seriously or as a joke, in a critical context results in your becoming quite agitated. I don't mean that as a criticism, just an observation of fact. Perhaps reading this will result in the same reaction, I don't know, but I'm hopeful at least that it won't be as stressful for you.
First I need to make something clear that I suspect you do not realize. I am not partisan, at least, not in the way the term is usually used. I am an Independent with no loyalty to any party. I have never understood those who become so partisan that it becomes difficult for them to see things except through the prism of their party's views—some so much so that they even seem to put party ahead of their country. I was a Democrat once, though a conservative one. Over the course of two years (in the mid-eighties) when I became involved in politics over an issue not important to this letter, I saw some things that turned me off about party politics—from both sides of the aisle. I vividly recall sitting in a meeting of county Democrats and listening to someone talk at length about why we should focus on getting rid of a certain state senator, saying, among other things, that she had failed to help state workers at Topeka State Hospital (TSH) in their efforts to obtain more equable salaries. That was the beginning of my becoming a dye-in-the-wool independent. The senator in question was Jeanne Hofferer—a Republican—someone I and three other TSH employees had been working with to achieve those equable salaries. We were eventually successful in our efforts, and it was due almost entirely to the good senator. In other words, they lied about her—not just “spinned” or exaggerated, they flat out lied. If that scenario was repeated today, an impossibility since I will never be a part of a party again, I would have stood up and corrected the speaker, but I was too shocked and too new to politics to recognize that I could have.
So, all of that is just to say that partisanship is foreign to me, especially partisanship that will distort facts or lie to achieve a political end. I abhor it and always have.
I have voted Republican many times in the past. As an example, I voted for Bod Dole every time—both for senate and president. And there have been many others. I've more often voted Democratic mostly because civil and human rights are two of my major issues and those issues have been more important to the Demos.
Today, however, the political landscape has changed . . . dramatically. The Democratic party has certainly changed, but the GOP is unrecognizable from a mere 12 years ago. It had been changing fairly gradually, for years, and then the tea party came along—at first a well-meaning group I had some sympathy for, but in short order, it was co-opted by rich and powerful interests, led by the Koch brothers, and the GOP became even more billionaire-centric. But then came The Donald.
I'm not going to get into the weeds of the many, many reasons I think the GOP has lost its way. It's beyond the scope of this missive. There is one reason the stands above all others and that reason is Trump and the party's subservience to him. The fact that so many in the party have been sucked into the black hole that is Donald Trump and made his incoherence and routine distortions of the world THEIR incoherence and distortions means I could never vote for any of them. Of course, there are a few Republicans who know what a disaster he is, but they go along anyway for expediency's sake. They I have even less tolerance for because they're selling out their country and they know it, and yet do it anyway. So, alas, until such a time as a Republican appears on the scene that stands up to Trump and everything he stands for, I cannot in good conscience vote for any one from the GOP in the foreseeable future.
Why am I so against Trump and his sycophants in Congress? Lots of reasons—corruption, incompetence, cronyism, nastiness, but I'm going to write mostly about one very important reason. I will give only two examples to illustrate my point, though there are quite literally hundreds I could use, but these two are among the better ones—or worse ones, depending how you want to look at it. (I know your blood pressure is sure to shoot through the roof at their mention, so take a few deep breaths before you proceed, if you haven't chucked this into the trash already.)
The first is what I joked about when last I saw you. You know, Trump's musing about could you, maybe, possibly inject disinfectant to combat the coronavirus, “like a cleansing.” You said, among other things, that “he just likes to think out loud.” True enough as far as it goes.
The second involved his altering a weather map with a Sharpie.
I found both of these things extraordinary. No other president in history could have possibly been the author of either of these actions/comments. It's much more than the simple fact that they were both really dumb. As you said, he likes to think out loud. So, what do these incidents say about his thinking? I know you don't want to look at either of these incidents deeply, because of what you would come to see/understand. But it's more than merely a dumb thing to say or a dumb thing to do. We all do or say dumb things, but usually they can be explained away by inattention or being overcome with emotion or perhaps being so sleepy we can't think straight. These two incidents cannot be so easily explained away. They speak not just to the quality of his thinking in that moment, but of his thinking in general, and more to the point, his level of understanding.
Which brings me back to the story I opened with. I have thought long and hard about my little attempt at magic back when I was 7 or 8. And I've tried to imagine at what age would my little plan have first seemed ridiculous. I haven't been able to pin it down, but I'm absolutely certain that by seventh grade it would have seemed obviously silly. What about 6th grade? I probably would have known better, but I can't be sure (and besides, I didn't have a girlfriend then, so I wouldn't have had anyone to chop). But I'm absolutely certain that by the 7th grade, I would have known that my wooden sword with the paper covered cut-out would not have confused, surprised or fooled anyone.
Likewise, in 3rd grade, if someone had said to me that it might be possible to cure a disease by injecting Clorox, I wouldn't have known better, though I might have been skeptical. But in 7th grade? No way. I would have known that was crazy. I wouldn't have thought about it and I wouldn't have mused about it aloud because, that'd obviously be nuts. Likewise, in 3rd grade I might have thought—if somehow I was in the position to do so—that making a mark with a sharpie on a professionally produced weather map would fool others. Sure. Just like some painted paper might fool others into thinking it was wood—even after it was crumpled. In 7th grade?--not a chance. In third grade I could not imagine the level of relatively sophisticated thinking that most adults, or even 7thgraders, were capable of because I was 8. I wasn't capable of that kind of thinking myself.
That is the incredible thing about the sharpie incident. His thinking was at such a primate level, that he thought a “swoosh” with his sharpie was actually, really going to fool people—not just 3rdgraders but adults (though, scarily, apparently it actually did fool some).
The injecting poison thing or the “shining light inside the body ”thing is a little different. It again speaks to primitive thinking, but even more to his fund of knowledge and understanding—which is formidably low. Maybe I was a bit smarter than your average 7thgrader, but I suspect the vast majority of 7th graders would know better. Trump did not.
So our country is being led by someone with the understanding of, at best, a 6thgrader and the fund of knowledge of someone at about that same level. This is patently obvious every time he speaks. Why can't his followers see it? The paucity of vocabulary, the scrambled grammar, the incoherence—all speak to this. Add to this his complete disregard for truth and his lack of empathy and you have someone who has no business being in any position of responsibility—let alone the most important position on earth—a position which is now the laughing stock of the world.
Except the world isn’t so much laughing as they are being very afraid.
So, why can't his followers see it? If the truth no longer has any impact on 45% of Americans, then America is very much in danger of becoming a failed state. Lincoln once warned, after first noting that no force on earth could seriously threaten us, that “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Refusing to acknowledge truth is a sure road to that suicide. “Alternative facts” aren't really any kind of “fact” at all. They are lies, and a nation that tries to build on a foundation of lies is doomed, much like the parable about the choice of building sites. Do you choose a foundation of stone or one of sand? Trump supporters have, often gleefully, chosen sand, i.e., lies/bigotry/incompetence/ignorance/cronyism/corruption/cruelty (not to mention a 2 hour work day). History will not look kindly at this moment.
Three and one-half years ago, you decided to vote for an obviously unqualified candidate (something you were very much aware of then but seem to have forgotten) because you hated the other candidate. Now you will be presented with another choice, between that still profoundly unqualified candidate and a candidate who clearly IS qualified, if flawed. It’s possible, of course, that he may be the author of the sexual assault he has been accused of, but I compare that with the over TWODOZEN complaints of sexual assault—including charges of three rapes—levied against Trump (and not all of them are Democrats!). Trump's immorality doesn't excuse anyone else's, but these two candidates are the only viable options. Sadly, as it has too often been the case of late, it comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils. Me, I'll choose the one with a record of competence, intelligence and a long history of trying to serve his country (and to be sure, a history of sticking his foot in his mouth), against the one with a long history of incompetence, primitive thinking and serving himself and himself alone (and an even bigger history of foot-in-mouth incidents).
If this country is to survive, then we need citizens who are not afraid of the truth—who seek it out and look it square in the face and acknowledge it. Denial doesn't alter the truth, it merely serves to hide the truth from the denier. Our country needs intelligent people, such as yourself, to embrace that truth and disavow those who routinely distort it. Our country and the world needs us to do this.
Sincerely,
Tom
PS. I recommend watching Obama give his eulogy at McCain's funeral as I just happened to. It's very instructive. It will become very clear why McCain asked Obama to speak at his funeral . . . and why he specifically instructed Trump NOT to speak or even attend. In a million, million years Trump could never approach that kind of eloquence, that kind of respect, and certainly not the empathy, that Obama conveyed.
Bonus PS. I just watched a clip from “Fox and Friends” from May 10, 2020—Mother's Day—when they had Trump on the line. At the end, he was asked what he was going to do on Mother's Day with Melania, and did he have a message for all the mothers out there. His reply (quoting exactly) was:
Well, we'll be together. I'm going to Camp David—meeting—a big meeting with the Joint Chiefs of staff, and Camp David is this very special place that no one ever gets to see, but it's a great work environment, and we're going to have meetings on different things, and our military has never looked better. It's never been better. We've never had the kind of equipment that we have now, and, you know, we had planes that were 50 years old and more. Fighter jets. Now we have the best in the world, the F-35 and the F-15, and you know, what we have is incredible. The equipment and people we have are great, but you know, they have to have equipment, and we've spent1.5 trillion. Really, more than that, and we've totally rebuilt our military, which you have to do. You know, I'm a very budget conscious person. It's what you have to do. The nice thing, it was all built in the USA and plenty of equipment coming. A lot of this equipment is coming. So, it's very important that we have the best military, and we have the—our military has never been in condition like it is now and soon will be.
No comment seems necessary.