Donald Trump is killing us.
     That’s not in dispute. The only question is how many of us will die too early, when and how.
     A doctor friend reminded me recently of the predicted death toll that could result from Trump’s early moves to stop funding health programs in foreign countries.
     Many of us have  probably forgotten Trump’s attack on USAID and similar programs because there’s so much else going on now. I know I’d put that out of my mind.
     But my friend pointed me to a Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times last month that predicted 1,650,000 million people might die annually without continued U.S. funding for HIV prevention and treatment. He noted other outcomes – such as a half-million annual deaths from lack of vaccines.
     We know that two children have died in Texas of measles, and both were unvaccinated. We can’t blame Trump for those deaths, but we know that he appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to oversee public health.  Without vaccines, children will die.
     We know that the Trump is trying to end programs meant to slow, stall and  reverse climate change. Our tortured environment already is producing catastrophic firestorms, tornadoes, blizzards, hurricanes, heat spells and floods. Unchecked, a wounded climate could make the earth unlivable.
      The nation’s attention currently is on Trump’s assault on the economy – our own and the world’s – by imposing high tariffs, resulting in stunning shifts in stock and bond markets.
     For days, Trump vowed to stay the course until he sort of didn’t, "pausing" ” most big tariffs hikes, but leaving in place  10 percent tariffs on most countries and boosting China’s levies to 145 percent.
     Markets rose joyfully at first.  Then they fell.  Who knows what they’ll do next Monday morning or on Thursday afternoon, as financial wizards undertake a fool's mission - trying to make sense of what Trump is thinking .
     Which brings me to the most serious danger of all – Trump’s singular ability to activate the United States' nuclear arsenal.

LIKE EVERY PRESIDENT since Harry Truman okayed two atomic attacks on Japan in 1945 to end World War II, Trump can launch a nuclear strike and no one can stop him. It's a vestige of the Cold War, when deterrence – fear of retaliation – was supposed to keep the Soviet Union from attacking the U.S.; the president needed to act quickly if the “other side” moved first.
     But Donald Trump would never be that reckless.
     Even Trump would never unleash an unprovoked nuclear holocaust.
     That’s what we all believe. The Trump “base” thinks he’d never, for one reason or another,   fire off a nuclear missile. Democrats, progressives and Independents and apolitical citizens of all sorts, really can’t imagine that.
     But here’s something that the great horror writer Stephen King said about Trump during his first term:
     “That this guy has his finger on the nuclear trigger is worse than any horror story I ever wrote.”  

      That line was posted on Twitter, now X, which was cited in a 2017  Esquire magazine article.
     Two years later, King was interviewed about a character in his 1979 novel, “The Dead Zone,” which imagined an emerging demagogue, who had eyes on the White House. The video interview appeared in a “Rolling Stone” magazine article.  
     “Do you think that the Trump presidency is scarier than a Stephen King novel?” the interviewer asked.
     “Short answer to that is yes, I do,” King replied. “I do think it’s scarier.”   

      Those 2017 and 2019 comments seem to have been blended into a inaccurate quote that’s widely attributed to King: “Donald Trump is worse than any horror story I’ve written.”
      You can find this wording easily in a Google search. But if it's not a literal quote, it is an apt paraphrase of King’s insight into both Trump, as well as the public’s appetite for a charismatic, dangerous politician.
     King  long has had a feel for leaders who go off the rails. I’ve read two of his novels, “The Stand,” published in 1978, and “Under the Dome,” 2009, that feature dangerous characters who have sway with groups of citizens.
     I haven’t read “The Dead Zone,” the novel discussed in the 2019 piece in Rolling Stone , but book summaries describe a rising politician, Greg Stillson, whom another character envisions  triggering a nuclear war if he makes it to the White House.
     King, in his interview, says that his Stillson character, like Trump, wasn't taken seriously as a politician at first, but gained a following and that there were other similarities between the imagined and the real.
     “I know that American voters have always had a real attraction to outsiders with the same kind of right-wing ‘America First’ policy,” King told his interviewer.  “And if that reminds people of Trump, I can’t be sorry, because it was a character that I wrote. It was a boogeyman of mine, and I never wanted to see him actually on the American political scene. But we do seem to have a Greg Stillson as president of the United States.”
     Happily in "The Dead Zone," the fictional Stillson’s political career was cut short and the envisioned nuclear launch never took place.

IN REAL LIFE, United States finds itself in the grip of a president who is as frightening as any in American memory
      And as, King suggests, actual, historical monsters – Hitler, Stalin, Mao – are far scarier than those who are made up.
      Donald Trump has many disturbing attributes. He's racist; he’s cruel, a liar, abusive, vengeful and unpredictable.
     On occasion, Trump has alluded to the use of nuclear weapons.
     Sparing verbally with North Korea during his first term, Trump issued this warning:
     “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf club in 2017. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

MOST DISTURBING  to me is that Trump says he’s God’s instrument, meant to guide the United States into a new era, the proof being his narrow escape from an assassination attempt during last year’s campaign.
     Trump put it this way in his inaugural address:
     "Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear.  But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason.  I was saved by God to make America great again."
     This is a man who has carelessly, recklessly brought the country to the edge of a recession, who has arbitrarily shipped immigrants to a dangerous foreign prison, moved to abandon life-saving health programs, mused  about taking over Canada and extorted universities and law firms with financial and legal threats.
     So much is worse today in America and the world, so many lives put in jeopardy, than was was the case just a few months ago, all because of one man.
      It makes me wonder what Donald Trump might do – now or in the future – should he get a signal from God.

 EARLIER THIS MONTH, when it was still winter, and as Trump was deporting people for speaking their minds, openly defying court orders and continuing to betray Ukraine, I wondered if there was a single word that described the president.
     I threw out a couple of my own – CRACKPOT and BONKERS.
     Acknowledging their flaws, I invited suggestions. I proposed ground rules: no swears; no comparisons to animals; none that would degrade people with mental illness; no compound phrases; the choices should suggest meanness, racism and depravity.
     “I like MALIGNANT,” wrote one friend from the Other Coast. She said that her husband calls Trump “THE FERAL HOG. But,noting the contest rules against animals comparisons, she suggested just “FERAL.”
     “I vote for MANIACAL,” said another respondent, who included a fragment of a dictionary definition: “Afflicted with extreme mental derangement … wildly irresponsible.
     “And DEMENTED,” this person continued. “It’s a word I use a lot about Trump.”
     Still another also supplied two words, averring both were “probably not good for reaching a wide enough constituency. I chose them because my Gut reacted when people said them to me.”

• CRUEL – “This is the word used by animal rights advocates in ads destined to get us incensed and motivated to donate to ASPCA”
• GREEDY – “I was struck when a Scottish immigrant told me that when he told his college professor colleagues he was moving to the USA, they said to him: ‘Just remember, you are going to a country that can be described in one word, GREED.”

Three other correspondents supplied one word each, without explanations, figuring that they spoke for themselves:

     BASE
     NARCISSISTIC
     ARSONIST

I PARTICULARLY LIKED ANOTHER SUGGESTION, finding it chilling in its depth and intimations of malevolence:
     SADISTIC
     “It’s a word that comes to mind when I think of Trump (and I think of him way too often).
     “I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to understand the moving parts beneath behavior, and “sadistic” comes as close as any to suggesting Trump’s animating dynamic.
     “He’s all about ‘getting even’ with the original sin against him, rooted in his personal history. It’s ‘getting even’ with a bullet.
     “He’s addicted to the satisfaction of his own cruelty, and those cruelties, large and small, play out, over and over again.”

 A HEADLINE IN THE ATLANTIC magazine purported to echo the same idea I had raised: “One Word Describes Trump.”
     “Wow,” I exclaimed, “a Vulcan mind-meld just in the nick of time, and I began to devour the piece by writer Jonathan Rauch:
     He wrote:
     “Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a change of regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
     “There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism – nor is it is autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy,” Rauch continued. “Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism.”
     That’s it? The elusive last word in defining Trump?
     I despaired . I never heard of the word, had no idea how to pronounce it, much less the foggiest idea about what it meant.
      PATRIMONIALISM ?
     That’s supposed to go on my bumper sticker? Or my next protest placard? No wonder the forces of truth, justice and the American way lost last year’s election.
     Rauch explained that a German sociologist, Max Weber, wrote that the word refers to a ruler who considers himself the “father of the people – the state’s personification and protector.”
     Such regimes, he said, have two self-destructive flaws: they are incompetent and corrupt, and democracy advocates can use both weaknesses to undermine and defeat them.
     Maybe PATRIMONIALISM fits Trump just like his fake hairdo and orange skin, maybe it provides political strategists with the secrets of turning back the Trump assault on democracy.
     But it’s not the word that I and many Americans are looking for.

SO THE HUNT GOES ON.
     Lately, CRIMINAL lately is working for me, both as a noun and an adjective.
     Trump literally is a CRIMINAL. Remember, he was convicted last May of falsifying business records in hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
     And Trump’s manic campaign to destroy America is CRIMINAL in its lawlessness, heartlessness and  thoughtlessness, with equal parts savagery and selfishness mixed in.
     So today, the second day of spring, I thank responders for their suggestions. But the work is not done.
     Defining Trump – which will help in his undoing – remains a continuing and important pursuit.
   The suggestion box remains open and hungry.

OVER THE WEEKEND, my neighborhood was invaded by federal troops, State Police with K-9 units, sword-wielding militias, demonstrating university students, scores of local cops on the march and a truck loaded with rugby toughs.
     Taking all of this in was a crowd numbering in the thousands lining both sides of more than a mile of city streets, shouting and waving and hollering.
     The occasion was the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, an institution in Newport, R.I., with the march ending conveniently at the end of my street.
     For more than an hour, what might be symbols and mechanisms of oppression in an America now struggling to defend its democratic roots and commitment to the rule of law, instead helped celebrate one of this community’s most cherished traditions.
     The military units included a marching band from the nearby Newport naval base, along with a free-spirited National Guard groups, outfitted in camouflage uniforms, playing jazz and dancing and swaying as they played.
     The State Police K-9 units strolled the parade route, encouraging bystanders to pat the friendliest pooches. Firefighters rode on the back of their red trucks, holding on with one hand, and waving frantically with the other.
     The student “demonstration” broke out spontaneously at an approaching float sponsored by Salve Regina University, whose ocean-side campus was only a few blocks from the reviewing stand.
     The “militias” were traditional groups hearkening back to the country’s founding, with classic uniforms and "guns," plus a crew of bearded, grouchy and aging pirates.
     There were men in skirts. And a St. Patrick "cleric" more than willing to pose for selfies with his pastoral flock.

      Heading the line of march were the state’s top political leaders: Gov. Dan McKee, Atty. Gen. Peter Neronha, U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo and the state’s two U.S. Senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse.
     But you hardly would have known the big shots from the spectators and other marchers mingling at the end of the route as the parade broke up. The governor posed with some Cub Scouts; Senators Reed and Whitehouse – among their chamber’s leading members – chatted with folks in silly green hats and other “Irish” trappings who happened to wander by.

      It occurred to me that this was a rare moment in our national life.
     An hour or two to wave at the cops, and for the cops to wave back; to clap for the local high school bands; to smile at Shriners scooting around in their ridiculous mini-cars; to sing along with flat-bed trucks loaded with musicians belting out live music; to stare at the a guy on stilts and to say “Hello” to Elmo.
     If felt like a huge weight was lifted, if just for a moment.
     Gone was the oppressive, scary, cruel, monstrous assault by Donald Trump, determined to tear apart the United States by crippling its agencies and departments, thumbing his nose at the courts, reversing civil rights, setting one group of citizens against another, betraying foreign allies and getting chummy with the nation's enemies.
     Instead, hundreds of marchers and thousands of spectators gathered in a common purpose stretching back decades – honoring  the folklore and traditions of a once-oppressed immigrant group, determined that this edition of the parade would deliver the friendliest, excessively exuberant and  most exhilarating  edition ever.
     Don’t get me wrong.
     The St. Patrick’s Day parade did nothing to stop or slow the Trump onslaught.
     But it did provide a welcome interlude – a moment to cheer and to wave and to share the comic, friendly, silly and profound symbolism of a united community.
     It was a reminder of the kind of traditions that we may have taken for granted in America, but now find ourselves in an urgent life-and-death struggle to defend and preserve.

 WE NEED A WORD.
     Just one  that describes what Trump – and so many of our fellow citizens  – are doing to our country.
     I’ve been puzzling about this for a while.
    We need a word – one, in Trump-speak, that’s “perfect.”  A word that captures the outlandish, abnormal, cruel, bizarre, destructive and just plain stupid changes in the national character that have evolved since Trump took office in January.
     A word that describes his unfunny joke of annexing Canada. Or expelling the Palestinians from Gaza, so it can be turned into a beach resort. Betraying Ukraine. Reviving America’s racist roots. Breaking the government. Imperiling the economy. Snuffing out scientific and medical research. Accelerating climate destruction. Replacing truth with lies. Playing the bully.
     The various actions that Trump has undertaken as an individual are  ludicrous, lethal, silly, absurd and hurtful, and need a word to define them.
     The same applies to the country – our country – when it  likewise becomes ludicrous, lethal, silly, absurd and hurtful. Because the new America is not just one man - it's all of us.
      Is there a unique word that will describe all of these dreadful individual and national betrayals? Here are some ground rules:

• We need just one word.  No cheating with hyphenated concoctions. No phrases. No subtitles.
• The word must apply to both Trump and the country.
• However tempting and fitting, the word must not be salacious or profane.
• The word must not compare humans to animals, especially when that is meant to degrade people, while simultaneously insulting the creatures.
• It should not belittle people with mental illness or physical disabilities.
• It must convey the cruelty, malice and sadism in which Trump thrives.
• The word should suggest betrayal of American ideals and traditions.
  
• It should note the racism that is Trump’s only core principle.
  
• It’s probably an adjective.

     You might well ask: Why fuss over the “perfect” word, when the crisis demands real action?
     We already know the damage, which Trump is inflicting and which  many people are mimicking, actively or passively. So, screw the semantics, and let’s concentrate our limited resources on the practical challenges of resistance, reform and recovery.
      My answer is that language is a weapon beyond all others.
     If we can somehow divine the right word, one that puts Trump in his place, while doing the same for a Trumpified America, we will clarify our goals in defending democracy, while increasing our chances of success.

HERE’S A LIST of some of the words I’ve come up with.
     I’m not at all satisfied with the list. For one thing, it's too short. And none of the words completely hits the spot. So consider this just as a starting point:

• CRACKPOT
• MALEVOLENT
• BONKERS
• DEMENTED
• CRAZY
• MAD
• ABSURD
• VINDICTIVE
• MANIACAL
• MALICIOUS
• MALIGNANT
• EVIL

     One way of testing a candidate word is through a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.

 I’M PARTIAL TO “CRACKPOT.”
     CRACKPOT president.
     CRACKPOT country.
     But it’s not a winner. As one friend noted, CRACKPOT conveys a charm and zaniness that you might associate with a favorite uncle who invents things in his backyard shack. CRACKPOT lacks the serial-killer menace that infuses Trump’s activities.
      Still, the word does imply danger. Who knows what the CRACKPOT  uncle is actually up to in his shack. And it does convey silliness, stupidity and recklessness of a president and country, neither of which are firing on all cylinders.
     It also works nicely in our test sentences.

     As you can see, this turns out not to be that simple, with the dictionary  giving multiple definitions of  “bullet. To wit:
     1:  a round or elongated missile (as of lead) to be fired from a firearm
     2-a : something resembling a bullet (as in curved form);
     2: b : a large dot placed in printed matter to call attention to a particular passage
     Common sense (a virtue promoted by the Assistant to the President) argues that you consider using the first definition first, bcause it's first. So, in this case, we should go with the "elongated missile."
     But how to obtain five (5) elongated missiles in a hurry?  I’m pretty sure there aren’t any ammo shops in my neighborhood. And even if I’m able to obtain said elongated missiles, how to deliver them to my manager before midnight?
      Worse, what if the OPM email, defying common sense, intended that the respondent  use Merriam-Webster's definition 2-b, “a large dot,” and a total of five (5)  large dots?
      In which case, sending sending five (5) elongated missiles, instead of five (5) large dots, might reasonably cause the manager to conclude that the worker was making some sort of melodramatic warning, or worse, a terrorist threat, warranting immediate transport to Guantanamo.
      Arresting the worker would serve the Musk Administration's twin goals by a) reducing the workforce and b) supporting the renewed mission of the notorious Cuban prison, soon to be named Camp Musk, or Camp Trump, or Camp Musk-Trump or Camp Trump-Musk.

THEN THERE WAS A SECOND PITFALL, finding a “manager” to whom I would cc my five (5) arguments for continued employment.
     Being retired, I not only have no job, but I have no manager.
     With our "children" grown and moved out of the family homestead,  there’s just me and my wife. She is highly organized and mission-driven, but not inclined to manage her husband unless in emergencies, such as reminding him that this is the week to move the compost bin to the curbside for pickup, or that with February coming to an end, maybe it's time to consider taking down some of the Christmas decorations. And  I’m pretty sure that she would turn down the managerial job even on a one-time basis, because anything to do with the Musk Administration, in her judgment,  certainly would be loathsome, but hardly urgent.
      Which leaves Ben.    

 I’M NO EXPERT ON ESTIMATING CROWDS, but I’m guessing that between 50 to 75 people showed up for the school board meeting a few evenings later at an elementary school named for the late U.S Sen. Claiborne Pell, a much-cherished Newport resident.
     I can also tell  you, after a journalism career of covering too many city and town councils, boards and commissions, nothing focuses the attention of municipal leaders like an actual audience of disgruntled  “citizens.”
     Before too much time had passed, school committee members proposed changing the word “rescind” to “abeyance” – as in placing Policy 1050 in limbo pending its review.
     And then a final change in the resolution, to keep the policy in force while it was sent to a policy subcommittee for a legal review.
      Before the school board voted, 13 speakers variously questioned the use of the original word “rescind,” with some wondering how long any review would take, since time itself might bury the policy.
     When each of the speakers had their three-minutes of talking time, it was clear that the DEI defenders had won – and won big.
     Every speaker was cheered – and there were some eloquent statements about how important equity efforts are to a school system in which diversity itself is not in dispute: Whites make up 33 percent of the student body; Hispanics 39 percent; and Blacks 10 percent.
     One speaker identified as a transgender leader of a Girl Scout troop, said the scouts included gay, Latino and other Newport students, who came from a variety of economic backgrounds:
     When I see them after school, and they already have a smile on their faces, it  is because they spent the day in a classroom where they were welcomed and supported . . . This policy keeps a supportive and engaging learning environment possible, and it protects my kids' well-being.
     If  there were any DEI opponents in the crowd, they remained silent.
     The final vote, directing that a legal review be made of the policy, was 6 to 1, and the committee member who voted no did not explain his vote.

THIS IS A TIME when many people across the country are desperate to stop Trump’s demented and cruel campaign to wreck democracy and crush our souls.
     GOP acolytes hold both chambers of Congress, and the Supreme Court leans toward Trump, leaving few places where the Constitutional system seems to be working.
     Thus, there is a national chorus asking: “What can I do?" Calls overwhelm Congressional phone systems – at least for Democratic offices. Pundits  endlessly wonder where “The Resistance” has gone.
    But let’s state this as a fact, because the contrary is unacceptable: it is not too late to rescue democracy, which begins not in Washington, but always in the communities where we all actually live.
     The obvious venues are town halls and  school cafeterias, where simply showing  up can make a difference.
     And last night’s school committee meeting was an inspiring example that, at least in one seaside community, this kind of activism really worked.

 NOTES:

• Here's a link to What's Up Newp (WUN's) first story:  https://whatsupnewp.com/2025/02/newport-school-committee-to-vote-on-rescinding-equity-policy/)
  
• You can read WUN’s final school board story, and watch a video of the meeting at this link: https://whatsupnewp.com/2025/02/equity-policy-debate-draws-crowd-at-newport-school-committee-meeting/
• I used to write for WUN, but haven't recently.

IT’S A QUESTION HALF THE COUNTRY has been asking since Trump became president last month: How do you stop a bully?
     The answer is simple:
     When enough of us stand up to a bully, he or she stops.
     That’s goes for any bully, whether he's lurking in the school yard or the White House.
      But there’s a catch: the bully will hurt us.
     The school yard bully will break your nose, punch you in the gut, twist your arm, knock you down, get his pals to kick and taunt you, then send you away, bleeding, bruised and broken.
     The Oval Office mutation will do much worse.
     He will insult and libel you on social media; bring phony criminal and civil lawsuits against you, to exhaust your savings; get you fired or at demoted; tell armed militias where  you live and what your phone numbers are;  cancel your research grants; cripple your small business; run a primary campaign against you; track where you drive, what you read and whom you text; audit your taxes; bankrupt your daycare center; and ship you to Guantanamo (and you thought that was just for immigrant detainees).
     This explains, in part, why there’s been little effective push-back to Trump: It’s scary and difficult to go after a bully.
     It’s comfortable to belittle the people – particularly Republicans -  who worshipfully cheer him on; or who hint at opposing him, then back down; or those office holders, the worst villains of all, because they say and do nothing.
     The press has been particularly complicit, largely ignoring this army of Republican snivelers that's empowered Trump to become the world’s master bully, as if the subject is old news and unworthy of repeating.
     Meanwhile, there’s entire wing of the media devoted to mocking Democrats for failing to counter Trump as too divided, too old, too progressive, too tongue-tied, too boring, too slow and too alienated from the Working Class.
     I swear that the New York Times has created a special  Demoralize the Democrats Desk by churning out headlines like:

• Are the Democrats in Even More Trouble Than They Think? (Jan. 20)
• ‘We Have No Coherent Message’: Democrats Struggle to Oppose Trump (Feb. 2)
• Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities  (Feb. 2)
• Where Are the Democrats?  (Feb 6)
• As Ground Shifts, ‘Flailing’ Democrats Struggle to Find Footing in Diversity Fight (Feb. 8)

 
A NATION OF COWARDS?
      What's remarkable is how an entire nation, from coast to coast, border to  border, seems cowed by the bully-in-chief .
      Among most despicable quislings are individuals and institutions that  have the most power and financial wherewithal to stand up to Trump and therefore to encourage the rest of us to push back.
     Where to start? Jeff Bezos, the billionaire genius behind of Amazon, whose embrace of Trump is astonishing,  donating to Trump, winning a choice seat at the inauguration. Doesn’t the man read his own newspaper, the Washington Post, to understand the damage Trump is causing?
     Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, with years left in his term, could have shown a touch of stewardship by forcing Trump to fire him, rather than slinking away the minute Trump took office.
     It’s perhaps too easy to point  at  Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican, who, if she had done the “right” thing, might have encouraged fellow GOPers to question one of Trump’s most clownish, but dangerous cabinet nominee.
     Ernst had doubts about Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense. A combat veteran, who had been sexually assaulted in college, Ernst had credible cause to question Hegseth's fitness, given his opposition to women in combat, while facing accusations of sexual misbehavior.
      But Ernst, receiving threats of a primary challenge,  eventually supported Hegseth, who got the job when Vice President JD Vance broke a Senate tie after  three other Republicans joined Democrats in voting no.
     The Dishonor Roll is vast and growing.
     The Boston Globe last week reported that top medical organizations chickened out of criticizing Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, even though individual doctors have condemned his skepticism of vaccines.
     Paul Offit, a pediatrician and expert on vaccines at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as calling the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association,  “cowardly” for their silence.
      “I think it’s shameful that the AAP or AMA or the other major groups don’t step forward clearly and definitively with statements about how dangerous this man could be,” Offit said.

IN DESCRIBING THIS NATION OF COWARDS, I don’t want to suggest that I’m any kind of role model for leading the resistance, the rebellion or whatever you call it.
     I’m a fearful, timid man, a lifelong milquetoast, who still cringes at the memory of the scary parts of the “Wizard of Oz,” identifying only with the appearances of the Cowardly Lion.
     When I was a reporter, I was a member of the labor union at my newspaper.
     Absurdly, I was chair of the grievance committee, charged with defending workers who had been disciplined or fired by management:  (“The Cowardly Lion has your back”).
     The union won most of its cases. But workers who ran afoul of management suffered immensely. They lived under the shadow of being labeled “bad employees,” with some  demoted or suspended during the months, even years it took their cases to go through arbitrations and regulatory and court hearings.
      After individuals “won,” clearing their records and sometimes being compensated financially, most chose to leave the company. And in the rare cases where someone was returned to his or her job, the personal and professional scars were permanent.
    The lesson:  Yes, you can fight City Hall; and, yes, you can win. But there's always a price.

TAKING ON TRUMP,  therefore, means both being willing to act, while acknowledging the personal danger.
     From the outset, any of us who challenge Trump should  recognize the consequences, which will be far worse than those suffered by the people I’ve described, who were involved in old-fashioned, vanilla labor disputes.
      Each one of us has to decide not only what we can do, but if we are able.
     Just as important is to recognize that if we remain a fearful, cowardly nation, our lives and our country will be ruined.
     Donald Trump is ripping our country apart, aided by Elon Musk and his team of techno-two-year-olds, who are out to destroy entire federal departments and agency, invade citizens’ personal information, fire professionals and halt medical care and research.
      Trump-Musk are moving to re-segregate America, accelerate climate destruction, degrade the economy, grab land from other countries and lie about their reasons and motives for doing all of that.
     It’s also clear that we are not helpless.
     I believe that success is not only possible, but certain - certain if millions of us do something. Our own roles will vary as to who we are, what we can do and when we can act.
        I wish I could say I will be brave enough – knowing I’ve always have been a person of uncertain courage, and, that over a long life, I have witnessed the real the cost of protest.
     So, I can’t promise you that I’ll be up to the challenge.
     Only that I want to be.

DONALD TRUMP CANNOT BE  TRUSTED  WITH THE TRUTH.
     What? This is something new?
     If anything is certain about Donald Trump, it’s that he’s a man who mostly doesn’t tell the truth – ever. Almost everything he says is a distortion, an exaggeration, a misstatement, a falsehood, a fib or a lie.
     This was the key lesson Trump’s first term, and now of the president’s second, as demonstrated by his disgraceful “briefing” to reporters Jan. 30, hours after a jetliner-helicopter collision killed 67 people in Washington, DC.
     It can be argued that of the many sins that Trump committed in his talk about the crash, his contempt for the truth is the least shocking. Other elements seemed worse:

• Using a tragedy to make political points, namely tying the crash to his crusade to undermine diversity initiatives, with the implication that race lowers quality work.
• Casting blame on people who were key players – pilots, air traffic controllers – before the causes of crash were known.
• Injecting mean, ugly and hateful emotions into a moment that demanded empathy, sorrow and caring.

     But I think Trump’s overall narrative is important, because it’s an example of what is going to happen over and over and over again as his presidency unfolds.
     When crises happen, Trump, at the presidential podium, and supposedly armed with the facts no one else has, will be among the first to provide the “news.”
     If China attacks Taiwan, Russia explodes a nuclear device, a new pandemic emerges; if there’s another mass shooting; if the economy tanks and if an asteroid heads for earth, Trump will be guiding our brains, and, in the process, messing with them.
     Which is why I wanted to look closely at how his briefing that distorted the events surrounding the crash, using it as a guide to what to expect in the future.
     If  you’re interested, I’ve included the link to the White House YouTube video of Trump’s news conference , so you can watch and listen yourself.
      Press conference:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShRYdYTtIx8
    And I’ve appended a partial, homemade transcript of what Trump said, along with his exchanges with reporters, at the end of this post.

HOW TRUMP OPERATES
     Some guidelines for listening to Trump:

• There’s often a crumb of truth buried in whatever gruel Trump is dishing out – not much mind you, but a morsel or two to put you on your guard.
• He introduces topics that have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
• He speaks in a kind of mobster’s code, rarely saying outright what he means. His past as a shifty businessman may have trained him to speak as if somebody is listening in, hoping to find “smoking gun” words.
• The result is that it takes a lot of re-listening and re-reading sessions to figure it out exactly what Trump has said.

     In the end, you realize that it’s largely been a waste of time, since he has contempt for words, for language, for meaning and for you.

A FEW FACTS
     Of the 4,000 or so words in the transcript, about 400, or 0.1 percent are a factual summary of the disaster. The passenger jet and Army helicopter collided on Jan 29 and sank into the Potomac River. The water was cold. There were no survivors. It happened at night. There was a large-scale recovery effort. The cause or causes were under investigation. Nothing that the public already hadn’t heard .

A DOLLOP OF SYMPATHY
     As a layman, I’ve long felt that Trump is a psychopath and doesn’t care about other people. But he can read, and here’s some of what he read aloud in “sympathy” about the crash:

     On behalf of the First Lady, myself, and 340 million Americans, our hearts are shattered alongside yours, and our prayers are with you now and in the days to come. We'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come.
     We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love,  and our support is great. In moments like this, the differences between Americans fade to nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations. We are one family and today we are all heartbroken.

     It's a lie, this business about being “one family.” He sure didn’t mean the people involved in the tragedy, or the nation as being part of “one family,” unless he’s referring to families whose members are at each others' throats.
     As he got rolling, he blamed lots of the family’s members and activities: programs to bring diversity into the workplace;  former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for supposedly allowing lax air travel safety standards; and air traffic controllers and now-dead helicopter pilots as possibly being  culpable for the crash.

WHAT HE SAID.
WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY.
MAYBE WHAT HE SORT OF SAID
     The shocking element of Trump’s discussion of the crash was that he inserted one of his favorite bugaboos - DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs – as possible factors contributing to he disaster.
     He read from news stories about DEI programs at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He said that those programs lowered safety standards; that they were the fault of Obama and Biden; and that DEI promoted incompetent personnel. He ranted incessantly about how he acted in his first term, and now again in his second, to correct this betrayal of competence.
     But he never said  outright that DEI was to blame for the crash. Over and over, Trump insisted that the causes were not yet known:

      We’re all searching for answers.
* * *
     The FAA, and the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) and the US Military will be carrying out a systematic and comprehensive investigation.
* * *
     It’s all under investigation.

     Then he said this:

     We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we’ll probably state those opinions now.
    
     You got it. The leader of the country, the guy with all the information that the rest of us don't have, the commander-and-chief, has some opinions and ideas.   As if he were just another guy at the bar, spouting off  about why his sports team just lost.    He said:

     Over the years, I’ve watched as things like this happen and they say, ‘Well, we’re always investigating.’ And the investigation, three years later, they announced it.

     So, why wait? Instead, a president, like anyone, can speculate.
     Think about the cruelty of presidential musings. We can presume the air traffic controllers on duty that night were already overcome with grief and guilt; and the families of the helicopter crew, not only were mourning the losses of their loved ones, now listened to their commander-in-chief suggest the whole thing might have been the crew’s fault.
     As to the air traffic controllers: were they placed Reagan National Airport towers because of lax standards? Were they the kind of people DEI allows to do critical jobs, so that the FAA staffs control towers with people who have issues with “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism?”

      We’ll see. We don’t know that necessarily it’s even the controllers’ fault."
    
     Okay, how about the folks in the helicopter?     Trump said:
    
     You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter. I mean, because it was visual, it was a very clear night. It was cold, but clear and clear as you could be. The American Airlines plane had lights blazing; they had all their landing lights on.
    
     Trump went on to say the helicopter may have been told to change course.

     And the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously, and it did somewhat the opposite of what it was told. We don’t know that that would have been the difference, because the timing was so tight.
    
     So, maybe it wasn’t the fault of the helicopter crew, after all.
     Then why speculate?  The answer, Trump said, in an exchange with a reporter, is because this president has special powers:

     REPORTER: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity elements, but then told us that you weren't sure that the controllers made any mistake. Then said perhaps the helicopter pilots that were the ones who made the mistake.
     TRUMP: It’s all under investigation.  
     REPORTER: I understand that. That's why I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
     TRUMP: Because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately a lot of people don't.”

NEVER ENOUGH FEAR AND HATE
     Trump seems  always to add an extra element of misery and hurt to whatever he’s talking about.
     Some people think he does this to confuse an issue, or deflect attention away from one in which he has a role. But I think he does it just to be mean.
     In this case, Trump introduced the aforementioned DEI subject, so that he could insult former presidents, push blame onto the people directly involved the crash and add hatred to the discussion.
     He claimed that DEI programs – which are meant to expand the pool of employees to folks whom may have been excluded in the past by prejudice and bigotry –  have lowered safety standards, allowing  second-rate people to be hired and promoted.
     Trump claimed that had he raised personnel standards in his first term, and did so again immediately after taking office.

     We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. You remember that. Only the highest aptitude, have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers.
     That was not so prior to getting there, when I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on because I always felt this was a job that and other jobs too, but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence, and we didn't really have that. And we had it. And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before.
     I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen. Because this was the lowest level, their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.

     Trump also insulted Pete Buttigieg, the former director of the Department of Transportation, which includes the FAA, as a “disaster” – “He’s just got a good line of bullshit.”
         I’m sure the families of the crash victims were comforted by the president’s barnyard language and attack on previous office holders. On the other hand, maybe they believed Trump was on to something – he’s the president after all, and the one with common sense. Maybe, in their grief, families could hate the controllers, the pilots, Obama, Biden and Buttigieg.
      And certainly people with disabilities, or who are in groups subjected to historical prejudice, once again felt abused, misrepresented and slandered.

CLEANING UP THE MESS
    With Trump, the clean-up always takes more effort and time than it took Trump to deliver his fibs, insinuations, lies and maybe's.
     For days afterwards, news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times explored in detail the issues Trump had raised. Here’s some of what they found:

THE DEI BACKGROUND. For all of Trump’s bombast about reforming DEI, The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote that Trump did not change the DEI program in place at the FAA during his first term.

      Trump claimed that he had changed Obama’s criteria for hiring air traffic controllers with greater diversity — when in fact he left it unchanged. Moreover, he decried the fact that FAA hired controllers with a range of disabilities that he listed at the news conference. But that program was launched during his first term.

THE FOLKS IN THE TOWER
     As to whether dwarfs, quadriplegics, the blind and other potentially impaired people were running the control tower, that’s not likely, since background articles said applicants for controller jobs undergo rigorous procedures and most  never make the cut.
     But both the Times and the Post found that the control tower was understaffed: normally, one controller would be assigned to regular aircraft, another to helicopters; but at the time of the crash, one controller was doing both jobs.
     And if you wanted to throw some blame around, members of Congress should be included,.
     Congress, ignoring critics’ warnings about safety at the crowded airfield, expanded the number of flights there, because some like to use that airfield, which is so close to the capitol, while commuting to and from their districts.

THE FOLKS IN THE COCKPIT
     Trump made a big deal about there being a clear visual field last Wednesday night, so pilots might have seen an oncoming aircraft and possibly taken evasive action.
     But among experts reporters sought out later was the iconic pilot, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger,  famous for safely landing an airliner in New York City’s Hudson River in 2009.
     Sullenberger said night flying, over water, makes visual judgements difficult.

     Nighttime always makes things different about seeing other aircraft — basically all you can do is see the lights on them, You have to try to figure out: Are they above you or below you? Or how far away? Or which direction are they headed?

TODAY’S LESSON: A REVIEW

     If you have made it this far, you realize that you have wasted your time in giving Trump a close look.
     Just as I’ve wasted my time listening to the video. Making a transcript. Checking it. Studying it. Reading news reports. And then writing a long winded, but hardly complete review.
     In any event, with the crash coverage fading, which happens to every Big Story, it’s time to move onto the next one.
      Today, tariffs seem to be taking the center ring.
      Trump will have lots to say.

     * * *
     Below are links to some of the news stories I’ve looked at in writing this post:

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/30/dc-plane-crash-helicopter-recovery-no-survivors-potomac-river/
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/plane-crash-potomac-lessons-sully.html

     * * *
TRANSCRIPT
This is a partial transcript of President Trump’s press briefing Jan. 30 about the Reagan National Airport crash the previous evening.

TRUMP: I speak to you this morning in an hour of anguish for pit nation Just before 9:00 PM last night, an American Airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three military service members over the Potomac River in Washington, DC while on final approach to Reagan National Airport. Both aircraft crashed instantly and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the Potomac.

A real tragedy. The massive search and rescue mission was underway throughout the night, leveraging every asset at our disposal, and I have to say the local, state, federal military. Including the United States Coast Guard in particular. They've done a phenomenal job. So quick, so fast. It was mobilized immediately. The work has now shifted to a recovery mission.

Sadly, there are no survivors. This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history, and a tragedy of terrible proportions. As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly, and we are a country of, really, we are in mourning. This is really shaking a lot of people, including people very sadly from other nations who were on the flight,  for the family members back in Wichita, Kansas, here in Washington, D.C. and throughout the United States and in Russia.

We have a Russian contingent. Very talented people, unfortunately, were on that plane. Very, very, very sorry about that. Whose loved ones were aboard the passenger jet. We can only begin to imagine the agony that you're all feeling. Nothing worse.

On behalf of the First Lady, myself, and 340 million Americans, our hearts are shattered alongside yours and our prayers are with you now and in the days to come. We'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come.

We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love, and our support is great. In moments like this, the differences between Americans fade to nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations. We are one family and today we are all heartbroken.

We're all searching for answers. That icy, icy Potomac. It was  a cold, cold night, cold water. We're all overcome with the grief for many who have so tragically perished will no longer be with us.

Together, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey ended not in the cold waters of the Potomac, but in the warm. embrace of a loving God.

We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we'll probably state those opinions now because over the years I've watched as things like this happen and they say, well, we're always investigating. And then the investigation, three years later, they announced it.

I think we have some pretty good ideas, but we'll find out how this disaster occurred and we'll ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. The FAA and the NTSB and the US military will be carrying out a systematic and comprehensive investigation. Our new secretary of transportation. Sean Duffy, is (in) his second day on the job. When that happens, it's it's a rough one.

We'll be working tirelessly. He's a great gentleman. Whole group is. These are great people, and they are working tirelessly to figure out exactly what happened. We, we will state, certain opinions, however,

I'm also immediately appointing an acting commissioner to the FAA, Christopher Rocheleau, a 22 year veteran of the agency, highly respected. Christopher, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. You remember that. Only the highest aptitude; have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers. That was not so prior to getting there, when I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on because I always felt this was a job that, and other jobs too, but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence, and we didn't really have that. And we had it. And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before.

I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen. Because this was the lowest level; their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.

So as you know, last week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order restoring our higher standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs throughout the country. So it was very interesting. About a week ago, almost upon entering office, I signed something last week that was an executive order, very powerful and restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others, by the way,

Then, my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety; we have to have our smartest people. It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. It matters, intellect, talent, the word talent. They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses. You can't have regular people doing that job. They won't be able to do it, but we'll restore faith in American air travel. I'll have more to say about that.

I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one “The FAA's Diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.” That is amazing ,and then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are the most underrepresented segment of the workforce. Said they want them in and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so.

This was on January 14th, so that was a week before I entered office, they put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.

And then another article, the Federal Aviation Administration. This was before I got to office recently, second term. The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website. Can you imagine?

These are people that are, I mean actually, their lives are shortened because of the stress that they have. Brilliant people have to be in those positions and their lives are actually shortened very substantially shortened because of the stress where you have many, many planes coming into one target and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it.

Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that The federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis and recruitment and hiring, the FAA's website states. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism. All qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway. The initiative is part of the FAA's Diversity and Inclusion hiring plan. Think of that. The initiative is part of the FAA's Diversity and Inclusion hiring plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's just the opposite.

The FAA website shows that the agencies guidance and diversity hiring were last updated on March 23rd of ‘22. They wanted to make it even more so. And then I came in and I assume maybe this is the reason -  the FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg. A real winner, that's the guy, a real winner. Do you know how badly everything's run, since he's run the Department of Transportation, he's a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he's a disaster now. He's just got a good line of bullshit. The Department of Transportation is a government agency charged with regulating civil aviation. While he runs it, 45,000 people, and he's run it right into the ground with his diversity. So I had to say that it's terrible.

Then it's a group within the FAA, another story. Determined that the workforce was too white that they had concerted efforts to. get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration just prior to my getting there. And we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, we took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before. It's one of the reasons I won,

But they actually, came out with a directive, too  white, and we want the people that are competent

But now we mourn and we pray, and we would like to ask all Americans to join me in a moment of silence as we ask God to watch over those who have lost their lives and bring comfort to the loved ones and. I just want to say ‘God bless everyone in this room.’ This has been a terrible, a very short period of time.

We'll get to the bottom of it. So we all saw the same thing. We've seen it many times. I've had the honor of hearing tapes. Tapes are scary, very scary types. You had a  airliner coming in, American Airlines, He was doing everything right. He was on track. He was (on) the same track as everybody else that came in, and it's probably the same track as they've had for 25 years or more.

He's coming in to the path. And for some reason, (you) had a helicopter that was at the same height. Obviously when they hit, but pretty much the same height. And going at an angle that was unbelievably bad.

When the air traffic controller said 'Do you see?’ you know, he's talking about do you see him? But there was very little time left when that was stated.

And then also he said ‘Follow him in,’ and then almost immediately after that, you know, seconds after that, that was the crash that took place. Well, follow him in and that means like everything's fine. Follow him in.

You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter, I mean, because it was visual, it was very clear night, it was cold, but clear and clear as you could be. The American Airlines plane had lights blazing. They had all their landing lights on.

I could see it from the Kennedy Center tape. We had a tape up on the Kennedy Center. That seems to be the primary. That's why I'm sure we'll see other tapes because it's such an area where there are a lot of cameras, a lot of cameras looking up in into. the air into space, so we'll probably see many other shots of it before too much time goes by.

But we had a situation where you had a helicopter that had the ability to stop. I have helicopters. You can stop a helicopter very quickly. It had the ability to go up or down. It had the ability to turn. And the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously, and it did somewhat the opposite of what it was told.

We don't know that that would have been the difference. because the timing was so tight. It was so it was so little, it was so little time to think.

But what you did have is you had vision. The helicopter had vision of the plane because you had vision of it all the way, perfect vision of it all the way from at Kennedy Center where the tape was taken and for some reason there weren't adjustments made.

Again, you could have slowed down the helicopter substantially. You could have stopped the helicopter. You could have gone up. You could have gone down. You could have gone straight up, straight down, you could have turned, you could have done a million different maneuvers.

For some reason, it just kept going. And then made a slight turn, at the very end, and it was by that time, it was too late. They shouldn't have been at the same height,  because if it wasn't the same height, you could have gone under it or over it and. Nobody realized or they didn't say that it's at the same height.

At the same height would, it would still wouldn't have been great, but you would have missed it by quite a bit; could have been 1,000 feet higher; it could have been 200 feet lower, but it was exactly at the same height, and somebody should have been able to point that out.

So all of this is going to be studied, but it just seems to me from a couple of words that I like to use the words ‘common sense.’

Some really bad things happened and some things happened that shouldn't have happened. So you had a helicopter going and in an identical direction you had a helicopter that was at the exact same height as somebody going, and essentially the opposite direction; you had a plane that was following a track, which is a track that every other plane followed.

And I, I don't imagine, I know I've heard today that they might have been following the preceding plane, which was pretty close, but not that close (to) the preceding plane. But you wouldn't have even been able to see that because of the direction that the helicopter was coming in at.

So you had a confluence of, of bad decisions that were made. And you have people that lost their lives, violently lost their lives.

* * *

REPORTER: On DEI and the claims  you’ve made, are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?

TRUMP: It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else and there are things where you have to go by. Brain power, you have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by Biden, and Biden went by his standard that’s the exact opposite.

So we don't know, but we do know that you had two planes, at the same level, you had an air helicopter and a plane, it shouldn't have happened. And we'll see. We're going to look into that. We're going to see. But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that's psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have here.

 * * *

REPORTER: Do you yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed, and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the US military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter.  Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?

TRUMP: I don't think so at all. I don't think where the names of the people - yYou mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that's going to make a difference there ….

REPORTER: Does it comfort their families for you to be blaming DEI…

TRUMP: They are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names, we can give you that. We'll be giving that very soon. We're in coordination with American Airlines. We're in coordination very strongly, obviously with the military. But I, I don’t think that's not a very smart question. I'm surprised, coming from you.
* * *

REPORTER: Thank you. Thank you, President Trump, for being here. Based on your analysis so far, do you have a sense of who was at fault, if it was the plane, the helicopter, air traffic control, and can you assure people that it is safe to fly in and out of DC?

TRUMP: Well, I've given you the analysis and the analysis was, it was based on vision. You had a lot of people that saw what was happening. You had some people that knew what was happening. There was some warnings, but the warnings were given very, very late. You know, those warnings were given very late. It was almost as they were given. A few seconds later there was the crash. It should have been brought up earlier.

But the people in the helicopter should have seen where they were going. I can't imagine people with 20/20 Vision not seeing, you know what's happening up there. Again, they shouldn't have been at the same height you're going with in reverse directions or sideway directions. Obviously you want to be a different heights. I see it all the time when I'm flying. If you have planes going in the opposite, they're always lower, we're higher or they're so if somehow, there's a screw up, there's not going to be a tragedy. It'll be close, but you know, there's never going to be a tragedy if you're in a different elevation. For whatever reason, they were at the same elevation. And also from the American Airlines (word unclear), he's along the track that every plane is along. See what was helicopter doing in that track? It's very sad. But visually somebody should have been able to see and taken that helicopter out of play. and they should have been at a different height.
* * *

REPORTER: You’ve already issued an executive order. You say, well, you start aviation safety, right? This crash happened after that. Was the executive order successful? And what more needs to change?

TRUMP: People say, well, you know, we issued it three days ago and we were in the process of making those changes. This is this is something that should have been done a long time ago.

Actually my original order should have never been changed and I think maybe you wouldn't have had this problem. Maybe. Yeah, please, yes, thank you.
* * *

REPORTER: You see like everyday life that's very often those  diversity hires those sometimes issues as you just mentioned. So what,  when do you have, are we going to see some firings? Are you going to fire some of those diversity hires in the federal government wants? What's the plan do you have?

TRUMP:  I would say the answer is yes, if we find that people aren't mentally competent, you, you see the language, the language is put out by them. And if you see that, I'm not going to bore you by reading it again. But these are not people that should be doing this particular job. They'd be very good for certain jobs, but not people that should be doing this particular job.
* * *

REPORTER: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity elements, but then told us that you weren't sure that the controllers made any mistake. Then said perhaps the helicopter pilots that were the ones who made the mistake.

TRUMP:  It’s all under investigation.  

REPORTER: I understand that. That's why I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash,

TRUMP: Because I have common sense, OK? And unfortunately a lot of people don't.

We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level When you have. 60 planes coming in during a short period of time, and they’re all coming in at different directions and you're dealing with very high level computer, computer work and very complex computers.

And one of the other things I will tell you is that the systems that were built, I was going to rebuild the entire system and then we had an election, that didn't turn out the way it should have, but they didn't build the systems properly. They spent a lot of money renovating a system, spending much more money than they would have spent if they bought a new system for air traffic controllers….
 


















 

 I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
     I don’t want to think about it.
     I don’t want you to talk to me about it, since that makes you have to think about it.
     I don’t want to watch it, hear it, read about it. I don’t want it my home, coming out of my speakers, on my computer and my TV screen. I don’t want it fouling my rubbish bins and poisoning my state’s sold waste landfills.
     The Trump presidency is a pestilence, an affliction and a blasphemy.  It spoils our history, corrupts our conscience and stains our souls.
     But we must, at the very least, pay attention. And in paying attention, take the next step, which is to do something.
     But do what?
     I know I'm a day late in talking about  the inauguration. The smart people, the brave people, the effective people have already had their say about Inauguration Day, and they’ve and moved on to Day Two, which is going on right now, even as I’m writing this.
     But I’m doing what I can.
     I watched the inauguration, wearing headphones, because my wife is allergic to Trump’s voice. She was not hiding out, but like another hero of our time, Michelle Obama, my wife did not want give to Trump the honor of her presence.
      As for what I took away from what I saw and heard, just a few things, because that's all I can handle. I know there was a lot more, and still more happened today.

“SAVED FOR A REASON”
     Beyond the irony of the ceremony being in the Rotunda that was desecrated by the Jan. 6 insurrection four years ago – when some of the inauguration guests could have been murdered or injured – there was this memorable section from Trump’s triumphant, arrogant address:

      I’ve always found it petty to talk about what First Ladies and other celebrities, especially women, wear to events like inaugurations.
     But, as many people have commented, it was hard to avoid staring at Melenia Trump’s hat – its wide brim hid her eyes and even interfered with her husband’ attempted  kisses, which may have been a good or a bad thing.
     But, overall, that hat, which surely was chosen for a reason gave her – and the entire proceedings - a severe, menacing and dangerous look.
     Almost as scary,  as Elon Musk’s Nazi-style salutes later in the day.

THAT IS WHY THIS IS SO HARD TO TALK ABOUT.
     Yes, we knew what was coming. But this does not make it less shocking.
     Yes, we knew it would hurt. But this does not take away the hurt or make it hurt less.
     The United States, the people who voted for Trump and the people who voted against him, are going to suffer the coming days and years in so many ways.
     We  will be sicker, less safe, more frightened, less apt to get justice. We will be discriminated against, unfairly taxed, defrauded, lied to, detained, assaulted, insulted, and  our homes will be destroyed by floods and fires.
     “My life was saved for a reason,” Trump said
     That was an applause line at the inauguration.
     And today, it’s among the many reasons it’s so hard to talk about.

 

HERE ARE THREE EXCELLENT IDEAS – the kind of imaginative thinking that's needed to counter the Trump catastrophe.

• FREE-PRESS DEFENSE SUPERFUND – A massive fund to combat news censorship and intimidation, taking the financial and strategic burden off the shoulders individuals and organizations targeted by Trump.
• WASHINGTON POST RESCUE – In which the country’s troubled, second-best news organization would be converted to non-profit status, and hopefully endure as a major source of reliable information.
• DEMOCRATIC PARTY MESSAGING “WAR MACHINE” - The Democratic Party would create an aggressive communications effort to target destructive Trump policies, contrasting them with Democratic alternatives.

    These three ideas are just small steps in confronting the horror that already is unfolding as a result of last year's election.
     They may be impractical.
     But they represent the kind of imaginative,  concrete steps that are needed  to prevent or mitigate the barbaric political and cultural consequences of the election.
     The sweeping nature of Trump’s victory – a clear win of his own,  plus MAGA’s takeover of Congress, in addition to an already captive Supreme Court – has left millions of Americans without obvious defenses.
     I, for one, remained shocked by the breadth of the election’s outcome, unsure how to proceed in the coming years, and frankly uncertain whether destruction of America can be prevented.
     But we have to try. The United States is too great, both as a democracy and as a philosophical concept,  to give into despair and bewilderment.
     The appropriate cliché, derived from both underdog sports teams and  long-shot lottery players, is especially important now:
     “You can’t win if you don’t play.”
     I wish I was an idea factory. I'm not. But I admire people who try , and I think we should celebrate everyone who makes a good-faith effort to invent what's possible.
     In that spirit, these three good ideas.
     All have this in common: information. Information will  attacked by Trump, because it’s the key to countering  his abuses and to reform and recovery.

FREE-PRESS DEFENSE SUPERFUND
     One Trump tactic will be to attack the press through  lawsuits and government actions intended to crush writers and organizations, not just with the outcomes, but the sheer expense and strain involved in fighting them.
     To counter this, Josh Marshall, founder and editor-in-chief of the “Talking Points Memo” website,  has written about one possible counter offense.
      He notes that there's been discussion  about “creation of an organization or fund which would take on the job of defending the various lawsuits, prosecutions and generalized legal harassment Trump will bring to the table in the next four years.”
      The effort would require a massive mountain of money and an army of lawyers and other expert staffers.
     Whenever a media outlet would be threatened, the Superfund would step in to shoulder the expense and determine the tactics to defend the attack, fighting fire with fire, punishing the perpetrators legally and financially.
     It would require both philanthropy by billionaires as well as small-fry contributions from thousands of individuals.
     The Superfund would help big outfits, like national newspapers and TV networks, as well as lone bloggers and small outlets like Marshall’s.
     “Trump’s retribution may focus on individuals,” Marshall writes. “But it’s a collective harm. So it makes sense to spread the cost of dealing with it.”
         Here's the link to how Marshall discussed the idea in one of his columns.
         As far as I know, no Free-Press Superfund  has materialized.
    
WASHINGTON POST RESCUE
      News organizations on the scale of a major newspaper are still the most important source of reliable, in-depth information, even as the industry itself has withered.
     The “paper” part isn’t important. What counts is the hefty "news" resources of a New York Times and a Washington Post.
     What has distinguished newspapers in the past has been their enormous newsrooms  – staffed with hundreds of reporters, plus editors, photographers, artists, technologists.
      And it’s not enough to have just one.
     The New York Times appears now to be financially successful, and it IS a great paper. But it has both massive and minuscule  faults for the simple reason that it's run by humans. It needs competition.
      When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos brought the Post  years ago, it seemed that the Times had a needed counter-balance, and, indeed, the Post flourished during Trump’s first term.   

 But it’s fallen on difficult times and is losing money. Bezos shouldn’t be required to subsidize the paper indefinitely - and he won't.
     Further, he’s shown himself to be an increasingly flawed owner, quashing the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just days before the election and shamelessly sucking up to Donald Trump.
     Recently, some top reporters have jumped ship to work for The Atlantic magazine, and the Post's top cartoonist, Ann Telnaes quit, when the paper  killed a cartoon mocking Bezos' and other billionaires' seeming to buy Trump's favor.
    
     Press critic Dan Froomkin suggests that Bezos turn the Post into a non-profit organization, guaranteeing its independence.
      Here's how he put it:
     "The good news is that there is a way out of this mess – a way out that would restore the Post’s grand tradition of independence and speaking the unvarnished truth to power.
    "It would also reestablish Bezos’s reputation as a great philanthropist.
Bezos must relinquish ownership of the Post to a nonprofit organization, devoted to journalistic independence."
     Froomkin suggests that Bezos could get a big tax benefit in the process. I wonder whether Bezos might fund the non-profit with a huge endowment, parting with just a fraction of his Amazon billions.
     “We need the Washington Post,” Froomkin writes. “The only way to save it, Jeff Bezos, is to let it go.”
     Here's the link to Froomkin's column.
     I'm not suggesting we hold our breath for Bezos to adopt the idea.
     Which doesn’t mean its not an inspired  proposal.

DEMOCRATS’ MESSAGING “WAR MACHINE”
     The cruelty, stupidity and impracticality of the coming Trump administration will offer an easy target for critics, especially  the Democratic Party.
     But so far, Democrats have failed to speak with a strong, persuasive and unified voice.
      Indeed, the party’s several factions have seemed more interested in either fighting among themselves over the election loss or finding common ground with Republicans.
     U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of my home state – Rhode Island – is having none of that.    

      “We in Congress customarily say we’re ‘fighting’ for things when we really mean working or toiling,” Whitehouse said. “A fight means a defined adversary, a battle strategy, and actual punches thrown. Done well, it involves exposing and degrading your adversary’s machinery of warfare.”
     I think Whitehouse is on to something. The Democrats’ best hope isn’t to get along with Republicans or imitate them or to abandon long-held ideals, but to present Democrats as an attractive, convincing and inspired alternative to Trump and his acolytes.
     Here's the link to the Politico story.
     I  wasn’t able to find the text of the letter itself – it was written in advance of the national party’s selection of a chairperson on Feb. 1. Nor have I heard whether anyone in the party has seconded Whitehouse’s suggestion.
     But it sure sounds like a good approach.
                                                        * * *
     As I've noted, none of these ideas will bring down the Trump administration.
     In fact, none are likely to happen.
     But what they have in common is the kind of thinking that is needed to slow, stop and reverse the evil that Trump will unleash when he's sworn in Jan. 20.
      Fresh, imaginative, practical ideas - lots of them - are the key to unlocking the puzzle created by the election. It's a puzzle which only seems impossible until it's solved.

  The Washington Post has a distressing and complicated story this week about the women’s volleyball team at San Jose State University, where one player has been identified as transgender, and the resulting controversy has seen five other teams refuse to play against the squad.
     The issue turned so ugly that a San Jose co-captain is part of a lawsuit seeking to have her transgender teammate banned, the filings saying the player had unfairly displaced other players; the captain even claimed the teammate conspired unsuccessfully to injure her.
     There are differing views as to the potential danger and competitive disadvantage posed by that  player, whom the Post didn't identified because the player hasn’t talked about her background. An official of one volleyball team wrote this about competing against San Jose:   

 ABOVE ALL, I MUST BE KIND. If a driver is trying to pull out of a side street, I must stop to let him in. If there’s somebody struggling for exact change at the checkout, I need to be patient. If I pass someone on a sidewalk, smile. Hold the door. Pick up the stray candy wrapper.
     If I want the Next America to be more humane, I have to act that way. Instead of being a scowling, grumpy, self-centered creature, I’m pledged to at least try to do the kind thing.
     It will be important to remember the beauty and wonder of America – its astonishing landscapes, and its inspired creative and cultural energy.
     I want especially to be kind to Kamala Harris and the Democrats.
     The virulent post-election Blame-A-Thon now underway is unseemly and unfair. Harris ran a robust, brilliant campaign that culminated in her devastating trouncing Trump in their one TV debate.
     Her mastery of the mechanics, decision-making and rhetoric of the campaign in the short, crisis-driven campaign showed that she was absolutely qualified for the presidency.
     Her loss was far more than a lost chance to banish the evil of Donald Trump. It squandered a rare opportunity for a the nation to enlist a capable, even great president.
     To beat up on Joe Biden, or find fault with Harris’s failure to “understand” the economic pain purportedly felt by the Trump voters, is unnecessarily wasteful and cruel.
     The scope and depth of the voters’ embrace of Donald Trump is as bewildering as it is grotesque.

 I’M ANGRY AND MUST STAY ANGRY.
     The Trump voters – every single one of them – are betrayers not just of democracy, but decency.
     They have a lot to answer for.
     They endorsed racism, nativism, corruption, criminality, cruelty and sexism.
     The big Trump policies will include massive deportation of immigrants, which will ruin lives, imperil the economy and set the stage for attacks on many other groups and lead to an eventual turnback of civil rights.
     One half the population – women – will be recommitted to second-class citizenship, not just in terms of healthcare, but in every sector of society.
     Climate change will continue to imperil the planet and all of us who live here.
     The economy – the supposed excuse for voting for Trump – will weaken and become more unfair, with all of us “little people” imperiled on a bipartisan basis.
     Every aspect of American life will be worse under President Trump than it would have been under President Harris.
     What Trump voters have done to us, in other words, is unforgivable and must never be excused or rationalized.

EVERY DAY WILL PRESENT CHOICES. I must make the right one every time.
     Do I speak out?
     Join this group?
     Donate money?
     Let this car in line?
     Subscribe to this newspaper?
     Follow this podcast?
     Buy from this company?
     Pick up that stray candy wrapper?

 ACKNOWLEDGE THE CATASTROPHE
     I know enough about myself that I will want it all to go away, that I’ll wear out, become exhausted, frightened, and weary of what it will take to get the country back on course.
     The only certainty of the next four years is that every aspect of American life will be worse – far worse – than we expect, mirroring the astonishingly breadth the election itself.
     The first attack will be on free speech and free assembly. Trump will wage war on all media; he will criminalize demonstrations; he will turn the national security apparatus against all citizens.
     I must pay attention, and respond individually, and participate collectively, to counter every assault on the First Amendment. A big part of what otherwise should be “charitable” donations will go to individual media and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union.
     The ultimate agenda is breathtaking, because the election was so sweeping, and because Trump’s appetite for malice is so vast.
     I don’t know whether I’ll be up to the challenge, only that I want to be.

 IT’S NOT BEEN PERFECT, of course, the campaign to rescue a country.
     The major news organizations have done a fine job letting us know the ups and downs of campaign events.
     You and I could not know the terrible threat of a Trump second term without the remarkable journalism of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
     Yet, both of these great surviving newspapers betrayed their readers and the country.
     The Times has failed to treat the danger Trump represents as an unqualified, unquestionable threat to the country, of the sort you might expect as if an asteroid were headed our way. Instead, it has portrayed a largely normal campaign, airbrushing Trump’s betrayal and downplaying Harris’s emergent  leadership.
     The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, let down his readers and reporters by withdrawing, at the last minute, an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris, an obvious move to curry favor with Trump, should he win.
      (My wife notes Bezos's disregard for his reporters' safety, in light of Trump's constant attack on reporters, saying recently he wouldn't mind if would-be assassins turned their guns on the journalists covering his rallies).
      My personal nomination for cowardice goes to present-day folk signer-songwriters, offspring of a noble earlier generation that  gave voice to the civil rights and anti-war crusades of the 1960s and 1970s. But today’s singer-poets have had nothing to sing about when it comes to Donald Trump.
     I’m guessing why: they feared losing half or more of their audiences if they trained their satire and psychic insights toward Donald Trump, and maybe they were scared of Trump's legal attacks and being blacklisted by radio and web-hosting monoliths. Sing a song of shame.
      And what to make of the Republican Party “leadership,” and most of all, the Trump faithful, who have been blind and deaf to Trump’s vulgarity, authoritarianism, violence, cruelty and brutality.

UNTIL TODAY, it has been comforting to know that the election was somewhere down the road, with enough time to work and strategize our roles in the campaign, and, frankly, to bask safely  in Joe Biden’s democracy.
     So, I hated the relentless turning of the calendar, and then to come to the end of October and now the beginning of November.
     In our family, November is usually a special month: my wife’s birthday is at the end of election week, my grand daughter’s birthday arrives shortly after that; and capping it all is the best of all American holidays, Thanksgiving.
     What are those celebrations going to be like if . . . ?

 I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how this will end.
     I have avoided anything about the polls, because early in the campaign they took the focus off the critical issues – democracy versus dictatorship – and also, because common sense says that accurate polling seems impossible.
     Who in their right mind answers a phone call from a pollster? And those who do, it seems to me, have an agenda – either to hide their true intentions, or to poison the survey with corrupt answers.
     So, maybe the race IS tied. My guess is that the outcome will be anything but close, and victory will be quickly apparent and well-defined. I just don’t know if that imagined big margin will belong to Trump or to Harris.
     In my hometown, Newport, R.I., I have yet to see ONE Trump sign, although I'm told there are some, and I've seen only a smattering of Harris posters.
     There are plenty of local city council and school committee campaign signs, so it’s not like Newport residents have lost the skill of planting a poster or two or seven on their front lawns, hedges and fences.

 LOOKING BACK ON IT ALL, Harris’s win was all the more inspired and astonishing because it was born out of an unprecedented political crisis.
     Joe Biden, an accomplished, and wildly underappreciated president, had been showing his age and/or health as he sought a second term, and when he confronted Trump in a  TV debate, Biden disintegrated.
     Under immense pressure from fellow Democrats, Biden on July 21 withdrew from the race, leaving his largely unloved vice president – Kamala Harris – as the only viable replacement as the Democratic nominee.
     From that moment on, Harris emerged as a confident, competent and capable leader, instantly eloquent and in control, never making a strategic stumble or verbal misstep.
     At the Democratic convention a month later, on Aug. 23, Harris succinctly summarized both Trump’s weakness and threat:
     Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.
     More than any policy position or stirring speech, Harris demonstrated that she had what it takes to be a president, and in  their single TV debate, she demolished Trump.
     But Harris’s personal qualities were not the only factor in her win.
     During the three-month, exuberant and desperate campaign, millions of American rose to the challenge. Progressives mostly held their tongues as Harris reached out to conservatives. Conservative icons, like the Cheney family, set aside their ideology for core democratic principles. People from solidly blue states traveled to the seven battleground states to knock on doors. Volunteers made phone calls, wrote postcards and prayed.
     On election night, it was too early to tell whether Harris would be among the good presidents; or whether she would be admitted to that rare group, the Washingtons, the Lincolns, and, with my bias is showing here, the Bidens.
     But what we did know is that Harris’s election opened a new, promising chapter in the American story.
     Now we would be able to confront a brutal economy, which leaves many American impoverished, homeless and hungry. Now we would be able to confront climate change, Russian aggression, deadly conflict in the Middle East and all the surprises and challenges that are the ordinary, everyday elements of American life.
                                                                                *   *   *
IF YOU HAVE READ THIS FAR, you may say that my vision of what we’ll be experiencing next Tuesday is a fantasy, born of wishful thinking and spacey sentiment.
     Maybe.
     But my American dream is based in our country’s difficult, aspirational and inspired history.
     And without this dream, we will never have the country that we want for ourselves and that our children deserve.

 MANY OF THE POST'S past and current writers, eloquent folks that they are, have written on the Post’s own pages and website with far more insight and spirit than I can, about the endorsement disgrace.
     Marty Baron, the iconic former editor of the paper, was quoted in a Post story:
     “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
     Look, I don’t hold out much hope for the long-term future of the Post after this traumatic injury.
     But I want to be wrong.
     Maybe the Post will continue its courageous, remarkable work. Maybe Jeff Bezos will hold a news conference today, apologize for his mistake, read the endorsement out loud and then publish it – thanking the readers for caring so much.
     It’s obvious in the real world that the paper can continue only if the staff stays put and readers foot the bill.
     At the very least, let’s not do Donald Trump’s dirty work for him.

        Here’s how Trump's story played out, and you can see it yourself on a C-Span video by clicking on this link: 
     Trump spent a good 10 minutes extolling Palmer’s golfing career. But you could tell all of that background was just a long-winded introduction to the story that he really wanted to tell:

      Trump apparently had second thoughts about ducking the spotlight for the recomb.
      Lest anyone forget that he has twice escaped assassination attempts, he noted that his Secret Service protection has increased – and he turned that point into another opportunity to reference Palmer.

 SO MUCH FOR OUR SWEET, GENTLE AUTUMN.
    A terrible storm – the most frightening in our history – is headed our way.
     Unlike natural disasters, this is ours – the voters – to control.
    We can let the storm have its way with our country, ripping apart our traditions, and degrading the lives of every one of our citizens.
    Or we can change its course, and send it  harmlessly out to sea.
     As of this moment, as a country, we don’t seem to care all that much which way the winds blow. Nice weather here in the east. Baseball playoffs underway. Football is getting started. Donald Trump is twisting and lying.
     What’s the big deal?

      “I am absolutely voting for her,” said another woman who was walking not one but two dogs at a park, dogs that didn’t necessarily welcome meeting other pooches.
     Wrangling the two dogs, which weren’t small, would have made an acceptable excuse for her hang up her cell phone, but she wanted to stay on the line, just to talk about how much she appreciated the campaign.
     I reached a woman in Puerto Rico. She had gone there from the mainland to take care of an uncle who was in his 80s. She was a bit younger – in her 70s – but said she was eager to vote.
     How eager?
     Well, she was planning to return home at the end of October, so she could vote in person, and then planned to fly back to Puerto Rico, to resume her care-taking duties.
     “I’m old school, and I want to vote in person,” she said. Then she added, ominously, I thought at first: “I have two cousins in Pennsylvania and Florida – and they are going to vote for Harris, too.”
     Another person said that four years ago, there were a few  Trump signs in her neighborhood, but that so far, the only signs she was seeing were for Harris and Walz.
     “Now, this is anecdotal,” she cautioned me. “You can’t always tell what’s going on with those signs. I’m just telling you what I’m seeing.”



LIKE THE SIGN SPOTTER, I don’t want to give you the wrong signals.
     If you are a Democrat, or an Independent leaning left, or a Republican Never-Trumper, you are worried and have been for nine years, "worried" being a euphemism for being scared silly and sleepless.
     Most of my friends are nervous in the closing weeks of the campaign. It just doesn’t feel right. Harris should be doing better in the polls. The euphoria that surged when she assumed the nomination this summer seems to have cooled now that it's fall.
     I'm sorry that I can’t relieve those fears, based on the feedback I was getting from my calls, which were steered to Democrats.
     And we know Democrats are born scared and nervous, it’s in  their DNA; and Donald Trump’s 2016 victory is a trauma from which they will never fully recover.  Plus, it’s a fact that Trump has a crazed following for whom facts have no meaning.
     Most importantly, I wasn't talking with a cross-section of normal Democrats. Mainly, the people I seemed to be reaching seemed plucked fom a data base of super Democratic voters.
     In essence, I was calling up the choir. On a Sunday.
     The purpose of the calls was to recruit people to do just what I was doing, making phone calls from home, through the wizardry of campaign shoftware linked to me laptop computer. So, maybe the same software was finding people likely to be activists, or, at least might be recruitable, or, as a pollster might put it, “leaning recruitable.”
    Indeed, of the 30 or so calls that got through, five or six said they would give phone banking a try – especially after I explained that if I could follow the campaign's instructions, anyone could. (The campaign holds a Zoom learning session before the calls start).
       One guy said flatly "No, I can't do it today." But then he said that if I texted him the contact information (the software does it for the volunteers), he might be able to fit a shift into his schedule later - maybe Tuesday or Wednesday .
     More than a handful said they already were doing stuff and lots of it:  door-to-door canvassing for “down-ballot” state and local candidates, writing postcards, and doing some phone work.
              
AND THAT'S THE POINT:
     There are a lot of people across the country – millions, actually – who are working hard, pulling out all the stops, running scared, but feeling glad and upbeat.
     Nobody can tell whether the enthusiasm I sensed will be “enough.”
     But it sure is good to know that it is there, and that its real and its powerful.
     And without this remarkable enthusiasm, Harris will have no chance.
     I’m now 82, and there’s a lot I don’t like about being old.
     But I’m grateful for having lived long enough to witness all of this - one of the greatest political crusades the country has experienced in decades
                                                      *    *    *

NOTE: Interested in doing something in the closing days of the election? Here’s a Democrats’  volunteer website: https://events.democrats.org/

      You’d think the answer would be a no-brainer.
     Trump not only tried to overthrow the election he lost to Joe Biden four years ago, he’s been convicted, and now awaits sentencing, for filing false business reports to hide hush payments to a porn star; and he’s facing two other cases, one about improperly taking government records and another about election skull drudgery.
     He was a terrible president for four years after his upset victory in 2016, but he retains a mystical connection with a cult-like base of voters, who shrug off his lies, his racism and his unhinged campaign orations. Adding to his mystique has been his survival of two assassination attempts, one in which a bullet grazed his ear.
     Trump’s only real accomplishment in the current campaign was watching Biden disintegrate on national TV during their only debate, which resulted in the president dropping out of the campaign, replaced as the Democratic nominee by Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris.
     Harris effortlessly took over the race, picked a charmingly down-home running mate in Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, stage-managed an enthusiastic national convention, and went on to demolish Trump in their only debate.
     "So what?"
     It would seem to be a no-contest choice.
     Harris, an energetic, 59-year-old former prosecutor, California attorney general and U.S. Senator and now a vice president; pragmatic, well-spoken, nimble, multi-racial, the epitome of someone ready to lead the country into an exciting new, chapter.
     Trump, 78, increasingly bitter, insulting, and spreading cruel lies at every campaign stop, with dark, authoritarian plans to deport millions of immigrants and turn the Department of Justice into the Department of Revenge to punish his enemies.

“SO WHAT?” haunts the election.
     We know a lot of people have answered: Trump’s devoted base remains loyal; and apparently, an equal number of Democrats and others alarmed by Trump, support Harris.
     It’s difficult to imagine in the election’s remaining days that very many minds can be changed.
     What’s more, there’s not as much time left as it seems, since voting has started in some states, either by mail ballot or in-person early voting. So many votes already are locked in.
     The Pew Research Center says that in the 2022 midterm elections, only 43 percent of voters waited until Election day; 36 percent cast mail ballots; 21 percent voted early.
     In the face of the stubbornness of Trump’s supporters and the dwindling time that’s left, I’m impressed at how hard people are working to elect Harris, and by the breadth of her support.
      Millions of people have donated money, volunteered to knock on doors and make phone calls and send post cards into the battleground states.
     I’m also encouraged in the way that some rock-solid Republicans like Liz Cheney, once the third highest leader in the House, have endorsed Harris. And the same goes for her father, Dick Cheney, the former vice president who once was the Democrats’ Darth Vader.
     Liz Cheney this week went a step further by campaigning with Harris in Ripon, Wisconsin, where the Republican Party got its start.    

      As reports of Nibi’s life-and-death crisis spread, a lawsuit delayed Nibi’s return to the wilds of Massachusetts, and 25,000 people signed an on-line petition to support the beaver remaining at the only home she'd ever known.
     Next came a demonstration of government at its best – responding to the public’s (aka voters') “So what?” moment.
     Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey decreed that Nibi could remain at the Newhouse Wildlife Rescue refuge in Chelmsford, to enjoy her own enclosure and personal pool.
     Along with her reprieve, came an official assignment for Nibi.
     Healey said the beaver’s new duties would be “… to educate the public about this important species.”
     “So what?”
     It’s the positive thing that can happen when people of good will - and not the defendant, Donald J. Trump -  choose to answer one of life's most profound questions.

 ALL SUMMER, and now into Fall, I’ve been sending postcards to places I will never visit, writing to people I will never meet.
     Some of my hand-printed postcards have landed in exotic-sounding places like Fishtail, Montana; Surprise, Arizona; and Sparks, Nevada.
     A number of the recipients have terrific-sounding first names like Destiny, Freedom, and Zoica; and others are somewhat ironic, like “Brian,” meaning that the addressee and addresser have the same name (“Dear Brian,” . . . “Thanks, Brian”).
     The postcards are aimed at Democratic voters in the seven or so battleground or swing states, the ones that will determine whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be president, and whether Democrats and Republicans control Congress.
     The recipients are thought to be folks who have voted previously, but who might not have followed the current campaign very closely and might not vote this time.
     The hope is that they can be nudged gently to the polls on Nov. 5, Election Day, and better still, prompted to vote ahead of time by mail or to drop by polls open for early, in-person voting.

I HAVE NO IDEA if postcards will do the job.
     The theory is that if many millions of cards are sent, some thousands of voters will indeed vote, and in close elections, those will be enough to make the difference.
     So far, I’ve mailed 315 cards, which may be  a lot, or pathetic, depending on how you look at it. I’m hoping to mail  250 more before Nov. 5.
     It’s better than doing absolutely nothing while the cloud of a second and more destructive Trump presidency hangs over the nation.
     And in my best moments, I’m thinking that the cards will arrive at places I can’t go to; that they’ll end up in Apt. 3, North 102nd Blvd., and 36 Hacker Dr. – actual homes, with real people in them.
    
THE IDEA  is pretty smart.
     Phone calls are annoying. And so are political (aka “junk”) letters that go directly to a wastebasket, unopened.
     But a postcard has a fair chance of at least being flipped over and possibly read, maybe in its entirety. In my wildest dreams, one or two get attached to refrigerators with red-white-and-blue magnets.
     The downside is that under the rules, I can’t write what’s really on my mind to people in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Fishtail, Billings, Surprise and Sun City West.
     I’ve been working with a group called Activate America, one of a number of voter-contact organizations, and its brain trust has rock solid instructions for its volunteers:
      Print, don’t use cursive handwriting, which no longer is taught in many schools; leave at last a half-inch below the address block in case the Post Office attaches a bar code sticker; sign your first name or initials; don’t include your return address. Oh, yeah - provide your own postcards and stamps.
     Most of all, volunteers MUST use Activate’s scripts. The messages, we’re told, have been vetted with local groups, have proven effective in past campaigns and are carefully worded to appeal to the potential voters, whose names and addresses have been culled from voter records and methodically sorted.
     Bland is too bland a description of many scripts:
     “Democratic Congressman So & So stands with union and workers. He’s brought millions of federal dollars to our state to fund construction of affordable housing.”
     I’m skeptical that’s compelling enough to inspire a maybe-voter to fill out a mail ballot, much less get him or her out of the house and to the polls.
    I once got into an e-mail argument over one script that I thought violated all sorts of communication rules. It began:
     “Dear _____: Your MAGA Republican Congressman puts his extremist agenda above the needs of our families.”
     It seemed to me that the first thing you should do is to catch a recipient’s eye with the the name of our candidate. Just as bad, the wording about “YOUR Maga Republican.” That seemed to blame the recipient for putting the MAGA Republican into the House seat.
     I suggested a brilliant rewrite, and to the credit of Activate’s postcard program director, I got back a long explanation of why the script read the way it did, a gracious way of saying “Our way or the highway.”
     Which makes sense: the Activate folks have done the work, analyzed and refined their approach, and of course, figured out to whom we should write. At the very least, we should respect the process.

BUT WHAT IF we could write from the heart?
     First of all, I’m pretty sure I would like a lot of the people I’ve been writing to if I met them – door-to-door canvassing being the best way to talk with potential voters.
     After all, they’re Democrats, meaning that, it’s likely most of us aren't bullies; we don’t look kindly at the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021; we don’t support book bans; don’t want women dying in hospital parking lots; we’re worried about the collapsing environment; and we don’t teach our children to lie, cheat, swear or to call people insulting and cruel nicknames.

      For Trump, anyone, but  especially a woman, moreover, a person of  color, making fun of his  rallies is probably the severest insult imaginable, worse than the cruel nicknames, profane and racial slurs in which he specializes. And it set off a torrent of boasts, exaggerations, lies and fantasies.
     Trump said:    

     Really, if you had just dropped in from Mars and wanted to know what on Earth was causing so much fuss, that exchange was about all you needed to decide the differences between Harris and Trump.
      And, of course, what the visitors from outer space could see with their 16 eyes on the split TV screen was just as important as what they heard with their giant ears protruding from their foreheads:
      On their left, a scowling, menacing Trump; on their right,   a skeptical, sometimes radiant Harris. 

 ONE OF THE SEVERAL HUNDRED things I had worried about before the debate was whether Harris would show up over-prepared.
       I had read that she'd holed-up in a Pennsylvania hotel for days, practicing in a studio-like space, going through all the possible scenarios, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard by Trump’s insults and showmanship or by an actual surprise question from a debate moderator.
        Biden had over-prepared in June, and it’s reasonable to think that the sheer volume of materials muddled his already over-taxed mind.
        But Harris was once a prosecutor, comfortable with the advanced work that goes into knowing the facts and details of a case, as well as being prepared  for the unexpected drama of the courtroom.
      So her methodical advance work paid off, and she arrived as a walking, talking, breathing briefing book.
     I doubt anything Kamala Harris said Tuesday night was spontaneous or unrehearsed.
       Did that  make her “inauthentic?”
       Absolutely not.
     The presidency is an impossible job, almost as daunting as the challenges that a candidate faces in accomplishing the trillion or so things that the experts demand that she “must do” in a single 90-minute debate.
       The kind of person we want in the Oval Office is someone who will do everything that they humanly can to perform at their very best. And that’s what Kamala Harris demonstrated in Tuesday's debate.
      The debate may or may not change the course of the election.
     But surely the debate showcased the stark choices in this election:
     A terrifying, wacko and inept president.
     An inspiring, rational and capable president.