WHAT'S WRONG WITH TRUMP PRESIDENCY

Those who apologize for the Trump presidency say that the Trump group should be given some slack because they are new to government and because the American people voted for Trump because they wanted someone new. I want to reply to that argument.

1. All new presidents are new to the presidency. There have been variations in each one’s learning curve, but until now there has been a learning curve in each case. Trump unfortunately has no learning curve because he claims to be smarter than everyone else, knows everything, and therefore does not have to learn. He also appears to surround himself in his inner circle with a number of unsavory people who think they are also geniuses and give him poor advice (for example Bannon, Manafort, and Flynn).

2. It is not clear that the American people voted for Trump. Actually he lost the popular vote. He won the electoral college narrowly by a successful campaign that targeted key gerrymandered states. His campaign was also aided greatly by illegally working with the intelligence service of a foreign adversarial government to hack his opponent’s emails and plant fake news on social media.

3. Trump did not separate himself from his personal financial interests. Therefore decisions concerning the United States (including relations with foreign governments) are influence by how they affect Trump’s money. In fact, it appears that he uses his position as president to promote his personal business. For example, foreign businesses and governments give his businesses (including many business interests in foreign lands) preferences to gain favor with the US president.

4. Trump demeans the free press and favors fake news organizations like Breitbart and Fox News. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy.

5. Trump’s fake “America first” policy actually puts America last by pulling us out of international agreements, free trade, and favors old fossil fuel industries over new renewable energy. China is now overtaking us as the leader in renewable energy and climate control, not because they are better than us but because under Trump we are abandoning our future. The Chinese leader recently boasted that their authoritarian government is better for the ordinary citizen than western democracy while Trump is trying to turn us into a fossil fuel kleptocracy like Russia. The tragedy of Trump is that he is throwing 250 years of American progress into the toilet.

DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS

I grew up in a Democratic environment. My parents were Democrats. As an adult for many years I considered myself an Independent. For years, I did not register with either party. However years ago when I was living in Illinois I registered once as a Republican because I wanted to vote in the Republican primary for Anderson, a moderate Republican, who was running against Reagan to be the Republican candidate for president. When I went in to the booth to vote, there was no Anderson on the ballot and no Reagan, just a bunch of strange names. I went out of the booth to the judges table and asked why Reagan and Anderson were not on the ballot and who are all these strange people? There was no answer from the Republican judges, but the Democratic judge took pity on me and led me far away from the polling booths. She explained that the names are electors. Thompson, the head of the Illinois Republican party, put the only electors names on the ballot instead of the candidates they represented. Apparently Thompson and the Illinois Republican establishment favored Reagan, and in this way the party faithful were clued in to who was the elector for Reagan, but outsiders like me would be clueless. Needless to say, Reagan carried Illinois in the nomination and ultimately carried the nation to become president. I went back to being an Independent who usually voted Democratic.

In recent years since the Radical Right has radicalized the Republican party, I have given up the illusion of being an Independent and have become a registered Democrat. I consider myself slightly left of center. Those on the extreme left might derisively call me a neo-liberal. I believe in a well regulated capitalism that serves the public, not just a few fast buck gluttons who think only of how the wealthiest few can gather as much $ as possible without consideration for the rest of us or who they must trample on to achieve their goals. On the other hand we don’t have to demonize all of the corporate world as long as they share some of those $ for the public good.

Since Trump has become president, I have joined the Resistance. I wrote post cards for Doug Jones who is now a senator from Alabama. And I wrote post cards for a Democrat in Florida who is running for state representative. I don't like to demonize anyone, but Trump really has taken the Republican party to a new low. He lies. He conspired with Putin, the Russian dictator, to hack America to give Trump the edge he needed to eke out a majority in the electoral college (although he lost the popular vote) to win the presidency. Now the Radical Republicans and Trump have pushed through a tax bill which will impoverish America by raiding our Treasury to give $ to the gluttons at the expense of the rest of us. We can only hope that the Democrats can win the Congress next year to put a brake on the Republican rape of the American economy.

A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES

When I see the love fest between Netanyahu and Trump (a nativist, corrupt, narcissist, liar) it makes me cringe. I was dismayed recently when I opened a Middle East magazine in the local book store that portrayed the Palestinian Arabs as innocent victims of a demon Israel. I am also dismayed when a commentator on television news says that some nativist action by Trump is only applauded by Russia and Israel (without acknowledging that not all Israelis are pro-Netanyahu or the extreme Right just as not all Russians are pro-Putin). I am a Zionist in that I am concerned for safety of the 40% of my fellow Jews in the world who live in Israel. Israel faces an existential problem in its relations with the Moslem world including the Palestinian and other Arab people as well as the government of Iran. But is the belligerency of Netanyahu’s words really promoting the safety of the people of Israel or undercutting their safety? I am disheartened when I hear many of my fellow American Jews beginning to question their fondness for Israel. I want desperately to speak only good about Israel, and there are certainly many good things to say about Israeli democracy (although incomplete), science, technology, stability (better than in much of the surrounding neighborhood), but the settlements and the actions of the Israeli Far Right interfere. Theodore Herzl (the founder of the Zionist movement) in his novel Old New Land envisioned an Israel where Jews and Arabs would work together. He saw the danger of the revisionist extreme Right in Zionism.

The Arab leaders can not be taken off the hook. They have missed many opportunities for Palestinian self determination. Israel would have accepted the UN partition if the Arab League armies had not invaded the land in 1948. Most Palestinian Arabs moved out of the land to make way for those invading armies.  During the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank and the Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip, there was no call for an independent Palestine. In 1967 it was Egypt and Jordan that invaded the land putting all of it plus the Sinai Peninsula in Israeli control, although in the long run it was Egypt and Jordan that gained from that war by transferring the occupation headache to Israel. In fact Jordan later wisely cemented its freedom from the West Bank by renouncing any claim to it. When Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat the best deal he could offer, Arafat made no counter offer and started an intifada to which Barak overreacted. This ended a decade of peace building. A pro-Palestinian acquaintance once justified Arafat’s actions by saying he had to do what he did because the other Palestinians would have killed him if he had done otherwise. But that is exactly the problem. If a Palestinian leader has to risk his life to make peace, there will be no peace. On the other hand Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated because he was a hero for peace.

I have some advice for the Center, Left, and Arab parties in Israel. Together you might actually be the majority in the State of Israel. You guys might very well be the hope for peace, but it won’t happen unless you put aside your less important differences and get together to take the government back from Netanyahu, the Settler Movement, and the Far Right. And my advice to the Palestinians is if the Center, Left, and Arab parties in Israel can form a coalition that can win over the Israeli government in the next election, you better get together and reach a compromise with that government, because that is the best deal you are going to get. Of course, that’s assuming you really want to come to some reasonable agreement (or perhaps you just prefer playing victims over actually taking the responsibilities of leadership). Maybe all sides prefer the status quo of dragging their feet. After all there is a kind of peace punctuated by an occasional riot. But I am afraid that this peace is a temporary illusion which will not last forever. I don’t think real peace will come only from some grand peace treaty, but rather from the ground up by people on the ground learning to live together either as separate nations, one nation, or some kind of confederation. Also it won’t happen overnight but if it is to happen at all, things have to start to move in that direction. I remember someone once said something like “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

A GOOD PERSON CAN MAKE A BAD DECISION

George W Bush seems to me to be a good and honest person with good intentions. However, when he was president he made a disastrous decision to invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. It seems he received terrible advice from his advisors. The war was supposedly because Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. However none were found. The invasion was supposedly part of the response to 9-11. But although Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, he probably had no direct involvement in 9-11. The war in Afghanistan truly was related to 9-11 because Al Qaeda (the perpetrators of 9-11) were centered in Afghanistan with the consent of the Taliban who at the time ruled Afghanistan. Unfortunately the war in Iraq and ousting of Saddam Hussein upset the balance of power between Iraq and Iran. It also created a power vacuum which was taken up by a Shiite Iraqi government allied to Iran whose fundamentalist government is no friend of America. It also unleashed various hostile Sunni factions, and ultimately led to the creation of ISIS. The Iraq war also spread the US forces thinly, thus impeding progress in the Afghanistan war. Add to all of that the price in lost American military lives, lost Iraqi lives, the loss of American resources, and the exposure of the limitations of American power. Besides being a mistake from the outset, the war was conducted without a plan of what to do with Iraq after it was conquered. The Iraqi people did not spontaneously come together to form a new government. The Iraq War was a disaster in which we are still embroiled after years have gone by. I think by the end of his term in office, President Bush himself realized his failure.

I do not believe that George W Bush is an evil person, but he made a bad decision in invading Iraq, and to make matters worse he had no constructive plan for after the invasion. The result has been a tragedy for America, Iraq, and the world.

EXISTENTIAL ISRAEL

The issues between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs as well as the Israeli Arabs are existential. However the various parties have different existentials. The most obvious difference might be those of the Palestinians and Israelis, or is it? Israelis including Israeli Jews, some number of Israeli Arabs (probably most), and probably most or all of the 5% of Israelis who are neither Arabs or Jews share allegiance to the State of Israel as it is. Then there are the Palestinian Arabs and perhaps a minority of Israeli Arabs who say they want to live in an independent State of Palestine (or is that really what they want?).

Now lets look more closely at the Israelis. Lets start with the Israeli Jews. Most religious Orthodox Jews see Israel as a state for Jews who share the Jewish religion. There are also non-religious Jews on the radical right of the political spectrum who include in their existential people who share their culture and history (but which culture and which history? Ashkenazic? Mizrachi? Ethiopian?). And what about those Israeli Arabs who are integrated into Israel and its culture?

Lets look at the Palestinians. Hamas in Gaza says they want to conquer all of the land of Israel/Palestine and do not recognize an Israel in which Jews are the majority. For them existential is no Jews or at most a subjective Jewish minority. Fatah on the West Bank says they want an independent Arab Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, but a minority there now say their existential could be one binational state for Arabs and Jews (with an Arab majority?).

So, my opinion is that finding a common existential for most of the inhabitants of the Land of Israel/Palestine would go a long way to bringing peace to that land and making it an example for all of the Middle East. This common existential is possible and already exists for many Jewish and Arab Israelis (I don’t know the numbers or percentages). This common existential should be nurtured not only in the State of Israel but might eventually extend to the West Bank and eventually perhaps to Gaza. A first step can be found in Hand in Hand which has been creating schools where Jewish and Arab Israeli children study together. What better way can there be to create a common existential than by starting with children? There are details to be worked out, but the result can be a stronger and more peaceful Israel/Palestine or whatever you call the place and one that finally realizes the dream of Theodore Herzl of a land where Jews can live in peace and feel at home and the Arabs can have the same.

US AND THEM

When I was a young man, I once asked my mother out of curiosity a question, “Would you rather I marry a Jewish girl who is Black or a White girl who is not Jewish.” Her reply was that she would prefer a Jewish Girl who is Black. She also gave a reason which had nothing to do with religion but rather “because she would be one of us.” The problem with the Alt-right or White Supremacists or Neo-Nazis or Nativists or whatever you want to call them in America is that they have a narrow view of who should be included in the word Americans. These people believe that Americans are White people who follow the Christian religion, speak English, vote Republican, and do not belong to certain minorities (most importantly Hispanic). They consider “Us” as only limited to that subset of “real American” Whites. They fear that the other “not real”  Americans are becoming or have become the majority in our country. Unfortunately we now have a president (Trump) who panders to a subset of Americans who hold that point of view. Mr. Putin (the Russian dictator) through hacking and posting fake news on social media managed to hijack the most recent US presidential election to squeak Trump over the line in crucial swing states winning the election for him (despite his loss of the popular vote). Putin considers it in Russia’s interest to weaken America and other Western Democracies by promoting divisiveness here and in our allies.

As a Jew, I also am concerned about the State of Israel which is home to about 40% of my co-religionists in the world today. Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, promoted a Jewish state as a haven where Jews might escape anti-semitism. As things have progressed, Eretz Yisrael (Israel/Palestine) has evolved into a land of Jews and Arabs (mostly Moslem) to a varying degree controlled by Israel. The State of Israel is 75% Jews, 20% Israeli Arabs, 5% not Jewish or Arab. Gaza is Arab. The West Bank is mostly Arab with a large minority of Jewish settlers. There is guilt and suffering on all sides. This blog entry is too short to go into all the details of a complex problem, but I believe the only solution is to re-wire the idea of “Us” whether that rewiring evolves into 2 states, 3 states, a confederation, or one state. The goal of any solution should be peace, prosperity, and dignity for all the inhabitants. I do not believe this solution will be imposed by government negotiations alone or primarily, but rather by changing the mindsets of the ordinary people on the ground, in other words by changing the ideas of who are “us.” When local Jews, Arabs, and anyone else living there perceive their combined “us” supersedes their separate “us,” the peacemaking tasks of the government or governments will become much easier. Then the lives of the local people will be greatly enhanced, and the benefit might be an example for the surrounding region. The evolution will not be fast, but if it never starts it will never happen.

There is an organization called Hand in Hand that creates combined Jewish and Arab schools in Israel for children. This is a ray of light and a place to start. It is opposed by extremists on both sides. It is supported by Reuven Rivlin, the president of Israel. However, if I google Hand in Hand together with Netanyahu or Mahmoud Abbass, nothing pops up. Unfortunately the presidency in Israel is largely ceremonial. Let us hope that the Hand in Hand movement will grow enough to force the leaders with power on both sides to wake up.

FRANKEN AND HARRIS

In a previous entry, I suggested Kamala Harris for president in 2020. I would also like to suggest Al Franken, one of them for president and the other for vice-president. Maybe Franken should be the one for president in 2020 because he is older and then Harris in 2028, but the reverse would be OK. I think they would make a great team.

There are 2 considerations. Who would be the best at doing the job of being president and who would have the best chance of getting elected? Hillary Clinton would have done an infinitely better job of being president than Donald Trump, but she did not win the election. Had she been a better campaigner she might have overcome the effects of the Putin hacking and the gerrymandered electoral college. Competence and winning the popular vote did not make her president.

As for doing the job, both Franken and Harris seem to be pragmatic liberals. Ideals are necessary, but one has to get them done. Some examples of necessary ideals are universal affordable health care, protection and encouragement of immigrants, gun control, a balanced well run long term economy (as opposed to a Far Right free for all economy that favors quick buck artists and predators at the expense of everyone else). Those are a few examples, but the list goes on. I believe both of them are left of center moderates who are willing to work with corporate America if those corporations are willing to share a fair part of their success with the rest of us whose labor fuels that success. Both are senators who know and can work with Congress.

As for getting elected, both of them are interesting people. Harris is a former state attorney general, a woman, and of a racially diverse ancestry. Franken is a former comedian who has shown an ability to seriously conduct the work of a senator. His satirical ability and sense of humor would serve him well in the White House as well as on the campaign trail. Also together they represent both the coasts and the center of America, Harris from Coastal California and Franken from Midwestern Minnesota (and for you East Coasters Franken spent time in New York when he worked at Saturday Night Live.

After the chaotic, stifling, and destructive team of Trump and Pence, Franken and Harris would be the breath of fresh air needed to clean up the mess that will be left behind by the present team.