Author: BC

One of television’s best and most underrated sitcoms was “Roc.” Well before James Gandolfini and Bryan Cranston, Charles Dutton created an everyman hero we could all cheer for. He was Shrek before Shrek, and Dutton could not have been finer. Perhaps the best episode of the series revolves around a crack house surfacing in Roc’s neighborhood and his unrelenting efforts to shut it down.

After organizing neighbors to fight the scourge, which creates a variety of frustrations and gives rise to Roc’s full host of frailties and stubbornness, the dealer himself pays Roc and family a visit to try and “work out” a solution to their “disagreement.” The gangster first tries to buy Roc’s acquiescence, and when that approach fails, threatens Roc’s family, which gets both of Roc’s hands around his neck. After our hero’s wife and father convince him to let the thug go, the dealer says they should let things cool off and talk again the next day. Roc’s reply is classic, and acting doesn’t get better. Dutton again grabs the low life and declares there is nothing to discuss. “I want you out of my neighborhood; that’s my bottom line!” Roc makes clear that he won’t rest until the dealer is gone, “even if it kills me.” As the frightening criminal heads out the door, he turns to Roc and hisses “it just might trash man… it just might.” Great stuff!

The scene serves well as a parallel to our current national nightmare. Since his inaugural declaration of America as dystopia, Trump has set up shop in our neighborhood and demanded acquiescence to a ruinous stream-of-consciousness Presidency with really no higher aims than the crack dealer Roc looked to strangle. Our block was founded on and nurtured with notions of community and relentless progress, continually nourished by lessons our mistakes have taught us. Trump has from the outset attacked those foundations on the hour and sown division whenever before a microphone, or on his Twitter feed. Those who support him are simply junkies on a stoop, destroying our block.

The latest outrage portends a new level of destructive mischief. Unabashedly putting the elbow on Netanyahu to prevent duly elected US lawmakers from entering Israel signals two new and chilling developments. One, that Trump now gives no thought to the propriety of using American foreign policy, and engaging other world leaders in his petty grudge fests. Two, that to justify his actions he will exponentially amp up his lying rhetoric and expect the same from his supporters here and abroad. The Omar/Tlaib affair demolishes whatever line anybody still deluded themselves to believe existed between Trump foreign policy and his desperate political survival.

That Trump actually relished carrying out the whole sorry mess in the open speaks to what he now believes his wretched core wants to see and embrace. His instincts in that regard have always been on the mark. His clients are that desperate for what he has to sell, addicted to the collective resentment and bigotry they ingested for decades from Fox/AM gateway providers.

Of course, patriotism is not a cut and dry concept, as today’s battle for America’s soul clarifies. That so many have fallen into the nod of euphoric militarist xenophobia now forces those of us, who, frankly, probably never previously gave the question the thought it deserved, to come to terms with how it defines who we are and what requirements it demands. We always read or listened to the news about other neighborhoods falling victim to rot from within, always glad it was the other guy. Now it’s us. The dealer is in that old white mansion on Pennsylvania Ave. and the lines are long.

Trump has bought off the 2% with a debt bomb tax giveaway. He’s bought off big business with, er, anything they want. Energy interests pinch themselves everyday as they enjoy a new opportunity they had assumed was relegated to the dust bin of history as America evolved past fossil fuel dependence. Evangelicals now believe they have the best friend they’ve ever had at the helm, the result of ambitious Trumpist initiatives to make common cause with born again nastiness toward LGBT scapegoats, and frontal assaults on Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood. Ammosexuals have been coddled through one assault weapon/mega mag-enabled mass murder after another. Trump has assured them it’s never the right time for gun sanity. Now, farmers, many pushed to the brink by arbitrary tariff regimes, are the latest to graciously accept White House/GOP bribes for acquiescence.

Incredibly, Democratic presidential aspirants are more concerned with beguiling the community with their own set of pay offs, while arguing about who is sufficiently decent, than rally cries to save the neighborhood from ruin. Fact is, near three years of this Presidency HAS divided us, and the menu of issues is down to one…. get this scum out of our lives, rid the block of its pestilence. Those on the right side of this struggle must understand and embrace the preeminence of that desperate prerequisite to anything else we can achieve as a nation. Because, you better believe student loan forgiveness will not be on anyone’s policy plate during a second Trump term. Death of American democracy will be breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In July of 1997, when Britain formally ceded control of Hong Kong to China, most simply hoped for the best. Those prayers were not answered and more than one and a half million are now in the streets making clear Hong Kong isn’t going to be Beijing. Here, way too many appear to still harbor aspirations that government by Hannity and Carlson is somehow palatable, and that 2020 is just another election cycle, even as the President and GOP lay out a welcome mat for foreign interference.

“Hate” has been assigned a new definition by Trumpie apologists: anyone out of patience with our dangerous lurch toward fascism. Well, call me a hater. My tolerance for this regime ran out long ago, and arguments about “policy” only sound like normalization of the untenable. Trump’s hourly outrages, his continuous mining of the depths his awfulness feels no shame in exploring, preclude any discussions of coexistence. To think such entente is possible requires ignoring virtually every public statement he makes. I want him out of my neighborhood. That’s my bottom line! BC

By: Jon Schwartz

Over a lifetime of playing five on five pickup basketball in many places I’ve noticed something about race relations. Seems whenever I play with only 9 other white guys, there’s no racial issues.  Duh.  And if I’m playing in a game with all white guys and one black guy, or conversely if I’m the only white guy playing with 9 black guys, things run smoothly.  The times I’ve witnessed obvious racial tension, or conflict that seems to have a racial element while playing pickup basketball is when there is a 3/7, 4/6, or 5/5 black/white, or white/black race ratio.  

Why this has been my experience, I can’t say; moreover, I assume there have been many pickup ballers throughout the land whose experiences are nothing like mine. But, while I’d never want to generalize that all games with an equal or near equal racial mix have been fraught with arguing and tension, or that all games I’ve played with racial homogeneity were devoid of any violence, let alone tension, I can’t help but wonder if a risk assessment hypothesis makes sense here.  One white or black guy represents a low threat level to the other nine.  However, once there are three or more of the “others” there seems to be a new threat level to the opposite group.  

The America that I was born into was, metaphorically, a nine white guys/1 black guy basketball game.  White people made up 84% of the population in the 1960 census, the year I was born.  Most of the remaining 16% were black, with a smaller minority of Hispanic people, and only 1% were Asian.  In 1960, only 4% of Americans were first generation immigrants.  Today, 15% of Americans immigrated here.  As most of us are well aware, the USA is rapidly approaching a white minority/majority scenario, in which less than 50% of the USA is white.  If you don’t think this is preoccupying a large bloc of the fast fading white majority, you’re not paying attention.  Furthermore, if you don’t think people of color don’t have at least some part of them that relishes this scenario, you’re being obtuse on that score as well.  And finally, if you’re white and you’re certain the white minority/majority scenario isn’t freaking you out, you may simply be selective in how you are processing the information.  

The “Great American pick up game” is now almost a 6 white guy/4 people of color ratio, soon to be 5/5, and soon after that 4/6, and if my admittedly rudimentary pickup basketball perceived risk hypothesis (devoid of meaningful social science, utterly misogynistic, and limited to my black and white people experience) holds any truth, then our country has evolved from a low/no threat racial and cultural dynamic to a high risk perception scenario – and it explains a lot, while underscoring one essential question as Election 2020 beckons: are you cool with America becoming less white or not?  

We can assume that most, if not all people of color are not only ok with this shift, but welcome it. Why wouldn’t they? What can we assume about white people?  

Our major political parties represent the two tribal choices on this question, and are engaged in a standoff.  The Democrats are branding themselves as the party that “celebrates diversity” and the shifting demographic tides.  This is best reflected in the unprecedented make up of their congressional caucus, which “looks like America” according to the messaging.  Furthermore, it appears that all the white male democratic presidential candidates are running in spite of being white males, now a liability reflected in the apologist tone they have adopted on the debate stage when addressing their diverse array of opponents.  

Meanwhile, the Republican caucus (omitting the resigning Will Hurd of Texas) is now 196 caucasions, of which only 13 are women; it’s a full whiteout on the right side of the House chamber!  Complimenting the vanilla-for-all ice cream stand of Congress, there are 54 Republican senators, all of whom are white save for one black man, South Carolina’s Tim Scott.  In other words, if Republicans in Congress were the senior leadership of any corporation they’d be sanctioned by the government, boycotted by other companies and the people alike, and generally shamed into hasty overnight demographic change.  But this is today’s GOP, like the last vestige of an old southern mint julep drinking white’s only country club, they’re in no hurry…and yet they make up one half of our country’s legislative power.  This is Trump’s caucus and the message is unmistakable…. “keep it white.”  

In 2012, the Republican National Committee engaged in a post-election “autopsy” after losing to President Barack Obama.  Their findings: the Republican party must embrace the changing demographic of America.  Through policies more favorable to minorities and minority recruitment into positions of leadership, the Republican party could emerge more competitive and appeal to a more diverse population.  Flash forward to 2019, and it’s abundantly clear Mitch McConnell et al have chosen a very different direction.  

While they haven’t just come out and said it, the Republican party’s mission statement can be summed up as follows:  “America was founded by white men.  America was led to itspinnacle as the world’s only superpower by white men.  America can only remain the greatest nation on Earth if it is run by white men.  If American power and leadership is ceded by white men to immigrants and people of color, all will be lost.”  The unpublished text of the Republican brochure’s talking points may read “call us racist all you want, but if you think America could be great through a non-white male power structure, PROVE IT!  Where else in the world is there a country that is kicking ass that isn’t run by white men?”  

—– 

One of the things to love most about science is that every staggering scientific discovery has had one thing in common: while dropping a whole new paradigm on us, the discovery has also kicked the crap out of mankind’s arrogant pre-disposition.  It’s as if every new revelation says “humanity, you think you’re at the center of it all, but you’re just a gnat on a dogs butt in the grand scheme of things.”  

Mankind:  Everyone knows the sun, the planets, and the heavens revolves around us.

Copernicus:  Umm…no…sorry.  We revolve around the sun.  We’re just part of it all, not at the center of it all.

Mankind:  Everyone knows we were created in God’s image and that the animals, plants, and all things are meant for our pleasure.

Darwin: Umm…no…sorry.  We’re just another kind of Chimpanzee.  We’re just part of it all, not at the center of it all.

Mankind:  Everyone knows the laws of physics, and that the universe exists in three dimensions.  We all know about the universe and our place in it.

Einstein:  Umm…no…sorry.  There’s a fourth dimension: the space/time continuum—you just weren’t smart enough to see it.  The more we learn the more we realize how ignorant we are, or as Einstein brilliantly put it, “whatever your troubles with math, I assure you mine are greater still.”

In recent years the psychology field has had its greatesthumbling contribution:

Mankind: Everyone knows that if you use your brain, set aside your emotions, and judge things dispassionately, you can understand what is true, what is untrue, and as a result you can judge things accurately and fairly.

Psychology: Umm…no…sorry.  The human brain is shrouded in prejudices and biases that we’re entirely ignorant of, and we ignore them because they’re inconvenient.  We tell ourselves we can always see the truth, but the truth is that we can never see the truth, just our favorite version of it.

—– 

I attended black/white “integrated” schools (indeed, by high school the black kids and the white kids sat on opposite sides of the cafeteria as they do now, from what I hear) but the neighborhoods of my hometown, Evanston, Illinois were almost completely segregated.  Post Jim Crow and the Civil rights/Voting rights acts, the notion of integration has been a well-intentioned myth that has never come to fruition.  The business of integration, through busing and other governmentally mandated half measures, has been foisted upon schoolchildren and in some instances, workplaces.  The government has yet to take full measures espousing the merits of racial and cultural integration through mandated integrated housing.  The message so far is “kids can deal with mixed races and ethnicities in schools, and some of us adults will have to deal with it at work, but mixed neighborhoods are a bridge too far.  

There has been one constant on the integration/segregation continuum:  The most segregated race in America is, and always has been, white people.  Not only are white people most likely to live in vast majority white communities, but the single greatest cause of “white flight” from neighborhoods is a substantial increase in racial minorities moving into their neighborhood.  Nothing pushes a white person from their home faster than a racially different person moving nearby, forget progress or even mother nature, darker skin produces exodus. This is true from North to South, East to West, rural to urban, rich to poor, and…wait for it…Republican to Democrat.  

Therefore, if indeed there are two kinds of white people: those who insist they’re cool with the shift from white majority to white minority/majority (aka. white democrats), and those who aren’t (aka. white republicans) it’s yet to be substantially reflected in neighborhood maps nationwide, whether it’s  flyover country or either coast. Diversity does not characterize our living arrangements anywhere!

I was raised a liberal white, Jewish male in a WASP neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois.  When I was four years old, our Jewishness wasn’t appreciated.  The neighborhood kids “declared war” against my family.  They marched outside our house, carrying picket signs saying “Schwartz’s go home.”  True Story! And it taught me early on the extreme discomfort of being “the other.”  Furthermore, having grown up with black friends and raising 2 black sons, I like to think I check all the boxes of white Democrat righteousness:  I “love the others” and I’ve “been the others too!”

Like every other decent US-loving Democrat, I have been raining holy hell down on the Trumpist GOP, rightfully calling them out for their shocking enthusiasm to return America to the bad old days of sanctioned bigotry.  But do I really walk the walk? Why have I never lived in a racially integrated neighborhood?  Why have I made my home renting/buying decisions on the basis of code words like “quality schools,” “clean water and air,” and “friendly people” which funneled into high majority white neighborhoods?  Am I subject to the same confirmation biases that determine how white Alabamans look to set their affairs in order? A tough and painful question, one we may all have to confront if a colorless America is really as important to us as we claim it is. How about we put it to the test right now with a hypothetical?

Suppose we pretend that sometime in the next 10 years the current cultural civil war in America will be resolved by a two state solution: A US Republican state in the south, from Georgia to Arizona, and up through Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and a US Democratic state in the Northeast, Midwest, and west coast states.  

In this scenario, the USR state is unabashedly pro white in policy and action.  The USR is very tough on immigration, preferring white Russians and Euro’s to Muslims, Hispanics, and Africans.  While they didn’t claim to be racist and claimed to welcome anyone willing to play by their rules, they evolved into a 96% white state.  Meanwhile, let’s say the USD state welcomed the continued immigration of darker skinned people.  They broadened the safety net, passed reparations, created Medicare for all, greatly curbed gun rights…and became a 32% white state.  

Now imagine that all Americans had a choice of where to live, either in the USR or the USD. What would you choose?  If you’re anything like me, you’re thinking “USD—definitely.”  But, like me, if you’re white and you’ve never sought residence in a highly integrated neighborhood, The answer is not as simple as it sounds; if it were we’d already be a more integrated US. It may very well be the crux of the issue, and determine where the nation heads when we soon reach our crossroads. Right now a lot of us are patting ourselves on the back for this convenient version of “the truth” about ourselves, but I encourage us to pump the breaks on our self-righteousness.  Maybe, despite our best intentions, like those we condemn, we can’t handle the truth either.  JS

“I just think you people would be happier in Africa where you came from.”

George Lincoln Rockwell – American Nazi

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?”

President Donald Trump to The Squad

At the end of the day, heading into the most critical Presidential election in US history, one that will determine if America is capable of providing racist authoritarianism a mandate, it gets down to what it’s been from nearly the start: is the Trump Presidency “normal”? Do the policies and comportment of this President fall within the parameters our history and democratic inclinations process as acceptable, or has this Administration, and the party that now ardently supports it, demonstrated a consistent infidelity to what Trump took an oath to protect? That simple. And that critical.

How this question is processed and debated was on display this week when Rep. Joaquin Castro, manager of his brother Julian’s presidential campaign, tweeted a list of Trump donors from his district, publicly accusing them of “fueling a campaign of hate” against Hispanics. Of course both the statewide and federal GOP immediately screamed foul, labeling Castro as the real hater seeking to stoke division and actually incite violence and retaliation against citizens merely participating in our electoral process. House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, expressed GOP outrage from the highest levels, charging Castro with “targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs.” Castro rejoined he was doing no such thing, merely posting publicly available information for the benefit of his constituents, who deserve to know of business leaders in their district who finance overt racism and policies aimed at terrorizing Latinos.

Bloomberg’s Ramesh Ponnuru nicely synthesizes what is really the whole ball of wax in an Op-Ed today. Taking Castro to task, Ponnuru argues Trump 2020 is not David Duke 2020, or even Corey Stewart 2020, and treating an incumbent President’s campaign and supporters in a similar vein is outrageous and divisive. Ponnuru draws a distinction between what supporting an unabashed Klan or Nazi candidate and supporting Trump says about the advocate’s character and societal inclinations. Equating the two is inappropriate, according to Ponnuru, and amounts to slandering those you are outing as Trump partisans, impugning their character and weaponizing legitimate disagreements about policy. “…Supporting the Nazis today is an aberrant practice and a mark of a vicious character,” Ponnuru asserts, but supporting Trump “is neither.”

There it is in a nutshell. The line in the sand is Nazism, since Trump hasn’t yet descended that far down his supporters no more deserve to be “shunned or harassed” than Warren or Sanders backers. In branding Castro’s tweet a scarlet letter and destructive hypocrisy, Ponnuru clarifies better than most before him the equivalence position. Of course he conveniently omits the entire history of Trump’s behavior since he launched his campaign with a screed about Mexican rapists and murderers invading from the south. It’s simply an article of faith that our President is no Nazi. How could he be? Surely millions would never have voted for him if he was. That’s all the proof you need. And that’s all the evidence Ponnuru provides. Nothing to see here.

But what if we took the entire bias issue off the table? What if, for the sake of argument, we just accept the President’s pronouncement he is “the least racist person in history!” A regular freedom rider. Is there anything else about this presidency that doesn’t jibe with the bare minimums of acceptable? Anywhere else Trump paddles against the drift of historical norms for basic competence and decency? After all, there is a 448-page report nobody seems interested in reading that outlines not one, not even five, but ten compelling instances of obstruction of justice. Moreover, the refusal of this Administration to cooperate with Congress in its fully appropriate investigative role would make Tricky Dick, himself, blush.

Tell you what!…. Let’s be even more agreeable and take the Mueller investigation off the table as well! Let’s accept Trump’s word, and the constant whining of his continuous diatribes on the subject. No collusion! Nothing but a big hoax! Anything else we need to be concerned about in the way of new normals? Remember, historic Dow highs. Record low unemployment. Yet and still, there is a few trillion in new debt. Moreover, didn’t we learn with Smoot-Hartley and that nasty Great Depression that tariffs and trade wars are big no nos? And what of this ridiculous repeated nonsense of claiming tariffs aren’t passed on to US consumers and simply pad the US Treasury with Chinese revenue? Surely any POTUS, who would keep claiming such a thing, must be off his rocker… right? What about using tax dollars to protect specific industries from the policy’s ruinous effects. Is that normal?!

You know what? Let’s forget all of that as well, assume he is the business genius he claims to be. The economy is a MAGA miracle! Mr. Art Of The Deal has reasserted our rightful place at the top of the food chain. For our purposes here we’ll now only consider foreign affairs, which at the end of the day is the prime responsibility of a POTUS anyway. Is the Trump foreign policy and his international statesmanship within the bounds his predecessors established? Is the national interest being attended to?

Perhaps it’s most efficient to take the President’s word for it on say a preeminent concern such as North Korea. How is that going? Oh! Look he tweeted just this morning! Trump’s own words can reassure us….

“In a letter to me sent by Kim Jong Un, he stated, very nicely, that he would like to meet and start negotiations as soon as the joint U.S./South Korea joint exercise are over. It was a long letter, much of it complaining about the ridiculous and expensive exercises. It was also a small apology for testing the short range missiles, and that this testing would stop when the exercises end. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un in the not too distant future! A nuclear free North Korea will lead to one of the most successful countries in the world!”

What the hell were we worried about?!! BC

Often, when looking back at history’s significant trials and tribulations, it’s an iconic photo that crystallizes the time and place better than any national headline could. A depression-assaulted Oklahoma mother’s sad distant gaze as her hungry children huddle close for comfort. A returning seaman planting a smooch on a woman as both celebrate peace. A naked, napalm-burned Vietnamese child running from hell. These are the vivid images that will come back again and again even as time inevitably dulls our recollections.

Two photos, one actually taken, the other a critically missed opportunity, would serve nicely to define the chaotic cruelty Trumpism has brought forth from the genie’s lamp. One is an elevated shot of a fenced off holding area stuffed to the gills with tired and desperate Latino men, whose sole crime was the now villainized belief America offers a better life. Dirty, exhausted and worried, the men beseech a cadre of white, Khaki-clad Republicans, led by VP Mike Pence and ever-reliable supplicant Sen. Lindsey Graham, who look right through the suffering group with less connection than they’d afford iguanas in the reptile house at the National Zoo.

The other picture we will never see would have captured Kurt Brockway hovering over a convulsing 13-year old he had just slammed to the ground for the offense of not removing his hat during the national anthem at a Missoula, Montana rodeo. Doubtless a timely photo would have caught the vacant malice in Brockway’s eyes as he carried out his personal interpretation of MAGA’s civic requirements. Perhaps the caption would note Brockway’s assault coincided in chronology with a mass murderer in El Paso, Texas, carrying out his own idea of those obligations.

The boy, who Brockway pile drove into the ground suffered a fractured skull, easily diagnosed as he was airlifted to Spokane, Washington due to the relentless stream of blood coming out his ear. Brockway, who nine years earlier received a ten-year suspended sentence for gun violence, made clear from the outset the victim deserved what he got for disrespecting the flag. Whether or not the judge who arraigned him after he was arrested agreed is sadly not clear, since he released Brockway on his own recognizance. No, that is not a typo.

Fox News Facebook threads provide clarity of the rot MAGA’s wretched core germinates on a daily basis. Regarding the Montana outrage the common theme between the bookends of “this criminal needs to be locked up” and “I bet that kid will take his hat off from now on” was essentially two wrongs don’t make a right. Sure, it’s infuriating to see such disrespect but this guy was out of line. As usual with Fox threads, bots abound, plenty of stolen identities with only six friends. Yet and still, a few thousand comments effectively distillate wretched core sensibilities. The consensus view…. while such disrespect for the flag is hardly forgivable, fracturing a kid’s skull takes things too far. Good to know.

Of course it’s a sure bet few MAGA Montanans worth their A River Runs Through It salt have forgotten when a GOP candidate for Congress, subsequently a comfortable winner, carried out a near identical attack on a reporter, who had the temerity to ask questions the candidate didn’t want to answer. Moreover, Big Sky State Trumpies have been amused time and again by the President’s reliable evocation of the incident, which he always remembers fondly during his frequent Montana rallies. So really, what’s the biggie? It’s the Montana way, albeit with a tinge of immoderation.

Meanwhile, at the southern border, endless tedium, hopelessness and despair are all that is on offer, signature indignities our President promised from the start. The wretched core, like the authoritarian apostles throughout modern history, conflate imposition of atrocities with courageous determination and political will…. “promises kept” is the newspeak du jour. Thankfully, the essence of the entire disgrace has been captured for posterity and will endure to remind future generations of when we failed miserably, and what exactly that looks like on the pasty faces of the men who went to survey the results of their cruelty.

The ruin offered at the precipice America teeters on is found in the new norms, always bolstered by lies and distortions, MAGA promotes every hour. The wretched core has digested children forcibly wrested from their parents with the lie it’s nothing new. Men held indefinitely in holding areas designed for hours-long detention has been digested as collateral damage of Democratic intransigence, another bald-faced lie only a cultist would believe. Fracturing a child’s skull for not removing his hat is digested as good intentions taken too far by a code of conduct the President has hardily endorsed from the start of his candidacy.

MAGA is a package deal that, with a full-on maniac at the bully pulpit, and a 24/7 multi-media communications platform, foists itself on America in ever growing totalitarian chunks. Tucker Carlson labeled Joe Biden a “nut case” last night. What for? Biden wants to outlaw assault weapons less than a week after El Paso and Dayton. Millions of Americans are being radicalized right before us, and just because the same mantra has to keep being repeated doesn’t make it any less relevant to the current situation: the degree to which we allow their sliding sensibilities the credibility normalization provides will determine our fate as a nation. Sometimes a picture really does speak a thousand words! BC

Autism’s most debilitating trait is its pernicious assault on relationships. And while those on the autism spectrum generally present such a wide array of unique characteristics, sadly, an inability to proactively create and nurture personal relationships is one disability most all affected by the condition share.

Years ago, not too long after my son was diagnosed, I was swimming laps at my fitness club’s pool when I noticed a lovely middle aged woman in the other lane with who I presumed was her 20-something son. The host of eccentricities the young man exhibited betrayed he was unique. As the two swam their laps together, he with full snorkel gear, I felt for the first time an overwhelming desire to ask those with experiences I was surely going to now live for insights I reckoned I’d require.

I sat against the wall and waited for her to pause her workout. Not mincing too many words, I asked directly if her son had autism. As pleasant as I expected her to be, she said yes, and answered my next query that “Tim” was 24 years old. After revealing my own recent experience of receiving a firm confirmation that my son, Luke, had “pervasive” autism, and our struggles to begin a rigorous therapy regime, I asked how she had handled things back in the day when the support and resources we now enjoyed didn’t exist. She acknowledged it was very difficult, but made clear Tim was high functioning, not to mention wonderfully determined in every way possible. In fact, listening to her generously relate their story, I was encouraged; he lived on his own, had a job in IT, and was fully independent in near every way. This was just what I needed to hear!

Grateful for her insights, and not wanting to become a pest, I asked her what I promised was a final question, one I assumed would be innocuous enough… what about Tim’s social life? Friends? I’ll never forget the way her cheerful disposition vanished, replaced by a sad frown. No, she said simply. What do you mean, I followed up, even as I regretted broaching the subject. “Tim doesn’t have any friends, she clarified.” Girls? No. Nothing? What about work colleagues? School friends? No. “He has me and his father,” she said with a resolved sadness, “it’s a very hard thing.” All of the encouragement previously on offer was gravely diminished as I processed the heartache of loneliness my boy appeared destined to suffer. It was a devastating moment.

I thought of that conversation the other day when I learned of a YouGov poll which found 22% of US Millennials (ages 23-38) claim to have no friends… zero, nada, zippo. If it’s hard to absorb such a stat, it should be, it seems preposterous. How near a quarter of young adults could walk the planet burning every bridge they cross and arrive at a place utterly alone is hard to accept. Is the world that cruel to so many, or are there that many willfully disconnected among us?

Either way, it’s data I’m not sure how to feel about. Should I find solace that the loneliness my son suffers is shared by many more than I imagined, people without the explanation his condition provides? Or should I be angered that, while he struggles against the unfair odds nature stacked against him, multitudes of others do nothing with their blessings and now seem to share his fate? Regardless of how jaundiced the viewpoint, nobody can pretend the specter of abject isolation of more than one-fifth of adults supposedly enjoying their prime bodes well for our national community’s future, either as a body politic or greater society.

Thriving democratic systems require engaged communities. It’s hard to see those emerging when so many can’t even make a few friends. Cause or symptom? Probably both. A cycle where one end reinforces and perpetuates the other. But where either leads seems worrisome. Authoritarians feed on alienation with messages crafted to exploit what loneliness emphasizes… resentment and longing. Of course solitude can encourage insight and reflection; yet and still it’s certain a decent slice of the 22 % find MAGA attractive; lone wolves harbor the grievance Trump generously provides. In fact, let’s be honest, our stochastic terrorist-in-chief has never been too wealthy in the friendships department, himself. His tweets have always seemed a cry for connection and relevance, two attributes we once thought the nominee we elected should possess in abundance.

Luke does his best with what God has given him, but at the end of the day, even after he practices with his hockey team or even goes on an outing with kids he’s known since he could walk, friends by any other name, my wife and I (mostly my wife) must facilitate all his interactions. When we are gone…. well….. that’s not something we ponder very often yet. But Luke and those touched by the epidemic he is part of offer only goodness and the best of intentions, What of his millennial counterparts?

At press time 19 are confirmed dead in El Paso, Texas, victims of another loner armed with military-grade weaponry and apparently seeped in such bitter resentment he posted an ugly screed before carrying out his murderous tantrum. When all the facts are known it’s doubtful many will challenge the conclusion it was only a matter of when. So here we sit, with millions literally friendless and a demagogue inciting their worst, which we got another taste of today. Twenty-first century alienation is more than capable of producing what 20th century alienation gave us, and now much closer to home. An old southern blues man, maybe Albert King or Muddy Waters, sang “everybody got to have somebody, or else all they got is the blues.” That’s surely true, but what the rest of the world receives from such a situation should concern all of us. BC

“The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation – a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the US. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin … widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin”

The Mueller Report

Success in life often requires one to think counterintuitively. Want to hit a golf ball further? Swing easier, not harder. Caught in a riptide? Swim sideways, not toward shore. While we’re at it, want to get to the beach quicker on a 4th of July weekend? Leave at rush hour on Friday. Want your teenager to do what you want them to do? Suggest the opposite! So many things in this world are built on foundations that are not as they seem, at odds with conventional wisdom, requiring full outside-the-box approaches that most miss.

Somewhere in the bowels of a nondescript Russian intelligence building, maybe around 2012, perhaps in the cyber espionage division – who knows – a heretofore anonymous bureaucrat had a bone shaking epiphany and sprinted down the hall to tell his superior about it. What if we have always been thinking about it backwards?! What if our target audience in America isn’t left-wing progressives, but right-wing reactionaries?! What if it’s been right there before us all this time? After all, if American ruin is our goal, aren’t there plenty of other ways to skin that cat?!

The blind spot for Cold War Soviets and Putinites alike was recognizing what was always most in Russia’s wheelhouse to export: invigorating a mob’s mindless servility by relentlessly promoting hatred of enemies to assuage their alienation. Forget Marxist tales of economic exploitation; it’s all about the grievance and resentment. Manufacture that, control that, and dominoes will fall. Like a nuclear reaction, just get the ball rolling.

Those still agog over how millions can worship a man who, not only embodies, but ceaselessly creates measures fully at odds with their most basic self-interest, are missing the forest for the trees. The essence of Trumpism is the salve so many require to soothe their alienation from what America’s narrative has always been. The rabid dependence on symbols like the flag and national anthem illustrates the whiteboard of American patriotism’s deep and complex attributes has been erased for millions, replaced by unquestioned allegiance to those who make conquest possible, and those who obsessively validate that fidelity. In North Korea you can do 10 years of hard labor for appearing insufficiently attentive when their national anthem is playing, nobody is interested in discussions about patriotism’s many layers.

Trump’s singular specialty is blaming people. The Apprentice was nothing more than a weekly display of contestants doing and saying anything to pass the buck. A weekly tutorial on avoiding responsibility, with our current President, and often his children, refereeing the backstabbing. Trump’s requirements for the prize of joining his company’s executive team were clear and unwavering…, always be the biggest asshole in the room, without ever making me doubt your sycophancy. The resume for impelling dictatorship is identical, civic responsibility is no virtue, unless it’s redefined as turning in your neighbor with the dark skin, or praise for Allah, or liberal leanings.

Back in the Vietnam days Soviet strategy for affecting American politics centered on inciting and goading to action the downtrodden and disaffected, unbridled capitalism’s most unquestioned victims… blacks, coal miners (yes!), exploited workers without a union voice, counterculture hippies against war and certain plastics were the beginning of the end (prescient it turns out). Now, the messaging targets bigots and the love em-or-leave em crowd. Those once seen as fertile soil for discontent are now the “snowflakes” on the other side of twitter wars. Alex Jones and Sean Hannity are current Russian assets, not some Stanford historian, or Columbia economics professor. The name of the destabilization game is unhinged, falsely informed grievance, and a nihilist pursuit of nostalgia, a feeling of control, of supremacy. We want what was once ours and they took away. Case closed.

The incumbent President most always has the power to define the campaigns of both sides for his upcoming re-election battle. Generally if the country is in arguably better shape than when he inherited it, voters will be presented with his side’s argument their interests lie in continuing with his prescriptions. His opponent will raise other issues and argue their importance and the need to better address them, or even deny things are as good as the incumbent claims. Either way, the sitting President determines the parameters of debate, while respecting general assumptions that national traits like unity, equality, tolerance and empathy are necessary virtues.

Trump, fully supported by both Fox/AM and Russian intelligence, seeks to destroy such templates. He is overt now in his desire to frame 2020 as Us vs. Them. We love our country, they don,t. We will keep power in white hands, they won’t. We will keep beaners out, they will welcome them in. Each day, each hour, any traces left to the imagination are consciously deleted by Trump and the GOP he now fully controls.

The Kremlin has hit the jackpot by embracing a strategy Khrushchev, Brezhnev, even spymaster Andropov never considered, and now enjoys a tireless White House effort to tear the US apart. One of our three branches of government is seditious, as is half of another branch. It’s all there in the open, right now, so emboldened it seems prepared to toss aside all pretense of anything else, all dog whistles, all window dressing, and make the first Tuesday of next November a referendum. Is our fear of demographic boogiemen greater than our fealty to the democracy that is supposed to define us. A very binary, straightforward choice. If Trump and the GOP have their way, Russia will influence the outcome. BC

It’s August of 2008 and Michelle Obama gets an e-mail from Valerie Jarrett, who informs her some Russian national claims to have dirt on John McCain. Things have been discouraging lately, polls have shown Obama struggling to maintain an ever-ebbing advantage. McCain coffers are overflowing and the GOP candidate appears to be gaining momentum. Sarah Palin has electrified the base, attracting overflow crowds on the campaign trail. The race is clearly shifting. “If it’s what you say, I love it,” exalts the Democratic Presidential nominee’s wife accepting a meeting with the Russian source. Campaign Chief, David Axelrod replies he will try to make it as well. It is arranged it will happen at a major Democratic donor’s law office to provide cover from the press.

Fast forward to the ides of March, 2009. Barack Obama is settling into office after his historic victory. Economic revival has been a preoccupation from day one, but Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, in a panic, storms into the Oval Office to inform the President a Washington Post reporter has called asking questions about that meeting with the Russian last August! Apparently, somebody leaked the event and provided details of what was discussed. They want to know if you knew about it, Gibbs tells Obama. “Tell them hell no,” responds the President. “Say nobody can even remember what was discussed, maybe adoptions, or something like that… but I definitely was never told about it!” What about the First Lady, asks Gibbs, how do we explain her involvement. “She heard it was about adoptions and wanted to hear more. Very simple. I went over this with you all last summer. Told you exactly how to handle it. Calm down. It’s nothing.”

Two days later Gibbs takes a call in his office from the Post reporter investigating the story. “Robert, your account doesn’t wash. We have it that, not only was the President fully aware of the meeting, discussions centered on how Russian government sources could provide damaging info. on McCain. What’s your response to that?” “My response is it’s ridiculous. Some unhinged Russian woman wanted the First Lady’s help with adoptions. That’s it!” The reporter replies… “if you say so, but we are filling in the blanks and it doesn’t look good. In fact, we may be ready to publish soon. I’ll give you the day to get back to me.”

“You moron! I told you to just keep cool about it. They probably sensed your panic. Why did I hire you? They told me it was a mistake! We never admit anything! Understand? These white devils are just trying to cheat me out of my victory! It’s a frame up. A fake story.” “Er, but Mr. President, it’s not fake. It happened.” “Who cares if it happened?! Nothing came of it! Just because we were willing to hear them out, doesn’t mean crap. It’s politics, for God’s sake!” Nobody can prove I knew about it! That’s what we’re going with, understand?!” “Yes sir, but this thing has legs.”

A month has passed and the Russian meeting is now national story #1. Emails, obtained by the Post clearly prove beyond question the President, despite denying he ever had any knowledge of the event, actually orchestrated the cover up from the start. Moreover, leaked minutes of the meeting, with near word-for-word details, make it clear Russian intelligence was reaching out to the Obama campaign through a connected intermediary with an offer to provide some McCain dirty laundry. It seems only when polls began to reflect a fresh Obama surge, the result of Palin’s full meltdown as a VP option, did the campaign lose interest in the opportunity.

At his third press conference, Obama is inundated with questions about the Russian meeting. “Mr. President, what do you say to those agreeing with Republicans that a special counsel needs to look into whether top campaign officials considered accepting help from Russian government sources to smear Senator McCain? Why did you lie about your involvement? “I didn’t lie. That’s a made up story cooked up by those trying to tarnish my historic victory. This is a nothing burger. The GOP wants an investigation so they can start a fishing expedition. It’s all a witch hunt. So what if we did hear them out? It’s politics. Who doesn’t look for an edge? People are saying the McCain campaign did a lot of things that need looking into. Why aren’t they getting grilled like I am?!”

Attorney General Eric Holder appoints a special counsel to investigate the Russian meeting, now being called Dirtgate. Meanwhile, the President has taken to the road on a “Hope and Change” tour, visiting inner cities and encouraging mostly black audiences. The talk track is generally the same… the GOP racists are trying to steal our presidency, making things up about this Russian affair. It’s fake news, the Washington Post never really wanted me to win. Don’t be fooled, the white media wants me out of there. They’ll do anything. We know it’s a rigged system. I rocked the boat and they’re already sea sick. Are we going to let them take this away? No chance!”

David Axlerod is indicted for lying to investigators about his role in the Russian Meeting. Obama accepts his resignation, but makes clear he feels his Chief-of Staff has been treated very “unfairly” and intimates he may pardon him. After firing Eric Holder for not rescinding his original appointment of a special counsel, Obama continues to interview replacements, unsatisfied most can be relied on to terminate the investigation. Meanwhile, calls for impeachment get stronger, Republicans parade ceaselessly on Fox News to demand he resign, and what was a trickle, has become a stream of “blue dog” Democrats expressing openness to the idea of an impeachment process. Obama continues to hold rallies, his rhetoric increasingly divisive and racially charged. When he calls Mitch McConnell a “cracker,” Speaker Pelosi declares enough is enough and agrees to hold a vote to censure the President as the Democratic majority now splits, with more than enough moderates supporting impeachment.

Almost two months later, near fully isolated, and seeking immunity from any prosecution, Barack Obama resigns the Presidency. Not nine months into his term, the nation’s first black President is driven from office under a relentless funnel cloud of scandal stemming from a meeting with Russians during the general election campaign. Asked his feelings after Obama officially vacates the White House grounds, heading back to Chicago, Senator Lindsey Graham, the leader of GOP strategy to impeach Obama, asserts “for God’s sake, he met with Russians to discuss smearing one of America’s finest war heroes and statesman. What could he possibly have expected. Some things really speak for themselves. The day this nation ignores meeting with Russians to plan dirty tricks in a Presidential election is the day I will move somewhere else! Let’s just be thankful we nipped this in the bud before he did something really terrible, like meeting with Putin sans translators, or even exchanging love notes with our friend over there in North Korea. Can you imagine?!” BC

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism,”

Margaret Chase Smith

Lately, it’s a preoccupation of many to look for other areas of US history where our circumstances were as dire as they now seem to be without introducing an existential conflagration like, say, the Civil War. To my eyes McCarthyism fits that bill best, a relatively brief time frame when the US Senate’s worst was on full display. Imagine if most Democratic Senators were showing Trump the same servility as the GOP and you have exactly where things stood in 1950. Fear and loathing were the order of the day and it was left to one freshman Republican Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, a direct woman with clear ideas about what duty to country meant, to speak up. She did so brilliantly, providing hope to those fearful a tipping point may have been passed and America was prepared to consume itself. Perhaps it came naturally, a reaction to what she deemed madness, or maybe she saw history to be made and decided to make it. Does it really matter?

It’s always been the same sorry formula. Attack those with the most vulnerable constituencies, groups ill-equipped to fight back. Paint them by numbers as threats to God and country, all the while shouting how doing so is courageous and principled. Deem opponents to the bullying insidious collaborators and… voila. Very mindless and shameful stuff, otherwise how could Trump possibly succeed at it. That he learned at the foot of Roy Cohn, who sat at McCarthy’s right hand, and later, well after his boss succumbed to alcoholism, carved out a niche as the nation’s most vile citizen, is either ironic or fully logical… or both. Again, who cares? Point is we’ve seen it all before and sent it packing, er, sort of. Make no mistake, these episodes leave residue because they reflect where we are capable of going…. and we’re surely going there now.

Bill Cohen, another Mainer, served honorably wherever he found himself, whether it was as one of the first of the GOP House caucus to support Nixon’s impeachment, or in the Senate as a moderate voice countering Reagan’s Cold War schemes, and later helping HW Bush navigate the fall of the Eastern Bloc, and finally as Clinton’s 2nd term Secretary of Defense, where he struggled against Pentagon waste and outdated commitments.

Yet and still, perhaps Cohen, despite his splendid career, now rues one aspect of it, the rise of one of his protégés, a loyal staffer, to the Senate for a span much longer than the two terms she originally implied she would limit herself to. Susan Collins came to Washington branding herself fully in line with the sensibilities of both Chase Smith and Cohen. Like her predecessors, she would be a voice of reason and principle, nothing fancy, just hard work and courageous decency. Whether supporting the right to choose or backing spending priorities that balanced prudence with compassion, a position increasingly at odds with Republican inclinations, Collins was supposed to reflect independence, swim upstream when necessary. Now, however, like the party Trump abased and then fully consumed like a quarter pounder, Collins’ standing is in shambles, a cautionary tale about how making friends in the Cannon building cafeteria isn’t the same thing as having the guts to make enemies on the Senate floor, or the Twitterverse.

Trump is still in office, still out of jail, because the GOP has maintained its slim margin of control in the Senate. Only near constant Republican unanimity has permitted the ruinous conduct and agenda of the Trump Presidency. A couple of heroes could have stopped much of the travesty in its tracks. Nobody was better positioned politically to take a stand than Collins. Everything she had always claimed to be demanded she step forward. Sadly, nobody has disappointed more. At every critical juncture, from giving her blessing to a parade of US history’s worst Cabinet appointments to providing the deciding vote that passed a 1%-coddling, deficit ballooning $2 trillion tax cut at full employment. From approving the scandal-plagued and certain vote against Roe v Wade to shrugging off most all of Trump’s unhinged ugliness, Collins has been strictly rank and file. Nothing to see here as she proceeds to do what incumbents do best… raise cash for re-election.

Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, Sara Gideon, is running against Collins in 2020. She is young, attractive and, after being forced to deal with Trumpie Governor Paul LePage, whose nastiness and incompetence rivaled his hero, the President, seems well prepared for DC’s current climate of bad faith. No matter, the race will almost exclusively be a referendum on Collins and how Maine voters have digested her acquiescence to Trumpism. Certainly money will not be a problem for the challenger, as a torrent of outside contributions from national Democratic interests seeking to turn Maine blue come flowing Gideon’s way.

Since mid-2017, polls have punctuated how disenchanted Maine voters have become with Collins’ servility to Trump. She has lost 44 points from an approval rating that once made her the nation’s most popular incumbent. Indeed, as of last month, no Senator enjoyed less support back home than Collins. Near 24 years ago she promised Mainers she would never force them to give her the boot, assuring one and all two terms was more than enough time to make a mark and move on to other things. Now she seeks a fifth term and appears ready to do whatever is necessary to get it, including going negative against a very likable opponent.

Trump is making it clear the binary choice he wants to offer in 2020: keep it white vs. radical socialism. Of course his wretched core is all in with such bigoted mindlessness. Whether American democracy continues as a going concern depends on what roughly 8-10 percent of voters, now intent to clasp hands over ears and tune out the din they abhor, decide is the lesser of two evils this cycle. Collins fate will be instructive. After proving conclusively to Mainers, who pride themselves on inconvenient independence, that she never got Edmund Burke’s memo about evil’s requirement of silence by those who know better, and she was the wrong person to rely on for saving the republic, Collins should be an early casualty on the first Tuesday next November. If not, it may be a very long night…. and a far longer still walk in the wilderness. BC

Perhaps the least patriotic sensibility one can possess these days, a mindset that may end American pluralism, is the notion it’s just a game, a continuing day at the races, a constant parade of winners and losers, payouts and torn up tickets. This view understands the consequences of government as not much more than abstractions, our history as a mere continuum of time between post parades, “eras” and “revolutions” meant to label just how fleeting their significance was, chapters in high school history curriculums rising juniors and seniors can snooze past. After all, we only live once, and agonizing over the nightly news is time one never gets back, no? Relax!

It’s not that American governance as detached sport is in itself the central malady of our condition, in fact it’s actually accentuated our democratic process for decades. Acting as both announcer and referee. But that was when it was accompanied by good faith on both sides of the aisle, which now clearly no longer exists. Without the honor and guarantee that the foundational rules of the game will be followed, those intent on continuing to see sport in impending disaster become accomplices to our ruin.

One year ago, as a senior prank, four teenagers at Glenelg High School in Maryland’s diverse Howard County, decided to go and spray paint “Class of 2018” at the school’s front entrance way. Once they got there, however, seems each decided to spontaneously accentuate things with a variety of vile, racist offerings slurring everyone from Glenelg’s black principle to Jews to gays and so forth. KKK and swastikas were prominent, as were penises. The fact it was done the night before the school’s final day ceremony to recognize Glenelg’s best and brightest meant there was no time to cover the vandalism and students all got to see its full ugliness.

That millions equate a pro quarterback or woman’s soccer star impassively kneeling during the national anthem with what happened at Glenelg clarifies societal dysfunction that would seem impervious to rational discussion, which lumps it together with a host of other head scratchers MAGA has fully liberated. Yet and still, it’s hard to see how the knee jerk ease of so many to label those horrified by what occurred at Glenelg “snowflakes” bent on criminalizing teen shenanigans and prepared to “destroy” otherwise “good kids” isn’t a worrisome trend. Add to that the same bloc’s visceral urge to pivot and attack a captain and MVP of the World Champion US Woman’s Soccer Team as traitorous and undeserving of anything but vile scorn for kneeling and refusing to visit US history’s most divisive POTUS, and it’s near impossible not to appreciate a ruinous disconnect multitudes suffer. Very serious business.

When the vandals, who were almost immediately identified and confessed accordingly, faced sentencing near one year later, all wanted the court to understand what they did was not who they were. Not one was ready to admit spray painting nasty racist standards could possibly mean they harbored dark bigotry; it was all just the “biggest mistake I ever made.” One, represented by more ambitious counsel, argued the Fox/AM talking point that charging him with a hate crime violated his 1st Amendment right to free speech! Even though sentences of more than five years could have been handed down, the judge issued a potpourri of probation, community service and between 10-16 weekends in jail, which led to near breakdowns by mothers still processing how their babies could be treated like criminals for a “prank” that got out of hand. Can you say white privilege?

NBC news’ Chuck Todd could have come out of the movie classic Network. Todd is all about the horse race. The ruinous divisions being fanned by this MAGA White House, which wants to re-adjudicate basic premises of racial and sexual fairness long ago adopted by all but America’s darkest fringes, are merely “openings” available for Democrats to exploit in 2020. Trump’s outrageous slurs hurled at sitting Congresswomen are simply part of the “culture war” discussion “firebrand” conservatives want to have in 2020. Kamala Harris turning on Joe Biden, who, by the way, just served loyally for eight years at the side of America’s first black President, for his trademark rhetorical carelessness to make a broader point about the need for bipartisanship, is a left to the frontrunner’s jaw, and a debate coup she may ride to the top of the standings. By all means Democrats, argue purity while Rome burns, the panel needs to fill three hours before the next debate begins.

Trump’s recent unhinged racism against four young, thoughtful, and fully committed Congressional newcomers combines with the events at Glenelg to produce a depressing dichotomy. On the one hand, while Trump acts on the hour to display the most despicable biases, ugliness that would have him banned from most US Thanksgiving dinner tables, the wretched core, and GOP supporters, insist as long as he’s willing to do photo-ops with Diamond and Silk, and you can’t produce video of him using the N-word, he’s not a racist.

Meanwhile, in a Maryland courtroom, the parents of boys who created the worst racist graffiti imaginable want all to know they harbor nothing but tolerance, evidence to the contrary. What they admit to doing is not who they are, and we won’t consider the possibility. So there’s a full circle here, each arc playing against the other. The POTUS is just playing politics, and the boys were just killing time…. and the economy is doing fabulous.

It bears repeating, that Glenelg High School is in a “progressive” county, in a state where Hillary was projected the winner before dinner was finished. What goes on in flyover country? What sensibilities guide their handling of such instances? Perhaps a better topic for Chuck Todd led discussions to consider. Newsflash Chuck! The real story right now is far greater than the race for power; it’s what that power creates and the unprecedented predicament the last race produced. Trump and the MAGA-cowed GOP are breaking all the rules, and making clear hourly they don’t mind ending the game if that’s what keeping it white necessitates. That’s the hell of it. BC

“….Something touched me deep inside, the day the music died.”

Don McLean

To read Politico’s exhaustive recreation of how Trump weathered the outcry of his Access Hollywood misogyny is to fully realize how bleak America’s future may be, and how realistic the prospect of his re-election is. As the Trump candidacy hovered on the edge of dissolution, the victim of audio so bluntly degrading it spurred on arguments whether in fact Trump was confessing to criminal acts, his critics and defenders alike shared one fundamental flaw in their perception of the most important piece of the whole sorry affair…. how resilient the candidate’s base of support was, how utterly unconcerned they were of recorded evidence as unpresidential as anything ever publicly disclosed.

The Politico article may very well document the watershed event of when America reached its tipping point on a number of fronts, all coalescing to create an irreversible slide toward the shamelessness necessary to make democracy a thing of the past. As Trump’s team of misfits worked feverishly under the impression his “locker room” story of sexually assaulting a married woman would blow up his candidacy, only Trump was blissfully confident MAGAites would hardly blink. Of course we suffer the consequences of how accurate his assessment was, but the most ruinous aspect of the whole affair lies in how all of the “shocked and disgusted” GOP pols, from Paul Ryan to John Thune, Lindsey Graham to Susan Collins, so quickly came back into the fold once they realized the wretched core was going nowhere. Within 48 hours, following perhaps the ugliest public debate ever witnessed in America, calls for Trump to step aside ceased, outrage replaced by shrugs…. “what are you going to do?”

The non-reaction to, even enthusiasm for, the Access Hollywood audio by Trump rally crowds was the final act in several tales all playing out at once, First, since Trump had announced his candidacy with a bigoted diatribe against immigrants, the question was how powerful were the racist forces within the GOP base, and could unabashed embrace of bigotry and xenophobia actually eclipse all else in the eyes of a significant bloc of party faithful. Like pro-life zealotry, had Trump’s abandonment of all pretense and overt disdain of immigrants clarified sizable numbers of Republicans prepared to forgive and forget all else so long as “illegals” were sent packing?

Next, were the evangelicals, the pro-lifers prepared to look past behavior running mate Mike Pence’s wife found so ugly she initially refused to stand on the same stage with Trump. Did overturning Roe v Wade and “religious freedom” – read anti-gay and transgender nastiness with a clean conscience – provide an end to justify any means, any degree of hypocrisy?

Third, if Access Hollywood was a worst-case scenario, it also provided the ultimate test for how effectively Fox/AM could spin and reinvigorate the self-inflicted wounds its creation constantly foisted on his candidacy. Almost immediately the message from Hannity et al was singular and unrelenting: what about Hilary’s husband?! Fox prime time was far more concerned with Juanita Broderick than Nancy O’Dell. Don’t throw stones from glass houses. False equivalence to the rescue!

Finally, most importantly, there was never a more appropriate and critical time for GOP leaders to, er, lead. After all, if you can’t move the party away from this, when could you lead it. Any shred of principle left from the bad dream of Trump’s nomination dictated a clear, unified and sustained response was necessary, lest the party stand for nothing but the craven opportunism it’s critics had constantly accused it of during the previous eight years. If you can’t take a troglodyte who brags about grabbing pussies to task, what do you really have left to offer on the moral high ground front? Easy peasy!

History is always looking for pivotal moments, make or break situations. Politico accurately portrays the immediate aftermath of the Access Hollywood audio as just that in the minds of most everybody involved, except the two most important parties, Trump and his wretched core. Reince Priebus fought back an onslaught of GOP biggies demanding Trump be dropped from the ticket. Priebus, always light as a feather, had no stomach for such a move and saw no precedent or procedure for carrying it out. Trump, for his part, already regretting he even issued a quarter-hearted apology, and perhaps being told by Moscow it was not an option, tweeted he had zero intention of withdrawing from the race. He backed that declaration up by outrageously convening a hasty press conference of Bill Clinton accusers. When Hillary had the gall to call him unfit during that night’s debate, Trump hissed he would have her behind bars in no time. And just like that, the danger had passed. A fresh news cycle awaited.

In the days leading up to Decision 16’ there was nary a GOPer in DC who either gave Trump a chance at victory nor actually wanted him to win. With the exception of Freedom Caucus back benchers and assorted Senate extremists with a fondness for Fox/AM interviews, the Republican Party was focused on rebuilding its brand and maybe even attempting to lead the party away from la la land. However, the wretched core failed to get that memo, and Clinton payed with disgraced defeat for taking Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin voters for granted. All now suffer hourly.

The various rivers, flowing separately as Trump faced disqualification after the Access Hollywood audio emerged, have all met at one junction to form a mighty torrent. Yes, plenty in the GOP are now dedicated single-issue bigots, with more than 60% of the party faithful approving of border atrocities. Yes, evangelicals could not care less about Trump’s disgusting personal peccadilloes, as they will surely again show in fully discounting new documentation of the President’s friendship with Jeffery Epstein. Yes, Fox/AM is more than up to the task of shamelessly spinning every Trump lie and outrage for its regulars’ consumption, with overt racism now a specialty… ask Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham. And finally, no, the GOP never was up to the job of leadership, its cowardly stiffs all shuffling forth, tails between legs, seeking to at least remain off Trump’s twitter radar. Those most vocal about dumping him never recovered, and are either gone or fully marginalized…ask Paul Ryan.

Historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt observed that, while “the mob and elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself,” the rest require propaganda. Go to any Trump rally and it’s easy to feel that momentum. Ditto watching flunkies like Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows carry his dirtiest water in Congress. The rest of us? Give it time. The Politico piece makes clear plenty were able to get past Trump’s worst with little effort, and watching Chuck Todd lately one can fully appreciate how insidious Fox/AM propaganda can be, how it can leach into mainstream analysis and normalize our worst. Three years in and I suppose the future is still our call, but the clock is ticking, and gravely, soon the die may be cast. BC