Donald Trump: Addendum

So there you have it. Donald wins. On a technicality, but he wins. The "rigged" election system that he consistently railed against or at least cast doubt on during his campaign is the very reason he's going to be our next president. Red America rejoices, blue America weeps. I shake my head one last time. In hindsight, this should not have been an upset. In our quaint little nation, the guy who yells the loudest tends to win the argument, be it in a bar or a town hall meeting or a presidential race. The goldfish-esque memory that America has exhibited has taken every history book ever printed and thrown it onto the funeral pyre of our international reputation and dignity. We've elected a fucking reality TV personality to be our leader. To call the shots on our laws. To direct the military during wartime. To appoint supreme court justices. As a future teacher, I'm done telling adults to read their history books. At least in this instance, it's too late. The deterioration of the American attention span is now exactly where it should be: front and center. But what can I say. I can't expect people to understand why events a hundred years ago are important today when we can't remember what we were outraged about three days ago.

Calling Mrs. Clinton a "flawed" candidate means nothing to me. Mother Theresa was flawed. And you can bet everything you own that everyone who has ever run for president is a very "flawed" person. But come on. The mere thought of someone using a private email server to communicate was enough to disqualify that person from being president? Bullshit. She's a less liberal version of Obama without the silver-tongued charisma. That's it. As we should have expected, the candidate with the most recent scandal lost, not the better one. Never mind that candidate's decades of experience in situations where actual shit was on the line, not just whether Omarosa was cool enough to stay on The Apprentice. Was it actually because that person is a she? Was it actually because she was endorsed by the most powerful black man in the history of the world? Yes, that played pretty significant part. Some will admit it, some won't. Some will scream it from the mountaintops. I don't give a shit how it sounds. You want it "like it is?" There you go. Donald was too much of a pussy to say it. If you react with incredulity and are ready to get in a fight with me over that, you have proven me right. And for their part, the Democratic party was completely tone-deaf for a year and a half and tried to play personality politics. That was incalculably stupid and played up the qualities that wound up winning Trump the election. It was childish and they have now payed the price. But now that Mrs. Clinton is out of the way, let's take a look at how we've made the worst of a bad situation.

Throughout this nonsense, Mr. Trump appeared to make some comments that I will politely call ill-conceived. We all know the sound bites. The gold star insults, the unflattering generalizations, the "grab them by the pussy." Crazy, crazy shit. The kind of shit that would make any other candidate for any other public office in any other place at any other time say "I fucked up" and then bow out. Mr. Trump, however, is very familiar with the aforementioned American attention span. His colleagues in the reality TV and real estate business are, too. Go ahead and tell me  it's just Donald being Donald. Tell me it's locker room talk. If you're A. over 60 years old and B. have a wife who is expecting a child, it isn't locker room talk, it's disgusting and unacceptable.

On the whole, I would say we take politics about as seriously as Trump has. The Trump bros and broettes I meet at state-run universities in the red state of Pennsylvania seem unconcerned that Mr. Trump would privatize every college in the country if he could, and probably price many of them out of the education that they are receiving. He just speaks and acts like an angsty teenager who has a lot of pent-up emotion over having nothing significant to complain about, so they relate to him. On a larger scale, we've become a nation of people who will turn off the thoughtful, insightful debate and turn on the news about a shooting. We love drama. We are drawn to drama. We pay attention to drama. Plain and simple, want to be entertained more than we want to be educated. That is our sin. Period.

I suppose what has drawn many people to Trump has been his shoot-from-the-hip, wingin' it style. It sounds (and is) counter intuitive, but many people like the fact that he doesn't have legitimate plans. The plans that he has made have mostly been in the form of "first day" pledges. Stuff like starting to build the Mexican-funded wall, repealing the Affordable Care Act, rounding up illegal immigrants, prosecuting his campaign opponent, etc. Are these things actually going to get done? More importantly, was Trump serious when he proposed these things? Both are doubtful. At the very least, they won't get done as quickly as Mr. Trump wants them to. Although it may not seem that way (since they barely do anything anymore), congress sort of has the last say on a lot of these things. Will the republicans who gave up on Trump flock back to him and support him? Probably. I doubt we will ever see the limit to which those people will go in the name of political expediency.

Probably the biggest promise Trump has made is his pledge to "bring back the jobs" from overseas. How? Don't worry about the details, says Donald. I'm a very rich person. I'm a very smart person. Well I'm afraid that's not really how it works. I'm not an economic expert, so you can take this as seriously as you'd like: those precious jobs are probably not coming back, and definitely not without a fight. The shit that Mr. Trump's heartland supporters buy in Walmart is overwhelmingly made overseas. Donald says he wants Americans to make this stuff. Ok. Sure. Build a factory according to US standards and pay your employees what typical factory employees make. The factory has to lower its prices to compete with overseas manufacturers. It cuts wages. The people employed at the factory can't afford the very shit they're making. They get pissed. Maybe they go on strike. The factory (gasp) decides to move to Mexico or China in search of cheaper (and less fussy) labor. The way that things are set up now, that's exactly what's going to happen

Mr. Trump's solution? Maybe apply tariffs. Maybe cut regulations. You know, the ones that require paid maternity leave, keep hours reasonable, keep working conditions safe, etc. Sounds unattractive? Don't count on joining a union, which a Trump/Republican administration will fight tooth and nail. The thing Mr. Trump won't tell his devotees: if you want your jobs back, you're going to have to rethink what a "livable" wage is. Want to know what a Donald Trump economy looks like? Look up "New York Tenements 1890." You'll get the idea. Most serious economists with actual knowledge of how our economy works agree that the way to cut through the litigious bullshit that makes running a business in this country so difficult is to actually hold business owners accountable for their shittiness. The paralyzing fear of a lawsuit has turned our economy into a liability-limiting machine. But who actually suffers from those lawsuits? Not the CEOs. Not the bigwigs on Wall Street who actually call the shots. It's the mid-level managers who are just passing down orders. Case in point: Wells Fargo. Who got axed when the shit hit the fan? Mid and low level employees. It wasn't until Elizabeth Warren roasted the fuck our of the CEO that he stepped down. And guess what: he stepped down an extremely, extremely rich man. Just like Donald.

"The Wall" is the just the most publicized manifestation of the xenophobia and distrust of other races and nationalities that was a huge part of this election, whether we want to admit it or not. Go ahead Donald. Build your wall. Watch the bad guys laugh at you and find a way around it the day after it's done. Will Muslim communities really be subjected to steeply increased surveillance? Will they really be held accountable for violent radicals on the fringes of their faith? They better fucking not. There were no calls for greater surveillance of troubled Neo-Nazis when Scott M. Greene ambushed and killed two police officers in Urbandale, Iowa. Remember that? Probably not, it was in the headlines for all of two seconds. Talk about a crooked, biased media, right? But I digress.

Mr. Trump doesn't think we are at all responsible for providing refuge for some of the people displaced by the fighting in Syria. He also thinks that other countries in the area should foot the bill for our military presence. This is, of course, the man's complete and utter misunderstanding of the last 20 years on display. Donald. We. Created. The. Problem. We went into someone's house and set it on fire, and now we're mad at them for not wanting to put it out themselves? If you consider yourself an American, you need to be willing to accept the consequences of failed policies (the Iraq/Afghanistan Shitshow) even if you didn't agree with them (which he did). This shirking of the responsibility to answer for our asinine short-sightedness absolutely infuriates me, and it makes people in the Middle East hate us more, if that's possible. The more we turn our noses up at answering for bullshit wars we wage overseas, the more they will have those wars in our own back yards. If there is any symbolism in this election, it is the victory of violent extremists (Islamic or otherwise, it actually doesn't fucking matter) over the hearts and minds of the world's most powerful country. We are finally as afraid as they want us to be.

One of the more unsettling outcomes of this election is that the Republican party, the one that couldn't agree on a candidate, the one that shuddered and splintered and cowered at the first sign of trouble, is now in control of our government. The people that our new president refused to suck up to are now in charge. Republican leaders couldn't come up with a definitive answer to the question "what does your party stand for," and most of America said, "good enough for me." Horse. Shit. The Republican party is shit scared, paranoid to the point of paralysis, and completely without a serious plan for the future. The Democrats, for all of their stupidity, had a plan. I don't love it, but it's better than hot air. Limited government, you say? We've elected a group of people that are so scared of losing their power that they are willing to ride the coattails of a man who called the reliable part of their constituency "stupid." That's right. Trump called Republican voters stupid. So Republicans are faced with a dilemma: do we work with this guy who thinks we and those we represent are dumb? Do we give him what he wants? Votes are on the line, so yes, they probably will.

Even with all of this nonsense in mind, I would almost be willing to consider this man a serviceable president if he showed anything resembling level-headedness under pressure or a willingness to actually listen to his critics. Regardless of what we all want to hear, Hillary Clinton shredded Mr. Trump in the debates they participated in. I don't give a hot steaming shit if people thought the moderators were biased. They weren't. Donald just whined and bitched about them so much that people started to see something that wasn't there. Even if they were, how did he react? Embarrassingly childish. He has exhibited stress-management skills I would be concerned about in my seventh grade students. He gets defensive. He gets rude. He interrupts. He literally cannot control the things that come out of his mouth. In a nationally televised debate, that looks bad. In a crisis-level situation that Donald will almost certainly find himself in during his presidency, people will die. This affected fourth grade macho attitude that went over so well with the solid red voters of the American heartland is not going to go over well with foreign leaders. And no, having the biggest and baddest military in the world is not an excuse to say and do what you want in the Situation Room. Donald will be pushed and prodded and goaded into showing himself for the conflict lover that he is. I have said it before and I'll say it again: I will not fight in or support a war waged because an overgrown child couldn't keep his big fucking mouth shut.

So what now? What can we expect from President Trump? We don't really know. History is littered with underdogs who considered their popular support a mandate to seek revenge on those who doubted them. Does Mr. Trump want to make an example of liberals? Or of conservatives who jumped ship on him? I don't know. You don't know. Donald probably doesn't know. He's wingin' it all the way to the fuckin' White House. There is no indication that Donald's kumbaya moment of wanting to "unite the country" after a rough election is anything other than the post-win honeymoon champagne doing the talking. Trump ran a divisive campaign and he won. Why change now? He had every opportunity to push a unifying message and he didn't. Unfortunately for most of his die-hard supporters, they are probably in for a pretty nasty reality check. If the first few days of the Trump Era are any indication, President Trump will be spending a lot of time explaining why things that he said were going to happen aren't going to happen, and were actually never meant to happen.

The wall isn't going to be so great. ObamaCare is actually pretty good. Faced with the situation of actually speaking to Obama face-to-face, Donald now thinks he is a "very good man." Can you be any more of a two-faced coward? Maybe now he's finally realizing that for all the shit he talked about him, Obama didn't take anyone's guns, or incite any of any violence, or try to turn the country into a welfare state. He did what he was elected to do: be a slightly left of center establishment democrat, not satan. And all that talk about "draining the swamp" and getting rid of the crooked career politicians? Reince Priebus, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and a slew of others: all establishment conservative republicans, all career politicians. And yes, I'll say that again for those who thought they misread: Sarah Palin, Ms. Desperately in Need of a Lesson in Basic World Geography herself (and also a climate change denier), is on the short list for Secretary of the Interior of the United States of America. Absolute. Shitshow.

But now the election is over. There are no more nonsense rallies to hold. There are no more ires to stoke. The utter stupidity of his campaign has begun to reveal itself like a festering wound half-assedly concealed by a band-aid. And for what it's worth, Mr. Trump has not looked very enthusiastic about this new life he has embarked on. In his first interview after the election, he seemed to find himself in a situation that he has never found himself before: at a loss for words. It is my honest to goodness contention that we have elected a man who does not want to be president at all. Why would he? He has never had interest in being a public servant and he doesn't now. I'm sure that for all of the "wonderful" friends he's made, he's starting to experience how incredibly lonely the presidency is, and I don't think he likes it at all.

So yeah, I am very disappointed right now. But I genuinely hope for the sake of everyone involved that he doesn't fuck up too badly. Politics are what they are, and politicians are who they are, but I have faith in the majority of Americans who, like me, shook their head at every single thing that happened in this election. Most of us voted, some didn't. But we got up the day after the election and got back to the work of keeping what this country has always been: great. And in spite of all of his efforts, I don't think the Donald is going to change that.

"Nature," Beauty, and the Modern Concept of Dominance

In perhaps the most important book ever written, humans are given "dominion" over all other forms of life. "Subdue" my creation, said the Lord. The Bible's very first description of man's relationship with the rest of the world is not just one of separation, but one of dominion and unique authority. Like it or not, we are culturally bound to this book and what it has to say in more ways than we'd like to admit. According to the Bible, the rest of the world is here for us to do with whatever we darn well please. The lens of modern language presents "dominion" to us in that way. It has become synonymous with oppression, maltreatment, perhaps even hatred. This, I would argue, is at least partially because of our disillusionment with things like monarchies and the governing class itself during the last several centuries. Many people or groups of people who have been given "dominion" over the most important aspects of modern life have shirked their duties (selfish monarchs in Europe, corruption and the slave trade in Africa, hardcore isolationist /nationalist regimes in Asia, etc.), and as such have created a stigma around the idea of dominance. As anyone with even a passing interest in modern politics knows, there are few things more powerful than a disillusioned public.

Plenty of people distrust this kind of conventional religion and government because both seem to derive their authority from almost randomly bestowed dominance. There is no cause for their effects. The idea of a God giving man power over the world for no clear scientific reason seems foolish because nothing in the universe is just given, especially to humans, who seem determined to misuse it in every conceivable way. Matter and energy (and the ability to use them) don't just materialize out of thin air, at least through human efforts. Religious arguments over that statement aside, these things present us with perhaps the most important question one can ask, given the now widespread realization of our ecological imbalances: what should be our relationship with the things we call "nature?" Should we exploit our resources and trust science and technology to lead us down an ever more narrow path? Should we strive to preserve that which we deem "natural" and take steps to ensure that it remains almost entirely untouched by we silly humans? Should we make an effort to strike a bargain between our pragmatism and our love for aesthetics? Or are these seeing past a more basic, empirical view of our relationship to that which is not human? If it sounds broad and complicated, it is.

One of the best ways I can put my personal thoughts on this into context is to reference an artistic venture in which two Russian painters (Komar and Melamid, if you're curious) traveled to some of the most remote locations on the planet to ask all manner of people a simple question: what type of scene do you find beautiful? The artists polled people from small hamlets in Nepal to Manhattan, and understandably expected some diverse responses. Both artists admitted they were surprised and even a little disappointed by what they got. The results had many striking similarities: evidence of abundant plant and animal life, water, usually both in the fore and background, large trees with low branches (where one might be able to hide if one was being chased by a large predator). Perhaps most importantly, the scene was described from a place from which a large swath of land could be viewed. Sounds nice, right? What raises my eyebrow, just like it does for most people familiar with ancient history, is that this is precisely the same environment in which humans evolved on the African savannah and other places in Asia. To explain it more practically, this is the kind of landscape an ancient human would want to see if they were looking for everything essential to life: water, food, shelter, hiding places, etc. Quite a coincidence, no?

The question of what this really means for us today is a tough one. I could argue that this shows pretty compelling evidence to suggest that living the kind of hunter-gatherer lifestyle our ancient ancestor lived is the intersection of our practical and beautiful necessities. Studies like the one above show that humans are practically programmed to be drawn to these environments and to find them beautiful. While I'm sure it is true in some instances, I doubt many people look over a sea of office cubicles and says, "Ah, yes. This is the pinnacle of human prosperity." Monotony is the antithesis of the best aspects of human nature, and every major religious text (especially the Koran) describes gardens and scenic outdoor landscapes as their various versions of "paradise." With these things in mind, we are left with perhaps an even more imposing reality: we are almost completely removed not only from most of the landscapes that we crave, but also from the ability to live in them. So to whom could we possibly turn to for advice on how to live in such a way that gives credence to these natural tendencies?

As Americans, we're still culturally inclined to look at people like Native Americans and their way of life with the kind of pity we give wild animals. "It was quaint and maybe even dignified, but we know how to do it better." That was the attitude that drove the descendants of Europeans across this productive, bountiful land that we so luckily now inhabit. We pushed aside the people who had lived here for untold generations, and all but completely discounted the cultural knowledge they had accumulated regarding how to best use the land. Their bond to these beautiful places was sacred in a way few of those who overthrew them could likely understand. While there were of course variations from group to group in the ways in which they expressed it, the vast majority of the people who lived here before us saw no significant distinction between the land, the animals that inhabited it, and themselves. Maybe some don't, but when I read what they had to say about their connection with their land, only one thing comes to mind: beauty. The same kind of fantastic beauty one might expect from a painting of a wide-open savannah with an abundance of animals and trees and water.

While it is of little value to say so today, Native American knowledge on this topic would be invaluable in the modern world. These groups had built up a complex, nuanced, and effective way to use almost every area of America to provide for themselves, sometimes even in abundance. But they hadn't even heard of Jesus or the Christian God, and though modern archaeology has proven otherwise, they did not seem to operate as part of a complex, large scale society. Physically, they seemed similar to their European visitors, and they seemed capable of expressing themselves in a similar way. But what value could come of a people who were not Christian? Or technologically advanced? Or white? Without hesitation, I will say say that any "progress" that we as Americans have made in our time here has been a Faustian bargain that began when we told the caretakers of this land that their knowledge (and their lives) were without value.

The idea of "dominance" over nature takes on a much different role with Early North American ecological relationships in mind: Native Americans (and people who live like they do) see themselves as a part of what we refer to as the nebulous "nature," while we see ourselves as the masters of it. This mindset shows itself in many ways. Obviously, outright exploitation of nature is the most obvious example. Despite scientific consensuses pleading for an alternative, this is how most modern economies do business. Almost two hundred countries gave themselves a standing ovation at the Paris Climate "Agreement" last year because they all managed to not ignore a mountain of scientific evidence that any layperson with a computer (or an hour or two to spend outdoors) can plainly see. The axiom "Might makes right," in all of its applications, seems to have found perhaps its best traction in the relationship between man and the natural resources he uses to make his life easier. This is the strip mine, the oil rig, the sprawling parking lot that is never full. It is wastefulness, it is theft, it is stupidity incarnate. It is the almighty doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which of course owes its contemporary legacy to something called Lebensraum.

Our feelings of dominance show themselves in more subtle, ostensibly compassionate ways as well. National Parks are a fantastic, well-intentioned and beautiful thing. I visit them often. But in spite of the feelings they inspire in me as they do in many, I believe they are in effect pulling the wool over our eyes. Any park ranger will readily describe the amount of hands-on work they do to make sure that National Parks look as hands-off as possible. In fact, there are a great deal of resources that go into preserving the scenic beauty of the land so that we can look, but not touch. This fascination with "nature" as a separate thing that we think about and spend time in when we feel like it or get a chance to is manufactured reality, as evidenced in our natural history. How did Native Americans manage to be extremely hands-on with these places and not completely ruin them? Read some of Chief Luther Standing Bear's writings. Read a speech by Sitting Bull or Chief Seattle. It will come to you, as it has come to me.

The equal and opposite reactions to our exploitative compulsions are the active, vocal and sometimes aggressive groups which are preoccupied by the fear of man completely ruining earth as a source of life. These groups, again, are well-intentioned. But to suggest that we humans can "ruin" nature and make earth a permanent wasteland through our foolishness is ignoring almost as much scientific evidence as those who would see every coal-bearing mountain mined and every advantageously positioned river dammed. This kind of thinking both overestimates the effect humans have on the earth long-term and the tenacity of life on this planet. Natural processes survived (and continue to survive) through conditions and cataclysms that are practically impossible for modern humans to accurately understand. They will weather the pathetic nuisance of our foolishness.

I do believe that we humans have dominion over earth. At least for the short time that we are going to be here, we are the ultimate alpha predator. But even alpha predators are in some ways more susceptible to imbalances in nature than other, less imposing members of the natural world. Example: sharks don't eat some of the whale and put the rest away for later, they eat every bit they can and leave the rest to rot. Wasteful? One could say so. But nature has ways of making sure that nothing is ever wasted. The shark leaves some of the whale, the microbes eat the rest, the plankton eat the microbes, the krill eat the plankton, the whale eats the krill, the shark eats the whale. Billions of years of evolution has made processes like this (very oversimplified) one very efficient. Humans, however, either ignore or refute evidence that shows our dependence on the processes that give us life and relative comfort. Nature hands us a simple road map to how best to use our world, and we ask, "but where is the room for profit," or "the way that I interpret this other book tells me that if I play by its rules I'll live in paradise forever after I die." In our very natural efforts to improve our own lives in tangible, immediate ways, we've forgotten how to care for the most basic sources of life itself. What I think we've forgotten about "dominance" is that it implies grave, burdensome responsibility to ensure that everything under our dominion flourishes.

Historically, good rulers have understood this. They have seen themselves as servants to their constituents, or at least as humble equals. When our "Founding Fathers" decided to cast aside foreign dominance and govern themselves, it was fashionable for an elected leader to say that he was unequal to the task given to them. George Washington, perhaps the most revered figure in our nation's history, at least publicly felt that way. He said the highest office in a newly minted nation was bigger than him in every way. That could certainly be attributed to a gentleman's modesty, but can we seriously fathom a modern president openly admitting that he or she is unequal to their task? Certainly not. We want our leaders to be fearless and proud and strong far more than we want them to be wise and thoughtful. Our moral cynicism has lowered us to the level of an odd collection of people who are unsure of what we really want from our government until vain, self-absorbed people remind us. We've thrown off the yoke of out-of-touch monarchs, wandered aimlessly but forcefully for two hundred years, and now we seem to want them back. I promise you, if they have their way, "nature" will become something our children only read about in textbooks.

Let me be clear, I do not fear for nature. It has made its way without us, just as it will when we are gone. When I see people weep for a river turned orange by toxins or for a bird whose habitat is mulched, I think of another Bible verse: "Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves and your children." For me, our divine gift as a species is the keys to our own destruction. We have been given both the tools to end our existence and the wisdom to use those same tools wisely. Is a Luddite utopia of hunting and gathering ever going to be possible again? Not soon. Eight billion people living the same way a few million did millenia ago is not practical, or even feasible, but we still must learn from it. We must look to how our ancestors lived and accept it as part of the way we should live now. We have an invaluable intellectual endowment that was developed over tens of thousands of years that shows us what we need through what we instinctively find beautiful. Beauty is the world's way of telling humans to go after things, to long for things, to live a certain way. Of course, we teach ourselves to ignore things like that and call them impractical and foolhardy. We relagate our most fundamental and essential motivations into the bottom of our minds and the bottom of our cultural conscience. That is perhaps our gravest sin.

This all begs the question: now that we know what we're up against, are we "equal to our task?" There's plenty of evidence which points directly to our prehistoric past as the key to understanding how to exercise our dominion in a way we can sustain for the foreseeable future. We are born with the answer in our minds. The feeling of ecstasy that comes over us when we look out over a scenic vista isn't a culturally conditioned reaction to something we've been told is beautiful. We find it to be beautiful because it is and has always been our home. Likewise, we find a landfill or a clear-cut forest ugly because it shows us the opportunity we have been given to make the most of this world and how we have squandered it. Irresponsible leaders of our recent past squandered their opportunities to exercise responsible dominance, and we see ugliness. We see a parent beat their child when that child trusted his or her parents to use their dominance wisely, and we see ugliness. That is nature at work. There is nothing culturally distinct or relative about things like that. When we are at our best, we exercise dominion with fortitude and grace and a sense of massive responsibility for the things whose care we are entrusted with. It has always been that way, and it always will be.

So what do I learn from "nature?" I know you're not asking, but I will tell you anyway. I learn how to be a person with one eye to the past, one eye on the present, and one eye to the future. Perhaps my feelings on this subject would be more clear if I could give a pivitol moment for when that was made clear to me, but I do not have one. It's been a gradual, relationship with things outside of modern life. Every time I take a break from things and "wash my spirit clean" in the forest, I get more satisfaction from it. Perhaps I am not in a very advantageous position to talk to other people about the power of what we call nature because I have always lived in it. I will let those who read this judge that. But I have found that the best parts of what it is to be a human are reflected in the places where we became human. "Nature" is patient, but it does not waste time. It does not wage war. It does nothing out of spite or fear of an uncertain future. It invites us to come and live from it as well as in it. It poses dangers and sometimes mortal threats, but it offers priceless rewards if they are met with steady, thoughtful action. It is the both the greatest library and the greatest church ever created. It shows us what unadulterated joy is possible when we listen to it and treat it as we would family, and it shows us what harm it can inflict when we use our dominance selfishly and without forethought. And yes, it will one day show us that we need it far, far more that it needs us. When you cut a limb from a tree, it retaliates by growing another. It's difficult for us to understand that kind of patience, but it is the closest thing we have to a tangible example of a truly balanced and fruitful existence. At its core, "nature" is where I see the kind of beauty I always have and always will seek and admire. It's where I talk to God, and where he talks back.

Race and American Justice

Two summers ago, I was working with a landscaping company in Jackson, New Jersey, a few miles from the shore. Being in the sun for ten hours a day had turned my skin probably about as brown as it can get. As one may or may not assume, most of my coworkers were from central America, mostly Mexico. They were a great group of guys who loved to joke around and only knew three words of English: fuck, shit, and pussy. On a pretty typical day of work (ninety degrees in the shade), a few of us were driving from one spot to another the way we usually did, which was sitting in the back of a pickup with our equipment. This is, of course, illegal in the state of New Jersey, and we got pulled over. The officer opened up the tailgate and said, "Let's go, fellas. I need to see some papers." While my coworkers went to the cab of the truck and got their working papers, I stayed in the bed and said to the officer, "I'm actually a citizen, sir." He closed his eyes, nodded, motioned for me to get out, and said, "Yeah, ok bud. Let's go." He didn't believe me. I said to him in my completely accent-free voice, "Sir, I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I don't have working papers. I'm a citizen and I was born here." It wasn't until I produced my driver's license that the officer realized that I was telling the truth. He was clearly embarrassed, and some of my coworkers were already giggling at him. As he gathered all of our documents, we could tell the officer was still suspicious of me. He looked at me and said, "You ok, pal? You got a far-off look in your eye. You're not gonna run on me, are you?" Completely taken aback, I said, "again, I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I have absolutely no reason to run." He probably thought I had a warrant. He wasn't trying to help me out by letting me admit to something before he found out, he was baiting me into saying something incriminating. He was flustered and probably a little surprised when he found out I had a clean record. When her returned from his squad car, he of course tried to make nice and said I "looked much better now." I didn't buy it and I let him know as much. From that day on, my coworkers called me "mike the mexican gringo."

In light of recent events, not a terribly dramatic story. But it was my first up-close and personal encounter with what is commonly referred to as a "bad cop." This and stories like it are just tiny windows into the precarious intersection of race and justice in America. Historically, law enforcement and minority groups don't have a very strong track record of working well together, especially not for long periods of time. Add to that several crippling cycles of poverty and crime in American communities that are most often in contact with law enforcement. Mix in some very, very bad cops doing very, very bad things and the technology to record it all in high definition, and you have yourself the makings of a nice little shitstorm. Plenty of other things are at play, but those are the ones that I see as the long-term issues that have been swept under the rug for about a hundred years too long. It may sound dramatic, but I think what we are experiencing is one of those times in our national history when we will be able to either look back and say, "it may not have been perfect, but the right things were addressed and acted upon," or "I wish we had done something about that earlier, because now its ten times worse."

I don't know that I totally agree with the "police forces should look like the communities they police" idea. If we're going to make racial bias a non-factor in policing, it shouldn't play a roll in deciding who gets to be a police officer. What matters more is that police understand the communities they protect, because I think it's clear that too many of them don't. As someone who has grown up in the woods, I can't speak very authoritatively about inner-city culture. However, I am familiar with the hypermasculinity and the need to exert control over people in a very basic way that are facts of life in most American cities. In "urban" areas, gangs and groups like gangs occupy most of the time and resources of police forces, so police are best trained to deal with those sorts of people. Tactics for dealing with gangs and tactics for dealing with someone selling cigarettes illegally are obviously different. But when you've been primarily trained to deal with what I will call domestic terrorists, lines blur. It's in the situations where that kind of force is not needed that the cops lacking in self-control tend to outshine those who are not. Policemen are human beings, and in stressful situations, reasoning skills give way to primal fears and deeply entrenched biases. Split second decisions are made, bang bang, an innocent person dies.

Poverty is of course a part of all of this. We all know the statistical economic disparities between white Americans and minority groups, and the link between poverty and crime is a real one. As people slip further into poverty, they are more likely to commit crimes (please note: for those of us who know where our next meal is coming from, it's very easy to say "just obey laws and police won't bother you"). The various factors making American prisons extremely profitable makes judges just a smidge more likely to dish out unreasonable sentences. This takes fathers and sons out of communities that need them and puts them into a system that makes them violent. They return from prison angry, hardened, and more likely to commit crimes. They commit another crime, they go back to jail. What's more, the young people in these communities look up to these criminals because they don't back down to cops, which fosters a culture of disobedience that terrifies "law and order" politicians. That's how the "American System" has, perhaps without anyone really realizing it, made crime in inner cities profitable. It has incentivized cyclical incarceration, and that is something that needs to be reformed YESTERDAY if we're even going to pretend that preventing crime is more important than making money.

It goes without saying that bad cops constitute a fraction of all cops. I hope we all understand that that fact doesn't dispense us from the need to root out bad cops, or distracts us from the fact that just one bad cop can do a boatload of damage. But I digress. One of the most important things we can take away from the last several weeks is that bad cops have been slow to realize that almost everyone under their jurisdiction owns a phone that can take video. It's not impossible, but it's pretty darn difficult to take a video out of context. It's right there in front of you. A person on the ground without a gun being shot by a person with a gun. I have a hard time believing that there is a police force in the world which, if it were asked publicly, would tell you that killing an unarmed and/or subdued person is the correct course of action in virtually any situation. Of course the American judicial system moves about as slow as it possibly can without stopping on these matters, so the question of whether or not videos like the ones seen in Baton Rouge will be admissible court is probably in question. Which is of course complete fucking nonsense, but laws are laws, even the stupid ones. However, these types of occurrences have to make even the most ardent "blue lives matter" folks wonder: exactly can police officers NOT do without even being indicted? If the answer isn't shooting a defenseless man in the head point-blank, I can honestly say I don't know what is.

 I don't think anyone can say within reason that racism is not a part of America, and to say that racial bias plays no part in the American justice system is nonsense, to put it politely. It is an unfortunate part of our culture, and I would say that ignoring it is large part of our culture as well. We all want to think that since the important pieces of paper say that discrimination is illegal, it doesn't happen, and it certainly can't be systemic in scale. Whether we want it to be or not, it is an indelible part of our national conscience. It is the stain that will never, ever wash away. What is white privilege, you ask? It's the privilege of knowing that entire generations of your family were never owned by other Americans. If your country had to fight a war in order to change that, I suspect you'd have some mixed feelings about the desire to make things like the good ol' days. I can only speak for what I have seen. My sisters and I grew up in an relatively diverse place, and having preconceived notions about people based on their race was simply not part of our upbringing. I don't think any of us really quite understand it, even to this day. What I have seen, however, is that it is still an integral part of many of my peers' childhoods. It's worth noting that that day a few summers ago wasn't the first time I had been called Mexican: in high school, some of my cheekier classmates called me "The Mexican," which was of course the pinnacle of humor in a lilly-white catholic school.

I suppose the best-case scenario that I see from this crap going forward is that we make it our solemn duty to make sure prejudice and contrived biases are not a part of our childrens' world. I hope they see these events one day and they know that they are the worst that we have to offer as a species. I hope that they see these events and say, "Why would someone do that? It doesn't make any sense." Or better yet, "I've never seen something like that." For me, it has a become a question of national maturity. It's easy enough to say "black/blue/all lives matter," but it requires uncommon determination and (gasp) trust in one another to make those words something other than a post-tragedy battle cry. In a place where individuality and personal accountability are preached, we can't push aside our responsibility to make our childrens' lives more just. Because I promise you they are the ones who will suffer the consequences of our foot-dragging. They will be the ones who will have to clean up our mess when we were well within our means to clean it up ourselves. And if that doesn't motivate us to be better every single day and not just for a few days after a national outrage, I don't think anything will.

Brexit

I don't pretend to be an expert on what the fudge is going on in Britain right now, but from what I've been hearing through my trusty source on anything involving European news (the BBC), I'm both surprised and a bit troubled by the decision handed down by our friends across the pond today. Most of what I've heard from "leavers" is pretty standard conservative stuff: we want to be free to operate our economy and govern without being under the thumb of the EU. Understandable.

HOWEVER. The not-so-suble undertone of what I've heard speaks to some eyebrow-raising lines of thought. A common thread is this tired idea that foreign economic influence and even (gasp) immigration are bad for a country's economy. The only way those two things are bad is if the folks pushing the buttons don't want to make potentially risky adaptations to their business or to the nation's social structure. In my little brain, saying foreign business shouldn't be allowed to influence the British economy because it could "hurt British businesses" is akin to saying no one should ever exercise because they might pull a muscle. If anyone really wants to subscribe to a market economy and make it "effective," competition is a good thing - even if it comes from another country.

And as for immigration, I speak from experience when I say migrant workers generally work their asses off. If a terrorist wants to do bad shit in your neighborhood, not allowing him or her to become a citizen WILL NOT STOP THEM great glad we cleared that up.

Bottom line: economic and social isolationism covered in a thin layer of nationalism went south pretty darn fast the last time Europe gave it a shot (see: WWII). The panic will wear off soon enough, but this trend towards fearmongering and short-sightedness in Europe is unsettling. For me, the EU is a recognition of how interpedentent European nations are in virtually every way, and I hope the rest of Europe has the balls to keep it together and see past this.

Orlando

That's right, folks. We find ourselves once again at the foot of the giant, steaming mountain of horseshit that is violence against innocent, unarmed people. Will it slam the wedge of mistrust even deeper between us? Almost certainly. Will sensible, elevated and honest discussions about the proper course of action to prevent things like this capture our national attention for a millisecond? Unlikely. Will politicians use it to convert greif and sorrow for the victims into fuel for their bullshit-spewing campaigns? I'd imagine so. The prospects for a productive reaction to fifty peoples' deaths that properly honors their memories are not good. The fact that most if not all of the people killed were homosexual makes things vastly more complicated, because this is America and gay people are and always have been looked at as second-class citizens here. You can bet your sweet behind that there will be plenty of right-wing "Christian" assholes awkwardly applauding the actions of a man who (from what has been gathered by the news folks thus far) aligned himself with Islamic extremist groups. Gay people have the singular pleasure of being aggresively hated by most major faiths and social ideologies in America. I suspect there are very few places where they feel completely safe, and even fewer after today. I won't get into the psychological implications of homophobia, because it is not my field. I can only speak for what I see and hear from "normal" people about their feelings towards gay people, which usually involves a giant scoop of hypocrisy and at least a dash of latent homosexuality.

I guess it is fair to start by saying that Muslims are no longer "coming" to America because they're already here. Fun Fact: Henry Ford, the most American of Americans, was born in a city called Dearborn, Michigan. A few years ago, Dearborn became the largest city in the country to have a majority of Arab-Americans as part of its city council. That's right: four of the people running Henry Ford's home town are of Arab decent, and two of them are Shiite Muslims. In fact, 40% of Dearborn's 100,000 residents are of Arab decent. Go head and google "Dearborn, Michigan." The second suggested search is "dearborn michigan sharia law." Muslims: they are here, they are pretty normal, and a lot of Americans think they want all women to wear burquas. This bastard who shot up a club full of unarmed people was confused, angry and scared, in no particular order. Those attributes were the driving forces in his life, perhaps followed distantly by Islam. He aligned himself with the Islamic State because they are some hardcore evil pieces of shit who have achieved what he really wanted, which was international attention. If you want to understand Islam, open a Koran and see how many times you read the word "compassion" before you see a word even alluding to violence. We are dealing with a vocal, angry minority who are counting on our pedjudices for their survival. That's it.

As easy as it can be to blame "The Media" for violence like this, I honestly can't bring myself to do so. To my knowledge, no one has ever been forced to watch Fox News or CNN or The 700 Club against their will. My hippy heart hurts to say so, but it's a shallow argument. Fox will dive right into the Islamaphobic, homophobic cesspool created by this event and wallow in it until it finally dries up and they are forced to move to another. As I know the sun will rise tomorrow, I know that is going to happen. HOWEVER. Fox would not spend every moment of their "news" coverage pushing their warped take on reality if they didn't know that there a whole bunch of people who will eat that shit right up. This includes people who actually agree with them and those who can't seem to look away from the TV (because they think Fox is doing the work of satan). Fox doesn't care. It's a dirty, cheap, soulless way to go about making a buck. If there exists any moral obligation to reach for something higher than profits and ratings, Fox and every other major media outlet ignores it. But then whose fault is it?! Yours, mine and everybody's. Every time we turn on the TV, or open a magazine, or read an online article, we cast a vote for what we want to immerse our minds in. I don't think we've collectively accepted our responsibility to interact peacefully and respectfully with each other, and blaming media outlets for taking advantage of that just means we don't want that kind of responsibility. But that's just my take on that.

I am not gay. I don't do nightclubs. I sort of abhor city life in general. I do not assume so, but I would wager that I don't have a whole lot in common with most of the people who died in Orlando yesterday. Yet somehow I manage to keep myself from shooting them. Or even contemplate shooting them. Or even having any discernable urge to harm them. I don't pretend to know what it's like to be homosexual in the United States, but I know what it is like to feel hated and completely powerless for reasons I cannot control, which I suppose on some level is similar. Conversely, I don't pretend to know what it's like to have experienced an environment that would condition me to hate people for any reason, let alone ones that don't really affect me. For terrorists, we all threaten their way of life simply by living. We are all combatants in wars that they have created in their minds, and the only way to make their war real is to harm us. That is a difficult weight to carry regardless of how we feel about it. All that we, the sensible inhabitants of earth must do to stop this nonsense from happening again is this: don't shoot each other. Time will wash away the blood and the tears, and the hatred too. Trust me on that. It's just going to take a lot of two things most of us don't have a ton of: patience and self-control.

Bernie Sanders

Oh, Bernie. He has finally descended from the giant hippy reservation that is Vermont to deliver us from the boiling cesspool that is our current political and social situation. I exaggerate, but I will admit that for me, Mr. Sanders has inspired a bit of hope in a realm in which I do not often find hope: politics. He seems to say and do things that speak to our better emotions. He uses words like "love" and "compassion" regularly when cutesy stuff like that loses airtime to words like "winning" and "greatness." He has more individual campaign donors than any American presidential candidate in history. He has a record stretching back to the 60's to back up his campaign goals. He's even got something resembling a sense of humor, which I was beginning to think was against some kind of unwritten rule in our government. So why is he still sort of a long shot? Why is every conservative and non-radical liberal pundit in America anxiously awaiting his campaign's collapse? Is his disheveled appearance and Brooklyn twang really that big of a turn-off? Is his insistence on debating issues and not whose spouse is uglier putting us to sleep? Or does he represent international values that a lot of Americans find offensive because they are not explicit "American" values? The answer, like most things, is more complicated than we'd like to admit. If nothing else, Bernie Sanders is one of the more interesting personalities that "personality politics" has ever conceived, and he has taken the American people to task on their pleas for more peaceful and understanding leadership.

Guns seem to be an issue where Mr. Sanders' position doesn't really connect with any particular group, including his supporters. Despite his liberal credentials, he's consistently refused to hold gun manufacturers accountable for violence perpetrated using their products. I have to agree with him on this. It's a matter of principles, which from what I have seen Mr. Sanders seems to know a thing or two about. If we are to blame gun makers for the terrible things people do with guns, it sets a very vague and easily construed precedent for other manufacturers. Do we blame soft drink companies for making us fat? Do we blame car companies for vehicular homicides? Sounds contrived or far-fetched, maybe even like a veiled attempt to push the NRA's agenda, but it's true. Bernie is from a rural state that takes its guns seriously, and gun control legislation has made virtually no progress there while Bernie has been in office. Yet Vermont has the lowest gun-related homicide rate in the country. I understand perfectly that this is a sensitive, emotional area for a lot of people, and as such hasty decisions are almost justified. But I take issue with the Clinton campaign turning the families of gun violence victims into a political sideshow. While I'm sure these families are participating willingly, they're being used. Saying Bernie is soft on guns and lumping him in with the NRA is a cheap way of sidestepping the principle upon which he bases his opinion. To say that he is pandering to gun owners is silly because (excuse my generalization) most American gun-lovers aren't going to vote for Bernie Sanders regardless of his position on guns. The NRA hates him, regardless of what Mrs. Clinton says. From what I've seen and heard, he feels the problems we've had involving guns is a cultural problem and that guns are a part of that culture, not the center of it. Makes sense to me.

Senators Sanders' take on money in politics is really the shtick of his campaign, and his commitment to keeping it at the top of his agenda has probably turned some people off. It's very easy to that he sounds like a shallow, single-issue candidate because he talks about it the same damn way every time. It seems canned because we've heard it so many times. Or maybe we're just so accustomed to candidates' obsession with making their platform SOUND good instead of actually BEING good that Sanders comes off as bit dry and monotone (and a little bit weird) when he talks about these things. Maybe. I personally appreciate Mr. Sanders commitment to at least putting this part of American politics in the spotlight. Call it my drinking of the liberal kool-aid if you will, but large corporations have a strangle-hold on American politics and the American economy, and it's because we let them. Every time we eat at McDonalds or buy junk from Wal-Mart, we cast a vote that says we're ok with being dependent on the people that run McDonalds and Wal-Mart. The historic amount of grass-roots support Sanders has generated has told me that at the very least a lot of people are opening their ears to a different kind of economic and political dynamic that isn't dependent on short-sighted billionaires who would put every single American in the gutter if they thought it would make them even a little bit richer.

I have to address Bernie's primary opponent on this topic, because of all the pandering junk she spews, her strange relationship with corporate interests and the nonsense that is PACs and superPACs might hit me the hardest. Money corrupts, and this notion that Clinton is somehow insulated from that is campaign spin, period. Case in point: the Glass-Steagall Act was put in place after the stock market crash of 1929 to prevent banks from doing stupid things like blending investment and commercial banking. The act was repealed in 1998, and the banking scams that followed as a result were the principle cause of the housing collapse in 2008. You can look it up. Why hasn't Mrs. Clinton committed to replacing Glass-Steagall, or even admitted that repealing it was kind of a shitty idea? Two possible factors: the campaign contributions she gets from megabanks that profited from it being repealed, or because Mr. Clinton was the one who repealed it when he was president. One makes her look like a traitor to her contributors, the other makes her look like a bad wife. Neither is good enough for me. Again, she seems more concerned with making her platform SOUND good rather than actually making it good.

Many of Mr. Sanders' most devoted supporters have probably damaged his campaign. I think we all know who I'm talking about. White guys about my age or younger who drive mom and dad's new subaru to a party school and wear khaki shorts and collared short-sleeved shirts and backwards hats and colorful sunglasses. Bernie Bros. Just as many look at Donald Trump's campaign and just see his "typical" supporter (I won't go there), plenty of people see Bernie's campaign as a ruse that only appeals to idealistic college freshmen with no real responsibilities. That's how conservative commentators frame him. It pains me to say so, but that's fair. I know plenty of Bernie Bros and Bro-ettes. In fact I probably come off as one from time to time. I'd say a lot of these folks I call peers are, (like Bernie) very well-meaning, but they miss the point of a moral presidential campaign and will vote for him because he comes off as the cool grandpa. Regardless of what they tell you their reasons are, some like him because he'll legalize pot, or because they think the way he uses his hands to talk is funny, or because they think he'll make college free. The moral and ethical gold of what he's trying to bring to the White House gets lost in the crud of his offbeat cultural identity, which is much easier to understand and get behind. Yes, he appeals to the young and restless. But he is urging us towards peace and understanding instead of chest-beating and manipulation, and I find that admirable.

I am not crazy about Mr. Sanders' economic position, even though I believe it would work. What I believe Bernie has been trying to tell all of us with his "top one percent of the top one percent" line is that it's really difficult to fathom the amount of money that is in the hands of a couple hundred people in this country when EVERYONE else sees success as a salary in the $70,000-$100,000 range. There are plenty of economic models that will show you the real disparity of income in the United States. None of them paint a rosy picture for a hard-working person. And the fact that a lot of these top-one-percenters pay a pittance (if anything) in taxes is infuriating, but usually perfectly legal. Will closing tax loopholes just encourage the search for others? Of course. But that isn't a reason to not close them. Will raising taxes significantly on the wealthy take incentive away from being rich? No, not really. It's the scale of money that is a barrier to most peoples' understanding of Bernie's plan. It's staggering. Even at a time when billions of dollars are thrown around in our government like it's god-damned monopoly money, you better believe if a few hundred of the richest people in America payed what the rest of us pay in taxes, that federal deficit everyone's talking about would be a whole lot more manageable, if not gone entirely.

My issue comes, surprisingly, on his principles. Sanders has proposed funding public college education through a tax on risky stock market maneuvers. I don't like that. As a public college student, I don't want ass hole people doing ass hole things with money to be how my education is paid for. It creates a conflict of interests that encourages ass hole things. In essence, public college students would be cheering every time a credit default swap goes down. Judging by how he talks about Wall Street, that's not what Bernie wants. It's not what I want. I agree that if we are to call ourselves a democracy, money should not be a barrier to quality education at any level. I don't pretend to have a better plan than the one Mr. Sanders has put forward, but I think if any of his proposals are ill-concieved, it's this one. It would probably work, at least in the short-term. It's economically feasible and the idea that there isn't enough money to make it work is probably false. But it does not fall under what I would consider a "moral economy," which Senator Sanders and his pal Pope Francis talk so much about.

Of course as a senator who lacks a great deal of foreign policy experience, Mr. Sanders has been questioned quite a bit regarding his readiness in this area. He has consistently voted against the various international clusterfucks we've gotten involved in during his time in the senate, and it's perfectly fair to have concerns about what he will do with the reins of the most powerful military in the world. This is where I think Bernie necessarily breaks from his morals. He says "we must crush ISIS," but Bernie doesn't want to crush ISIS. He doesn't want to smoke a peace pipe with them either. He wants to see the people who are directly affected by ISIS every day (poor, marginalized people in Middle Eastern counties with very weak governments) to be able to defend themselves. Which is what I think is right and what I think should happen. The coalition of nations that he speaks of in the Middle East has much more at stake in that fight, despite republicans' attempts to rationalize their Islamic boogeyman bullshit. But not many people in America (and even fewer in the military) like even the hint that we're having our battles fought for us. They especially don't like seeing a shiny new 14 billion dollar aircraft carrier on the sidelines when it could be sending planes to do cool American stuff in places very, very far away from America. It's a fine line Bernie must walk. He's the doviest of the doves, and most of our legislators are hawks. Will he risk continuing or escalating these conflicts if his military advisors think it's necessary? We as Americans pride ourselves on not really giving a flying what the rest of the world does or says or thinks of us, but Sanders consistently ranks as the favorite among foreigners and American voters abroad. Maybe because they think Bernie will at least think twice before bombing the bejesus out of some remote village or impoverished city neighborhood?

He is a fascinating man. He is a good man. He's not afraid to be ridiculed or criticized for doing what he feels is right. He is committed to peace and sustainability, and his record leads me to believe that he will continue to be. He doesn't comb his hair. For what the office of President of the United States represents, that's enough for my vote. But the question I and quite a few of my peers have faced in this election cycle is: does anyone really care how I vote? The Republican National Committee's position on their primary system becomes more and more fluid as their anti-establishment front runner barrels hair-first into the convention. The Democrats, however, appear to be sticking to their guns (no pun intended). Their system of picking a nominee is tired and undemocratic, and it is designed to push the candidate that the party honchos think will support their agenda, not the one who will lead the country best. Bernie is rocking the boat at a time when the Democratic party doesn't think the boat needs to be rocked. Hillary is the heir apparent to the throne made by Obama, and Bernie is the weird step child trying to steal it. Hillary, to me, is not the antichrist. She's just completely and utterly fake. She'll ride Obama's coattails when it's convenient for her, throw him under the bus when its not, and give canned, shallow, legalistic responses the rest of the time. If we want the rest of the world to take us seriously, Bernie Sanders will be living in the White House this time next year. But therein lies the most American of questions: do we care if the rest of the world takes us seriously? Can it ever take us seriously again when we're letting a reality television star make legitimate waves in our national politics? It'll be tough. Bernie isn't perfect, but he has gone about his senetorial career the right way, he has gone about his campaign the right way, and I'm tempted to believe he will go about his presidency the right way. He isn't perfect, but he has the vision and the audacity to make compassion and equality the axis upon which he and his campaign spin, and that's the kind of leader I can respect and trust.

Donald Trump

Remember that time when a multi-billionaire convinced much of poor America that his leadership was the solution to their problems? Remember when that same guy glazed over his lengthy list of bankruptcies, questionable business ventures and outright scams and touted his business acumen to the nation? Remember when that same guy, in an era of unavoidable and often extremely beneficial exchanging of cultures and values, convinced a vast number of American citizens (themselves almost entirely recent decendants of immigrants) that their righteous discontent was the product of foreign infiltration? You might even remember when he got roped into asinine feuds with debate moderators and politicians, and got so pissed that he bragged about his penis size on national prime-time television. Remember when he even played footsie with domestic racist extremist groups while simultaneously telling Americans that he would win the majority of black and Latino voters? And he had the stones to call himself presidential material? Jesus Christ, what a god damned shit show that was.  

Yes. It is very easy to be cynical about Donald Trump. And yes, I hope what I wrote above proves to be prophetic, i.e. I hope he does not get much farther in this election. However, it is this cynicism and anticipation of ruin that has helped push Mr. Trump farther into his political career than even he probably expected. But why should he be taken serious? Why do I even feel compelled to write this right now? He looks and sounds more ridiculous by the day. He says things and makes decisions one would expect from a fussy toddler. He is constantly changing his positions to quietly cover the ill-conceived comments he made publicly only weeks or even days earlier. He is asking to be insulted and discredited. And his "fans," because I really don't believe he has a constituency in the traditional sense of the word, absolutely love it. And if that all sounds a little silly to you, just ask someone from another country what they think of all this. John Oliver, the British late-night comedy show host, calls our current presidential race the "Clowntown Fuck-the-World Shitshow 2016." 

Like most historically pivotal moments, the scene was set for this drama long before the leading lady arrived. As what I will call a history/social studies "person," I will tell you that the comparisons made between Trump's rise to prominence and those of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini are not based in fantasy. You needn't be a history/social studies person to understand that. The viral pictures and memes are out there. They are not all well-presented, and I am sure some of them are outright inaccurate. But upon fairly basic examination, they point out fairly basic similarities. Folks like Mussolini and Hitler are the modern versions of "strongmen:" they feed off of a country's disgruntled, disenfranchised citizens who feel left out politically and economically and don't quite know who to blame. These leaders' obsession with winning just shows that they care very little about the means by which they “win.” No serious political figure would run for leadership of such a country on the basis of "we're in deep trouble because you're all sort of uneducated and you don't work hard enough." In fact, the opposite platform usually gains support: "it's everyone else's fault that you feel like you have no control over your life." Immigrants, particularly those of unusual religious persuasions, usually get the ass-end of this rhetoric. This is because they are easy targets, period (see: Jews and gypsies in Nazi Germany). 

This is natural. We humans do not like to be told that we have to work harder or think harder. If we enjoyed work, physical or otherwise, we would have never invented even the most basic tools and machines. But this implies that we don't really want to be compassionate to other people, because that requires us to understand their perspectives and struggles. And that's hard. It's even harder when you just got your ass kicked in a war you started (that's Germany) or are getting your ass kicked in a economic system you invented (that's us and China). In comes a tough, shit-talking, guns a-blazin' type who (on paper) has achieved success and knows what he's talking about. He tells the "common folk" that they just have to get rid of illegals, or Jews, or "untermensch," and things will be peachy. History tells us that this leads to things being very not peachy (see: 60 million people dead). If Mr. Trump seems docile compared to Hitler now, take into consideration that Hitler was elected during a time of serious political splintering in a chaotic post-WWI Germany. 

On to the financial side of things. I will make a blanket statement that may or may not ruffle feathers, but anyone in the world who has almost seven billion dollars in assets is probably a very dishonest person. And when I say dishonest, I don't mean they necessarily tell lies. I mean they only tell the truths they want others to hear. It is how business is done in the modern economy, and one could argue it is how business has been done since "business" became a thing. No one really makes money, let alone becomes fabulously rich, by giving customers all the facts (this should conjure up visions of the used car salesman telling you the interior of your new car was just detailed when the transmission is shot). One could say Trump is marketing himself as "the president we never knew we wanted." Recent revelations into Mr. Trump's failed business ventures show he wasn't even all that great at hiding his omissions of facts. He just did it so many times and in so many ways that he eventually had enough money to cover things like a fake university and the bankruptcy of a large casino in Atlantic City. 

However, any billionaire knows how to sell things. They do this very well, and they will do whatever they have to do to appeal to the largest possible customer base possible. That is what is taught in every business class in every college in America (if it sounds sleazy and impersonal, it's because it is). Where Trump and conservatives like him lose their footing is at a simple and irrefutable truth about economics: you cannot recreate the same market conditions twice, let alone in different decades. Any political candidate or hobo on the street who says he wishes things were "like the good old days" (when Ronald Reagan was president) does not understand that market conditions, just like everything else, are always changing and are never the same twice. Trump has not had a come-to-Jesus moment and suddenly recognizes the plight of the working man. He has not taken up the torch of American conservativism and wants it to flourish again. I honestly do not think he gives a flying you-know-what if he makes America "great again." America has been great for Donald Trump, and he wants to keep it that way. That's it. That's the way his mind works. Maybe a lot of people like that. I don't. 

As an American who is still of military age (draftable), the title of "Commander in Chief" of the armed forces is something I can honestly say distrubs me when I imagine it before Donald Trump's name. As I discussed with my mother recently, the moment that I began to really see Mr. Trump as a man unfit for leadership, let alone political leadership, came in a fairly early televised debate when he was asked a question regarding the "triad" of the United States nuclear arsenal, specifically which part of the triad would he consider most in need of an upgrade. This "triad" refers to nuclear weapons that can be fired from submarines, aircraft, and silos on land. As a geek, I kind of knew that. Donald Trump did not have the slightest fucking idea what that question even meant, let alone what his answer to it would be. He proceeded to dance around with the words of the question, throwing in a few phrases that made it sound as though he knew how important man's most powerful creation was. He did not answer the question. He did not address the basic premise of the question. He did not even have a firm grasp on what the question was asking. 

What troubles me the most about this is not that he knew very little about nuclear weapons. I doubt any president since Truman had a very clear understanding of how they even worked. What absolutely infuriates me is that he did not take the two minutes necessary to read the wikipedia intro about American nuclear weapons policies which would have allowed him to not sound like a complete ass when asked about it. He decided he was going to wing it on a question about a technology that has shaped the world we live in, particularly with regards to military tactics. That goes beyond simple ignorance into the dangerous territory of conscious negligence. Not very god damned presidential. If he thinks I will be willing to take another person's life because he does not even have a remote idea of what he is doing, excuse me but he can quite literally fuck himself. For his part, Marco Rubio actually had a pretty cogent answer to that particular question. 

I will not even waste much time addressing the childish mud-slinging between candidates that has gained some steam recently. While Donald has certainly proven himself to be a master in this area, his nonsense has revealed which candidates are just desperately clinging to their hopes of actual political success and don’t have Americans’ best interests in mind or at heart. Which of course is all of them. Except maybe for Bob Kasich he's actually been pretty chill about it. 

As a categorically cynical and sarcastic person, it’s tough to not throw my hands up at this entire process. The fact that men like Donald Trump or even the pandering, canned-response Canadian robot known to humans as Ted Cruz can gain a legitimate following in a “free, well-educated” country like ours is, in a word, disappointing. The more facts, figures, historical comparisons, and plain common sense one throws in the direction of people who support these candidates and their ideologies, the more they push back. According to Facebook, some of this is just to “piss off their liberal friends.” Maybe so. I will argue that at least some of it has to do with a number of our fellow citizens that have not quite come to grips with the fact that the guy calling the shots in the white house has black skin. They are entitled to that mindset. Donald Trump, or at least the persona he has occupied for the last year or so, is scared of all this. I can say this because he has behaved the way any animal behaves when it is scared: it goes out of its way to show everyone how incredibly not scared it is. Most of his “huge” base of support is scared too. They’re scared of what will happen if their cities and towns are controlled by Muslims and Mexicans because they have not taken the time to understand a Muslim or a Mexican, and as such they lump them all in with what they see on TV: generally not the most flattering context for foreigners.

I can only say that there is certainly a place for conservative politics and conservative social values. Losing sight of fundamental, unifying principles has gotten us into a bit of an ideological quagmire as a nation. But denying that things are changing and will continue to change is absolutely bananas, and anyone who tells you that they can change things back to the way they were is a.) a wizard, or b.) a liar. Our grandparents did not die thousands of miles away from home fighting fascism for that garbage. Trump will not make America “great again.” He is saying that because he thinks if he gives us easy slogans, easy talking points, and easy solutions to easy problems, we will buy what he’s selling. He thinks things like making an effort to be compassionate and understanding are a little too hard for us. You could say he’s banking on it. Thus far, he hasn’t been very far off the mark.

I risk losing my label as a cynic when I say that I have inexhaustible faith in our ability to be compassionate towards one another. There is nothing inefficient or unrealistic or "unelectable" about recognizing our common bonds and finding joy in them. I would go so far as to say it's very pragmatic. I believe that we will figure it out. But we need to do better.