The Naked Truth

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As my regular readers know, I’m struggling. The shock is palpable. Even over a month and a half later, I still keep going over in my head the many, many reasons why Trump can’t be elected and wake up in a cold sweat with anything but visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. I recently saw a video on YouTube that made the point: with the millions of smart, qualified Americans our system decided that only someone like Donald Trump was able to lead us? (That is, if Mr. Putin didn’t cast a few votes himself. It might be understandable if he was Putin’s choice.) I have trouble coping with the lack of transparency. It’s like opaque cellophane. Except when it comes to women. Then the motives are perfectly obvious.

It bothers me that we’ve lost our dignity. I never thought it’d be possible to find the first lady naked on the internet. Some might argue that this is progress, but government is, and always has been, about decorum. It’s pretty hard to maintain that your king is a god when you see him sitting on the toilet. We like to believe our rulers are somehow better than us. We’re in trouble when they start believing that. There are those that say “quit your whining, pull up your socks, and accept it.” The naked truth is that I bought into the illusion that America couldn’t sink so low. There are lots of qualified Republicans out there. To have a man that makes Ronald Reagan look smart in charge is too frightening to accept, however. Let me have my neuroses. They’re all I’ve got left.

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The whiplash is the thing. Just three presidents ago the nation was up in arms about Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes. It was such an outrage that the same people who voted for a naked first lady wanted to impeach him. My neck hurts from my head swiveling so much. Ladybird Johnson this is not. Let alone Eleanor Roosevelt. I’m not whining, I just want a solid spot to place my feet. Never before has the fact that we’re spinning at 1,040.4 miles per hour felt more real. What do we want as a nation? It isn’t going back to the fifties—that much is clear. You couldn’t even show a toilet in the movies back then. No, we’ve gone beyond Psycho’s flushing scene and right into the shower with its curtain ripped back. And yes, like Janet Leigh, we’re struggling for our life.

Presidential Race

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RooseveltsMy wife and I have been working our way through Ken Burns’ documentary, The Roosevelts. At first, it took a little persuading on my wife’s part. Of course I thought Teddy Roosevelt was an interesting character, and FDR may have been the last true Democrat to inhabit the Oval Office, but they were a rich family. American aristocrats. I’m glad she convinced me. Subtitled “An Intimate Portrait,” the fourteen-hour mini-series doesn’t idealize the three most famous Roosevelts (Eleanor is included too); they have their faults and foibles. One thing, however, has won me over time and again—these three genuinely cared for other people. Sure, there was ambition and fame involved, but their personal writings reveal that they believed it was the obligation of the wealthy to give back to society. Industry bosses hated them.

More than once I’ve found tears in my eyes as the narrative unfolds that includes people writing personal letters of praise, petition, and always hope, to a president whose New Deal was intended to ensure that as many people could be helped were. I keep thinking to myself—when is the last time we had a president who really cared about the people? I voted for Carter, Clinton, and Obama. I think they did, and are doing, okay. Of the three I saw Carter building houses for the homeless after his administration. I have seen Obama fighting back emotion at the senseless shooting of black youths by police. I think they care about people. Franklin Roosevelt, even after an assassination attempt, however, rode in open-topped cars. He drove on his own to talk to people and ask them how they were. He was a president who cared. Our presidents are now behind bulletproof glass.

Politics has a disenchantment in its wings. It has become a game the wealthy play. Even the most well-meaning Democrat has no hope against the wealthiest one-tenth of one-percent who hold all the power in their hands. Watching The Roosevelts it’s clear that it has been so since industrialization. Seeing the J. P. Morgans and even the less enlightened Roosevelts declaring politics had no business stopping their astronomical earnings is down-heartening. I almost cut up my Chase card in protest. The wealthy despise the poor against whom only they can be declared extraordinary. Today our presidents, well-meaning or not, are behind bulletproof glass. They are in the shadow of big money. And some of the hopefuls have even convinced many of their fellow citizens that the only way forward is to follow their cash all the way to the banks they own. It’s not a presidential race, it’s a game where diamonds are trump.