Trump's Appeal

Paul Krugman has attributed the popularity of Donald Trump to his strategy, which is to say out loud the things that prior Republicans have hinted at. Where the Bushes used dog whistles and spokespersons, Trump is plain spoken. Trump opposes political correctness--his racism is in plain sight, not half-hidden euphemisms. It's right there. For Trump Latinos are rapists, Muslims are murderers, nearly all women are failed sex objects. About half the Republican voters support open bigotry, because bigotry is what they have been responding to for decades.

Trump's Brutes

Donald Trump's racist and sexist remarks are unique in one sense. They come directly from a major Presidential candidate, not secretly from a corrupt staffer like Lee Atwater. The effect has been to make clear that around 20% of American voters are permanently baboons.

Trump's latest remarks deserve a close look. He made it obvious that the thought that women--in this case, Hillary Clinton--use toilets is "disgusting." He's a non-man with a strong aversion to women. I don't doubt that he finds them germy--he's reputedly a germaphobe. Never mind that he is a red-faced stack of wobbly flab who can't get an American woman to marry him although he's a billionaire.

And he told us that Hillary "got schlonged" by Barack Obama, using Yiddish slang for sexual intercourse. His followers loved it. It conjured perfectly the concept of large black men have sex with small white women, the concept that lit a thousand fires in racist lynch mobs. Trump said it out loud on television, thrilling the lugs who support him.

Trump won't be elected President (unless we are suicidal), but he has made it obvious that we have and always have had a mindless brute class that hates Latinos, women, Muslims, education, African Americans and so on. They love Trump, and at the moment they have control of the super-rich Republican party. There's a kind of alliance between the super-rich and the brute class--it's an old strategy in democracies. But it's rare that the brutes take command.

Originalism

Scene: On May 14, 1787, the richest men in North America begin to gather to write a constitution for the United States. George Washington takes James Madison aside. "Make sure, Jimmy," he says, "to include a provision that will ensure that our tenant farmers have the power to rise up and kill us." Madison nods eagerly. "Sir, I won't forget. I think I'll call it the second amendment."

--from the archives of the NRA, historical drama department.

LUCIE IN THE SKY

Lucie Jensen stepped through the Big Window yesterday. She was more than 100 years old and clear of mind when I last saw her. (There is hope for us to remain lucid!) Lucie was at the center of the Healdsburg current affairs discussion group, chaired by Tom Belton. She had started out as a Kansas Republican, daughter in a banking family, but at some early point, dismayed by the meanness in her party, she became a New Deal Democrat, a common sense sllghtly-left-of-center voter and columnist. She wrote a column for the local weekly, a column that was often the reason to buy the newspaper. For several recent years she handled the hospitality for the town's Democratic club. I don't seem able to get her essence down in words. Lucie was a lady--by that I mean most people automatically respected her. She married three times. One of her husbands had hit her (end of marriage). Her favorite husband, she told us once, was the last, Stan, a machinist, because he was romantic. Lucie worked as a teacher, worked with the most backward learners, worked with them as individuals. Ah, she was a major touchstone in the lives of so many of us.

Black Women and Class

By now most of us have seen the TV coverage of the former police officer convicted of serial rape of 13 black women. Melissa Harris-Perry pointed out that our media did not cover the arrest, the prosecution, defense or the trial itself. We heard about unarmed black men being shot in the street, but abused black women got no coverage. That's apparently an old problem. How many American men understand that slavery made possible an unending rape of black women? One former police officer figured it out. He selected, as his victims, black women who had been discarded by structured society: drug users, prostitutes, women with records. He eventually made the mistake of attacking a middle class woman, and now he's doing life. 

Making America Whiter

Donald Trump's ability to think is somewhat truncated, but that isn't what makes him an international topic of discussion. It's his heroic attempt to make America whiter.

The attempt began when he discovered that President Obama--only half white--was not a citizen and so not eligible to be President. It continued with Trump calling to our attention that the Chinese are a menace. Few Chinese are white. Then he vowed to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, many of whom are part Apache and don't belong in North America. Now he intends to exclude the Muslims, who come from India or Pakistan or the Semitic regions of the Middle East (50 shades of brown). 

In a democracy,  nearly 50% of the voters will be below average in intelligence. Near the bottom of that scale you find those capable of absorbing only a rudimentary education. But most of them can see through Trump. A few million support him. That's all it takes to make a splash.