Well, let’s see…
There’s the rule of law, the United States Constitution, due process, the concept of a civilian armed forces, bombing a foreign country without provocation, the separation of powers, birthright citizenship and the threat to remove US citizenship from Trump’s perceived enemies and imprison them in a concentration camp in the Everglades….
And then there’s sex!
Well, I had it wrong, all these years. I was focusing on the stupid stuff and ignoring the big, crucial issue, which is that children everywhere in the world are in imminent danger of being seized and sold into sexual slavery and torture at the hands of a very small, very rich gang of people…OK, let’s called them moguls.
Yup, this is what caused millions of index fingers to press the lever down over Trump’s name in the voting booth. They said it was about his handling of the economy, though the tariff idea didn’t excite them. They said it was about Mexican gang members giving Fentanyl to Sunday school children, instead of migrants picking lettuce, which is what they do. They said it was about cutting fraud in big government, as the unheralded flash floods swept away hundreds of Christian girls in Texas.
They knew all along that Trump was a fraud.
I have sat on two park benches with two Trump supporters. True, they were both alcoholics, but well into recovery. But the alcoholism was about the only thing they shared. Victor was a millionaire living in Puerto Rico to take advantage of the tax breaks. He was a man of insight, and I listened carefully to what he had to say in meetings. He was so insightful, in fact, that I considered asking him to be my sponsor. In AA, that’s a big deal.
SJ was a mother of teenage / young adult children. She had lived as the submissive wife in a Pentecostal sect—her husband had been the leader. She was living with her father, on Social Security and Medicare / Medicaid, working as a day care teacher / attendant. She completely dismissed Project 2025 as something Trump would never do—even though she also said Trump was a liar.
Oh, Victor also said that as well.
They knew he was a fraud, they knew he was a liar.
But that wasn’t important.
He hated the same people they hated—that was the important point.
He hated the elites, which is whom they hated. The second point? They hated the elites because he had told them to hate the elites.
The elites—who are they?
ME!
It’s true, or possibly true. Granted, I don’t feel “elite,” by which I mean I spend a fair amount of time wondering which is more important today—getting my cat’s sinuses repaired or my air conditioning healed. Or the other way around. I don’t know, just as I don’t know how to pay for both, or possibly even one.
“Elite,” in short, doesn’t take the bus past the Salvation Army on his way to an AA meeting every morning. Elite doesn’t have holes in his tennis shoes and wet feet (also smelly socks, for which I apologized in The Poet’s Passage). Elite doesn’t wonder when the bus system in Puerto Rico will finally start charging fares.
By definition, I am not elite.
But wait!
I sit in a calm, poetic space and bind books according to traditional practices. The books have subdued, subtle covers, and I listen to Orlando di Lasso (a Renaissance composer) as I make my books.
OK—so now it’s looking bad. It’s looking as if I’ve been elite all these years without knowing it. I thought I was just lucky, and wasn’t grateful enough to appreciate it.
Wrong again.
And I was wrong about the Trump supporters, too. I thought they were good people who had been lied to. Scott Tucker and Laura Ingraham give me hives, of course, but I get why people listen to them.
But Scott and Laura had nothing to do with shaping the opinions of the Trump supporters, any more than the cheerleaders are actually moving the ball over the goal post (or whatever it is).
I could do the Asimov quote that crops up on Facebook from time to time. Hey, let’s do it!
Oh.
Is that all?
Nah—I don’t think so. I think anti-intellectualism is only part of it. I think the American psyche—if there is such a thing—has a big chip on its shoulder. If the Pacific Ocean hadn’t gotten in the way, dammit, there’s no telling how far the American West would have expanded, so desperate were we to get away from our neighbors. We’ve never been able to live with one another—half of the early colonists moved to Canada rather than join their rag-tailed compatriots in the Revolutionary War.
Wait—that’s not it either.
I think it’s more about a way of looking at life, and that way of looking at life has nothing to do with riches or experience or education. For all his billions, there’s no poorer man than Donald Trump. When his “friends” pick up Trump’s calls, it’s fear, not love, that motivates them. I may take the bus, but little kids stroll past me at the Passage and ask, “what are you doing?”
“I’m making a notebook.”
“Why?”
“Lady told me to do it.”
Lady, busy painting houses, raises her hand and waves.
“Why?
“Because she wanted a notebook.”
The parents may have some questions, of course, but they’re more than happy to let their child watch somebody do something as insane as trying to make a book. Some of them even buy the notebooks, and then we’re all happy.
We liberals live in this world—a world where you may have to take the bus but you get to make stuff and talk to kids.
I’m now going to say what I’ve been thinking.
We embrace life.
We don’t fear life, or get angry because somebody else’s is better or easier. We bind books and smile at kids. We’re OK with the prairie, the wide vibrant sky, the fields that stretch into the next state and beyond.
We don’t need the rabbit hole (or prairie dog burrows).
But if you do…
If by any chance you’re a Trump voter stumbling onto a different blog…
And if the warm sun and cooling breezes of the open prairie are really too threatening to you….
And if you really, really need the musty darkness of the rabbit hole….
Then here is John Mark Dougan, the ex-Palm Beach cop who has the 700 CDs on Epstein and friends doing bad shit to poor innocent girls.
Enjoy—I guess!
