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He was a charming man, and I took to him immediately when I met him at a social function. Well into his eighties, he had the appearance and energy of a much younger man. And his stories, oh lordy the stories he could tell: about living in his native Germany under the Nazis, of scrounging for trinkets to sell to soldiers so his own family could eat; about the apprehension that permeated life in a repressed country that was losing a war; about coming to America speaking no English, and the struggle of adapting, learning a trade, starting a business and raising a family. I loved this guy. Then, for some reason, he felt it necessary to make an announcement. “I voted for Trump, you know.”
I have a rule against engaging Trumpits in argument. It is, I have long since learned, a waste of time. But I loved this guy! So I couldn’t help asking him, “Why?”
“Because he tells it like it is,” he said, with a small smile.
I permitted myself another infraction of my personal non-debate rule, in the name of objective truth. “But he lies,” I said mildly, “all the time.”
“No,” my new and former friend responded, again with that small smile, “he tells it like it is.”
To hear someone who actually lived under Nazi oppression express support for the would-be stormtrooper in the White House; to hear a nice guy express approval for one of the nastiest human beings on the planet; to hear a smart guy profess unwillingness to tell truth from lies, almost made my head explode.
But wait a minute. What was that small smile about? He-tells-it-like-it-is, comma, GRIN.
Not wanting to be abrupt, I did not walk away immediately, and in the remaining few minutes of our conversation he told me that Muslims and Mexicans are destroying America, along with blacks and other immigrants, and that we have to get our country back. I had assumed that my new former friend would remember German National Socialists with loathing, when in fact he was at heart one of them.
That’s when the light went on. The “it” in “tells it like it is,” does not refer, as I had assumed, to the truth, or reality, or the state of the world. Certainly not to climate change, or inequality, or the health care crisis, things that worry thoughtful people. No, “It” is the dog whistle that Trump blows all day every day, that sets his followers to howling at the moon — “it” is contempt for people of color.
Forget taxes and trade, war and peace, Russians and Koreans, forget liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat. Trump does not know or care about any of those words, beyond their everlasting ability to distract his opponents. All he has to do is toss a fact-free grenade into the public arena and his adversaries (like the cartoon dog in the movie Up) yell, “Squirrel!” and gallop braying off into the weeds.
But what Trump is really about, from almost the first words of his campaign for President (about Mexico sending us rapists) is fear and loathing of the Other, the people not like us who invade our country and our homes, steal our jobs, rape our women, and bear responsibility for everything that has ever gone wrong in our lives. This is also what Brexit is about, and the rise of the nasty nationalists in Europe. We have seen this movie before.
This is what they mean, I have just now realized, when they say of Trump “he tells it like it is,” with that small, knowing smile.
It is long and well understood that racial enmity increases as economic well-being decreases. How could it be, then, that racism is erupting when, as Trump likes to say, we are enjoying the best economy in history?
Well, he lies. For the billionaires, things are great. For the rest of us, it’s a long, grim slide toward poverty, sickness and death. Someone is to blame for my plight, some of us say to each other, and since it obviously cannot be me, or you, because we are blameless, then who is it?
Leaders such as Trump and his cohort provide the answer, draped in neutral words, pitched at a frequency only other racists can hear. Who, hearing it, say to each other, “Man, he tells it like it is, doesn’t he?”
And no surprise whose number has come up yet again.
Like Hitler, Trump is an artist – in Trump’s case more of an actor than a visualist. The artist speaks directly to the id – that ancient animal self that dwells in fear, distrust, anger and lust, ever in survival mode. Perhaps that is the ‘it’ of which your Jewish acquaintance was speaking, though, like all id-driven humans, he was most likely unaware of his own motivations.
Donald Trump seems to have a visceral understanding that, when the chips are down, all humans are id-driven all the time (just listen to the primal ranting of the MSNBC crowd). And in the old U S of A the chips are most assuredly down. Trumpists don’t care a wit about facts and figures – only that their President makes them feel better about their lot in life. They don’t want another candidate to lie to them in proper English and pear-shaped tones. They want no more of the empty, obsolete pomp and pretense of standard politicians – they want a Leader!
The Neanderthal from Queens is the hero of these strange times – the fulfillment of Dick Cheney’s prophesy, “we’ll create our own reality”….and so they did, and so he does – his own reality, or at least the illusion thereof….But then, isn’t illusion the essence of art, and perhaps of politics as well?
Greg,
If Tom’s acquaintance had been Jewish he would not have survived as he did.
You got that right. He’s definitely Teutonic.
I stand corrected on this point.
Gee, are Jews that terrible?
Well, it’s true that their culture is the ultimate source of the three Abrahamic religions, all of which have shed rivers of blood in their name. A lot of it being their own, ironically enough.
Wars seem to be rooted in issues of control of resources – including (but not limited to) land, water, timber, minerals and laborers. Ideologies and religions change…but wars go on.
Hi Tom,
I’m outside of your country and so have no skin in the game about who you lot choose to represent you. It doesn’t really matter as I suspect you’ve passed peak complexity quite a while back.
I thought about your previous blog entry, because that leaf change issue is occurring in some parts of this mountain range (and I’m in a wholly different country).
I’ll tell you a little story: Many years ago (last century in fact) I was lucky enough to be on a boat cruising up the Arthur River on the west coast of Tasmania (a beautiful and very remote corner of the planet). The guy leading the tour remarked that all of the trees were regrowth Eucalyptus Obliqua trees (I have them on my own property). Yet one of the trees stood out as being much larger than all the rest. I pointed that out to the tour guide and he then pointed out the sea eagle nest high up in a fork of the tree. Of course, all of the manure from the sea eagles (who have a long lifespan) was feeding the tree. The surrounding trees were not so lucky to be supporting a nest of sea eagles and their growth showed that.
Now when I looked hard at the photos of your property, the first thing I noticed is that there are fences here, there and everywhere. The grass was not being consumed by animals, the cutting job was too neat for that. Mate, because you’ve shut out the wildlife off from your grass, not only are you starving the wildlife, your also starving the soil which the trees depend upon. So of course the trees are stressed and succumbing to any environmental stress which places pressure upon them.
Over in the western end of the mountain range I live in, they have the same problem with leaf change. The wombats there also suffer from mange (which is an horrific disease) and there is a bit of hand wringing about that. On the other hand I allow all of the wildlife to coexist in the garden and extensive orchard here. And the fat wombats have glossy coats, but so do the wallabies, kangaroos – and even deer.
And I tell you what. The Eucalyptus Obliqua trees (which are frankly enormous) flower here – when they flower nowhere else.
Is it a pain to have marauding wildlife roaming at will through the garden and orchard. Sure. Do I have to fence off some areas. Sure.
I’d suggest that if you want to keep the fences you consider spreading huge volumes of manure over your paddocks – or patchwork burn them. The volume of manure that such plant communities require may surprise you.
Cheers
Chris
Great comment, Chris! Your take on this topic is mirrored in Genesis, chapter 4 of the O.T.
As it turned out, Cain’s sacrifice of produce from his fields was rejected by God, while his brother’s offering of blood and fat from his slaughtered cattle was acceptable to the Lord. Cain was a farmer, brother Abel, a herdsman.
The standard interpretation of this incident is that Cain’s sacrifice was stingy, while Abel’s was lavish. There is zero support in the scripture for this viewpoint. The truth, well established in the Eden account, is that God disliked anything that interfered with the natural order…Farming, which necessitates land ownership, fences and all of the other burdens of monoculture, is seen as an affront to God’s balance of nature. On the other hand, nomadic herding – while presenting problems of its own – has far less negative impact on the environment.
God’s anti-farming bias (and by extension, his anti-civilization bias) is evident throughout the O.T.. Apparently the ancients struggled mightily with the problems and perils brought about by agriculture and it bastard offspring – civilization….but to little avail.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/when-america-was-great-savage-white-un-settlers-raped-a-continent-and-assaulted-a-planet/
There’s frankly something to be said about the three Abrahamic religions.
The wildlife in this area — deer, rabbits, foxes, coyotes, the occasional bear — pay absolutely no attention to my fences. In fact, when I had goats, they paid little attention to them either. I have seen with my own eyes a pregnant nannie dematerialize on one side of a woven wire fence with six-inch openings, and materialize on the other side.
Hi Tom,
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. The interactions with the wildlife you describe in your reply are a form of smash and grab. What I’m suggesting is a more permanent feeding arrangement on your property. It is impossible to ignore that in one of the two images, the grass has been neatly mown. There is a photo on my current blog of a kangaroo with a joey and also a wombat happily munching away on the grass – and the wildlife is there every single night of the year.
From the point of view of wildlife, human fences aren’t only constructed of the sort of timber and steel affairs that you employ. To them, large swaths of grassland that are occupied for human purposes, is also a form of fence. Although it is uncomfortable to consider that aspect of the current rural arrangements. The animals are just very vulnerable when they have to cross it. And that stands out to me in your images.
A lot of wildlife lives in the forest, but feeds in clearings. There is generally little for them or us to eat in a forest.
Chris
Tells it like it is. If he is in his eighties now then under the Nazis he was a child. Not comparable people really at all.
I wonder if it is possible to look at another man and if you know anything at all about his past, anything at all, not to then want to classify him and put him in a collection like a bug collector sticks a bug onto a pin.
I seriously doubt it is. Judging people is built into our DNA. Judging to make sense of the world and to keep us safe from predatory people who can be the biggest predators of all. A way of figuring out a way through the mess of life to stay alive for another day.
Being enamored of someone who ‘tells it like it is’ also seems pretty natural, also along the lines of trying to make sense of the world. Just in another way, which can also be, like judging can also be, ugly or not.
We living in a world where we now have no agency. I say we in the collective sense. The collective sense of living an essentially hand to mouth existence in a land of plenty.
The attraction of someone who can blame our powerlessness lack of agency and relative poverty on an identifiable source outside of ourselves is like food to starving people. The mainstream has great trouble with self-direction and generally has to be told what to do. More than that, they actually want to be told what to do and with good work and good direction they can be very happy. Without it they flounder.
Floundering is no fun. I lived, I floundered, I died does not make a happy story. MAGA thus has great appeal. A dangerous strong man could emerge.
An appropriate MAGA response is to beat them at their own game and not to be adversarial with the concept. It would be great if we all had health care jobs and saving money was our national ethic. That would really make America great.
Define MAGA to improve and change it. Make it palatable but don’t fight it. Sisyphus could at least roll his rock to the top of the hill before he had to start over at the bottom. You won’t even make it that far with disdain for MAGA and nothing else. The idea has too much appeal to be simply hated out of existence.
What I hear you saying is you detest the president because of his style. If not, just how does he materially differ from the last handful of his predecessors? Were not they all liars, adulterers, murderers, etc? You are attempting to make a simple issue complicated by hanging an “evil” sign on the back of a man elected to head up this nation by a constituency scared silly by a future unknown, unpredictable and therefore, threatening.
Our predicament is we have overpopulated a finite planet, and nature is in the process of solving the problem. You are correct that POTUS is not going to save us, nor will anyone else. If you will accept that solution-in-progress, then the unnecessary burden you carry will slough off, your stress level will drop like a rock and you can spend the remainder of your days enjoying whatever is left of your life.
Or, you can continue kicking and protesting until you blow a fuse in your head. Nature will continue with the necessary steps.
Racism is not a style.
If Trump does not “materially differ” from his predecessors, then nothing is different from anything and words have lost all meaning.
Understanding that the Titanic is going down does not require us to tolerate criminal idiots on deck, or in the lifeboats. There may still be time for a game of shuffleboard.
Tom, I did not intend to say that the only objectionable thing about Trump is his style, or that I thought you disliked him only because of his style. I don’t like him at all, but how much worse is racism than murder of innocents? Wouldn’t it be nice if the system offered us someone who was at once moral, visionary, sane, courageous and a born leader? The system is designed to prevent any such leader from taking the reins. And all of us must accept some part of the responsibility for the system being what it is.
Finger pointing at this stage of the game can only be counterproductive. The Titanic is going down, and unless there is a slot for you in the lifeboats, I think a game of shuffleboard is a great idea; it beats seeking revenge all to hell.
I get most of what you are saying. But “finger pointing” and “revenge” are not what I’m doing or advocating. I’m simply calling the play.
Here’s the nub: That’s when the light went on. The “it” in “tells it like it is,” does not refer, as I had assumed, to the truth, or reality, or the state of the world. Certainly not to climate change, or inequality, or the health care crisis, things that worry thoughtful people. No, “It” is the dog whistle that Trump blows all day every day …
As with most issues these days, it’s complicated, and I would not boil “it” down to one thing, though the thing you nominate is a good proxy. Rather, I’d say that “telling it like it is” speaks broadly to human desires, frailties, and dark impulses we all possess on some level. At present, they’re circling, coalescing, and strengthening around an inchoate sense of impending loss on top of losses already suffered. We may still for now live in an Age of Abundance, but everyone can sense that era dissolving into hagiographic past.
As I understand it (haven’t yet read the book), Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind discusses xenophobia (which arguably includes racism) in terms of infection (or more scarily, penetration) of a putatively wholesome, healthy body. The medical metaphor goes a long way to explain the categorizing, judging, and disdain for otherness, which is not entirely irrational. That doesn’t excuse stigmatizing, vilifying, and victimizing others in any way. We have a humanitarian duty to each other as conditions worsen (e.g., the caravan of Honduran refugees approaching the U.S. border). However, it’s entirely understandable (still deplorable, perhaps) why some wish to preserve some misplaced notion of bodily integrity.
“We may still for now live in an Age of Abundance, but everyone can sense that era dissolving into hagiographic past.”
The age of abundance was always a mirage. The discovery of the stored pool of fossil fuel energy was still in its infancy when we realized it would not last. Even some otherwise intelligent people deny the fact and the implications. Xenophobia is not required to explain the natural tendency of all life forms to collect in groups of like kinds. If you observe nature, you can see it everywhere.
Most people have a tendency to give Homo sapiens far too much credit as a thinking animal. True, we have the ability to reason, but how do you explain the fact that we disdain to use that ability to prevent the wholesale waste of irreplaceable resources? And that lack is proof enough that we are not endowed with a sense of morality. Humanitarianism? Hah! When you and your family are reduced to starvation, you will not be thinking in those terms.
As the Titanic tips its bow down and we play shuffleboard… I can only partially agree with you Tom. I do believe that Trump blows the dog whistle of racism but I don’t think that all that voted for him are necessarily racist. Many of those voters who put Trump in the presidency had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. As much as Obama was educated, articulate and appeared compassionate he failed to address the causes of the 2008 economic fiasco. Many middle class voters came out of 2008 newly impoverished with a falling standard of living. Obama saved the banks and Wall Street but let the criminals get away. Rising inequality leaving many voters behind is what elected Trump. Certainly Trump doesn’t want to reverse rising inequality so he blows the dog whistle and tells his supporters that someone else (not the wealthy) is responsible for their lowering standard of living. Humans just don’t have the wattage to think all of this through, we are too limbic driven, so maybe we are destined to go extinct.
Tom: Thanks for this post, I do appreciate your anger at racism.
K-Dog: I agree that we all have the DNA that causes us to have to judge the stranger (it has great survival advantage), I just wish that it wasn’t directed by Trump to be on the basis of race.