Month: August 2016

A while back I was a little shocked by Donald Trump’s pronouncement that the only way he could lose Pennsylvania was if the election was rigged.  I say a little shocked because, let’s face it, we’re rapidly becoming inured to any new outrage. I guess he feels this way because of the crowds at his rallies.  Fact is, there’s a difference between rallyers and voters.  Clearly this is something the whole Trump clan doesn’t understand.  Remember when a couple of his own kids didn’t get registered in time to vote for dear old dad in the primary?  This had nothing to do voter id, or any other thing that Trump endorses to prevent voter fraud.  It was purely personal oversight—something most people acknowledge as a more prevalent issue than people voting multiple times.  But nonetheless, it’s a mistake a real “voter” would never make.

At its best, political rallies take you back to high school pep rallies.  (Or as we call them in my neck of the woods “thuses”—for raising enthusiasm.)  During a large portion of the four decades I taught, our football coach was Bob DeLorenzo, affectionately known as Big D.  Bob was probably the most persuasive speaker I’ve ever encountered.  He was not a shouter, but he had the emotion and modulation of a Shakespearean star.  In fact, one of my colleagues had him come in and perform the “to be, or not to be” soliloquy every time she taught Hamlet.

Those Friday afternoon hours of frenzy prepped players and fans alike for the game that night.  But Big D was a teacher as much as a coach.  Of course he loved to win and had plenty of kids go on to play college ball, a couple even had a shot at the pros. But, he knew that for most of that squad their last high school game was their football swan song.  They would go on to become husbands and dads, teachers, salesmen, hospital workers, and city cops—contributing members of society who had internalized those values of teamwork, dedication, discipline and hard work.  Pep rallies were a success if they made those attending leave united to do good work.

At their worst, rallies have become the death metal mosh pits of American politics—loud, angry, aggressive, and nihilistic.  The desire to go out and crack some heads and roust some immigrants is not what I consider good work.

But good or bad, rallies take you back to your teen years.  I suppose if you’re one of those people who believes the myth that those four years of high school were the best years of your life, this might be making America great again.  But for people more comfortable in their adult status, high school was an interesting part of your past, but you don’t want to live there.

I have never really liked crowds, and the older I get, the less I like them.  My friends know that I’m only half kidding when I say I’ve got about a three hour window of sociability.  The bigger the crowd, the narrower the window.  I can count on one hand the number of rallies I’ve been to, but I vote with dogged regularity.  Never missed voting in any election since 1972.  And for every rallyer, there are at least a dozen voters.  We’re not cheering and clapping.  We’re sitting at home, watching debates, reading the editorials, contemplating the candidates.  And guess what?  Come November, our votes count just as much.  No rigging.  Just one person, one vote.  And that’s a truly honest election.  But what do I know?  I’m just a spinster with cats.

In my college freshman-level acting class, I remember the professor saying that people who viewed acting as a way to get noticed or draw attention to themselves were engaging in emotional masturbation.  To my somewhat sheltered seventeen-year-old self, this blunt appraisal was a real attention getter.  As I progressed through the theatre program, I came to understand that self-aggrandizement was totally at odds with looking at the complexity of the character, the context of the play, and the interaction with your actors.

Strangely enough, this comment has repeatedly hammered at my brain during this Presidential election cycle.  We have often heard the term “acting Presidential.”  We’ve been bombarded with enough screen hours of Moran Freeman and Martin Sheen in the Oval Office to wonder why we can’t get a President like that.  They’ve set the bar pretty high because, in this constant blurring of entertainment and reality, it’s easy to forget that these are characters, not real people  The irony is that as we idolize screen leaders, we claim to want “authenticity” in our real candidates.  No matter what you thought of his policies, Bernie Sanders went further than anyone expected based on pure authenticity.  His message never wavered, he never pandered to the crowd.  Ultimately being a Democratic Socialist who never ran as a Democrat proved a bridge to far, but there is no doubt he was authentic.

Now we are left with a binary choice.  Sure, there are third, fourth, and even fifth party candidates.  But, I’ve seen too many elections skewed by an also ran; so, I refuse to throw my vote away on “principle” rather than pragmatism.  I want a real say in who governs for the next four years.  The two remaining “real” candidates are under scrutiny for trust and authenticity.   Hillary is constantly under attack for her stumbling attempts to explain email gaffs that she has already apologized for, her robotic delivery and her personal aloofness.  Sorry, but I think that’s authentic.  Not everyone is a glib extrovert.  Some people are measured and cautious.  They may not be the people you want to sit down to pizza and beer with, but they are probably safer to have in charge in a crisis.

So, do I think Hillary is the perfect candidate?  Oh, hell no!  It’s hard to look at the Clintons net worth and believe her claim that they were broke and in debt upon leaving the oval office.  Full disclosure, when I retired, I was broke and in debt—and three years later, I still am.  So yes, I might be willing to give speeches to anyone willing to pay me.  Still, in my heart of hearts I know that no one short of Jesus is worth $300k a speech; and, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t speak in venues that could offer that fee.  Then there is the murky conglomerate known as the Clinton Foundation.  Such sources of income are questionable, but they are laid out in all their sordid glory in Hillary’s tax returns.  That in itself is a kind of authenticity her opponent refuses to participate in.

Because Trump seems to operate without a filter, his detractors label him a loose cannon while his supporters label him authentic.  I don’t believe either of those evaluations.  I believe that someone with a past in reality TV and pro wrestling doesn’t just blur the lines between entertainment and politics.  He erases it.  Remember the GOP Convention’s silhouette entrance to We Are the Champions?  Look up demagogue on dictionary.com and find “a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.”  Sound familiar?  Have you ever heard a single speech where policy and substance outweighed insults and name calling?  When a reporter dares take him to task on an especially inflammatory comment, the response?  The crowd seemed to like it.

What I find most confusing is Trump’s blue collar support, since that is my own background.  He stands before his crowd in the full sartorial splendor, with custom made clothing manufactured in every country besides the U.S., topped off with the signature Make America Great Again baseball cap—the ultimate affectation of what he sees as regular guy attire.

Appearances aside, many supporters say he says the things they think.  And some of those comments are a litany of blue collar complaints—complaints born out of real frustrations:  lack of affordable education programs; layoffs from blue collar jobs with no alternative source of employment; inability to access emergency credit at an affordable rate; family illnesses where local medical care, much less out of state specialized care, is minimally covered by insurance; drug problems with no affordable rehab available; a house in foreclosure.  These are real lower middle class problems that build the kind of anger and frustrations that make one look for scapegoats and saviors because false hope is better than no hope—until that “hope” proves falsest of all.

He parrots the right things, but I don’t believe Trump’s anger is authentic.  A man who constantly boasts about his money, his family, his pricey education has no understanding of those issues, and if you don’t understand them, how can you really care about solving them?  Trumps biggest problems have been some financial projects that went south.  His solution?  Cut and run without a backward glance, leaving mainly blue collar workers to take the hit.  You may call him a smart businessman.  Lots of other terms come to my mind.

We constantly hear from commentators and celebrities who know Trump personally that the brash, arrogant man we see on the campaign trail has little to do with the kind, charming man they know.  If that’s supposed to reassure me, it doesn’t.  It reinforces my worst suspicion.  We are seeing the ultimate performance—a cynical, calculated, caricature of the frustrated middle class, at least as he sees it from Trump tower.

But I believe we’re smarter than that.  We are better than that.  And we deserve better than a parody of us at the lowest moments of our frustration and fear.  But what do I know?  I’m just a spinster with cats.

So the conventions are finally over.  It’s time to expect some rousing policy speeches and meaningful social media messages.  Yeah, right.  Since that doesn’t seem to be happening, let’s go back and look at what was actually set forth at the conventions.

Both parties formalized platforms, which I’m sure are available somewhere if anyone actually wants to read them.  However, I suspect that political platforms are like the notorious missions statements that every business and educational institution develops.  Even though a mission statement may be prominently posted where it is seen by everyone every day, it probably has very little impact compared to day-to-day goals, promises and negotiations.  Which brings us to the candidates’ acceptance, or the  “I’m gonna do” speeches.

The list of goodies each candidate promised party followers reads like divorced parents not so secret Santa bribes.  The problem is, if you’re old enough to vote, you probably should have suspended faith in Mr. Claus by now.  To the voters who registered specifically for this election, some of this sounds great.  As more experienced voters, I’m afraid we’re come to doubt all promises.  And for good reason.  Candidates are never really held accountable.  They get our wish lists and promise us the sky.

As someone who spent an entire career in teaching, I was subjected to accountability for classroom performance.  As the standardized testing became the biggest accountability measure, elective courses and time for enrichment activities became the first casualties, so teachers were forced to develop supplemental extracurricular activities, which were rarely funded, forcing to teachers to scramble for the soft money sources of grants.  Laying out a presidential to do list is a lot like writing a grant, and it should entail that level of specificity and accountability.

A grant application has several key elements. There is the narrative of what problems you are trying to solve, what specific actions you are going to take to solve the problems and an accompanying timeline, a evaluative measure of how you will know if you have succeeded, and last, but not least, a budget.

Both candidates seem to have the narrative down.  The country is going to hell and needs to be saved and returned to former glory, or the country is good but could be better.  I guess which narrative you accept depends on your personal beliefs and life experiences.

The specific steps and the timeline become the first stumbling block.  Sorry, but nothing gets done “from day one” and it doesn’t happen instantaneously.  Priorities need to be set and programs need to be phased in, IF they meet with legislative approval.  We need specifics on how you’re going to create jobs, take care of the veterans, improve homeland security, and improve race relations.  And let’s be honest, Make America Great Again, may fit on a bumper sticker, but it isn’t much of a plan.  It’s just a slogan.  I suppose there are some things that are easy to evaluate the success of.  Either a wall gets built, or it doesn’t. But so many of the promises are nebulous, feel good ideas that mean myriad things to every individual member of the electorate.

One of the big questions with all of the promises, from free college to shipping out illegal immigrants living in the USA, is how are you going to pay for this?  That’s the budget section of the grant.  Grants always want to know if you have any matching funding for your project.  (Mexico has made it pretty clear that they don’t intend to pay for a wall.)  Even though you may be estimating, you have done your research and have specific numbers.  (Hint, “We’re going to save zillions and zillions of dollars” doesn’t cut it in the specificity department.)

Am I nitpicking?  You tell me.  These are the hoops that a teacher jumps through to get a $500 grant to start an afterschool program or buy collateral classroom materials.  Should we allow candidate to make vague, hyperbolic promises with no specifics of plan or budget when they ask us to grant them our vote?  I don’t think so.  But what do I know?  I’m just a spinster with cats.