July 2020

Speculate with Me Briefly     

Here we are, 126 days before the 2020 presidential election.  t seems to be a foregone conclusion that it will be a contest between the incumbent, Donald John Trump (family name Drumpf), whose only stint in public office has been the past 41 awful months as President, and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. whose first elected office was on the New Castle County Council in Delaware in 1971, followed by 36 years! (1973 to 2009) in the US Senate, then eight as Vice President, 2009-17.

Trump vs. Biden…that’s conventional wisdom, 2020.  But let me test out an alternative reality:

Deal or No Deal?

Let’s just say that Trump will announce that he will not run for another term in the next month or two. The lickspittle dope from Columbus, Indiana will then become the 46^th President.  If that were to happen, Trump would likely have in place a deal with his pliable and probably disbarable Attorney General to be exempt from federal/DOJ prosecution for any and all possible offenses.  And then, as President, and I’d assume prior to November 3, Pence will pardon trump from all future prosecution in federal, New York or any other jurisdiction.

Then, Pence, or some other Republican will run for president in November and get slaughtered.

In that scenario, I’d guess Trump will spend however many years he has left making scads of millions from media ventures and enhancing his paranoic narcissistic personality. He will place blame for his fate on others. He’ll devote himself to trying to prove that he’s been right all along about Fake News and how the media are to blame for his downfall.  He will continue his omnipresent public presence via corporate media and make jillions. 

Maybe it will be his own network and social media platforms.  It might be in cahoots with his once-closest advisor, Stephen Kevin Bannon, 66, currently the proprietor of The War Room, a three-hour show on Newsmax TV, an ultra-conservative trump toadies outlet that reaches more than 60% of American homes on cable, direct broadcast and  over-the-air digital channels (e.g., Channel 9.1 on WEQT in Atlanta.)  It’s “free” to watch on Newsmax.com but it is supported by $100 million in advertising (mostly schlocky spots) on several platforms.

Newsmax now reaches something like 100 million homes.  Its slogans are “Real News for Real People” and “A Voice for Liberty.”   It has been called “Way to the Right of Fox News” in articles in NYTimes, Washington Post, BBC and the Guardian.

Bannon distinguishes Newsmax from Fox News and all other channels: “[We] question because we think the questioning is where the power comes.” 

Bannon predicted on the air on Newsmax in January 2020, that “The US is on the verge of major political upheaval on par with the Great Depression and the Civil War.” That was before anyone in the country had died from Coronavirus-19 and before George Floyd was murdered and millions protested in the streets for a society-wide recognition that Black Lives Matter and police reform/defunding,

The extent of looting and burning that coincided with peaceful demonstrations in the last two months hadn’t happened for decades. For a fascinating list of civil unrest, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States#2010–2019.

Back to Newsmax: it has some power behind it. It was founded in 1998 as a magazine and online outlet by Christopher Ruddy, a conservative and former investigative journalist.  He owns 80% of it and the remainder is held by the family of Richard Scaife (1932-2014). Scaife was a philanthropist and an heir to the Mellon fortune who has been characterized as “a conspiracy theorist.”  Founding investors included former CIA Director William Casey. Board of directors of Newsmax Media included Admiral Thomas Moorer, ex-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Naval Operations during the Vietnam war. 

OK, call me alarmist, conspiratorial, radical, goofy or whatever.  But I’m just taking one moment to get out of my CNN-MSNBC-NPR-PBS-NYT-WaPo bubble to look from a different perspective, one that I hadn’t researched or explored before last week.

This PY-O-MY Letter started as an off-the-wall fantasy projection of how Trump will weasel out of responsibility for all his damage, illegalities and corruption. Then it followed the possible dots to where he might wind up.

He and his people have been scary, corrupt, irresponsible and inexcusable. In no small part, his following was built as a successful reality TV star on NBC for 14 years. As I’ve asserted in the PY-O-MY Letter since 2015, he has no center and no regard for anyone but himself.  He can get away with it because he is unquestioningly believed by at least one-third of Americans who have been and are alienated from government and politics.   

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Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) was a brilliant political, cultural, and social critic and one of the best manipulators of media in the 20th century. In our DuPont-Columbia award-winning 1974 documentary, Lord of the Universe, about a charismatic and egotistical cult leader, Guru Mahaj Ji, Abbie said, “If this guy is God, he’s the God the United States of American deserves.

Abbie wasn’t around for the Trump presidency. But if he were alive, he might be saying, “Trump is the President the USA deserves.” We miss Abbie. He at least would have made these last several months more fun.

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Cherchez la Femme

The other day, I googled Jill Biden. The first stop was Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Biden

What a revealing and inspiring herstory. I recommend you go there. She is someone whose life and values I can respect. She was a public school English teacher for 13 years. For five years, she taught adolescents with emotional disabilities in a psychiatric hospital.  She earned a Ph.D. in education at 55 and then was a full-time community college English and remedial writing professor, including during the eight years she was Second Lady.  She has headed the Biden Breast Health Initiative since 1998 and works actively with the veterans-support organization Boots on the Ground and founded Book Buddies to provide books for low-income children.

Please, don’t even begin to compare her to Melania Trump whose was a high fashion model for most of her adult life before marrying Donald in 2005. In her first political speech (at 2016 Republican convention) about becoming First Lady she directly plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech eight years earlier:

“From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect.

They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily lives. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son. And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

No question, Melania Trump has a huge cross to bear as Donald’s wife.  But, there’s no way to compare her to Michelle Obama or Jill Biden in terms of integrity and values.

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Software Uber Alles

With a nod to an interview with the head of Daimler Benz, here are a few items about the ways of the world these days:

• Uber is the biggest taxi company in the world and they don’t own any cars.
  
• Airbnb is the biggest hotel company but doesn’t own any properties.
  
• Soon you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination.  You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving.  Our kids will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car.
• Most car companies will probably go bankrupt.  Traditional car companies will try the traditional approach and try to build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
• Agriculture:  There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in third-world countries will become information handlers instead of working all day in their fields.
• Petri dish-produced veal has become cheaper than cow-produced veal. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for cows.  Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore.
• Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can’t last.  Technology will take care of that strategy.
• In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, at least 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.

I can’t say that this is all true, but it is an eye-opening visualization of our world in the near future.

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Now. for something completely different.  It’s the Danish National Symphony Orchestra playing the theme song from one of my favorite movies.  It’s six minutes long.  You’ll love it. 

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NOT So Funny Funnies

If what I’ve crystal-balled about trump actually comes true, what better time to take look back at some of the images I’ve saved over the past few years:

 

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Grandkids…Nothing Better.