From slavery – to Jim Crow – to the immense Black Civil Rights movement – to the painful Feminist movement – to the Peace Movement – to Americans for Respect of the Globe and the Universe – to Donald Trump?
The election and ‘service’ of Donald Trump has exposed the United States’ underbelly the way nothing else has and it is very difficult for all of us to see. Much better to continue to engage in denials.
Breakfast conversations in a Bettina Home are always inclusive of something about what Trump is doing; what he needs to do; how to stop him; what is Russia’s involvement; how are we going to continue with such a man as president; what happened – did we really elect Trump or did Russia do it. Are we missing something?
Among the forces in this country which have come together to elect Trump as president we have to include those forces which elected this Congress. Among those forces we also have to include the years spent before this election of gerrymandering to help make this election possible – all in the name of denying one person one vote, denying one person’s voice replacing it with the manipulators’ need for power. They also have to include our refusal to become a democracy by doing the work to eliminate the Electoral College. They also have to include our refusal to get rid of ‘White Privilege’ – the sick need many have to be better than even in a democratic/republic.
We have only ourselves to blame for Trump and we have only ourselves to correct this massive error by correcting the ills in this country which brought this about.
From where we stand and from what we have heard, Trump was elected with a solid base of the organized bigots, the mafia, many of those at the top of our corporate structures coming together in one of those perfect storms. And, what we need to acknowledge here is that those groups have always worked together – and – as per usual – we and they blamed the “Middle Class”, the “Working Class” for what others have wrought.
Corporations are very far from being a democracy. They are also not republics. They are dictatorships accustomed to doing things their own way, as ordered from the top, and accustomed to brutally moving obstacles out of their paths, greasing everything with lots of money and little bits of power. The same is true for the other groups whose reason for being is to spread bigotry, hatred, white supremacy. They are skilled at the lying, cheating, stealing, and all the other sins we can now see them committing as they come out from under their traditional cover.
What is clearer today than it has ever been is the collusion between Corporate America and the mafia. That is something we don’t like to admit, but Trump has forced the issue and the admission. For example, there is no way anyone who voted for Trump can today say they did not know of his mafia connections.
Trump’s ties to the mafia go back to at least his high school days when he met and was friends with John Gotti’s son. The son of the teflon don puts his schoolyard friend in the path to be taught to become the teflon president.
Things became much more intense and involved from that point on.
Enter Roy Cohn – which brings in another group tied into Trump’s base – gay men in the closet who enjoy a camraderie with the corporate, the political, the well-heeled sprinkling gold dust over those mixing and shifting relationships and hiding that collusion from the rest of society (as best they can).
The consensus from many breakfasts is that Trump’s hidden secret, which makes him subject to Russian demands is not about sexual orgies, golden streams, etc., it is about having found places in and around Russia to let out that gay side where he thought it wouldn’t reach the light of day. Many of our breakfast folks thought that such a place would be important to Trump who they saw as not only gay, but homophobic – so coming out of the closet would not be an option. And, so some breakfast conversations went into comments such as; coming out of the closet would not mean a solid, steady relationship based on love, but it would mean coming out of hidden orgies with whoever/wherever making the sexual needs not necessarily “gay” or same sex, but outrageous, out of control sex, orgy addicted, kinky to an extreme. Coming out of the closet would lessen his power with his close compatriots who helped him get where he is today. The closest he came to coming out of the closet – so these folks discuss – was accidental and through his relationship with Roy Cohn, which supposedly had a sexual closeness that many picked up on, but few publicized. That kind of sexual orientation and lifestyle was more prevalent during the days of Trump’s young adulthood, but still exists in small pockets in several places today.
That can lead, when such a person engages in moments of sober reflection, to an extreme insecurity and self-hatred, if one still has any shred of moral values left. Is that what we are seeing in Trump’s projection of all of his insecurities onto minorities of every color, class, sex, sexual orientation, etc? His projections have certainly been vicious enough to tear this country apart and begin the process of putting it back together in his own image.
Trump has also given us a clear and unusually open look at mafia culture through his lifestyle, mannerisms, speech, dress and expectations of obeisance from others to him and from him to (only a very small number) of others.
We are living in an America that will never be the same again. All of the gains we have made – moving away from and rejecting slavery; watching the gains of the Black Civil Rights Movement being stripped away daily with one or two Blacks being held up by Trump as the objects to disprove the rule of extreme racism in his administration as the new normal; from organizations becoming respected and respectable who had been fought and relegated to the back rooms of illegality; from the gains of the Feminist Movement also being stripped away as women are once again being portrayed as objects whose ‘pussy’ can be grabbed by anyone; with sexual abusers at top corporate levels being front and center and their corporations held in high esteem with the individuals so caught in such illegal activities given comfort and succor by the President of the United States?
How low are we going to sink, America? How many sins are we going to commit before this all comes to an end? Will there be absolution for those sins in the end of this nightmare or will the vestiges hang on to scare our children, our grandchildren and all of the next generations? Evil is far harder to eradicate than good. Evil is far simpler to incorporate into the structure of our country than good.
We were able to justify slavery – stealing millions of lives because some of us were too lazy to do our own work, but wanted the benefits from the work of others for free. We were able to justify maintaining racism against Africans because we needed to continue to deny what we did to them during slavery. We attempted to justify that by showing the movie on how Africans moved from sub-human to more cultured due to their association with us so now we can move forward incorporating them as more equal in our society, our schools, our neighborhoods. We were able to justify maintaining sexism against Women because we needed and still need them to do our dirty work and to support us in whatever we decide to do without recognition, agreement, compensation, and more. We are still able to justify maintaining all of the complicated bigotry against other human beings because it satisfies our need for macho power, money and the creature comforts all of that brings not the least of which is not having to do the hard work of creating an identity when white privilege gives us a strong foundational identity for which we don’t have to work – isn’t all of that what the Supreme Court has facilitated in a low keyed way with their recent decision? Isn’t that almost a parallel to their Plessy decision? And now we can move on to their 1954 decision after those involved have had a bit of time to appreciate the less than equal decision that will follow. It will feel like a breath of fresh air even if some of the less than restrictions are left in place? How to move backwards a little by moving backwards a lot.
Give him enough rope – he will hang himself, but in the meantime he will make sure that his contribution is to the continuation of White Northern European Privilege and Ascendancy over all others. Put him in jail to insure that much or our guilt is expiated, but the damage done will not be totally rectified. Make him a very negative example and make fun of him, call him crazy, hold him up as ‘not like the rest of us’, but underneath it all is that gratitude that comes from those who need the security of being ‘better than’ so they can continue to live ‘free’ after having called for that bowl of soap, water and a towel and used it to insure our eternal detriment, degradation and damnation. Eternal isn’t the issue – immediate is and isn’t that what our increasing technology is doing for us?
Take a look at where we were before Trump!
The Venture Capitalists planned our future with brash, uncouth, out of control, disrespectful young white men of Northern European descent being held up with multi-millions. Made to think they built huge empires when they and their brashness were actually used to front for what has developed and is developing around the multi-billions dollars companies that have sprung up overnight to put the older companies out of business and to move power into the hands of a small group who make Trump look like a joke.
The political ‘king’ makers, who are responsible for the rise of Trump and who have put the supporting structures in place which are needed to change this country and stop its movement towards a democracy where all are equal and where compassion and love reign supreme are today rejoicing in what they see as their success. It took years before the advent of Trump to put in place the structures which elected him. How much went into gerrymandering? How much went into the development of Breitbart- the NRA – the KKK – the White Nationalists – the neo-Nazi’s – bringing them all to the fore and pushing back on everything else.
“Make America Great Again” did not start with Trump. It is a slogan he stole from others who used it before he came along, when he was playing around with Roy Cohn and his boys. Bringing America into the circle of Russia, Northern Korean, Syria, and other such countries couldn’t have been done by Trump. It had to be a long developing power surge. Take credit, guys, for what you have done.
And now what? More of the same? Moving to a very different form of government – one which will never again be bothered having to fend off an African American president – or beat back a woman president who was advocating for the opposite to what we now have in power – never have to face the horror of the son or daughter of a refugee taking over as president?
It is up to you America.
From every Bettina breakfast or breakfast seminar there is no sign of anyone wanting more of what we have today – so how is this going to end? All of us shot dead when we step out of line and shine a light onto what’s wrong here? Jailing increasing when you protest with all of your assets taken away as they can now do in Arizona if you dare to be a part of the ‘wrong’ protest movement or demonstrations? Fear running through the streets as security guards from other countries are allowed to mutilate and harm Americans even in front of the cameras and without negative comments or protests from our leaders – a tacit show that it should continue and grow stronger.
Where is all this going America? Is your insecurity going to continue and make America White Again? Or are you going to find your guts and make America a wonderful, humane, democracy whose doors are actually and really opened fulfilling what is written on the Statue of Liberty. She is certainly in trouble today. I can see the stone masons chipping off those words and replacing them with “Enter at your own risk – leaving your need for equality, freedom, justice behind.”
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