Politics – Page 6 – The Conservative Blind Guy

A Bold, Fresh Piece of… Somethin’

Bill O’Reilly is history and I have no sympathy. He made his bed and now he’s gonna have to lie in it.

Fox News announced today that they are cutting ties with the king of cable news punditry after a series of high profile sexual harassment suit settlements came to light. In the wake of Roger Ailes’ departure, this doesn’t surprise me. O’Reilly settled his first major lawsuit in 2004 and common sense should’ve told him to curb his appetite. Yet, sexual predators are strangers to common sense. Just ask Bill Clinton.

A large plank in O’Reilly’s platform was the upholding of family values. This is illustrated in his book, “The O’Reilly Factor,” in which he urges his readers to control their impulses, lest the reverse should occur. He purported to serve as a warning messenger, but as it turned out, he was speaking from experience.

In fairness, I was a fan of O’Reilly throughout the Bush years. I found his traditional spin to be refreshing, even if he often stepped on those who disagreed with him (particularly women) a little too harshly for my liking. I did admire his push to make Jessica’s Law, which would force judges to hand out strict mandatory minimum sentences to those who were convicted child molesters, a reality in all 50 states. I also agreed with his views on immigration, pot legalization, foreign policy and religious liberty.

Yet, as the years wore on, his skin seemed to grow thinner, particularly after Obama was elected. In 2010, O’Reilly appeared on The View and engaged in a debate with the hosts that resulted in Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar angrily storming off stage. View viewers saw it once, but the audience of the Factor got to see it over and over and over again, as O’Reilly paraded guests on to analyze the walk-out from every angle.

At his best, O’Reilly was a patriot who championed America and traditional values. At his worst, he was a flagrant self-promoter and a bully who’s catch phrase, “No spin,” was merely code for O’Reilly spin. If you doubt it, just YouTube any of his interviews with Donald Trump.

So, O’Reilly is gone and the jury is out as to whether or not his brand image will recover. In the meantime, lefties across the board are cheering and raising a jar to his apparent demise. If you secular-progressives will pardon me for pissing on your parade, I have a question. Who did you vote for last November. Was it the woman who enabled another sexual predator to operate at the highest levels of power for decades?

Sure, O’Reilly’s downfall serves as another nail in the coffin of social conservatism. In the wake of Trump, we’ve earned it and we’re going to have to live with it. But while you’re dialing up your hypocrite meters, let us not forget that the party that champions feminism, and that claims that every woman who accuses a man of sexual assault has the right to be believed, is the party of Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner and the late Ted Kennedy.

Hypocrisy runs both ways and human weakness is non-partisan.

The Big Mushroom

Lets see a show of hands. Would you guys rather read/hear me talk about Syria, or Gorsuch?

Hands up high! Get’em up there! Keep’em up!

And the winner is… Syria!

Sorry to say it, but my FB page is not a Democracy. It’s a dictatorship. A benevolent dictatorship to be sure, but a dictatorship none the less. So, it’s Gorsuch.

Politics is nothing more than gamesmanship. You Mr. Smith Goes to Washington types may wring your hands at this fact, but there it is. We don’t play for points on a scoreboard or for cash on the table. We play for power.

Okay, so sometimes, money under the table achieves the same ends, but never mind.

Anyway, he who controls the board, makes the rules, or breaks them if he/she so chooses. Last November, the GOP won the White House, thereby giving us control of all three chambers of the legislative body in D.C. Many leftist conspiracy nutjobs think the American people were doing Putin’s bidding, but it looks as if we just gave Vlad 60 big party poppers that spell, “Kiss my ugly American ass!” There goes that theory.

Now, I know that leftist narrative number one was, “Republicans stole Garland’s seat!” I know that liberals will have no truck with logic, but I’ll try to spell it out anyway. You can’t steal something that never belonged to the other party. No, McConnell never gave Garland a hearing, but he wasn’t entitled to one. I feel absolutely no guilt over this fact because I have zero doubt that, if the situation had been reversed, Democrats would’ve played the exact same game. Senator Biden told me so in 1992.

So, the GOP invoked the Reid Rule. In other words, we nuked the Dems and while we bask in the glow of the great big mushroom cloud over Capitol Hill and wait for the tables to turn so the Dems can forget their outrage and do it to us, I will celebrate the fact that Scalia’s seat has finally been filled, thereby restoring the court to a healthy balance. This is a good thing, but good is a mere byproduct of the game.

I know many of you slacktivists will switch to leftie narrative number two; “Gorsuch is an illegitimate judge! Resist! Resist!” You’ll get up a big, righteous, progressive stiffie and the media will lather up their hands with a palm full of lotion and jerk you to fruition. Isn’t it interesting that, when the Tea Party were the ones engaging in resistance, the media put on a steel wool glove before administering their handjob? Oh well.

Yes, Mom, I know you’re reading this. I know I’m being uncouth and tactless, but I also know you’re laughing inside even as you grimace. It’s like that time I took one of Dad’s barbecue ribs and pretended to shave with it. You acted mad, but I could tell you were grinning behind the anger.

My final thought is this. If only McConnell and Schumer would’ve just cracked a Pepsi together, all of this could’ve been avoided. What about Trump and Putin? Putin seems like a Mountain Dew kind of guy.

Never mind. I don’t think it would be wise for The Donald to accept any drinks offered by Putin for a long, long time.

“Wa wa wa wa wa wa.”

I am an American first, a Republican second and a disabled person last. If you doubt these words, consider the fact that I went against the grain of my party by not voting for Donald Trump in the last election. I was certain that he would not be the best outcome for this country. Despite my misgivings, I love his cabinet picks.

Speaking of which, Betsy DeVos is officially our new Secretary of Education. This came after a nocturnal Democrat “talkathon” that added up to absolutely nothing but juicy fodder for headlines. At least Ted Cruz was gracious enough to recite Dr. Seuss back in the day.

Many of my disabled friends and colleagues have done a great deal of hand-wringing over the fact that DeVos seemed less than prepared when discussing IDEA (The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.) I understand the concern. I wish her staff had better prepared her for the adversarial process of a confirmation hearing.

That said, despite video clips taken out of context, DeVos has never demonstrated hostility toward IDEA or disabled students in general. DeVos is our new reality and going forward, we of the National Federation of the Blind had better spearhead the effort to meet with her and educate her.

If I looked at the picture through the lens of my disability, maybe I would have called for DeVos to be benched. As a Republican, on the other hand, maybe I would have blindly followed my party no matter who they chose.

As an American, I have to look at the bigger picture. That picture comes in the form of an article from the Washington Post published on October 28, 2015, in which the latest results of testing from the National Assessment of Educational Progress were revealed. They showed that 64 percent of fourth graders and 66 percent of eighth graders were not proficient in reading. It also concluded that 60 percent of fourth graders and 67 percent of eighth graders were not proficient in math.

Consider those figures for a moment. That is nearly 2/3 of our national student body. If those results were confined to a specific school with 2/3 of the students failing in basic reading and math, how long do you think the principal would last?

After seven years of a digression from results that were already tepid, it’s time for a change. Devos’s signature issue is school choice. Contrary to liberal talking points, school choice would benefit poor and minority students more than the rich, since affluent parents are already sending their children to private schools. If you doubt it, just ask many of the Democrat senators who oppose DeVos as being predisposed against public schools. Many of them, as well as their children, have bypassed public education for the private sector.

I don’t believe that school choice is the stake that will finally put this American vampire to rest all by itself. There are a lot of angles to consider. Standardized testing is proving to be a disaster. The teachers unions have entirely too much influence and that is not likely to change without someone in power to challenge them. Too many parents think their kids live in a snowflake culture and bristle whenever a teacher brings constructive criticism to bear on their child.

But if you believe as I do that America is the most powerful nation on Earth, then these NAEP results are nothing less than embarrassing. We’ve thrown money at the problem for decades and have seen too little improvement. It’s time for a new approach. I believe that Betsy DeVos represents an appropriate shake-up of the status quo. If I’m wrong, she can be removed and replaced, but how will our children get their formative years back if we continue to fail them?

This Cowboy’s Hat

In the wake of Obama’s presidency, I’ve been ruminating on that great big nuclear bomb of politics, race. Before I give you my personal views on race and racism in this country, here’s a snapshot of where we are today.

The media has done Black Lives Matter to death, as well as professional athletes and celebrities who decry the current state of race relations in this country. They are pieces of the puzzle, but they are not the whole

On one hand, we have Professor Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown University, who recently published the book, “The Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America.” A professor delivering a sermon to a large segment of America… What a concept. He is a black man who clearly views everything through the lens of race in this country. I find this view to be limiting, much as I do whenever I meet a blind person who judges every issue they come across through the prism of his/her blindness.

After preaching to white America in his book, Professor Dyson suggests some possible solutions that white folks can adopt in their personal lives in an effort to combat their inherent and latent racism. One of these strategies is what the good professor terms, personal reparations. That is white people donating money to the United Negro College Fund, or other charities geared toward African-Americans.

When I hear suggestions like that, my political spidey sense starts tingling. What I hear is, give us money. I am a big fan of many charities out there and I believe very strongly that people should give of their time and money to those who are less fortunate. So, I tell you what. Find me a charity that supports philosophy in the mold of Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and Walter Williams and I will happily donate.

My issue with Professor Dyson’s book is his premise. He seems to believe that white America is the sole source of the problem. When I hear diatribes such as his, I notice a decided lack of interest in looking inward.

Several years ago, I read a book by Juan Williams called, “Enough: the phony leaders, dead-end movements, and culture of failure that are undermining Black America– and what we can do about it.” It was one of the most enlightening books I have ever read. In short, Williams spring-boarded off of remarks made by Bill Cosby at a 2004 meeting of the NAACP in which Cosby took members of his own community to task for behavior that he felt sabotaged their march toward equality.

Sadly, recent revelations about Cosby’s alleged sexual misconduct toward women in his private life have nullified any credibility he may have had on the issue. But Williams’ credibility is still intact, save for the fact that he works for Fox News. Many blacks would call him an Uncle Tom, conveniently ignoring the fact that he has written many books about the civil rights struggle and the continued plight of the African-American community in this country.

All I can do is heartily recommend that everyone (black, white, brown or yellow) read this book.

On the other side of the fence, we have Sally Boynton Brown, current member of the Idaho Democrat Party and candidate for the position of chairperson of the National Democratic Committee. At a debate the other night, she was responding to a question about Black Lives Matter when she said the following:

“White leaders in our party have failed. We have to accept that we have prejudice within our own party.”

She went on to say:

“My job is to listen to the issues. My job is also to shut white people down when they wanna interrupt. My job is to shut other white people down when they say oh no I’m not prejudice. I’m a Democrat.”

So far, so good. She appears to be doing what I’ve done for years; calling out liberals for the unrecognized bigotry they all carry concealed beneath their cloak of sanctimony. But she doesn’t stop there. A few minutes later, her meaning becomes more crystallized when she addresses the training of new Democrat party operatives:

“We need to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive and how to shut their mouths if they’re white.”

I am not taking these remarks out of context. The video is widely available on YouTube and you can see her remarks in full. Despite her protestations to the contrary, she is clearly a politician who is preening and pandering to a segment of voters. Her tone of voice is nothing less than unctuous as she speaks of white privilege and, “People of color.” Frankly, if I were a minority under the banner of the Democrat Party, I would be insulted. And, most important of all, she is not calling for a conversation. A dialogue consists of a reciprocal communication between two or more parties. White people shutting their mouths would result in a monologue; a one-sided communication.

You can draw a causal line from Boynton Brown’s remarks back to those of Attorney General Eric Holder in February of 2009. In his first speech after assuming office, he delivered remarks at the Department of Justice African-American History Program. Here is an excerpt from said remarks:

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”

I was skeptical when I heard about Holder’s speech. It’s been my experience that, when those of the left use the word, “conversation,” in a socio/political context, they usually mean the exact opposite. A dialogue with a liberal usually transforms into a monologue, with a good deal of imperious finger-wagging in the faces of those who disagree.

When I read the speech in full, I had the benefit of hindsight. Holder’s track record on racial issues prove that my skepticism was well-founded. The best example was his refusal to prosecute members of the New Black Panther Party for their blatant voter intimidation tactics at a polling site in Philadelphia during the 2008 election. The underlying sentiment from many DOJ officials that came out during the ensuing investigation was that the Voting Section of the DOJ wasn’t in the business of prosecuting minorities; ergo, whites have no civil rights worth violating.

I think that Sally Boynton Brown was probably saying the things that Eric Holder was thinking, but was too smart to say. She strikes me as the Sarah Palin type; speak first and think later. The only thing I liked about her remarks was her candor.

Unfortunately, history has taught us that when you live in a country which espouses free speech, and when you tell a segment of the population to shut up, there are consequences. For blacks, said consequences came in the form of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King. For women, they were embodied in Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Over the past eight years, where racial matters are concerned, white people (particularly conservatives) have been made to feel that, when the subject of race comes up, they should just shut up, smile and nod respectfully and take whatever the other side is dishing out. If they should ask questions or argue, they are then labeled as obtuse bigots.

So what did liberals get for their high-handed attitudes? Donald Trump!

According to Professor Dyson, the only reason Trump won was because of race. This is a simplistic view. Trump won for many reasons, not the least of which were economics. However, I do believe that he flipped a lot of people who are tired of feeling bullied because he addressed certain issues from his self-made bully pulpit that rendered him impervious to the usual charges of racism and bigotry that are routinely hurled against any and all Republican candidates. This is unfortunate. Trump’s brand of candor will be too boorish to result in any kind of substantive racial dialogue. But then, Obama was quite articulate, wasn’t he? Obama was supposed to be the first post-racial president, and things are far more polarized today than they were when he took office.

Sadly, when one extreme gains traction in society, other extremes also gain traction in an attempt to push back. I don’t think it’s a stretch for me to see a cause-and-effect line between Eric Holder and the legitimization of certain members of the Alt-Right such as Steve Bannon and Richard Spencer.

How does race affect me personally? That’s a tough question. I grew up in a whitebread town in the middle of Nebraska. I knew of three black people growing up who were local residents. One of them went to high school with me, but we seldom spoke.

I became more aware of the black culture in college in the ‘90’s. The rendering of the O.J. verdict in 1995 high-lighted the disparity in viewpoints between blacks and whites. When the verdict was broadcast, I sulked in my dorm room, while a group of black students loudly celebrated across the hall. The contrast was very stark.

Sidebar: I intended to blog about the recent O.J. miniseries after watching it, but that project is still on the back burner. Probably because I’m a flamin’ racist.

When I worked at Gallup, I felt at ease while conversing with black and Hispanic employees. One of them was named Tim, who was an ex con. I remember him as a gentle soul who was very polite and friendly to all, including those respondents who abused him on the phones. There was no trace of the stereotypical, “angry black man.”

I met several African-American members of the National Federation of the Blind when I became active in the Nebraska affiliate. Later, when I moved to Denver, I met many more people of varying races and backgrounds. I never felt nervous or out of place.

In 2009, I left a lousy job working for a couple of reprobates who were white. I immediately found a new job working for a black couple. They showed me kindness and warmth while I was in their employ and, unlike my previous employers, they always treated me fairly. We’ve sort of lost touch, but I remember them fondly.

In 2014, I worked for an orientation center for the blind as a summer counselor. My duties included serving as apartment babysitter for three of our male students. Two of them were Hispanic. I don’t remember any racial tension arising from our interactions. Quite the contrary. I enjoyed hearing their music, sampling their cuisine and hearing about their backgrounds. In that same program, we had seven or eight Hispanic students in total, plus one African-American, two students from China and one from Thailand.

I also had one African-American coworker, two Hispanic coworkers, one Ukrainian and one who was Asian. Honestly, the staff didn’t always get along. Some of the staff meetings we held got pretty contentious. But that was due more to issues of personality and ego, rather than race or ethnicity.

Did my students and I have frank conversations about race? No. I was their counselor. They never brought it up and I wasn’t going to force the issue. I learned more just by listening as they occasionally talked about their families in Mexico. I didn’t stay quiet out of intimidation, but because I was learning. Would I have conversations with them about race today? Sure, as long as it was a true dialogue.

I don’t think I’m a racist. I really try my best to take people as I find them, regardless of what political or social narrative larger forces try to spin around them. If I met a woman of a different race and fell in love with her, I wouldn’t acknowledge any racial barriers. I would gladly break bread with those of other races on any social occasion as long as I was welcome. Of course, my saying that I’m not a racist doesn’t make it so. Richard Spencer probably doesn’t think he’s a racist either. Some pundits would argue that I am racist merely because I’m white and therefore benefit from white privilege. I flip such people the bird. I know my own mind and heart and try my best to let my daily conduct speak for itself.

How do we solve the racial polarization that has left our country fractured? My answer is, we don’t.

I’m not being defeatist. I believe that racism and tribalism will always be a part of the human condition. I believe that it is a tragic flaw that is inherent to our species. Tribalism has existed for thousands of years and I don’t see any signs that it will get better. The 20th century has seen the advancement of mass communications with the advent of the telephone, the radio, the television and the internet. Yet, rather than bringing us closer together, we seem further apart in many respects.

Does that mean we simply wallow in the muck of racism and racial politics? Hell no! I don’t believe we can simply flip a switch and make prejudice disappear. All we can do as individuals is to make our own corner of the world a little better.

How do we do this? It starts with Eric Holder’s speech, which may contain more kernels of truth than he meant for it to. We start by holding frank conversations with those of other races about our situation. I emphasize the word, conversation; a two-way dialogue. We also start socializing with each other more. Think of that cheesy yet effective scene at the end of the movie, “A Time to Kill,” when the black kids and the white kids are playing together. I think this reality already exists to a point, but it’s obviously not yet large enough to eclipse the angry drumbeat of media and professional race agitators who cling to a more convenient and self-serving narrative.

Sidebar: That heart-warming, climactic moment at the end of the movie was pure Hollywood. The original Grisham novel did not contain such a scene. “A Time to Kill,” is the only Grisham story that I enjoyed. The movie is a mostly faithful knock-off of the book. Samuel L. Jackson’s, “You one of the bad guys, Jake!” speech echoes the sentiments of Professor Dyson.

Yes, by all means, let’s have a chat about race. But why stop there. I honestly think that if most people of divergent races really got together, they’d figure out they have more in common than not. Why not talk about the NFL, NBA, food, clothes, Jay Z or Chris LeDoux? Remember his song, “This cowboy’s Hat?” How about a cowboy hat summit across the nation? I didn’t vote for Obama in either election and I didn’t support his agenda, but he and I could talk about The Wire or Al Green if we ever clink beer mugs.

The problem with this approach is that it’s too slow. We now live in an instant gratification culture. It has become too commonplace for people of all ages and of all political stripes to look to their government for quick fixes. They want a leader to come along and wave some magic wand that will make all of the ugliness of humanity disappear. This is why the left loved Obama. They thought he was a transformative figure. Many on the right see Trump in the same way, though I believe that our camp is a bit more divided.

There is no cure-all law or policy that can bridge the gap. Brown vs. Board of Education was a righteous decision, but it doesn’t change hearts and minds. Neither did LBJ’s Great Society, affirmative action or bussing.

No politician, activist or spiritual figure has all the answers. It’s no coincidence that when the followers of a leader realize that very basic truth, said leader loses popularity with his or her flock.

With respect to President Obama, if he was supposed to be the first post-racial leader, he fell down in spectacular fashion. If Obamacare was his signature issue during his first term, then race should’ve been the corner stone of his second. Maybe my memory is bad, but I only remember him speaking in a reactionary, rather than a proactive fashion. The 2009 Beer Summit was a good start, but as it turned out, it was a false start.

When the incident with Trayvon martin occurred in 2012, he had plenty to say, but there was no follow-up. He certainly had plenty to say after Ferguson, Baltimore, New York City and Baton Rouge, but his attitude at his press conferences and his approach to the issue seemed detached. By any yardstick of success I can apply to these various situations, Obama’s policy on racial healing in America was an abject failure.

Trump isn’t going to be any better. Hell, he might even be worse. As I write this, he’s penned an executive order to build a wall. This will only inflame the immigrant communities. As for domestic relations, I don’t see Trump holding any kind of a beer summit with Al Sharpton or the heads of Black lives Matter. He’s just not built that way.

If a forward-thinking president really wants to start a meaningful conversation about race, he/she needs to conduct a national beer summit. The president needs to initiate a multi-city tour. The tour needs to visit locations as diverse as the inner cities of Boston (the most segregated city in the country), as well as Baltimore, D.C., Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Phoenix, Philadelphia, etc. Let me stress that these tours will have to be held in the inner cities; I don’t care if the president has to triple his/her Secret Service detail.

The tour will also have to visit cities like Lincoln, Nebraska, Colorado Springs, El Paso, Montgomery, Salt Lake City and even Boise, Idaho. Secret Service can bring along electrical tape in case Ms. Boynton Brown forgets to keep her mouth shut.

The tour would include, not just the president, but a diverse group of speakers who would join in the conversation. And not just racially diverse, but politically diverse as well. Possible suggestions for the panel would include Professor Dyson, Juan Williams, Condoleezza Rice, Bill Kristol, Colin Powell, Mia Love, Congressman John Lewis and many more. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would not be welcome. Local police reps and church members would be encouraged to attend, but the primary focus would be everyday citizens who were interested in a cross-racial dialogue.

Skeptics would call it political theater and charge the president with symbolism over substance. So what? They would do that anyway. But who better to start a national conversation than the president? I don’t know where said dialogue would lead, but if it helped the races to meet on an individual level, wouldn’t it be worth it?

Sidebar: People would assume that a black or Hispanic president would have to take the initiative. Why? If Ben Sasse ever took the White House, I could envision him doing something like this. Wouldn’t a white man benefit greatly from such an endeavor?

In the meantime, I fear that things will only get worse before they get better. History demonstrates that our instincts of tribalism will trump our better nature. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. All we can do in the interim is wrestle with those inherent tendencies toward prejudice that we all hold within ourselves and push back against bigotry when we encounter it in our own lives. Tall order, but very possible.

Alligator Dilemma

The official definition of the word, paradox, from dictionary.com:

Paradox: “A statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.”

If that definition has your head spinning, let me illustrate it through example; said example being this past election.

Let’s start with a bunch of angry people in 2008 who feel betrayed by George W. Bush, who operates under the Republican banner. He calls himself a conservative, but he initiates a massive government bail-out of the private sector through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, thereby rejecting free market principles.

Then, Obama is elected in 2009 and pushes through a massive new reform of healthcare. This leads to the rise of a loosely-formed grass roots movement of conservative/libertarian opposition known as, The Tea Party.

The Tea Party proves to be influential in the mid-term elections of 2010 and 2014. This gives them a sense of power, even when they fail to help secure the presidency in 2012 with a so-called, “Establishment candidate,” in the person of Mitt Romney.

However, the movement does give rise to reliably solid conservatives in the form of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Deb Fischer; all of whom prove that conservatism and minorities can go together.

Yet, when a few of these Tea Party favorites try for their shot at the White House in 2015, they are blocked by a man who is demonstrably not conservative.

Donald Trump has been all over the political map. He’s been registered as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent and as the head of the Reform Party. The Tea Party, founded on rock solid constitutional principles, invests in a man who has none. He has given large sums of money to both Republicans and Democrats. When asked about it he says, “I’m a businessman. I make deals. It’s what I do.”

Trump’s remedy for a porous border, a sluggish economy and the terror threat is simple; “I alone can fix it.” This suggests that the powers of the presidency are akin to those of a king. Obama’s opponents resented his abuse of the executive pen, but now, they squeal with delight at the prospect of the former star of The Apprentice, who seems to have no knowledge of how Washington D.C. works, but who is determined to fix it with a snap of his fingers.

“We’re sick of politicians! We want an outsider!” cry the masses of the disaffected.

And why do people dislike politicians? Very simple. Because they promise the moon, then go to D.C. and they don’t deliver. So, Trump, the grand outsider, plays the politician’s game on steroids by making a series of promises without having any inkling of how he will deliver them.

“We’re gonna make America great again!”

This suggests that America isn’t already great. Up to this point, liberals are usually the ones who claim that America is inherently flawed and that we are not, nor have we ever been a great nation. Conservatives are more likely to champion America as an exceptional experiment in freedom.

Yet, somehow, the two philosophies have flip-flopped. Conservatives claim that Obama has made America not so great, even though we only had two years of total Democrat domination in D.C. Liberals counter Trump’s signature slogan with sudden passion; “America is already great!”

“I’m gonna build a wall and Mexico will pay for it!”

When asked how, Trump bobs and weaves, muttering about tariffs and the confiscation of financial transactions, none of which are rooted in conservative philosophy.

“I’m gonna bring jobs back to this country!”

When pressed on the specifics, he meanders on and on about non sequiturs like China, NAFTA and the evils of free trade in general. Free trade has always been a marketplace principle championed by conservatives.

“I am the law & order candidate.”

All we’re missing is the “duh-duh!” sound from the TV show. He is blatantly pandering to the cops and military who insure our national security, and who comprise a substantial portion of the Republican voting bloc. Another political ploy from the fellow who is not a politician.

Yet, he proposes solutions to threats that would never hold up in a court of law, such as the banning of those who practice Islam from our country. He suggests mass deportations, not only of illegal immigrants, but of their natural born citizen families as well, which is blatantly unconstitutional.

When planted protesters make trouble at his rallies, he eggs on his followers. “Knock the crap out of them. I’ll pay your legal fees, I promise.”

All the while, he sings the praises of Vladimir Putin, leader of an oppressive regime who once fought against the U.S. in the Cold War; a war won by a Republican president.

Despite his obvious shortcomings, his primary supporters remain undeterred.

“He’s a businessman who will get things done.”

Yet, he refuses to release his tax returns that would show us his financial successes and failures. When asked about them he says, “I’m under audit. I will release them when the audit is complete.” An audit does not prevent him from disclosing his tax records, but no one cares.

“Trump will pick the best people!”

Oh, really? His first campaign manager, Cory Lewandowski, is arrested for assaulting a female journalist at a Trump rally. They lie about it and smear her, even though the assault is irrefutably caught on video. Trump claims he will stand by Lewandowski on grounds of loyalty, but quietly fires him later.

His second manager, Paul Manafort, steps down when his suspicious business ties to Russia threaten to become an embarrassment to the campaign.

His third manager, Steve Bannon, is the executive editor of the website, Breitbart.com; a site that was once a bastion of mainstream conservatism, but which has drifted toward the extreme Alt-Right in the wake of the death of its founder, Andrew Breitbart.

“The Donald is a fighter. We need a fighter in Washington.”

And oh, the fights he wages.

He calls Jeb Bush, “Low energy.” He makes fun of Marco Rubio’s penis size. He ridicules Carly Fiorina’s facial appearance. He questions Ted Cruz’s citizenship and accuses his father of having a hand in the Kennedy assassination. He calls Hillary Clinton, “Crooked Hillary,” and hints that he’d like to see her assassinated by the pro-2nd Amendment crowd.

Trump’s propensity for personal attacks over policy differences leads us to another grand paradox. For decades, Republicans have fended off spurious charges of racism, sexism, homophobia and nativism from the Democrats and the mainstream media. Genuinely decent candidates such as George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney have been unfairly tarred and feathered by the liberal establishment. So the GOP counters it by nominating a man who embodies the very worst Republican stereotypes in grandiose fashion.

Trump launches his campaign by painting all illegal immigrants with a broad brush by calling them drug dealers and rapists. He maligns a female journalist after she asks him a question in a debate that he doesn’t like by targeting her menstrual cycle. He mocks a disabled reporter at a rally. He picks a fight with a Gold Star family of Arabic descent. He questions the objectivity of the judge in the lawsuit against Trump University by targeting his Mexican heritage. He puts out a campaign video with anti-Semitic overtones just days before the general election. And worst of all, a hot mic video surfaces in which he openly brags about grabbing and kissing women without their express consent and getting away with it because of his celebrity status.

There’s only one claim Trump makes during the course of his campaign that seems to hold water.

“We’re gonna win! We’re gonna win big! We’re gonna win so much, you’ll be sick of winning.”

This is certainly true in my case. I was sick of Trump before he won a single primary. And yet, he keeps winning state after state, knocking down his opponents like bowling pins. He goes on to win the Republican nomination in Cleveland with the help of the GOP machine, who intimidates the Free the Delegates movement. He wins the endorsements of most of his enemies, including former hold-out Ted Cruz, after attacking Cruz’s family on social media. And on November 8, he wins the general election, vanquishing Hillary Clinton for a second time.

Why did he win? Despite claims to the contrary, it is not because he was overwhelmingly popular. In fact, it appears that Hillary won the popular vote, while Trump won the Electoral College. After all, Trump has the highest disapproval numbers in presidential memory.

Trump won because Hillary herself was a paradoxical candidate.

It was long assumed in leftist circles that Hillary was entitled to the presidency after Obama vacated the office. Liberals championed her on feminist grounds; the glass ceiling and all that. The fact that she almost certainly enabled her husband, a known sexual predator, was of no consequence. Like the very Trump supporters they disparaged, high-minded liberals bought into the classic political trope; the ends justify the means.

Her years of public service experience would pave the rest of the way. Sure, she had plenty of baggage. Benghazi was troublesome. She wasn’t particularly warm or likeable. Despite an occasional coughing fit, she’s in perfect health.

Never mind that pesky private Email server. Comey cleared her. We love him! No, wait. The investigation’s on again. That bastard Comey is trying to influence the election! Wait…Comey cleared her again. We love him!

No matter. Trump was so boorish that she could easily take him out.

But Hillary did not engender passion among her followers, particularly the millennial crowd. They preferred Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old socialist who looked like he would be more at home at a Starbucks on a Wednesday afternoon than on a debate stage.

Hillary couldn’t deny the impact that Sanders was having on the campaign, so in true Clintonian fashion, she colluded with the DNC (who is supposed to be neutral) to take down Sanders. She didn’t count on WikiLeaks, who exposed the collusion before the Democratic National Convention.

Yet, Hillary seemed predestined for the White House, gaining the nomination and, more significantly, the endorsement of her former rival. But she did not gain an enthusiastic following, as did The Donald. In the end, she couldn’t do what her predecessor had done by turning out the youth vote.

Post election data seems to confirm that voter turn-out was at a 20-year low in the general contest. Did millennials punish Hillary by staying home? If so, they ultimately punished themselves in yet another paradox.

Many pollsters predicted that Democrats would not only win the White House, but they would take back the Senate as well. This strategy of protest by abstinence backfired. By choosing apathy over action, the Bernie crowd insured that the Supreme Court will see at least one more judge in the Scalia mold. Even if President Trump waffles on his list of conservative judges, the Republican-controlled Senate will not confirm a nominee who is overtly leftist, or even moderate.

This is why we have a system with checks and balances; the same system that prevented Republicans from repealing Obamacare and Obama from replacing Scalia with a liberal judge. This is the same system that angered the low information voters that Rush doesn’t talk about, those who thought that shutting down the government was the best way of achieving leverage.

Mention of Rush makes me think of the media, who played no small paradoxical role in this election.

On one hand, you have traditional print medium such as the New York Times, major TV networks such as NBC and CNN, and weighty internet sites such as The Huffington Post and Politico.

All of these media outlets lean leftward, though they make a pretense at objectivity. All of them covered the GOP primaries with feigned shock and outrage at Trump’s bad behavior, but they did it with a glint in their eye. It’s the same type of glint an avid storm-chaser might have as he watches a tornado glide right over his house and demolish his neighbor’s. He seems horrified, but he’s got his cell phone in his clenched fist, capturing the catastrophe on video, which will appear on his Facebook page tomorrow.

The media loved watching Trump take a wrecking ball to the GOP establishment. They all assumed that Hillary would coast to victory in November. Bernie Sanders was a happy distraction for them, but only a distraction.

After the Cleveland convention, they brought out the big guns.

DONALD TRUMP IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR!!!

DONALD TRUMP DIDN’T PAY HIS TAXES IN THE ‘90’S!!!

VLAD PUTIN LOVES THE DONALD TOO MUCH!!!

OH…SHIT!!!

DONALD TRUMP JUST WON THE PRESIDENCY!!!

This blog proves that I am lousy at predictions, but what the hell. I’ll make another one. The media’s next big push will be:

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MUST GO!!! EVERY VOTE MUST COUNT!!!

Yet another paradox. If the Electoral College is abolished, people in New York and San Francisco will be happy, but those in Harlan, Kentucky and Fremont, Nebraska will no longer be represented. You think America is divided now? If the Electoral College falls and America becomes a pure Democracy, this year will look like a garden tea by comparison.

On the other side of the equation, you have conservative media.

Fox News is the big E at the top of the chart. Early on in the primaries, Trump went after Megyn Kelly with guns blazing. Roger Ailes defended her and many other staffers came to her defense, but after a while, all of them (sans Megyn and Bret Baier) became Trump defenders, long before the primaries end.

Trump’s biggest cheerleader by far was Sean Hannity, who hosted interviews with The Donald almost nightly. This is unsurprising, since Hannity has always been the dimmest bulb on an otherwise bright tree.

Bill O’Reilly, who proudly hales from his self-proclaimed, “No-spin Zone,” soft-peddles Trump’s own brand of spin whenever he appears on The Factor. O’Reilly’s lowest moment comes when he suggests that Judge Curiel should recuse himself from the Trump University lawsuit, after Trump questions his impartiality due to his Mexican heritage.

Chris Wallace, who questioned Trump sharply in early debates, soon glad-hands The Donald on Fox News Sunday, punctuating interviews with such assurances as, “You’re gonna like this last question, Mr. Trump. I promise.” In fairness, Wallace was far and away the most even-handed of the moderators between Trump and Clinton during the general election debates.

After the dawn of the primaries, FNC and the other networks were quickly flooded by scores of Trump interpreters. These were people who felt compelled to visit the various news/talk programs and explain what Trump (who always tells it like it is) really meant to say. Such apologists included Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson. The most striking interpreter was former Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, who once wrote a tome called, The Book of Virtues.

Sidebar: It won’t be surprising to find many of these interpreters in future cabinet positions.

Then, there was talk radio.

It gives me no pleasure to write this next part, because I was a dittohead up until October of last year when it became clear that Rush Limbaugh was no longer the, “Doctor of Democracy,” or, “America’s Truth Detector.

I appreciate the fact that Rush has never endorsed a Republican candidate. I appreciate the fact that he did not want to alienate a loyal segment of his audience by attacking Trump. I appreciate the fact that he has been honest when he says that his first objective is to part his listeners from their money, which is a clever way of saying that he’s in radio to sell advertising.

I also used to appreciate the fact that Rush was the most vocal national advocate of conservatism for almost three decades. For me (and many other listeners), conservatism and Trump just don’t mix. I believe that Rush would have been perfectly in character if he’d gone after Trump the same way he went after Ross Perot in 1992.

In fairness, I think Rush was a stealth backer of Ted Cruz for a while, but he saw the writing on the wall. Unfortunately, by contorting himself in an attempt not to alienate one segment of his audience, he alienated purists like me.

For me, the death blow came to my inner dittohead when Rush told an angry caller, “I never took him seriously on this!” He was referring to Trump’s stated plan to deport illegal immigrants along with their American-born families.

Thanks for 25 years of informative entertainment, Rush. See ya.

Rush’s imitators such as Laura Ingraham, Mike Gallagher and Eric Mataxis leapt aboard the Trump Train without a backward glance. Others such as Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager and Mark Levin were more reluctant, but ultimately climbed aboard as well.

The only two hold-outs were Glenn Beck and Michael Medved, though both have understandably pledged their support to President Elect Trump in the last 24 hours.

All of these talkers once stood together with conservative thinkers such as Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg and Andrew McCarthy, forming a last ditch between conservatism and the ever-encroaching movement of liberal populism embodied by President Obama. But the post Trump era saw a fracture that widened until it de-evolved into a budding civil war, the full bloom of which was stayed only by the electoral result.

I don’t even want to address the giant paradox of the pro-Trump Christian movement. It makes my head ache and my heart cry. Sufficed to say, folks like Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham and James Dobson will have a lot of explaining to do to the big man when they get upstairs. But then…won’t we all?

In spite of, or because of, all of these various paradoxes, Trump won. In two months, he will be the 45th president of the United States. Then, all of America will witness the ultimate paradox. The man who promised to, “Drain the swamp,” will become its biggest alligator. Will he be effective, or will he be impeached? We’ll see.

Another irony…the slogan, “Drain the swamp,” was pirated from the Democrats. They used it back in 2006 when they recaptured Congress during George W. Bush’s second term.

As for me, I am now living my own paradox. I was part of the Never Trump movement and I stayed true to my conscience. I voted third-party two days ago. But now, I will support President Trump and the Republican coalition. It is yet another irony that the Republican and Democrat establishment, long derided by Trump supporters, may be what saves our country if Trump proves to be as volatile in the Oval Office as he has been on the campaign trail.

In the meantime, I believe that our country is going to be okay. Right now, reality looks a bit like a Rod Serling morality play, and I’m waiting for the twist ending. Until the eerie music kicks in, all we can do is live and laugh at our imperious leftist coworkers who are still crying two days later.

Sidebar: According to my friend Amy, that comment about imperious coworkers was a jab. Yeah…it kind of was. But there’s more to it.

Over a year ago, two of them sat in the kitchen at my workplace and prayed that Trump would be the Republican nominee. “We want Trump to win so we can keep the White House,” one of them laughed.

How’s that working out for ya, ladies? They wanted Trump to win, but now, he won.

Paradox.

One of them has been out sick all this week. Is she really sick, or is she spending her nights disrupting traffic on I-25? We may never know.

And yet, I can’t enjoy the full irony as much as I should, because I think we’ve all lost something along the way.

Still, when the big picture looks crappy, all we have in life are small pleasures. So, I’ll be out back with a cigar in one hand and a vial of Lisinopril in the other, waiting for America to become great again.

It’s Not Funny

I promised not to comment on the election in this blog until November 9. That still goes. But let me put one toe over the line.

I heard the infamous Trump tape. I will let all of you make your own judgements about The Donald. I will only say that, if any of you were surprised by this latest revelation, you haven’t been paying attention. I’m sure there’s more to come.

What I really want to talk about is sexual assault.

I’ve known many women in my life. Many of these women have been victims of sexual assault; that is, the unwanted sexual advances or contact from either men or women.

I’ve known women who were abused by their friends, boyfriends, husbands, authority figures such as bosses or coaches, strangers, or worst of all, by their relatives. The impact of this trauma is nothing less than heartbreaking. It never strikes women in the same way.

Some of them lose their basic sense of self-worth and believe that the only way they can relate to men is to have sex with them. Other women suppress their sex drive entirely. Some learn to hate all men.

Some women battle depression or other mood disorders for years afterward. Some go into deep denial and pretend it never happened. Some women want to talk about it. Some don’t. Some talk about it too much. And some women choose to go on a long, painful journey that leads to healing and recovery.

Some women have chosen to come forward, either privately to trusted friends or family, or publicly by exposing their abusers. The women who come forward are sometimes believed, sometimes not. Often, their revelations lead to fractures within families and friendships that never heal. This is why most women who are molested choose to stay silent. It’s just easier.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m far from a feminist who thinks that every woman has the right to be believed. I am firmly in favor of due process and the constitutional guarantee of innocent until proven guilty.

Whatever the case, sexual assault is not a joking matter. It’s not funny. Any man who would find humor in it doesn’t have a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend or a coworker who has survived sexual assault.

One defense I’ve heard over the past 72 hours is, “It’s no big deal. All men talk like this from time to time.”

That is flatly, patently false! I’ve said and done many things in my life of which I’m not proud, but rape jokes are not part of that. Moreover, most of the men I’ve known over my life would not joke about such a subject. I am hard pressed to imagine my father joking or laughing about rape or sexual advances of any sort.

This election really has brought out the worst in our country, not the least of which is abject hypocrisy on both sides.

For those of you supporting Hillary, I suggest you study the term, “Enabling.” Those who enable sexual predators are little better than the predators themselves. If you want to call yourself a feminist and brag about the first female president, think long and hard about Bill Clinton’s victims. I’m looking at you, Ms. Albright and Ms. Pelosi.

As for you Trump supporters, many of you were around during Bill Clinton’s era. Why is it that character no longer matters? What makes Trump so much better than Slick Willie? I’m looking at you, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Limbaugh.

Finally, to any man or woman who has been sexually assaulted, I won’t presume to tell you how to feel. I won’t presume to tell you what you should do. The only thing I will do is beg you to please share your burden with someone you can trust. Don’t go through it alone.

Oh Say, Can You Stand?

Colin Kaepernick has every right not to stand during the singing of our national anthem. That is a freedom guaranteed to him by our Constitution and protected by the military and law enforcement officers whom he is choosing to disparage.

Fans across the country also have the right to agree with him, or to express their outrage at Mr. Kaepernick’s generalizations and mal-informed commentary. If they want to burn his jersey in protest, that is also their right. If they want to boycott the 49ers, or boycott any product that he has endorsed, they can go ahead and more power to them. That is how the marketplace works.

I hope the NFL doesn’t take punitive action against Kaepernick. That might have a chilling effect on his First Amendment rights. I hope the NFL remembers said rights when the Dallas Cowboys want to display pro-police decals on their uniforms, or when some closet white supremacist screams, “Make America great again!” as he runs through the goal posts. The NFL should stay out of politics and stick to policing quarterbacks who suck the air out of their balls, or slapping the wrists of wife-beaters.

My minimal research indicates that Mr. Kaepernick is a man of considerable wealth. If he wanted to have a meaningful impact on race relations, there were other, far less petulant methods he might have employed to do so. But given the recent climate of symbolism over substance that permeates our politics and our culture in this country, I’m not surprised he chose this route; a route that might very well backfire on him. He probably should analyze the career trajectory of The Dixie Chicks before he pulls more stunts such as this one.

Or, maybe I’m just over-thinking the whole thing. My minimal research also indicates that Mr. Kaepernick has spent a lot of time on the bench of late. Maybe he just got to like sitting down so much that he didn’t feel that the flag was worth stretching his legs.

My final thought…thank God Denver didn’t acquire him! In the aftermath of Von Miller and The Great QB Question, we don’t need any more drama. Thank you, Marty.

Waiter! There’s a Fly in My Vinegar!

This will be my last blog post about the current election until November 9.

You cannot rationalize with irrational people.

A therapist once told me that and, as I grow older, I find that this little maxim becomes more and more true.

It applies to the current political landscape. A gulf has emerged, as symbolized by the feud between pro-Trump pundits like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham and #NeverTrumpers like Bret Stephens and Jonah Goldberg. These folks were once on the same side, bound together by common principles and political enemies, but the invasion of Trump into this election has thrown everything and everyone asunder.

It’s one thing for the left and the right to come into conflicts of personalities. This is the natural outcome of a system that was designed to be adversarial. The left excels at name-calling and dirty attacks. But when Republicans start doing it to each other, it’s time to withdraw. There is nothing to be gained by below-the-belt fighting. These tactics may suit Donald Trump, but I thought Hannity was better than that. Obviously, I was wrong.

This kind of dirty pool has even crept into my personal life. Several friends and family members have started to sharpen their arguments with personal coercion when I state that I will not vote for Donald Trump. This disappoints me, but it is indicative of a larger truth that has shown its ugly head this year. It is best expressed by Bill Kristol who says, “Trumpism corrupts.” There is ample evidence of the truth of this statement. I have never seen an election so rife with pettiness and ranker than this one. Yes, that includes the Bush/Gore fiasco in 2000.

So, as of right now, I am done. I am finished posting various rants and raves about a political contest that started in the basement and has graduated to the sewer. I am following my dad’s example and am going to be a class act in the face of further bullying from the Trump camp. I am secure in my decision not to vote for Trump and have nothing to prove to anyone. I suggest those of you #NeverTrumpers adopt the same mentality. Hunker down and ride out the next two-and-a-half months quietly and gracefully.

I will impart one final truth before I conclude. In a free and open society, no one is obligated to vote for a candidate. A vote is the most valuable form of political currency. The best politicians learn how to woo voters, not bully them. In other words, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Sadly, Donald Trump never learned this very basic lesson and it will be his undoing (and that of his loyal base) in November.

If you want to continue to take an interest in my political machinations, you can follow me on Twitter at RyanO218.

Finally, a note of hope in these murky times. Despite the fear and anger from both the right and left, our country will survive, no matter the outcome in November.

Pick Your Poison

I recently received a message from a former student named Sai (pronounced Sigh.) Yes, you read it correctly. I used to be a teacher at the Colorado Center for the Blind. My job lasted for about two months. I’d love to share a story about how I got fired and went out in a blaze of glory, but truthfully, the job was temporary. It was a summer counseling job. I had the (ahem) honor to work with blind teenagers as a cane travel instructor.

Sai was one of our best. She was quiet, thoughtful and she never broke curfew. A lot of our male students had a crush on her, but she couldn’t be bothered with boys. She was too busy figuring out how to plan her cane travel route, cook a meal and memorize Braille contractions.

As often happens, I kept in touch with some of my students through social media. To that end, Sai wrote me privately a few days ago and asked this question. I will paste the relevant portion below, then give my response.

Quote:
Since you mentioned that you wouldn’t mind answering questions about politics, I’d like to ask one thing I’ve been curious about. Because you consider (or maybe used to consider) yourself a republican, but you don’t support Donald Trump, what are you planning to do when the election rolls around in November? I heard that some democrats who don’t like Hilary would bite their lips and vote for her anyway because they don’t want trump as president, so I was just wondering what republican supporters who don’t like Trump would do. Please let me know if you don’t feel comfortable answering any of my question, or if you’re already planning to address it in one of your future blog post. In the former case I’ll just wait to read your article.
End quote

Sai, here is your rather protracted answer.

I am a part of the Never Trump movement. That means exactly what it says. Under no circumstances will I ever be persuaded to vote for Donald Trump for president. He has had almost 14 months to convince me and he has failed miserably. Many Republicans disagree with me and I will try my best to illustrate their position later in this post.

I don’t believe that Mr. Trump has proven himself to be temperamentally suited for the Oval Office.

Serving as the President of the United States is the most difficult job in the world. It requires the ability to have a vision of what you think America should be. It requires the ability to compromise with many competing agendas. I don’t merely mean the Republicans and the Democrats, but you have to manage hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people, all with their own selfish interests in mind. A truly gifted leader has the ability to maintain his or her own vision while simultaneously respecting the goals and views of their opponents. If you want examples, study Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Most leaders are not truly gifted. If they are merely good, they possess the ability to steer a steady course in order to keep our country safe from harm, whether that harm comes from internal or external forces.

Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is completely bereft of these characteristics. He is a petty bully when he feels attacked, resorting to name-calling and blame displacement that is more befitting an adolescent than an adult. When he is asked about his views on issues of substance, he often dodges the questions, resorting to slogans and shallow political rhetoric to smooth over his very obvious deficiencies in his knowledge of political affairs.

He is capricious in the making of promises that have no chance of ever being kept. There is no practical way that we will ever build a wall along our southern border and compel Mexico to pay for it. There is no pragmatic way that we can ever start a trade war with China without suffering major financial repercussions. There is no legal or ethical way we can ever ban an entire religion from entering this country.

There are many other objections I have to Mr. Trump, but we don’t have enough time to go into all of them.

The other major red flag I will discuss here is the fact that Trump refuses to release his tax returns. It is pro forma for all presidential candidates to disclose their financial records to the public. Trump has made it clear that he refuses to do so. He blames an IRS audit for this, but that is a dodge. An audit does not prevent anyone from making their tax returns available for public scrutiny.

One of the biggest reasons that Trump inspires his supporters is because they believe that he is a rich man who creates jobs and builds things. Trump is, by nature, a braggart. If his tax returns would flatter his image as a self-made billionaire, he would release them in a heartbeat. Moreover, he wouldn’t just casually release them. He’d throw them in the faces of his skeptics, adding his middle finger to boot.

Yet, his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, recently indicated that the Trump campaign had no intention of releasing his tax returns during the current cycle. I’m sure there are sound reasons for this. I believe that, if he were to show them to the public, we would learn a good deal about his finances that would not flatter his not-so-carefully crafted façade as an economic stimulator.

I am sad to say that many people who voted for Trump in the primaries were not smart. They chose not to employ their critical thinking skills, choosing instead to fall for his populist line of bs. After he became the Republican nominee, many who did not initially support him came reluctantly over to his camp. This is not because of his skills of persuasion, but rather, they are taking a desperate stand against the alternative to Trump, Hillary Clinton.

From an experience perspective, Hillary has Trump beat hands down. She was the First Lady for eight years, a senator from New York for six years and she spent four years as Secretary of State. Yet, many people on both sides of the aisle view her resume as a weakness. They believe that Hillary represents a broken and corrupt system that badly needs to be reformed. She does very little in her conduct to effectively counter this image.

Hillary badly mishandled the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, she put our national security at risk by storing classified E-mail messages on her private server, then blatantly lied to the public, the press and FBI investigators in order to cover it up. The recent revelations that the DNC tried to stack the deck against Bernie Sanders came as no surprise to me. I am hard pressed to think that Hillary didn’t have a hand in it.

The feminist fanfare about Hillary shattering the glass ceiling by being the first woman nominee for president rings hollow with me. Her husband, former President Clinton, is a proven sexual predator. I firmly believe that she enabled and covered up his atrocious behavior, thereby putting many women in jeopardy, in order to advance her career. I have no doubt that she will perpetuate Obama’s liberal agenda for the country by appointing left-of-center Supreme Court justices, by federally funding abortion and by adding to our already staggering national debt.

I’ve heard a few Republicans say that they would rather bite the bullet and vote for Hillary, rather than support Trump. Frankly, I don’t know how any self-respecting Republican could ever pull the lever for Hillary. Trump exemplifies the stark fact that desperation makes people do crazy things. Whatever the case, I am too conservative for this option. In these perilous times, I could be persuaded to vote for a moderate Democrat, but such a breed doesn’t exist anymore, thanks largely to Bernie Sanders. At any rate, Hillary sure ain’t it.

Many Trump supporters have tried to pressure me to change my mind, invoking the anti-Hillary arguments. Sometimes, their attacks have become personal. One Trump supporter called me, “Narrow-minded,” because I refuse to back Trump.

I am not an inflexible person. I have made compromises in the voting booth in spite of my conservative world view. In 2008, I supported John McCain for president, even though he was not my first, nor second, nor third choice during the primaries. I disagreed with his stance on immigration, manmade global warming and campaign finance reform. That said, I believed that, at his core, he was a Republican who cared about the welfare of our country.

In 2012, I voted for Mitt Romney, even though his involvement with socialized healthcare in Massachusetts and his past pro-choice views made me nervous. Once again, I perceived Romney as a decent person who would do what was best for the country.

But for me, Donald Trump is a bridge too far. He is an opportunistic, narcissistic bully with no real sense of what it takes to serve as the leader of the free world. Bill Kristol, a political pundit and father of the Never Trump movement, has a saying that I have found to be accurate. “Trumpism corrupts.” He is saying that Trump’s bad behavior has infected, not only the leaders of the Republican Party, but his supporters as well. If the high-pressure tactics of those who show a preference of the stick to the carrot is any indication, Kristol is dead right.

Trump’s tactics may have been effective in the primaries when the voters were fragmented between 17 candidates, but they have only served to backfire on him since the Indiana primary. Instead of instigating and provoking, Trump should be wooing disaffected members of the conservative base, as well as right-leaning independents. The fact that neither Ted Cruz nor John Kasich would endorse him is very telling.

He should have made amends with Ted Cruz, thereby courting his endorsement at the GOP convention in Cleveland. Instead, his supporters tried to bully Cruz once again from the floor, only to discover that it was all for not. Cruz refused to endorse Trump, gaining my respect along with many other rock-ribbed conservatives. Even though the convention was hosted in Cleveland, Ohio Governor John Kasich refused to attend, declining an opportunity to associate himself with Trump’s antics.

As we head into the final three months of the campaign, Republicans now find themselves weathering one gratuitous controversy after another as Donald Trump attacks judges of Hispanic heritage, Gold Star families who happen to be Muslim and babies at his rallies. I don’t even want to talk about Putin. I understand that many want to shake up the political establishment in Washington D.C., but Trump is a walking, talking hand grenade who serves as the wrong kind of disruption.

This is the dilemma our country now faces. We get to choose which poison we’d rather drink. Would you rather sip a cyanide shake, or arsenic juice? I choose neither. My party affiliation creates no obligation for me to vote for any candidate, particularly when he (and many of his supporters) presume that they are entitled to my favors.

I was praying that a viable third-party alternative would emerge before the Republican convention, but my hopes have been repeatedly dashed. I investigated Gary Johnson, but in these troubling times of ISIS and the fatally flawed Iran nuclear deal, I feel the libertarian approach of non-intervention is willfully naive. So, I will do what Ronald Reagan did in 1976 and leave the presidential contest blank when I go to vote in November.

To my Trump-supporting comrades who would accuse me of a proxy vote for Hillary, nice try. That is a manipulation tactic worthy of The Donald, but it is not a positive argument in favor of a candidate. It was appropriate in 2008 when I cast a pro-McCain vote that was really anti-Obama, but it won’t fly this time. Trump is just too unstable to be given the nuclear codes. Yes, I remember Marco Rubio’s words, even if he doesn’t.

You asked whether or not I still consider myself a Republican. The answer is a hesitant, yes. I’m not ready to leave the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan just yet. That said, I am particularly angry at the way the GOP silenced descent on the floor of our convention two weeks ago when the anti-Trump delegates tried to have their say. I will remember those actions with bitter irony the next time some GOP official is censored from speaking on a college campus.

Despite our recent difficulties (which were largely self-inflicted), I still believe that the GOP is the best apparatus to keep this country on the right track. If we are still in chaos four years from now, I will give up my long-held Republican registration and become an Independent until such time as a viable conservative third party can be established.

Finally, Sai, let me slip briefly back into my role as your instructor. You’re in college now and you indicated to me that the pervasive sentiment on your college campus is liberal. I won’t presume to tell you how to think. I can only give you the facts as I see them and let you draw your own conclusions. Any good teacher or friend who truly cares about you will adopt this same approach. The structured discovery method is the best, whether we’re talking about cane travel, or life in general.

That said, the reason that the Democrat party is being pulled to the left is due to Bernie Sanders; a self-described socialist. Many of your professors and fellow students agree with the core tenants of socialism. I strongly urge you to employ your critical thinking skills that I know you have and analyze socialism.

When Bernie Sanders says that he wants to make college free for all, is it possible? I submit to you that there is no such thing. Someone, somewhere, will always have to pay the bill, whether it’s for college, entitlement benefits such as Food Stamps, or mass transit in a big city like Denver. When Bernie Sanders talks about breaking up the banks, is that something that a president should be allowed to do? When he talks about defunding the military, do you think Russia and ISIS would welcome such a thing?

Then, ask yourself, your friends and your teachers where socialism has succeeded in the world. I’ll give you a hint; take a hard look at Venezuela.

I appreciate your questions, Sai. You were a joy to work with two years ago and I hope you are well now. I apologize that this was so long, but I wanted to give you as thorough an explanation as possible.

Take care, Sai, and please do keep in touch.

Your friend and former instructor,

Osentowski!

Shoot it Black! Shoot it Blue!

I am an unapologetic supporter of the police. I think they are doing a thankless job in a society that values their worth less and less with each passing generation. My heart bleeds for the 12 cops in Dallas who were shot last night when a peaceful protest over the latest shootings of black suspects by white cops turned deadly.

I came into work this morning and two of my Boulder coworkers were opining that a federal investigation should be launched every time a police officer fires his/her weapon. Really? Would said investigation be conducted by the FBI, who just let a terrorist slip through their fingers; a terrorist who went on to shoot over 100 people in an Orlando night club? Or maybe the DOJ, who is likely going to no-bill a high-ranking official who carelessly, deliberately passed classified information through her private server, despite warnings not to do so? I am unsure of much in this life, but I am damned sure that the tensions between the police and minority communities will not be eased by our federal government. I firmly believe that they are best addressed on the local level.

As people view the videos of the shootings in LA and MN, it is important to remember that we are not getting the full context of the situation. Civilian videos are generally taken after an incident starts, so we almost never see the prelude to the shooting. This problem would be solved if body cameras were mandatory for all law enforcement officers, whether they live in New York City or Beatrice, Nebraska. In our instant digital age, body cams would provide constant video footage for both perpetrators and victims to use as evidence. It would give the general public a far better picture of what cops have to deal with on the streets where ambiguities are omnipresent.

The sniper who shot the 12 cops in Dallas did the Black Lives Matter movement no favors. If BLM took a King-style approach of ‘peace and love through strength’, they would’ve gotten much further with their message. Riots, looting and the retaliatory murders of police officers, who were merely trying to protect those exercising their First Amendment rights, changes the focus of the narrative and sets them back. As long as they continue to take their cues from Malcolm X., and as long as President Obama continues to lend them his tacit approval, they will be rightly labeled as a fringe organization bordering on terrorism.

As an aside, can someone please tell me what the hell Mark Fuhrman (a documented racist) is doing giving commentary on Fox News? I don’t care what his theories are about the O.J. case. He is part of the problem, not the solution.

God bless the five police officers who gave their lives in the performance of their duties. Prayers to their families and comrades who will never see them again. God bless the other seven officers who are recovering from their wounds. God bless Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and prayers for their loved ones.

#BlueLivesMatter