Tag Archives: #Dumptrump

I’m With Her

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im-with-grandma

If my grandmother were alive, today would have been her 97th birthday.

She’s been on my mind a lot the last few weeks, and not just because I always think of her in October. Whenever we draw close to election day, I remember her.

In 2004, when John Kerry was the D on the top of the ticket, I had election day Grandma duty. She was essentially wheelchair bound, and she had never been able to drive. So I had the job (and, I realize now, the privilege) of taking her to vote.

I remember pushing her awkwardly through the doors of the school where she voted. She had something to say about everyone and everything, because she always did, and she was making me laugh, like she always did.

As we waited, she reminded me repeatedly how she would be voting. I swear I can still hear her voice, with her Jersey City accent and her Baltimore hon –

“Make sure to put me down for the Ds! I always vote D. Those other guys – sheesh! To hell with them, hon.”

She was a low-rider in her wheelchair and disabled enough that she couldn’t stand at the voting machine. When we reached the booth, I had to actually cast her vote for her.

It’s a tremendous responsibility to place another person’s vote, and I knew it. In fact, I think I was more aware of it than she was. As I went through the ballot, I kept asking her, name by name, to tell me who she wanted me to select. She gave me a few specifics, but after a while she got cantankerous – “Does it have a D? Just vote for the D.” She yelled and waved a fist at me when we got to the school board section and I said she’d have to pick a name. (We left that one blank.)

After the final D was checked and her vote was cast, she and I headed back to her assisted living home. Her “I voted” sticker took pride of place on her chest – because she was proud. Really proud. I was with her partly because she refused to vote by absentee ballot. She wanted to be there, even if it meant she was directing someone else to push the buttons for her. And she wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon bragging about it to her friends.

My grandmother wasn’t well-educated. She didn’t approach elections as an intellectual. Her loyalty to the Democratic party wasn’t based in an extensive understanding of economic or social policy. Instead, it was based in her own experiences – of who came through for working class families like hers during the depression (FDR was her gold standard) and who, as far as she was concerned, continued to come through for the little guy over the decades. Grandma was solidly middle class for most of her life, but I don’t think she ever stopped seeing herself as a poor Italian girl with eight siblings from a run-down part of Jersey City.

When I took my her to vote all those years ago, Hillary was barely four years out of the White House – and grandma and I both wanted to see “those other guys” move out too. As luck had it, we lost, and they got a second term. Grandma didn’t live to vote for another president.

Hillary is back, fighting for the White House, and I wish more than almost anything that my grandmother could be here to vote for her. She’d have done it with pride, her “I’m With Her” sticker only slightly less important than her “I voted” sticker.

I also wish I could hear what she’d have to say about Hillary’s opponent – though I have a pretty good idea what it would be.

“This Trump character? Christ. What a shot in the ass.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sacrifice and Donald Trump

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized by

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“You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

When I heard Khizr Khan, father of an Army captain killed in combat in Iraq, address Donald Trump with those words, I was struck by how close they come to the heart of the problem Trump presents.

I’ve spent the last few months becoming continually more baffled by the words erupting from Trump’s mouth – and even more by the support they have stirred up among his followers.

My initial impressions of him were that he was a know-nothing narcissist driven entirely by his insatiable ego – and that his black hole of selfishness would be so obvious to Americans that it would cause his political demise.

Instead, he has become a true demagogue, with a terrifying horde of supporters ready not only to mimic and defend his rhetoric but to act on his dangerous demands.

Among the most ardent of his supporters, his selfishness is a badge of courage, a sign that he will be relentless in pursing his agenda. And they are right – he has been and will be single-mindedly devoted to getting what he wants.

But they also believe his agenda includes their well-being and the well-being of those they love.

And this is where they are deceived.

There’s no question that some degree of self-importance and personal ambition are motivating factors in the rise of any leader. An when it comes to the American presidency, it takes a pretty high opinion of yourself to believe you are capable of running the world’s most powerful country.

But what most of our leaders – Democrat and Republican – understand is that their success depends on their ability to sacrifice. They have to be able to give their time without immediate reward. They have to be able to suppress their ego when their character or intelligence or patriotism or citizenship are denigrated or denied. They have to be willing to serve, to actively promote what they perceive is a common good bigger than themselves.

Donald Trump has never sacrificed anything or anyone. He has no ability to sacrifice anything or anyone. He doesn’t hide this. He is proud of it.

His agenda is to serve Donald Trump.  He will be relentless in pursuing it. As long as the needs of his supporters and those they love align with the promotion of his own interests, his agenda will include them. But it will go no further than that.

Donald Trump is dangerous in so many ways. He’s thin-skinned and reckless. He has no control over what he says or does. He may be the least diplomatic person ever to run for office in America. He’s cruel and petty. He’s racist and bigoted. He’s unquestionably dictatorial.

But I think his inability to sacrifice is among the most dangerous of his faults. In fact, I think it is the cause of many of them.

His selfishness is patent. He makes no effort to disguise it. It has brought him this far and could bring him even further. What I ardently hope is that the people who recognize the power of his selfishness come to understand that it will never serve them.