Oy! A Common Refrain In the Age of Trump

Oy.

Oy vey.

Oy-yoy-yoy. 

Oy—a Yiddish exclamation of chagrin, dismay, exasperation or pain.

It looks like it will be worse than expected. It looks like Donald Trump will systematically destroy the foundations of our country while a vast majority of the Republican Party shows itself to be a spineless entity only interested in staying in office with no regard for truth, justice and the tenets of their sainted Ronald Reagan.

Oy vey—Yiddish for “Oh, how terrible things are.”

Let’s start with some basic agreements. First ISIS and al Queda are terrorist organizations. They can attack us and kill scores at a time but they are not existential threats to America, at least not in a physical sense. They do no more physical damage than Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., or Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

The danger from Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernadino, Calif., or a Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, is that we will overreact and start to dismantle constitutional protections. We should fear the loss of liberties we all take for granted.

We are in no danger of sharia law overtaking our judicial system.

Second thing to agree on, existential threats may come from governments with the power to undermine our democracy, our safety and our economic system. Those threats can come from two countries—Russia and China.

Or they may come from within, from politicians who issue falsehoods while denying the truth, who divide to conquer, who fail to see real existential threats while promoting false ones, who undermine belief in our country’s principles and institutions by substituting their own misguided values and by not sharply rebuking and disavowing the bigoted rants of fringe groups, thereby giving them undeserved legitimacy.

OY-YOY-YOY: Yiddish for an exclamation of sorrow and lamentation.

It is widely believed by intelligence experts inside and outside our government that Russia tried to influence our recent election by hacking into Democratic Party and officials’ computers.

Donald Trump doesn’t believe that. But then Donald Trump believes it is okay to retweet falsehoods as legitimate news. So does his choice to be national security advisor, retired general Mike Flynn. So does his choice to be chief strategist, Stephen Bannon.

But as troubling as those individuals are with their careless and carefree regard for the truth it pales in comparison to the hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Republican politicians and voters who are not protesting their insanity.

Now that the election is over, GOP senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, especially the former, now seem ready to fight for the integrity of the government rather than for the in-the-moment-victory of a Republican presidential candidate no matter how flawed he might be or how crass his behavior toward them was during the last 18 months. 

Under the existing rules of our electoral system, Trump won the election, though not a mandate, as he claims, as close to three million more voters opted for someone besides him to lead America. He won the Electoral College vote, but that shouldn’t mean all truth and logic gets dissolved in his acidic view of reality. The optimal word in that last sentence is “shouldn’t.” 

Oy.

Trump is creating an alternative universe where intelligence does not exist if it doesn’t match his gut instincts and his desire to make a buck. He has mastered the art of the sham and the public diss. How exquisitely perverse was his dangling interest in Al Gore’s explanation of climate change and environmental vigilance only to rebuff it quickly by nominating an Environmental Protection Agency chief who rejects it all and has no appreciation of the link between fracking and the thousands of earthquakes that have shook his home state of Oklahoma.

Cabinet departments were established to further the benefits of their disciplines and constituencies. Yet Trump has chosen a labor secretary who doesn’t believe in a minimum wage and who is anti-union. Trump has chosen a housing secretary with no prior experience in public housing other than the fabrication (by others) that he grew up in public housing rather than near it. He’s chosen as United Nations ambassador someone with no foreign relations experience. During the campaign Trump blasted Hillary Clinton for being close to Goldman Sachs, yet he picked three current or former Goldman Sachs bankers as teammates (Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary, Bannon and Gary Cohn, the current Goldman president, as director of the National Economic Council).

The Bill of Rights was adopted to protect and enshrine freedom of speech, religion and assembly. Yet Trump disparages—bullies, actually—those who make fun of him, those who burn the flag as a protest, those who adhere to Islam, those who assemble peacefully. 

Republican values are being torn down by Trump. From Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon such values included stewardship of the land and natural resources. Yet Trump surrounds himself with fossil fuel advocates and climate change deniers even as the oceans rise, the polar cap melts, residents of cities like Beijing and New Delhi choke under pollution from coal and fossil fuel exhausts. Do we really want to return to the days of smog in Los Angeles when children, seniors and those with respiratory ailments were advised to stay indoors? Is that how Trump will make America great again? 

Abraham Lincoln is revered for fighting for racial equality. Yet Trump and his minions want to roll back laws that have advanced voting rights of minorities. 

Reagan was the consummate anti-Russian. Yet Trump rejects such Republican orthodoxy. He sees Russia only through the eyes of an entrepreneur, as a market to exploit, failing to see how Vladimir Putin has aggressively sought to undermine Western values and democracies. 

Trump lacks a world view commensurate with the responsibilities of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation on earth. There is one silver lining in his leadership. He is a teetotaler, so there’s no danger of his being drunk and ordering some dangerous military adventure as Nixon’s top staff worried in the days before his resignation. Of course, our last experience with a non drinker would not instill such confidence. Abstainer-in-chief George W. Bush got us into two wars in the Mideast in which we are still engaged. 

Trump also poses a downside risk—he says he gets just four hours of sleep a night. Last week AAA said driving on four hours’ sleep is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. Driving on 4-5 hours’ sleep increases the chance of an accident by 400%. Less than four hours increases the crash risk by 12 times.

Teenagers, older adults and those who have sleep debt are among the group with the most risk of an accident, according to AAA.

So how comfortable should we feel about the decision making skills of a 70-year-old future president who boasts he gets just four hours sleep a night?

Oy vey!

Planes and Automobiles Travel Edition

On the plane ride home from Omaha last Sunday, I looked over the paper being studied by the woman sitting next to me. It was a primer on how to fly an airplane. Amused, I asked if she was the “go to” person in case of pilot failure. She smiled back awkwardly, acknowledging my lame joke.

I thought back to the time I sat in the co-pilot’s seat of a single engine plane and wondered if I would be able to save all on board if an emergency disabled the pilot. It was back in 1981. Along with seven New York-based security analysts I had flown to Tulsa to rendezvous with a Walmart air taxi that would ferry us to Bentonville, AR, for the company’s annual meeting weekend.

I was the last to board. The only vacant spot—the seat to the right of the pilot. I was both anxious and exhilarated. I masked my emotions, joking with the pilot I was ready to take over if needed. I was determined to study his every move, just in case.

And then it happened—in the middle of our conversation his voice went soft and he was talking with the tower. We slowly started taxiing. Wait a minute. I didn’t see him touch anything. His hands weren’t on the yoke. How could he be talking and moving the plane so...effortlessly? We just rolled to the top of the runway and zoomed into the air.

I had no pretensions I would be able to take over in an emergency. Instead, I prayed, silently of course, that nothing would happen to the pilot. As I’m here to relate this story, nothing did.

Who said prayer doesn’t work?

Prayer might be needed on the roads this weekend as AAA is predicting 36 million Americans will travel by car through July 4. 

With gas prices at an 11 year low, 40% lower than a year ago, Americans are once again demonstrating they have no memory of the ebb and flow of gas prices and no consideration for the environment. How? By rushing out to buy SUV’s and other gas guzzlers and by abandoning hybrid and electric car alternatives.

The other week at my Ford dealership I asked if they had another C-Max in for service. No, because they weren’t really selling too many of them anymore since gas prices had moderated, the service agent said. His comments were backed up by a recent New York Times article: http://nyti.ms/28UW8gD

Too bad. We’ve driven our C-Max a little more than 60,000 miles in three years. We generally get 50 miles per gallon. It feels good to visit the gas station as little as we do.

Updating another one of efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, our solar panels saved almost 7,000 kilowatts during the first year of operation.

Brrr. Murphy's Law Strikes Again and I Beat Stephen Colbert

I believe in contingency planning. I’m a big “what if” man. Drives my family crazy. I constantly drill into them the need for redundant systems, such as the need to carry extra keys for the car or home. Just in case. 

Today, the coldest day of the year, was one of those days. For the first time in more than 25 years, I locked my car with the engine running while standing outside. No need to panic, I thought. Like the last time, I’ll simply dip my hand into my pocket and extract the just-in-case key I always carry. Only, this time there wasn’t any extra key in my pocket. 

Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I had just dropped off food at the apartment of one of the senior citizens I service in Yonkers. I opened the front passenger door of the Jeep to turn the motor on to heat up the car. I pushed what I thought was the button to open the other doors. Instead, before realizing I locked them, I slammed shut the passenger door. 

I won’t say I panicked, but I did express anger and disappointment with the only person who could hear me—me! I called 911. They referred me to the Yonkers Police Department. They informed they no longer made house calls for locked doors. Call a locksmith or tow truck company, they advised. I called AAA. Yes, they’d send someone. They’d put me on the “priority list” since the engine was running. Priority meant no more than an hour’s wait. Some priority—I always thought AAA has a one-hour response standard whatever is your problem.

Did I mention today was the coldest day of the year? 18 degrees at noon. Wind chill as a single digit. At least I was wearing flannel-lined jeans, earmuffs, a hat, scarf, my warmest winter jacket with hood and several layers of clothing. I tell you this because as a self-inflicted punishment I waited outdoors for most of the 45 minutes it took AAA to show up. 

When he arrived, the friendly AAA man demonstrated how easily and quickly carjackers can break into their prey. He placed a wedge between the driver’s front door and the car chassis, opening a slot sufficiently wide to insert a long probe that in my case pushed the button to roll down the electric window but just as easily could have shifted the door lock. He was there maybe 90 seconds. As I drove off to fulfill the rest of my Meals-on-Wheels deliveries, I couldn’t help but think of another life’s saying—no good deed goes unpunished.

Strike One: I’ve written about my feeling that inanimate objects have a mind of their own. For example, my company umbrella broke my last day of work. The handle hangs from the bookshelf above my desk as a reminder of inanimate articulation. 

I think the Jeep is worried its days are numbered. Yesterday, it assaulted me. The rear hatch is finicky. Sometimes it stays open, sometimes it refuses to. When the latter happens, I prop it up with a broom handle. But yesterday it was behaving when I had to unload three real estate signs. I had just placed the first one on the ground when I turned to retrieve another and was struck hard on the side of the head by the drooping hatch. Normally I would have just winced in pain, but I was reminded of a tragic, fatal accident one of my publishing competitors suffered some 10 years ago. He was returning a rental car when he somehow hit his head as he closed the trunk. Like me he thought nothing of it, but within an hour he had hemorrhaged and died. 

As you can read, I’m still around, but Tuesday’s Jeep incident was strike one, today’s strike two. I’m not interested in reaching strike three.

Colbert Bump: I think I’m entitled to a Colbert Bump for beating Stephen Colbert to the story about plans by Republicans to alter the way Electoral College votes are allocated (of course, we both got scooped by the Associated Press, but I reported on it Monday while Colbert waited till Tuesday).

Anyway, spend five minutes watching Colbert “analyze” this ploy being considered by the GOP. Here’s the link—http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/423114/january-22-2013/the-word---win--lose--or-redraw?xrs=share_copy