Politics and Poker Don't Mix in the Age of Trump

The monthly poker game was at my house Tuesday night. Unlike a scene in the Tony award winning musical Fiorello!, which ran for 795 performances on Broadway beginning in November 1959, we did not talk politics while cards shuffled around the table. 

In case you’re not familiar with the song “Politics and Poker,” here’s a link to the original cast rendition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APsYihdXPRE. For those not interested in musical diversion, here are the appropriate smart and jaunty chorus lyrics that encase deliberations of New York City Republican machine politicians grappling with the difficulty of finding a candidate to run for Congress in a district thought to be unwinnable): 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Shuffle up the cards and find the joker 

Neither game's for children; either game is rough 

Decisions, decisions, like 

Who to pick, how to play, what to bet, when to call a bluff 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Playing for a pot that's mediocre 

Politics and poker, running neck and neck 

If politics seems more predictable 

That's because usually you can stack the deck! 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Makes the average guy a heavy a smoker 

Bless the nominee and give him our regards 

And watch while he learns that in poker and politics 

Brother, you've gotta have that slippery haphazardous commodity 

You've gotta have the cards!

My poker buddies don’t smoke. We didn’t talk politics because, frankly, it’s too depressing. To my knowledge they all share my progressive leanings. 

Not that I am not friends with Trumpsters, few though they may be among my acquaintances and relatives. It’s just becoming a lot less taxing to simply avoid them or set ground rules for discussion topics.

Trump is not unique in dividing allegiances among the populace. Think back to the tenures of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But with Trump the divide seems to be deeper, more extreme, more personal. 

Perhaps it’s a Forseter gene, but my sister Lee feels the same way. She has permitted me to share an exchange we had the other day after it became known that Trump waged a global war against breast feeding in favor of corporate America’s infant formula empire.

“The worse it gets the angrier I get at people I know that still support him,” wrote Lee.

“Or as they say, ‘we agree to disagree’. I’m about to tell them that their reckless silence or support of his behavior is so disgusting to me that I can no longer value them as friends and until they realize how hurtful he is and what a threat he is to democracy I do not wish to associate with them.

“Endorsing his hateful attacks on minorities and children and weaker nations is bigger than any friendship I feel for his supporters, regardless of how long I have known them. I feel I then become complicit in supporting him by not rejecting my friends.”  

“I informed David (her husband) that there will be no Fox News allowed in our home anymore. Certain radio stations are also banned. Emails are also off limits if they support him. Our home will be purged of all conservative venues.

  

“As for my friends, I am still confused and struggling with what to do. But the worse it gets the harder it is to remain connected to those who advocate and support him.”

When I first read those words I felt the real pain engulfing Lee, a retired early elementary school teacher in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles, and still a semi-practicing psychiatric social worker. I identified with it. 

A year ago in late May I wrote about the Trump fatigue factor (“The fatigue factor is setting in. Donald Trump and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight is overwhelming me. There’s too much to write. If I miss a day the accumulated copy weighs me down.”)

I am not as depressed by Trump’s actions as I am by the reaction of too, too many of my fellow Americans. As Maureen Dowd observed in The New York Times the other day, “On the occasion of America’s 242nd birthday, we must ask who we are, if we can see accounts of infants snatched from their parents and returned covered in lice, and not worry about our country’s soul.”

Could be a timing coincidence, but I was intrigued by an article, “The Power of Positive People,” currently among the most popular on The Times Web site. Teased with the question, “Are your friendships giving you a boost or bringing you down?,” the article opines, “Friends can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can,” according to Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and author, later adding, “I argue that the most powerful thing you can do to add healthy years is to curate your immediate social network” (https://nyti.ms/2m4V7Hr).

Sounds like a no-brainer, but keeping the Trump Fatigue Effect from infecting my personal relationships could become a full-time job. Not something I would relish in my retirement.

By the way, in case you’re interested, I won $10 Tuesday night, not enough to cover the expense of hosting the game, but better than losing at poker. For the short term, at least, national politics is a lost cause.

Etch A Sketch Draws Memories

The intense renewed interest in Etch A Sketch reminded me that Gilda and I knew the owners of the Ohio Art Co. that manufactures the toy that has come to symbolize Mitt Romney.

We met Bill Killgallon, chairman, and his brother, Larry, president and chief operating officer, a little more than 30 years ago, at the annual conferences of the Association of General Merchandise Chains every October. The AGMC was mostly a networking, social gathering of old line variety store executives from companies such as M.H. Lamston, McCrory, Winn’s, G.C. Murphy, Kresge, Rose’s, T.G.&Y. and Woolworth. Some of them had diversified with a discount store division under such nameplates as Murphy Mart, Kmart, Woolco and even a little company at the time called Wal-Mart. Don’t feel too ignorant if you don’t recognize some of those retail companies. Most of the AGMC membership of regional retailers have vanished under the weight of competing with Wal-Mart and Target.

Along with the retailers, the AGMC attracted key suppliers, Ohio Art among them. If any business travel could be considered a perq, attendance at the AGMC conference would fall under that rubric. By long-standing tradition of my publishing house in recognizing that a spouse could be an essential contributor to forging business relationships, the editor’s wife was permitted to attend on the company dime. I can truly attest that Gilda opened as many or even more contacts than I did during those AGMC meetings, oftentimes through her association with the spouses of the retail executives. It also didn’t hurt that from the time they were toddlers we brought our children to these conferences. One of the first words Dan learned to say was “croissant” as he and Gilda enjoyed breakfast on the patio of our room at the Arizona Biltmore when he was just two years old. One of my favorite pictures, hanging on our den wall, shows me wearing a straw cowboy hat while carrying Ellie asleep on my chest, a bandanna covering her head, during a cocktail reception two months before Ellie’s second birthday.


Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee, but I don’t want to pay for it.

It’s not surprising to me that a NY Times/CBS News survey has found widespread opposition to all or parts of the health care measure, the legality of which is now being debated at the Supreme Court. The survey found 47% disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, with only 36% approving it. Why wouldn’t our lemming-like public have negative opinions when they’ve been bombarded for the last year by Republican presidential candidate after candidate trashing the law (without offering a realistic alternative, mind you) and with hardly any aggressive defense mounted by President Obama (perhaps he’s waiting for the official re-election campaign to begin his counter-attack)?

Of course, the public shows its selfishness by also telling The Times/CBS News poll it favors coverage of pre-existing conditions (85%) and the extension of insurance to children until they turn 26 (68%) but not wanting to support a mandate to require everyone to buy insurance or be fined (51%). Just how do those people think the added benefits can be funded? Do they think insurance grows on trees?


“Nothing discredits religion quite like the gap between what believers profess and how they live.” I liked that sentence in a column (“Tebow in Babylon”) by Ross Douthat in Sunday’s NY Times Review section. But what I really liked from that section was Frank Bruni’s essay, "Rethinking His Religion," about the transformation his former college roommate has undergone over the last 30 years. I won’t ruin it for you. Here’s a link, with my suggestion to read it all the way through. The ending is priceless: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/bruni-a-catholic-classmate-rethinks-his-religion.html?_r=1&ref=frankbruni


On another spiritual note, did anyone else think it slightly incongruous that the National Geographic cable TV network chose to air “Only for God: Inside Hasidim” on a Friday night? Not that any Hasidim would be watching regardless of the night, but it did show a lack of sensitivity to broadcast the program last Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.