Month: November 2024

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What the *&^%$ happened!?!!

Lily white is not where I work. Lily white is not where I live. I’m not sure where all the white people are at this point, presuming that was a major voting bloc for returning President Donald Trump to power. But I can say in my chats with first-generation Americans—who come from other lands like Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East—that they tend to be Republican. Just something I noticed. And this election, Arab Americans in particular were choosing Trump over VP Kamala Harris due to the U.S. pro-Israel policy regarding war-torn Gaza.

People say the economy is why Trump won handedly or why Harris lost. I understand completely. Everything costs so damn much now with no sign of prices restored to pre-pandemic levels. We haven’t experienced a pandemic like the Covid-19 worldwide health crisis, so who knows how long it takes for prices to come down? We’ll find out. Still, President Joe Biden’s economy is proven resilient, even stronger than when Trump was President. But obviously, the majority of American voters remain unconvinced and are hurting economically in the home … where it counts most.

I started this political humor and social commentary blog a month after Trump was elected as U.S. President in 2016—so shocked was I he won. And the way he won. All brass and no class. Lots of repeated lies and histrionics. Calling straight-up news organizations ‘fake news’ and the tabloids ‘real news.’ And just plain meanness, like making fun of a disabled reporter. Gosh. Not to mention cozying up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. But the majority of Americans voted Trump in. Actually, his opponent Hillary Clinton received 3 million more votes. But Trump won the Electoral College. This time around, he won quickly and with the popular vote. It was a stunning victory all around. Republicans didn’t think he’d win. Neither did Democrats. Neither did the mass media.

By now the people don’t trust the American news media at all with their puffed-up predictions and polls. The news media had an approval of maybe 30 percent, and now forget about it. The media blew it again with all their assured projections which the public actually believed. None of them thought Trump would win again. All of them insisting the economy is robust. (And ironically it is.) But Americans aren’t fooled by the high cost of living, their struggles to make ends meet, their living too close to financial ruin month after month.

I know. I blame corporate greed for the high cost of products. I realize prices have gone up, even doubled and tripled, and never have come down for everything including rent and mortgage, hospitalization, prescription drugs, insurance, bills for power and gas, and fuel for our cars. And why aren’t prices going down … by now? [I’ll be suspicious if prices miraculously come down after Trump takes office.]

Democrats have changed. So have Republicans.

Another theory on why Trump won has to do with something called elitism, that Democrats are thought of as educated and overly educated, smug and pretentious, earning the big bucks, living cushy lives in McMansions, and definitely ignoring the ‘little people.’ I cannot believe I’ve lived to see the day that Democrats are considered the party of the elite and Republicans are thought of as the ones who aren’t too proud to roll up their sleeves and help the common man. It’s what the American people think based on last week’s election. It’s as extreme a political reversal as when both parties switched when Blacks were given civil rights in the 1960s. OK, so Americans now see Republicans as the political party that cares for the working man. I remain unconvinced—as unconvinced as the majority voters are with Democrats supporting measures to assist their struggle with high prices.

But given how Trump won in 2016 and now again in 2024, I theorize (sorry for using a pretentious word)—all right, to rephrase: I’m thinking there’s something going on with the human brain and circular logic. It is the stuff of cults.

I’m just mouth agape over what’s happened to the majority of people I know, from beloved family to friends, neighbors and colleagues. In my nonwhite neighborhood and work world, the overwhelming majority of people are Republican. I understood the growing switch from Democrat to Republican back in the 1990s as the issues of concern were wasteful government spending, taxes, social conservatism, Christianity, abortion, and if you can believe it Presidential character. In those days, communities across the U.S. that used to be Democratic strongholds converted one by one to Republican. It was a movement that started with the mass appeal of President Ronald Reagan in 1980.

And this Republican majority, whether true believers or just voting for Trump again for what it’s worth, watch Right-leaning Fox, America’s number one choice with 25 percent of all news watchers. It didn’t matter that Fox lost a defamation lawsuit and had to spend close to a billion dollars for repeatedly lying about the 2020 presidential outcome to support Trump’s claim against voting machines and rampant fraud.

The 2020 election was judged to be our most secure in history with the same said about 2024. So the machines are not malfunctioning (and they did at the turn of the century as I experienced).

And illegals could never vote to begin with along with lots of dead people. So those were other lies from 2020 and cleared by the 2024 election.

There was always a fear in politics that more people were drawn to “extreme” Right and Left. That’s worth pondering. Republicans who are wholeheartedly in with Trump denounce the party actually and proclaim themselves MAGA. Who knows what that means, but apparently immigration, all right illegal immigration—because it’s still legal for humans to come to this country to live—was the burning factor, the one big topic of interest that bonded tens of millions of Americans together.

Back to Democratic elitism, it’s not as insulting as it is just … stupid. Talking heads may articulate policy flaws and desires whether Republican or Democrat. But to base an entire historical American political party as the New Elites is not true. And yet we who call ourselves Democrats must come across as thinking we’re better than everybody else. I’ve been told that a few times. Me, one who practices self-deprecating humor, the first one to insult myself before anybody else gets a chance. The point is people who did have the opportunity to go to college (on work-study programs and government loans and grants as I did) don’t think they are better than people who did not and could not attend or finish college.

Elitism describes a minority of Americans across both Republican and Democrat parties. What they have in common is wealth and the ability to live ‘above’ the masses in a way that keeps them from seeing and experiencing what’s really going on down here where 99 percent of us live and work. Elites do not know or care about the majority of Americans’ fear of financial ruin and the squeezing of the middle class. President Joe Biden and VP Harris were not born with silver spoons in their mouths. They came from typical middle-class and working-class families. They earned the opportunity for college and made their way in life. The same cannot be said about Trump.

The fact remains the majority of American voters agreed to look the other way when it comes to Trump and all that we already know about how he rules and how he wants to rule our country. They overlooked the fact that he’s awaiting sentencing for his serious felony conviction involving dozens of flat-out crimes associated with his first run for the presidency. His long speeches and tiredness that came across as mini strokes or dementia were lauded by his fans and of no concern to the majority of voters this time around. His enemies’ list and remarks about killing journalists and others who practiced their Constitutional right of free speech were perceived by the majority of voters as nothing more than tough talk, nothing to take seriously.

Not to sound pretentious or too edumacated, but in time when the future generation studies us, they will wonder many things: about our hypnotic need for phones and instant information, a people who adhere to only their own beliefs whether political or religious and never study opposing views, who overeat mindlessly and do not care for their bodies, who have many guns for protection just in case, who could not vote into the Presidency two qualified women and instead one time chose a convicted criminal, who swing like a pendulum between electing one party then the other every four to eight years. But the future generation will know more about brain health that can be detrimental when only consuming media that repeatedly tells us what we already think. Future citizens will know this creates circular logic and brain disease. And they’ll understand us better than we are willing to understand what we’ve done to ourselves at this point in time in American history.

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Power of the Press fading fast

During the 2000 Bush/Gore election, I was on the editorial board of a small Texas newspaper. I also was the government reporter, covering local, state and national news and every election. Near November the editorial board met to choose political endorsements. We had endorsed in races from the county to U.S. legislators and this year had to decide between George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore for U.S. President. We knew Bush as our Texas governor for a few years. I had covered the state long enough to know that every one of his four campaign goals was already set in motion whether he won or lost to Gov. Ann Richards. Bush even came to town where I was a reporter. The personal visit was a big plus when papers decided on endorsing a candidate, especially if he or she sat down with the editorial board. Bush popped in to talk to the newspaper editor and publisher. That day we workers were told to stay at our desks and not get up until the Governor and Presidential candidate left the building. He walked in at the appointed time and waved at us in the newsroom. I smiled and waved back. I’d interviewed Gov. Bush several times.

Who would the editorial board choose: Bush or Gore? The editorial board consisted of five members. Two were Republican, and three of us were Democrats. So knowing everything there was to know at that time about Bush and Gore, we voted, and Gore would be endorsed by the newspaper.

But the next day, the publisher decided the newspaper should endorse Bush. He had been our governor after all. He was like family. The publisher had called newspapers across the state and found all were endorsing Bush. Perhaps he worried we’d be on 60 Minutes having to explain why we were the only Texas newspaper not endorsing Bush for President. We didn’t have a reason other than the majority of us on the editorial board were Democrats. But the three of us were in the news biz and could think for ourselves. Bush was friendly and all but never seemed to fit the big boots of Governor of Texas. We who were Democrats disagreed with his business, social and environmental policies at the expense of millions of disenfranchised Texas families. We came to that conclusion from working the state to local angles of new policies, from which we developed our opinion and endorsement.

The editor talked to the other two Democrats on the editorial board, which included yours truly. He refused to write an editorial supporting Bush. So did the other Democrat. I had no problem writing up a glowing endorsement of Bush. I’m a writer. I can write any angle whether I believe it or not. Covered many stories about issues I personally do not support. So I used my first-hand knowledge of Bush plus his campaign brochures and got to writing. No one would ever know I was the one who wrote the Bush editorial endorsement.

A quarter century later, our nation—which enshrined freedom of the Press into our Constitution—not only has significantly fewer newspapers but this year even fewer that will endorse for U.S. President, evading altogether to choose either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump.

News you used to use

The news biz is not what it used to be and is visibly unsure of its future existence and present purpose or relevancy. ‘Who’s reading?’ is the question, always been. Now people prefer news sources that promote their political beliefs whether Left or Right. And the news business has evolved into commentary-heavy instead of predominantly news, which it should be. Broadcast news channels are 95 percent commentary and five percent news.

See, the public thinks news people constantly talking about politics is arrogant.

Even during my years in newspapers, starting in the 1980s, I always sensed a doom-and-gloom built into the once proud and illustrious newspaper industry. Still, I persevered. Some of us reporters were natural writers. Writers are always observing everything, asking questions, and then writing about it. Journalists, however, are supposed to report news. We investigated, researched and studied our story ideas so that what we wrote, what was printed and published, was accurate sans bias.

I object to the assumption that journalists can never report on people who’ve experienced ordeals they haven’t. A writer can do it and does it all the time and has throughout history. Have you read classic novels or a play or watched a good movie?

Fear is the reason newspapers like The Washington Post and LA Times shamefully shirked their expected duty to endorse a Presidential candidate. They fear hostility by millions of Americans not to forget the well-known contempt of the media by one of the Presidential candidates. When it came to endorsing Harris and Trump, these papers figured rightly “Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.” But the decision to avoid a Presidential endorsement altogether was chicken. Reporters quit over it.

NEWSpapers should have endorsed one presidential candidate over the other. It’s not arrogance but an informed opinion for the record and posterity that the public should know whether they care or not—and future generations should know about Presidential endorsements, too. The media has access to candidates and vice versa. Citizens do not.

Arrogance is the perception the public has of the media, newspapers and reporters. I disagree but as a reporter interviewed enough folks to understand where they’re coming from—lives with many hardships, few options or paths for improvement, feeling powerless as if their lives don’t matter—then I’d write about it.