So, anyone who knows me well, knows about my father. Well, at least they know the man who raised me, not my biological father, because that is a different story entirely.
Those who knew Walt Sr. fall into two camps. Those who thought he was a great guy, and those who thought he was a son of a bitch. They were both right, depending on when you met him, and the context of your encounter.
I have said that my father was combination of John Wayne and Donald Trump, and that rings more truly than ever today.
My father was a cowboy, a real estate broker, and a person who never sat still. He was always working.
He could be a very sweet man when things were going his way, and a mean, me-first/screw-the-rest-of-you man when things were going bad. He was never into self-reflection or understanding what made him tick. He never tried to grasp, or get a handle on, how he could change.
He was the way he was, for both good and bad. His weakness were his blind spots, and they were extraordinarily large. Those blind spots caught up to him in his final few years, and he paid the price for them. Our family kept paying that price, long after he was gone.
The same is true about President Trump.
He has that same great guy/son of bitch, personality. People love him, or hate him. There are a few in the middle, or see him from both sides.
For everyone who thinks I hate Trump, look, I will go out of my way to point out his faults and mistakes. That goes without question. However, I also love some of the things he has done. I really do.
Thought experiment:
Imagine if someone came up to you, the day before the 2016 election and said, "The next president was going to do the following things";
- Grow the economy at an astonishing rate.
- Reduce black and hispanic unemployment to record lows.
- Have a real increase in working class income for the first time in decades.
- Stop North Korea from shooting missiles all over the region.
- Slap China with tariffs, and make them stop taking our technology.
- Renegotiate the NAFTA treaty to give us better trade policies with our neighbors.
- Negotiate peace deals between Israel, and now three other nations.
- Drone strike an Iranian Quds Force leader responsible for killing American soldiers.
- Roll back the control ISIS from huge sections of Iraq and Syria.
- Perhaps the best thing; not get us into any new foreign wars.
What would you have said about that next president?
Probably that Hillary Clinton was going to go down as the best president in our memories.
Whoops.
So, as much as I like those parts of his presidency, and that's a lot, there were parts that I did not like, and some that I hated. I mean really hated.
Spending went up, or I should say, it just continued on its path towards our national bankruptcy in a few decades. All that talk about not signing another huge Omnibus spending bill was hot air. His fight-first, punch back ten times as hard tactic from his Twitter feed was juvenile to say the least. I did get laugh now and again when he went after certain stupid things, but he is the president. There are times you should let things go. He would not, it is not in his nature.
Those who supported him, he loved. Those who opposed him, he hated. He would condemn Neo Nazis and white supremacist when called out on it, but the number one target for his animosity were those who hated him. Those folks were the real bad guys and the people he was trying to take down.
One of the worst blind spots Donald Trump has is that he wants what it wants, no matter what.
If he wanted something to happen, something that was against the constitution, his staff, or his White House Council would have to say, no Mr. President, you cannot do that. That is not what the constitution says.
Like I say, sometimes he was at his best going against his advisors. He got so many of his accomplishments done by going against what the media, his critics, and even his own staff said he could not do.
He would just say, "Move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem" and he made that happen. The problem is with that kind of mind, that personality, he doesn't know the law, read the rules, or care about those things. He wants what he wants.
In his private life and business, he had to hire lawyers to either get him out of a trap he made for himself, or tell him the one thing he hates to hear the most; "Sir, you just cannot do that."
I'm sure he went through a bunch of lawyers and accountants over the years, firing the ones who told him he couldn't do things he wanted. He would find ones who would say, well, let me handle this. I'll keep you in the clear, just don't ask questions.
That is exactly what bit him, me, and this nation, in the ass on January 6th.
President Trump kept listening to the people who said he could do something about losing the election. He kept listening to 'experts' who said, you can do this, or the Vice President can do that, there is still a way for you to stay in office as president.
He knows the democrats are coming for him the day he leaves office. He will be charged, arrested, sued, and every other legal means to do him in by February. The media will be driving the "Lock him up" bandwagon, with a cooler full of sparkling seltzer and a kale salad.
He knows he had to stay in office or go to jail. If you support President Trump, and wonder why he wants to remain president for four more years, it's probably not the reason you think. It's not to save the country, or to keep making America great. He wants to head out to Mar A Lago and play golf, knowing he won't be go to jail.
I always thought he would make a deal with Pence, and the Republicans to resign after he lost, and let Pence pardon him. Maybe that could still happen, but time is running out.
So let's go back to this past week and look at the "Stop the steal" rally, march, and ultimately the riot it became.
The thing about Trump, is the folks who love the guy, really love the guy. Why? In their eyes, they see all the damage going on in our nation, and see a guy will fight to stop it. That is what they see, and that is what President Trump plays into.
The Super Trumpers are very much like the man they love. They want what they want, but are not concerned with the small stuff. Things like laws, the constitution, or facts. They want to believe what they believe.
They believe they are right, and when they are shown they are wrong, some other Super Trumper will post something on Facebook that proves how right they are. A picture, or a five second video, taken out of context, or edited, to make a point is all they need to prove that they alone are the ones who understand what is really happening.
Look, I have some of these friends. It is very frustrating for me as a friend, and it must be for them as well. I point out things, provable facts, and they go on to the next conspiracy theory, or point me to some kook website where the have the 'real answers'.
These people who showed up to the 'Stop the steal' rally were encouraged by two entities; the far right media, and (there is no denying this) by the President himself.
I'm not sure who was behind Trump telling him that there was someway to change the Electoral College state votes, but someone must have been telling him that. Perhaps it came back to the whole, staying out of jail thing that made him grasp on to this fantasy. Maybe he just wanted one last crowd.
Whatever the motive, Trump not only said that this elections was stolen, the craziest thing was he said he won in a landslide, and was cheated out that. I'm not sure if he truly believes this or it makes for a good applause line, but he said this rally was his, was your, was our last chance to keep him in the Oval Office.
This was their last chance, and he was going to go with them on the march. He was going to go down to congress and make sure Pence would do the 'right thing'.
No matter how many advisors, legal counsels, or friends told him that the Vice President has zero authority to change or throw out the Electoral College votes, once they are approved and get passed the appeal period. The president wanted people to believe there was a chance he would remain in office.
Pence was not going to do anything, and Trump knew this.
In congress, there were a few dozen right wing folks making speeches contesting the election, but they had zero chance of overturning anything. They were either Super Trumpers, or wanted to get a few bonus points for the upcoming 2024 GOP race.
No matter what happened at the capitol that day, Joe Biden was going to become the President Elect.
So the question keeps coming back, why would President Trump do this?
In the end, for me it comes down to this: Trump was either extremely stupid, not knowing how presidential elections work, or he was just desperate.
Ultimately, I think spending his last few years, and all his money, defending himself trying to stay out of prison was the main factor.
I know, I know, this is where you Super Trumpers will send me a dozen pictures of Antifa guys in the crowd, saying they were doing all the damage. I'm not saying anarchist and Antifa folks were not there, I'm sure they were. If I were an Antifa leader, I would be there to make sure Trump supporters looked like a bunch of lunatics. I'm actually surprised one of them didn't try to burn the place down.
However, if you spend any time looking at the thousands of pictures and videos, you can be assured the vast majority were in fact the Super Trump crowd. They were caught up in moment.
Being caught up in a crowd, led by a few radicals is not a good thing. That goes both ways.
I would tell that to my friends who were at the Black Lives Matter marches in Sacramento this summer. When the Antifa and BLM radicals start breaking things, smashing windows, looting, and beating people up, it's time to stop them. If you can't stop them, just leave and go find a news crew as quickly as you can. Tell everyone that those people rioting are criminals, and should be arrested.
I would also tell that to my Trump supporting friends. Marching, gathering in large numbers is fine. Even a bit of nonviolent, non confrontational opposition to the police has its place in protest. You want to sit down and block a sidewalk after the police tell you to leave. That is your choice. You might get arrested, but that might be what's needed on your view.
Protests are one thing, violence is another.
So where do we go from here? What is coming? Where are we heading? For each side, and as a nation?
Some very bad things are coming. There is going to have to be a reset of how we exist as Americans in the twenty first century.
There will be lots of mistakes made, lot of civil rights crushed, and lots of conflict. I must say, some of this will be armed conflict, driven by those on each side of the extremes. There will be open hatred, and sides choosing to separate themselves from each other. It is going to be ugly.
So, if I have any hope, any words of advice for both sides, for my fellow Americans, it is this; You are not as far apart and you think, and not as far apart as the media on both sides are telling you.
Democrats, hear me out on this please. Your 65 year old neighbor with the MAGA hat and his wife, the ones flying American flag in their yard, are not your enemy. They are your neighbors.
They would come over to your house in the middle of the night if they saw your house was on fire, and try like hell to save you and your family. Maybe even your cat. They would stop on the side of the road and offer you a ride home if your car broke down at night. He and his wife are good people, but they are afraid of the America they are seeing, on TV, and on their streets.
They want to have things stay the way they are if at all possible, because things are changing so fast. They would keep living in a world where they know how things work. They want to know all those years of showing up to work everyday, paying their taxes, obeying the police, and going to church a few Sundays a month, are still the way to be a successful American.
They get their news from Sean Hannity, Facebook, and Rush Limbaugh, and only hear that one side. They see democrats as the lunatic fringe, burning their streets down and assaulting police without consequence.
To them, Donald Trump was a throwback to a time and an America they understood.
Now, there are some of the Super Trumpers out there who will go to the extreme. However, if you look at the past four years, you can't compare the damage and destruction caused by Trump supporters to the leftist and anarchist in the Antifa or militant BLM groups. It not really close.
These Super Trumpers get one hell of a black eye for the storming of the capitol building. That was absolutely horrific, and should be seen as shameful by everyone. Many will be arrested, and should be. This should make the vast majority disconnect from those fringe Trump groups, and come back towards the center.
Republicans, hear me out on this please. The 32 year old guy who drives an electric car, and wears a Che Guevara t-shirt while playing video games, along with his wife who wears the pink uterus hat to protest, they are not your enemy. They're your neighbors.
They have been taught, since middle school, that America is an evil nation, filled to the brim with racists, homophobes, and every other phobe that their humanities classes taught them. They themselves? They are actually pretty nice people.
They like good food, good coffee, and actually live a lot like conservatives. They get married, send their kids to college, as much as they say they are for the poor and working class minorities, they choose to live in very nice homes, in very safe neighborhoods. The ones with a lot of retired MAGA people, police, firefighters, and rich people, but a neighborhood that is growing blue.
They think American needs to change, and everything they read, watch, and listen to goes along with that mindset. Every streaming service, movie studio, podcasting service, and every television network is ran by people who think like them. They live in a world that thinks just as they do.
It is hard for them to see where they are wrong, because everyone from their teachers in elementary school on through college, Hollywood, and popular culture, gives them this same message. America is bad, white people are bad, even if they don't know they are bad, and the world is going to burn up, or freeze over, if we don't vote Socialist.
How do we bridge these two worlds? How do we see past the stereotypes and come together? I'm not sure we can until we have a another huge shakeup, and it is coming.
Joe Biden's administration will govern like the hippie leftists from the 60s. His party is being taken over by radicals. These people in his administration, and in congress, are going use the capitol protest as leverage to come up with a new "Super Patriot Act". It will be some other cool sounding law that will strip people who disagree with them of their rights. This is not hyperbole. This is coming.
If you every supported Donald Trump, you are going to be moved into a second class of citizen.
How much longer will conservatives be allowed to use social media? How much longer will voting for Donald Trump be a red flag on gun ownership? How much longer will conservative businesses be allowed to host their websites, or use certain banks? Maybe you had given campaign donations to Trump. Now your business is being selectively audited, red flagged by OSHA, the EDD, Franchise Tax board and business license department.
This overreach is coming, and the only thing that might change this is if the couple with the electric car, or other democratic mainstream voters who hated Trump, but don't like government punishing people based on their politics, hear that their MAGA neighbor just got their plumbing company shut down for no apparent reason.
They think this is unfair and unAmerican. They will have to speak up, and if things don't change, they will have vote to change who is in charge.
Look, this is going to get bad.
Trump folks, a word of advice; spending the next four years wearing your MAGA gear is not going to help. Learning how to be civil, how to engage with people who think differently than you do is going to be critical. Being nice to people who may hate you based on your voting record can be tough, but it is a must.
When your lefty neighbor Judy thinks about you, I hope they think, oh Mark? He's a great guy, he came over and helped me with my fence last winter. Then when Judy finds out you voted for Trump, and they ask you why one earth you did, you can start the conversation.
If you flip off Judy in her Subaru because it has a Biden/Harris sticker on it, you are not going to like where America is headed for you.
Basically: Everyone calm the hell down, and start talking, not yelling, not name calling. Talking. Try to understand why people who don't think the way you do, think the way they do.
We will be better off in the long run.
