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Maslow Hierarchy

City on a Hill to Trumphole Country: A Day in the Life of America’s Worst President Ever (July 10, 2020)

July 13, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Do Trumpicans Want to Survive? (Courtesy Simply Psychology)

One day there will be a story told of how the United States degenerated from a City on a Hill in the 1980s to the Trumphole country it has become today. It is a sad story of decline where the resolution is not yet known and the restoration has not yet begun. Whether or not the downward spiral of the United States will be halted or when we will begin to dig ourselves of the very deep hole that America’s worst President ever has dug remains to be seen.

It wasn’t that long ago when things were different. In the 1980s, President Reagan ran as a City on Hill President. He confronted the leader of the Evil Empire with the famous call in Berlin to “tear down that wall.” A short time later, both the wall and the Soviet Union collapsed.

By contrast, only a few decades later, Putin’s Pence is complicit in the Russian scheme that offered bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers. What once would have been unthinkable and an impeachable offense scarcely makes the front page given all the other actions or lack of actions by Swampbuilder. In addition, he is far from welcome in Germany today, a country he treats more as an enemy than he does Russia.

No one day can be definitively defined as the bottom of the barrel in this administration. There is always something new to startle us – see the Puerto Rico sale? Maybe China will purchase Puerto Rico after buying Iran in another coup for the American deal-maker.  In this blog, let’s examine just a slice of the decline by focusing on one day. It is an approach that can be used for any number of days. I choose to use the morning paper (NYT) of July 10, 2020, as an starting point to illustrate how much of a Trumphole country we have become.

The frontpage above the fold headline was deceptive: “President Is Not ‘Above the Law,’ Justices Decide.” Why should such a headline even be necessary? No one in their right mind would say that the President is above the law. My purpose in mentioning it is not to discuss the absurd claim made by the lawyers who should be disbarred that was shot down by the Court. Rather it is to note that by the time I sat down that evening to read the paper, the legal world had been turned upside down with the commutation of the sentence of renowned political operative and trickster Roger Stone.

The incongruity of trying to read the paper with that headline while listening to the talk shows was overwhelming. On the one hand, we were to congratulate ourselves for being a country of the rule of law despite the authoritarian proclivities of our leader; on the other hand, here was proof positive that, with the strong encouragement of key political advisor Sean Hannity, we really were a Trumphole country.

Unfortunately, going through the newspaper page by page painted a bleak picture.

CORONAVIRUS   

The first news pages (1, 4-10, 14) covered the coronavirus at home and abroad. This has become typical for the reporting format. At this point, the wartime President is in complete retreat. All he can do now is repeatedly claim victory, call for a miracle, and engage in happy talk about nobody in the world is doing better than he did. [It turns out he is capable of taking vigorous action: disparage Fauci! That will put the coronavirus in its place; for a preview of this attack see The Twilight Zone and the Coronavirus April 8, 2020.]

Back on May 21, 2020, I wrote a blog Friday Night Lights: Risking Lives for the Dow. It was written just after we celebrated V-Zero Day over the coronavirus per the White House Council of Economic Advisers. It was written just before we would be looking back at the crisis per the Vice President of the United States. I raised the issue of Friday Night Lights football as a canary in the mine prelude to the return to school debate. Come August, it would be time to start practicing. Even before classroom schooling was scheduled to begin in September, there would be this moment of truth. Schools would decide yea or nay on authorizing football practice. Football is an essential component of the social fabric of many communities especially in Texas where the book, movie, and TV series were set.

What has happened since then? Even though at the federal level, the fight against the coronavirus has ceased, at the state level it has not. Trumpican governors for the most part have been forced to abandon the happy talk for the real world. The situation is dire in many states. Not only were we late to the war, we fought it badly. At this point we have the national record for the number of cases daily. Florida exceeds New York at its worst. Florida each day surpasses many countries to date in total! Medical facilities are being maxed out. Medical personnel are being stretched to their breaking point and sometimes beyond. It’s as if April-June never occurred. What do we have to show for the effort then outside New York and some other states?

So on Thursday, the NBC headline was:

Friday night lights could go out in Texas as coronavirus threatens high school football

The superintendent of Dallas schools, Michael Hinojosa, says he doubts there will be gridiron action this fall.

The Dallas Superintendent channeled his inner Fauci in responding to questions about the potential delay. SHOW ME THE DATA! His decision would be based on the facts on the ground, not out-of-touch baby talk from our clueless President.

The decision goes beyond football. The vow that schools will open is backed by nothing. Then there are issues:

1. will parents obey the command of the wartime commander to risk their kids especially as the number of cases skyrockets? – STOP THE TESTING and the problem will be solved!

2. how many more teachers will take early retirement complicating the staffing problem even more?

Yes, parents would love to be able to send their kids back to school but they don’t want to commit suicide in so doing.

BOUNTIES

Headline: “Top General Says He’ll Be ‘Outraged’ if Bounties Are True” (page 13)

Will there be an impeachment in December?

SHARPIEGATE

Headline: “White Pressured NOAA Officials” (page 15)

How much longer will Inspector General Peggy E. Gustafson remain on the job? In addition, tampering with National Weather maps is a civil (criminal?) offense. While it is not an impeachable offense, it still is illegal. There will be a special exhibit in the Unpresidential Library about Sharpiegate.

Unfortunately, the significance of Sharpiegate is worse than that. If someone cannot admit error on a hurricane path, what are the chances of admitting error on coronavirus? If a person rates a 10 and wouldn’t change anything he did, what is his explanation for why there are over 135000 Americans dead now? Why did Europe quarantine us? There’s really nothing that could have been done differently? Ask him.

RUSSIA COLLUSION

Headline: “Judge Asks Full Court to Hear Flynn Case” (page 17)

Does anyone think Flynn spend any time in jail? There will be a special exhibit in the Unpresidential Library about Michael Flynn.

MORE RUSSIAN COLLUSION

Headline: “Ousted U.S. Attorney Recounts Tense meeting with Barr at Luxury Hotel” (page 20). There will be an entire room in the Unpresidential Library about the Russian Collusion.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS A REPUBLICAN

On Friday, before the commutation, the Very Stable Genius shared with the American people some unbelievable information he had acquired:

“Like people don’t remember, nobody ever heard of it until I came along, nobody remembered it for a long time, or they didn’t use it at least, I use it all the time: Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. You know you say that and people say, ‘I didn’t know that’, but he was Republican, so we’re doing a great job.” 

He seems to repeat this claim frequently. Why he repeats this to his Confederate audiences, I do not know. Maybe he thinks they admire Lincoln along with Lee. Regardless, he is so proud of himself for this knowledge. It’s like acing his cognitive skills test that showed he was not demented. When I wrote about his knowing Lincoln was a Republican three years ago (My Birthday and the Day I Was Born Are the Same Day: Previewing the 2020 Election [Part 1] May 17, 2017), I asked why he thought Lincoln was a Democrat in the first place. My best guess is the Civil Rights March at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. Imagine what Fred Trump must have said about that gathering to his teenager son. His lack of knowledge about Lincoln reinforces the claims of Mary Trump. When you don’t know Lincoln was a Republican, you damn well better hire someone to take your SATs.

The comment also shows a learning disability. He is capable of learning that Lincoln was a Republican. But he is not capable of learning that everyone already knew that. You would think after boasting about his superior knowledge once, he then would have shut up for repeating what seventh graders know [in New York, seventh grade social studies traditionally has ended with the Civil War].

And then to wrap up the day there was the Roger Stone commutation. There will be a special exhibit in the Unpresidential Library about Roger Stone, too.

It looks like we are past the moment of truth for the Trumpican Party. Back on June 8, 2020, I wrote Mitch McConnell: Howard Baker (Time to Go) vs Stay the Course (Go Down with the Ship). I suggested that McConnell had a decision to make as an adult who lived in the real world. I had no expectations that he would be a profile in courage and he hasn’t been. Since then, there was a teacher on Cuomo Prime Time who mentioned Maslow (the hierarchy of needs). She did so to express her concern for teacher safety and security in returning to the classroom. The unmentioned first level is for survival. Apparently no Republicans including McConnell are interested in it except the Never Trumpers.

Wartime President: The Battle Is Engaged

October 23, 2018
by Peter Feinman
Do Trumpicans Want to Survive? (Courtesy Simply Psychology)

Wartime presidents are different than peacetime presidents. Sometimes being president during a war has a political advantage – Franklin Roosevelt and both Bushes initially. Sometimes being president during a war has political disadvantages – Lyndon Johnson and George Bush. The reaction tends to be due to the success or failure of the war effort rather than the validity of the war itself. If Bush had presided over the immediate capture of bin Laden and surrender of the Taliban as he almost did, he would have been viewed quite differently.

What all these wars have in common is that they involved external enemies. The situation is quite different when the foe is internal. George Washington successfully led troops into western Pennsylvania in 1794 during the Whiskey Rebellion. More prominently, Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union in the War of Northern Aggression against the breakaway Confederacy. Both Washington and Lincoln sought the unity of the United States. Now we have a president who thrives on division.

As I previously wrote, America’s third civil war will be fought differently than the first two. Right now the nominal leader of We the People is traveling throughout the country doing his best to divide it into two warring groups. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say he is seeking to exploit the existing differences much like his Russian allies. He did not originate them.

When Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign called for her side to take back the country the conflict was already underway. At that time, John McCain refused to demonize Barak Obama, an action for which Republicans today will never forgive him. By contrast today, the current head of the nominal Republican Party leads a full-throated denunciation against the forces of chaos that are threatening the land.

Before turning to how he is actively dividing America today it is important to reflect on how the Democrats contributed to the current civil war. Palin might not have been well versed on Russia beyond being able to see it from her front yard, but she was correct that America was involved in a civil war and that her side was losing. Her assessment of the situation was spot on.

For years, the Democrats have been touting the coming of a demographic deluge. This flood of brown-skinned non-Christian(?) people were going to overwhelm the real Americans with their alien ways. Republicans responded as Samuel Morse did to the arrival of Irish Catholics in the 1830s with thunderous denunciation of the havoc these foreigners would unleash especially in the Mississippi Valley heartland. Even to this very day, America abounds in Irish and German Catholics who pledge no allegiance to the United States. Morse’s fears have been fulfilled. The non-Celtic white, the non-Germanic white, and the non-Hispanic white leave few real white people left to defend the country. So it is no wonder that Palin and the Republicans feared another round of foreigners who would undermine American way of life as the Irish, Germans, and Italians had done before them.

And the Democrats did everything they could to stoke the fears of the native-born white Americans. They relentlessly championed the flood of hyphens who would never become part of We the People and had no desire to do so. Just as the Irish, Germans, and Italians retained their hyphen and never become assimilated so the Caucasians from South America, Mexico, and Asia would forever remain beyond the pale and never identify as Americans.

Why should anyone want to be an American anyway? Democrats and their Woke politically-correct allies ceaselessly disparaged all acts in history by heterosexual white males. The celebration of those people and the events they participated in would be banished from the new country being created, first in the schools, then in the media, and finally in the halls of political power. Even non-college educated whites got the message – they were the targets of the new political order the Democrats and their brown-skinned people championed.

After physical survival, the Maslow hierarchy posits safety needs as the next most important. Safety includes not just protection from the natural elements – where is the president during the storms that ravaged New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Florida – but human ones. The stress engendered by fear wreaks havoc. It does so to the people in an abusive relationship; it does so to the people in a crime-dominated neighborhood; and it does so to the people facing a demographic deluge. People who see no future for themselves, their family, their community, and their country are vulnerable to having their insecurity exploited be it by internet trolls, political leaders, or both.

Enter Donald Trump, lifelong con artist who excels in the exploitation of the vulnerable. He does not have the mental necessities to understand the Maslow hierarchy but he does has the people instincts to exploit it. He lives in a time when social media permits him in cahoots with American and Russian trolls to inflame Americans as no leader as before him. Of all the American Presidents he is the champion at dividing the country. Now during these final weeks of the 2018 elections, he is in his prime. Until such time as the fears of Republicans are overcome, his personal shortcomings, his illegal activities, and his dishonesty are irrelevant.  Consider the words of Margaret Power, professor of history at Illinois Tech, in an article about Westmoreland County, PA:

One issue that has confounded many is why so many women voted for Trump, despite his obvious misogyny and the accusations and evidence that he abused women. Penny Young Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, succinctly sums up their sentiments about Trump. “We weren’t looking for a husband. We were looking for a bodyguard. 

The Maslow hierarchy rules! BUILD A WALL!

Once again, Democrats and their erstwhile allies are ready to assist him in his effort to divide America. Their motto is “When Republicans go low, kick them.” The video of General Maxine Waters commanding her troops to get in the face of Republicans is a godsend to the native-born white Americans desperate to defend their country. The accosting of Republican elected officials no matter how despicable they are is a godsend to the native-born white Americans desperate to defend their country. It is almost as if the Democrats are trying as best they can to live down to the level of the Republican caricatures of them.

And then there is the refugee caravan. If you tried with all your might, all your heart, and with all your soul to concoct an image better suited to play into the fears of native-born white Americans about a demographic deluge preparing to invade and undermine the country, it would be difficult to do better than the image of the brown-skin caravan marching north to America. The only thing missing is having the Moslem terrorists accompany them. Oh wait. That charge has been made too.

Obviously, in the national political arena today there is no Lincoln to try to keep American together. Amazingly the Democrats who have the opportunity to rise to the occasion to provide leadership to We the People have failed to do so and do not even try.

Sorry Cory, you did not have a Spartacus moment.

Sorry Hillary, “crooked Hillary” will live on even without you avenging 2016.

Sorry Elizabeth Warren, what were you thinking? If Little Donny Wany taunts you with a $1,000,000 bet that he never would pay under any circumstances, do not sink his level by accepting his challenge. Taunt him back in a way that exposes his shortcomings as Stormy Daniels does. She is much more skilled at this than you are. You should have said:

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if he releases his tax reports.

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if he testifies to the grand jury.

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if he identifies the California cities that rioted against sanctuary cities.

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if he fulfills his campaign promise to sue all the women he claims falsely accused him of sexual abuse.

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if goes one full week without telling a lie.

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if he can explain his healthcare program in an actual speech of at least 30 minutes.

I will give $1,000,000 to his favorite charity (meaning himself), if he reads a book…more than 200 pages long and reviews it as in a book report.

Game on, Tiny.

The seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck is superb at fanning the flames of a war within America that is become explosively violent. By contrast, the Democrats are superb at digging a hole ever deeper without providing any leadership to We the People.