Tag Archives: 2016 election

Donald Trump, sarcasm, and me

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Donald Trump has my sympathy. I’m being sarcastic. But not that sarcastic, to be honest with you. For sarcasm is my default mode of humor too. Over time, though, I’ve learned that others don’t usually get it. Not because I’m more clever than they, but because the distance between sarcasm and truth is usually only a little wider than a hair’s thickness. After 50 years of marriage I still have to tell my husband, “Honey, it’s a joke.”

As a young mother I was often tempted to tell my kids, “Go play on the freeway.” If I had, my husband surely would have interpreted for me: “Mommy doesn’t actually mean it. She knows you like to ride your bicycles, and she’s joking that all that pavement—if there were no cars there, that would be a great place to ride. Believe me, Mommy really, really loves you.” He would have added, “Those Abbott kids, I’ve seen how they’re all the time cheating.”

But I didn’t vent. Well, not in that way. I’ve long recognized that once words come out, whether intended as humor or not, they can’t be taken back. And that my urge to say something sarcastic most often arises out of anger or frustration. A lesson Trump seems not to have learned.

Hey, Donald, if you have to tell everyone it was a joke, it ain’t funny.

If I were you, after you’ve lost the election, I’d move to the desert. You can buy all the land you don’t already own in Nevada. You’re so very, very rich. Invite your 2nd-Amendment disciples to join you. Build a wall around the state, a very, very big wall. But I predict the U.S. government won’t like that in the process you’ve stolen Great Basin National Park and Red Rock Canyon, and the Tule Springs Fossil Beds. The army will bring in its tanks and missiles, and… Just joking.

 

 

 

 

Is Hillary so dishonest?

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Mom was the nurturer, greeting us when we came home from school, preparing our meals. Dad was the boss, the enforcer of rules, often with the palm of his hand. This clarity of roles gave us a sense of security.

Nowadays Mom goes to work and Dad has relinquished much of his authority. The old order has shifted in other ways. If we’re white or heterosexual we’ve lost assurance of our superiority. Black and white intermarry; homosexuals marry. On the global stage the clear issues of the Cold War have vanished, replaced with a militant Muslim enemy that strikes unexpectedly. Our lifestyle of big cars and unlimited use of electricity is affecting Earth’s climate, a science beyond our comprehension.

We older folks yearn for Mom and Dad—as they once were. Enter Donald Trump, the authority figure who’ll return our country to how it used to be.

But Hillary—she doesn’t behave the way a mother’s supposed to. She’s not a national nurturer but a trained lawyer who as a senator voted on complex issues; who as Secretary of State negotiated with leaders of other countries. She’s been hardened by battle.

Anyone who’s seen TV commercials, even if they’re muted, recognizes the little green creature advertising Geiko and associates the Statue of Liberty with Liberty Mutual. The purpose of repetition in advertising is to keep a product in the viewer’s mind, to repeat an idea so often that it’s finally accepted as truth

So it has been with Hillary’s reputation. Since 2008 Republicans have anticipated her candidacy in this election and committed themselves to eroding the perception of her character. They exploited the Benghazi attack, sponsoring multiple investigations and repeating the message that she couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth. They exploited her using a private email server, though other government officials have done the same. All the while the press allowed itself to be manipulated into continuously analyzing opinions about her integrity—until her dishonesty was taken as fact.

I’m not suggesting Clinton is beyond reproach. Her experience is so broad there’s something in her voting record or foreign policy actions to offend anyone. I am convinced, though, that public perceptions of her dishonesty are the result of a non-stop propaganda campaign.

Our job as voters in this election isn’t to choose the most nurturing mother or the most intimidating father. It’s to select an individual who understands and supports the Constitution, who appreciates the complex web of international relationships, whose knowledge is respected worldwide.

A person who firmly believes in “liberty and justice for all.”