There are those that have compared Trump to Germany's Hitler but there are frightening parallels between Trump and another home-grown European-American maniacal monster.
Kenyatta, thank you for such an excellent post. I hope everyone reads it and learns from it and hopefully we will stop Trump from claiming the White House again.
Stopping the amorphous mass of orange nothingness that is the humanoid known as Donald Trump will not fix what is malfunctioning, for it is not who he is... it is what he is.
Trump is a symptom—it's just he's an especially virulent one we need to eradicate first, so we have the breathing space to deal with the—
I was going to type "less obvious" symptoms, but it's been obvious to you your entire life, and to the life of very Black person in America. The same with "more subtle", because it's gotten to the point where even this old White Dude can see how blatant authority comes down on you when you're not White! Maybe "more insidious" is a better way to put it...?
As I'm writing this, I'm thinking of a sign I saw at a protest in 2020, I think—it read, "IF HILLARY WERE PRESIDENT WE'D BE AT BRUNCH". I admit that my response is at least partially due to my utter antipathy for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but how can this woman not see that that's the problem? She thinks if one corrupt sociopath was replaced with another corrupt sociopath, only FEMALE(!), that she could go on with her privileged life rather than showing up to protest.
When we get rid of Donald Trump, and I believe we will no matter WHAT Jeff Bezos(!) and A.G.Sulzberger(!!!) want, that's not the ride-into-the-sunset to Brunch happy ending. It's a crack in the wall, not tearing decades of increasingly blatant and bigoted misrule down, along with the centuries of White privilege that made everybody from Reagan to Trump possible. If nothing else, treating Joe Biden as The Great Progressive Hope is absurd—the best I can say is that he won't rejigger the laws to make an already nearly impossible job more so. He'll just use the existing ones to stop real progress like he's been doing his entire life....
I have been admonished (by some heavy writers) to not respond to comments for a number of reasons. Chief among the plethora of "reasons" presented, all of which are logical and valid, are the facts that as this publication grows (and it is for reasons I will never understand) it will become physically and logistically impossible to respond to most comments; plus interaction beyond work product should be monetized. Totally logical...if you ain't me.
I have no illusions of monetary gain from my literary curses and intellectual gifts. Name me a Black Man in the United States that has ever made a living telling the truth about the society that he, and no other, was forced to be in? Therefore, the mere fact that a single soul appreciates not only what it is I have to say, how I am intending to inform them (and thusly, myself), my writing and is willing to read it is payment enough. I cannot lose when I have already won.
I am not in the business of appeasing my subscribers. I am not in the business of anesthetizing people with that which already has their dumbasses sleepwalking in circles; unconscious while they make no progress. I am in the business of shaking both myself and others awake.
The only place I have ever been safe, in my life, is in my mind. I am both gatekeeper and sole resident. You can only get in if I invite you in. If I have invited you into my home, I am going to treat you as the royal guest you are. Unless you come into my home breaking shit and being a cad or some equally undesirable reprobate.
I am quite exhausted and one would think that, as a result, I would not forward such a lengthy missive, but that's kind of the point. I write to be read. And I will always interact with my readers and never be so arrogant as to think that my interaction somehow diminishes my status (presuming I have any). I am not quite that fragile.
I am curious how some "old White Dude" acquired the intellectual courage you have and did you always have it. Your comments are always thought provoking and brutally honest. You, and everyone that reads this newsletter, are way more important to me than I am to you and that is as it should be. Just give it some thought.
Short answer, Rohn? It's because of you—you challenge me, certainly, and I suspect all of us who regularly comment, to not give the easy, off the top of the head, hot take answer. Your writing shows me, at least, a worldview I barely considered as a younger man—it's not a pleasant one, but it's one you live with every day and are willing to share with us on the off-chance we're not drooling bigoted incel trolls.
I'm a lower-working class (mostly) Straight White Male with limited resources, not in great health, and with a marriage that ended four years ago even though we're STILL not divorced! I haven't accomplished a lot of what I hoped to accomplish, and while I'm proud of what I did accomplish it didn't lead to anything where I could feel financially comfortable, or even financially stable. Some days it feels like the world has stacked the deck against me, and I get angry and resentful and....
THEN I remember actor Giancarlo Esposito, who you think would be well above worrying by now, telling the funny story of the time recently he was pulled over by the cops. It wasn't the "Hey, aren't you Gus Fring from BREAKING BAD? Can I have your autograph?" kind of funny story—it was that before the cop even got to his car he had his license and registration on the dash, along with his hands so the cop wouldn't feel "an existential threat to his safety" and gun Esposito down where he sat!
I have never once in my life felt the need to have my license and registration out before the cop gets to my car (in fact, I usually have to dig through the glove box for my registration), and my hands are just casually dangling down the sides of my seat where, for all the cop knows, I could have a gun or a knife. But what are the odds that that traffic cop is going to feel any kind of "existential threat" seeing an Sixty::mumbles:: White Man sitting in the passenger seat? I could probably pull out a handgun and the cop's reaction would be, "Nice weapon, Sir. You know, you should stow that someplace safe while you're driving...."
It's you, it's Giancarlo Esposito's amusing anecdote about being in fear of his life for Driving while Black, and it's thanks to Black Lives Matter that enough cases of Black people shot or otherwise killed by cops are being talked about that even I have some idea of how prevalent the killings are. Then I hear about Trump "humorously" suggesting to the police that they should just toss suspects handcuffed into the back seat of their cars and go right ahead and "rough them up", or Right Wingers calling BLM a "terrorist organization", or that murdering baby psycho Kyle Rittenhouse treated like a hero(!!!), and I want to scream, "THIS IS NOT MY COUNTRY! WE'RE BETTER THAN THIS!"
Only...we're really not, are we? And we never were, we just told ourselves that. (By "we", I mean Whites like myself.)
Jim Jones? Aimee McPherson 1926, ran circles, laps, miles ahead of either of those put together. Over a hundred thousand congregated to preserve her from being prosecuted---and all by means of radio.
Her power even forced a great deal of other ministers to resign in futility or shift to Sunday broadcasts of her sermons rather than give their own.. The entire political apparatus in L.A. was replaced that had attempted to bring her down.
The media that had condemned her had to beg her forgiveness to maintain readership and Time magazine person of the year in 1926 she was the powerful world in the world and had more influence on America than President Coolidge. At first the President supported her, then became embarrassed when he realized he had to grant obeisance to her.
You, I believe, reside, somewhere in L.A. The temple she built for herself is still though, but I doubt few realize the history if it, and how it was called---on the radio--the real White House. It was a Mecca all "christians" had to journey to, not just in America, but from around the globe, people flocked that year. Loudspeakers broadcast her message and outside screens built to exhibit the drama to the faithful that gathered for several blocks the Temple to observe.
Now she was the Fraud that all other frauds pale beneath.
In her words, "just a little woman god had authorized to speak for him. An insignificant woman chosen for her very insignificance, now come to me because through me god will give you the power he has given me.
But of course she is forgotten, Jim Jones is generally forgotten and totally unknown to those born after his downfall, and Trump will become the same dust they became. But 98 years ago, Aimee Semple McPherson graced every global headline everyday for months on end from May through November. She may have never run for office but in that year no leader in the world could compete with her, but unlike Jones, she didn't die. She spent the final twenty years traversing the globe to tremendous crowds but she only garnered headlines in those locales and by the time she returned to America world war two had begun and she faded into obscurity.
{This is sort of a possible advertisement for a podcast I'm working on, but haven't the facility to make with a chromebook. If I can complete it I hope some of you will tune it.
I loved your interesting, well researched essay. O, too, was in college when Jim Jones led his followers in mass suicide. I remember feeling ill, especially when the news aired the bodies. They reminded me of the pictures of bodies found at concentration camps by the armies liberating them.
I have not thought about Jim Jones in years; thinking about him makes me feel uneasy. However, as a historian, I often wondered why the Germans, who saw themselves as logical, would follow a failed art student (Hitler) down the rabbit hole of madness. Over the last five years I have watched, again dumbfounded, as Americans have fallen for Bible-thumping Svengalis and Trump's naked Ozian Emperor in his blue suits with the same disbelief.
Recently a saw two 2024 documentaries on Christian Nationalism: God and Country and Bad Faith. I recommend them. They help shed light on American's psychotic breakdown.
I too remember saving Blue Chip
stamps as a child! I thank you always for your posts. As an older white women who grew up
In DC my daddy took me to hear MLK in 1963. I was 8 yrs old and it changed my life. I wish that all people could remember we are created equal!
After all we are just skin and bones. Once the skin is gone? We are all equally. Bones
Kenyatta, thank you for such an excellent post. I hope everyone reads it and learns from it and hopefully we will stop Trump from claiming the White House again.
Stopping the amorphous mass of orange nothingness that is the humanoid known as Donald Trump will not fix what is malfunctioning, for it is not who he is... it is what he is.
Thank you for your subscription and readership.
Trump is a symptom—it's just he's an especially virulent one we need to eradicate first, so we have the breathing space to deal with the—
I was going to type "less obvious" symptoms, but it's been obvious to you your entire life, and to the life of very Black person in America. The same with "more subtle", because it's gotten to the point where even this old White Dude can see how blatant authority comes down on you when you're not White! Maybe "more insidious" is a better way to put it...?
As I'm writing this, I'm thinking of a sign I saw at a protest in 2020, I think—it read, "IF HILLARY WERE PRESIDENT WE'D BE AT BRUNCH". I admit that my response is at least partially due to my utter antipathy for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but how can this woman not see that that's the problem? She thinks if one corrupt sociopath was replaced with another corrupt sociopath, only FEMALE(!), that she could go on with her privileged life rather than showing up to protest.
When we get rid of Donald Trump, and I believe we will no matter WHAT Jeff Bezos(!) and A.G.Sulzberger(!!!) want, that's not the ride-into-the-sunset to Brunch happy ending. It's a crack in the wall, not tearing decades of increasingly blatant and bigoted misrule down, along with the centuries of White privilege that made everybody from Reagan to Trump possible. If nothing else, treating Joe Biden as The Great Progressive Hope is absurd—the best I can say is that he won't rejigger the laws to make an already nearly impossible job more so. He'll just use the existing ones to stop real progress like he's been doing his entire life....
I have been admonished (by some heavy writers) to not respond to comments for a number of reasons. Chief among the plethora of "reasons" presented, all of which are logical and valid, are the facts that as this publication grows (and it is for reasons I will never understand) it will become physically and logistically impossible to respond to most comments; plus interaction beyond work product should be monetized. Totally logical...if you ain't me.
I have no illusions of monetary gain from my literary curses and intellectual gifts. Name me a Black Man in the United States that has ever made a living telling the truth about the society that he, and no other, was forced to be in? Therefore, the mere fact that a single soul appreciates not only what it is I have to say, how I am intending to inform them (and thusly, myself), my writing and is willing to read it is payment enough. I cannot lose when I have already won.
I am not in the business of appeasing my subscribers. I am not in the business of anesthetizing people with that which already has their dumbasses sleepwalking in circles; unconscious while they make no progress. I am in the business of shaking both myself and others awake.
The only place I have ever been safe, in my life, is in my mind. I am both gatekeeper and sole resident. You can only get in if I invite you in. If I have invited you into my home, I am going to treat you as the royal guest you are. Unless you come into my home breaking shit and being a cad or some equally undesirable reprobate.
I am quite exhausted and one would think that, as a result, I would not forward such a lengthy missive, but that's kind of the point. I write to be read. And I will always interact with my readers and never be so arrogant as to think that my interaction somehow diminishes my status (presuming I have any). I am not quite that fragile.
I am curious how some "old White Dude" acquired the intellectual courage you have and did you always have it. Your comments are always thought provoking and brutally honest. You, and everyone that reads this newsletter, are way more important to me than I am to you and that is as it should be. Just give it some thought.
Short answer, Rohn? It's because of you—you challenge me, certainly, and I suspect all of us who regularly comment, to not give the easy, off the top of the head, hot take answer. Your writing shows me, at least, a worldview I barely considered as a younger man—it's not a pleasant one, but it's one you live with every day and are willing to share with us on the off-chance we're not drooling bigoted incel trolls.
I'm a lower-working class (mostly) Straight White Male with limited resources, not in great health, and with a marriage that ended four years ago even though we're STILL not divorced! I haven't accomplished a lot of what I hoped to accomplish, and while I'm proud of what I did accomplish it didn't lead to anything where I could feel financially comfortable, or even financially stable. Some days it feels like the world has stacked the deck against me, and I get angry and resentful and....
THEN I remember actor Giancarlo Esposito, who you think would be well above worrying by now, telling the funny story of the time recently he was pulled over by the cops. It wasn't the "Hey, aren't you Gus Fring from BREAKING BAD? Can I have your autograph?" kind of funny story—it was that before the cop even got to his car he had his license and registration on the dash, along with his hands so the cop wouldn't feel "an existential threat to his safety" and gun Esposito down where he sat!
I have never once in my life felt the need to have my license and registration out before the cop gets to my car (in fact, I usually have to dig through the glove box for my registration), and my hands are just casually dangling down the sides of my seat where, for all the cop knows, I could have a gun or a knife. But what are the odds that that traffic cop is going to feel any kind of "existential threat" seeing an Sixty::mumbles:: White Man sitting in the passenger seat? I could probably pull out a handgun and the cop's reaction would be, "Nice weapon, Sir. You know, you should stow that someplace safe while you're driving...."
It's you, it's Giancarlo Esposito's amusing anecdote about being in fear of his life for Driving while Black, and it's thanks to Black Lives Matter that enough cases of Black people shot or otherwise killed by cops are being talked about that even I have some idea of how prevalent the killings are. Then I hear about Trump "humorously" suggesting to the police that they should just toss suspects handcuffed into the back seat of their cars and go right ahead and "rough them up", or Right Wingers calling BLM a "terrorist organization", or that murdering baby psycho Kyle Rittenhouse treated like a hero(!!!), and I want to scream, "THIS IS NOT MY COUNTRY! WE'RE BETTER THAN THIS!"
Only...we're really not, are we? And we never were, we just told ourselves that. (By "we", I mean Whites like myself.)
::Wow, that "short answer" sure got long!::
How precipitous is your response as I am in final edit on an article entitled "This Is Not Who We Are" (it will be published in a couple of minutes).
As for the length of your short answer, you are wise enough to know and appreciate "size matters."
Jim Jones? Aimee McPherson 1926, ran circles, laps, miles ahead of either of those put together. Over a hundred thousand congregated to preserve her from being prosecuted---and all by means of radio.
Her power even forced a great deal of other ministers to resign in futility or shift to Sunday broadcasts of her sermons rather than give their own.. The entire political apparatus in L.A. was replaced that had attempted to bring her down.
The media that had condemned her had to beg her forgiveness to maintain readership and Time magazine person of the year in 1926 she was the powerful world in the world and had more influence on America than President Coolidge. At first the President supported her, then became embarrassed when he realized he had to grant obeisance to her.
You, I believe, reside, somewhere in L.A. The temple she built for herself is still though, but I doubt few realize the history if it, and how it was called---on the radio--the real White House. It was a Mecca all "christians" had to journey to, not just in America, but from around the globe, people flocked that year. Loudspeakers broadcast her message and outside screens built to exhibit the drama to the faithful that gathered for several blocks the Temple to observe.
Now she was the Fraud that all other frauds pale beneath.
In her words, "just a little woman god had authorized to speak for him. An insignificant woman chosen for her very insignificance, now come to me because through me god will give you the power he has given me.
But of course she is forgotten, Jim Jones is generally forgotten and totally unknown to those born after his downfall, and Trump will become the same dust they became. But 98 years ago, Aimee Semple McPherson graced every global headline everyday for months on end from May through November. She may have never run for office but in that year no leader in the world could compete with her, but unlike Jones, she didn't die. She spent the final twenty years traversing the globe to tremendous crowds but she only garnered headlines in those locales and by the time she returned to America world war two had begun and she faded into obscurity.
{This is sort of a possible advertisement for a podcast I'm working on, but haven't the facility to make with a chromebook. If I can complete it I hope some of you will tune it.
I loved your interesting, well researched essay. O, too, was in college when Jim Jones led his followers in mass suicide. I remember feeling ill, especially when the news aired the bodies. They reminded me of the pictures of bodies found at concentration camps by the armies liberating them.
I have not thought about Jim Jones in years; thinking about him makes me feel uneasy. However, as a historian, I often wondered why the Germans, who saw themselves as logical, would follow a failed art student (Hitler) down the rabbit hole of madness. Over the last five years I have watched, again dumbfounded, as Americans have fallen for Bible-thumping Svengalis and Trump's naked Ozian Emperor in his blue suits with the same disbelief.
Recently a saw two 2024 documentaries on Christian Nationalism: God and Country and Bad Faith. I recommend them. They help shed light on American's psychotic breakdown.
Thank you for your essay.
Thank you for being gracious enough to both read and respond to it, but it was not suicide it was mass murder.
With respect to your comment, and the overall subject matter at hand, you might appreciate "Bad Faith." https://tubitv.com/movies/100020971/bad-faith
Kenyatta, thank you for the link! I watch Tubi & I already added it to my list to watch later. I like docs & this looks like a great one.
My pleasure.