Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

          To the chagrin of many, the most qualified presidential candidate in modern history has been denied her deserved place, and we’ve embraced incivility, mutual disrespect, xenophobia, denigration of women, and racial inequality—you know, all those things inappropriate to 21^st-century world leadership.

          In a trice, we saw Donald blow the obligatory air-kiss as “everybody’s prez.” But what, pray tell, will happen the first time, as Chief, he feels slighted by someone “not treating (him) nice”? Set cops to beating up protesters—as in certain 20^th century tyrannies?

          We watched with gaping mouths as Donald—oh, excuse me, the Prez-Elect—cursed and brow-beat all opponents, mocked people with physical limitations, bragged of grabbing women, en masse deportation of Mexicans, barring Muslims, building walls, scrapping health care—all in brutish and vulgar terms–to the cheers of not just veteran Tea Partiers but KKKs, violent militarists, the NRA, and your friendly neighborhood gun stock-pilers known for short tempers. Any one of these, or a combination of them, would have sunk Hillary long before Nov. 8.

          Silly us. What good were all those manners taught at mother’s knee; of learning in school sports to play fair; of Sunday School lessons that bespoke loving the stranger and treating them as children of God?

          People who didn’t like the first lady’s bare arms were suddenly OK with Melania’s past as a skin model—photos of which will be on internet forever for your kids’ enjoyment (“Hey, there’s the first lady’s—‘whatever’!”). But never mind: it’s all worth it to just not have Hillary around.

          Donald won in part by telling the jobless that King Coal would return under his leadership. Oh, dream on. Hillary’s remark about the imminent shutting down of that industry was in the context of a promise to re-train those workers for better opportunities—something, by the way, they don’t want to do, but keep their old way of life. So would lots of folks, but even newer tech careers keep changing and demanding new skill-sets. It’s called “adaptation,” but Donald wants to be seen as a savior.

          Trump will not wave a magic wand and change things. I was dead wrong that he was not electable, but without hesitation I will say further that his road ahead is much harder than he thinks. He also doesn’t “know more than all the generals” about global threats and how to deal with them. But again, he’s a blowhard, lacking any humility (he said he’s never asked God’s forgiveness for anything) so scrap your holy bible, Evangelicals, because there’s a new, very secular sheriff in town to show you a “better” way.

          The kicker is that this Outsider may bring on some quite Establishment folks into his administration—just as Obama did, to liberals’ dismay. If so, he’ll immediately morph into an Insider. Fun folks like Rudy Giuliani, long past his days as America’s Mayor, and Newt Gingrich, the Pillsbury Doughboy of politics, both have very checkered pasts with marriage and divorce, as does Donald: shall we hold that against their current wives, the way Hillary was blamed for Bill’s indiscretions? Worst of all, to bring in Steve Bannon will majorly stink up the whole place.

          If American voters (that is, less than half of them) wanted Trump in spite of his campaign rhetoric, what was the dog-whistle that lured them into Bizarro-land? Well, think of Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan.” He said that what people really need when in national crisis is a Leviathan, a strongman, but the price is a stiff one—namely, the sacrifice of significant freedoms for security and instant solutions.

          Hobbes’ mother bore him prematurely while the Spanish Armada was on its way to England, making him and fear “twins at birth,” and out of people’s fear, sense and civility became a thing of the past, and the answer, to Hobbes, was a Leviathan.

          Oh, Donald’s not that, regardless of his patented huffing and puffing. He can’t stiff other world leaders and walk away with their land and money the way he has investors. This is neither real estatenor a Reality Show. He made us think the Iran deal is scary, though it slowed their nuclear development to a crawl. And good luck with cozying up to Russia. Putin is not a negotiator; he’s a pit bull of the KGB who makes “deals” and breaks them. Putin will have Donald for lunch (if you know what I mean), then eat Trump’s own lunch. Then what will Donald do: get pissed and push the nuclear button?

          If you think Donald will do the Lord’s work, just be ready to hold him accountable.