A few thoughts about the incompetence, racism, and danger of our con man in chief.

(… continued from previous post )

The trick of dividing what should be a unified society into warring classes or ethnicities destroys the solidarity of a free society and makes it easier to subjugate the society. What is needed for this trick is to take the otherwise trivial distinguishing characteristics of two groups within society– for example, green eyes vs. blue eyes– then use them to denigrate one group while setting them against and advantaging the other group.

It is even easier to destroy society by undermining the competence of its government. The con man in the White House has been doing that ever since he came into office: he hires incompetent people who know nothing of the departments they are supposed to run– or worse, these people have publicly declared that they want to dismantle the very agency they are appointed to head.

These incompetents, with no experience in government (or worse, experience in trying to destroy government) are hired because they affirm their loyalty to the con man in chief. They are fired only if their scandals become too flagrant to be ignored, or they disobey their instructions and make statements counter to their con man leader’s lies.

A perfect example of this all-encompassing ignorance and incompetence is Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education. She never held any government position before her appointment. She never had a position as a teacher or an administrator in any branch of education. Her only qualification was that she was a loyal, affluent Republican. Her stated aims in life (and her experience as an organizer) before her appointment were related to the promotion of private, religious schools– about as far from free, secular public schools as could be imagined.

This Ms. DeVos has been part of the administration since the beginning. She has avoided scandal and made few public statements, thus her ability to stay in office. She has quietly dismantled one of the most important efforts made towards equalizing education: the relief of debt incurred by students defrauded by for-profit vocational schools. She has steered government efforts away from providing justice to students victimized by sexual assault in schools. She has done much more to damage schools that is unpublicized and essentially done in the dark, without anyone learning enough to complain, much less to try and stop her.

I am so angry that our society has been divided into polarized camps by the con man in the White House, that I just can’t shut up. He has worked hard to increase the sense of grievance that disadvantaged (or fearful of being dispossessed) White people, especially White Men, are feeling.

Anyone who doubts that this con man is a racist should study his history. He was sued by our federal government for refusing to lease apartments to Black and other non-White people. He signed a consent agreement and then ignored it. He was sued again, and forced to sign a second consent agreement. He made racist comments about his employees who were Black, comments which were so foul that I refuse to dignify them by repeating them.

He made selective and “strategic” alignments with certain Black people, such as the singer Kanye West, who fit his definition of White by being rich and evangelical Christian. He elevated the Black neurosurgeon Ben Carson into Secretary for Housing and Urban Development– a position for which he had neither experience nor expertise– because he was rich and an evangelical Christian.

He made an alliance with Herman Cain, who fit his definition of White by being rich and a conservative Republican (he was instrumental in the defeat of President Clinton’s national health care plan by sponsoring the TV ads that starred “Harry and Louise”.) Then he cooperated in Mr. Cain’s death from the novel coronavirus by inviting him to a mask-optional, non-socially-distanced rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma that resulted in a dramatic surge of new cases.

He has deliberately angered Black people by insulting them, especially those who have had the courage to speak out against his prejudice and injustices. If you doubt this, look up what he said and tweeted about the late John Lewis and his Congressional District.

He has even encouraged agents in the pay of the Russian Secret Service to increase polarization and engender anger and division among both White and Black people in this country.

Before the last presidential election, the Internet Research Agency (a Russian Secret Service organization) created fake accounts that appeared to support Blacks but stoked resentment against Whites– not to change votes (almost all Blacks voted against the Republican Presidential candidate anyway) but to increase Black anger against Whites.

All of this con man’s actions have deliberately fostered anger and division among the American people. He could not have done more harm to America if he had studied the speeches of Hitler. (Oh, wait, one of his biographers claimed that he really did study the speeches of Hitler!)

(I regret and sincerely apologize for using the name of Hitler but I justify it by saying that He-who-must-not-be-named is equally as dangerous as Hitler at this point in history.)

We are in a much worse position to counter the attempts at dominance by the Chinese totalitarians than we were four years ago. Don’t fear dominance by the Russians– they are a minor power that is punching way above their weight. Our real and most dangerous adversaries are the Chinese government’s authoritarian/totalitarian bureaucrats, their censors, and their spies.

By the way, the Chinese and the Iranians are not covertly working to sabotage the elections– but the Russians are. The Chinese and the Iranians are expressing their opinions– they don’t like the con man because he is unstable, xenophobic, and against all foreign governments except those that unfailingly support his every fleeting impulse.

It is true that that the governments of China and Iran are undemocratic, authoritarian, and repressive– but they’re not using unfair, covert means to interfere with our elections yet. The Russians are using all available means, both fair and foul, to press for the re-election of the most dangerous con man ever to fool most of the people, most of the time.

Why do the Russians support this con man? Because they can see that he is weakening and dividing America. That suits their goal– to pull this country down to the point where they can, without our interference, get back their precious Soviet Union (which included all of Ukraine, Georgia, and several other countries that they lost in 1991 and that are nominally independent now.)

We have been conned by a con man who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 millions and only won the Electoral College by strategically picking up 70,000 votes spread over three states. Remember that Hitler only gained 40% of the popular vote in a relatively free and fair election (where he divided the popular vote by setting the Communists against the Socialists… )

Hitler won the chancellorship (similar to today’s American presidency) by picking up the support of the industrialists. They “temporarily” backed him “strategically” because they thought that they could discard him afterwards, when he had controlled the unrest in Germany that was threatening to divide it into civil war.

Hitler had incited that very civil war by dividing the country in just the way that I previously described. He set the Jews apart and divided the country into anti-Semites versus Jews and their supporters. He set the Socialists apart by lumping them together with the Communists and denigrating them all as “anti-German.”

Be warned– He-who-must-not-be-named is following this very same playbook. He is lumping the Democrats together with the Socialists. He is lumping the Blacks together with immigrants. He is lumping Native Americans together with South Asian immigrants. He is playing all non-White peoples off against European White peoples. He is playing up all the divisions that already existed before he came to power– making minor disagreements into major feuds.

Enough geopolitics– this is a problem within America, which only Americans (both White and non-White, American-born and immigrant) can solve. We are being made weaker by this con man. Those of us who are still fooled by his fear-mongering are in for an awful awakening that will inevitably come if he is re-elected. I have never in my 66 years been so fearful for the future of America.