Does President Donald Trump give “patriotism” a bad name these days?

I got my jolt for the day from the results of a new poll by the Morning Consult group with regards to what we think of President Donald Trump.
 

The blunt-spoken confusion of Archie Bunker, or ...

No real surprise here; most of us don’t think much of the Trumpster – only a 41 percent approval rating in this poll. By comparison, the Gallup Organization’s daily tracking poll Friday had Trump at 38 percent approval.

THE BAD NEWS for Trump goes further, as people were asked whether various terms applied to Trump’s presidential performance. Those included “arrogant” (77 percent), “reckless” and “not willing to admit mistakes” (both 60 percent), “strong leader” (43 percent), “knowledgeable” (41 percent), “has the judgement needed to be president” (34 percent), “trustworthy” and “steady” (both 32 percent).

But then, there was the term “patriotic.”

To which 53 percent of those people surveyed by this particular poll said “yes” (34 percent said “no” and the other 13 percent presumably are clueless and can’t make up their minds).

That just strikes me as a bit of a contradiction. Someone whose performance is so negatively thought of can also be thought of as “patriotic?”

NOW BEFORE ANYBODY starts sending me their rants, I realize that the ideological right has done a number with the concept of patriotism – spinning the idea of love of one’s country as being the same as supporting their social issue ideals.

Even though one could argue that many of the people with different ideals are trying to make this a better, more fair country – and in some ways one more closely tied to the ideals written into both the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

That is a statement I don’t doubt will offend many of those conservative ideologues; that their rants on social issues aren’t what this country is supposed to be all about.

 

... the 'Vulcan logic' of Mr. Spock?

That may well be what is being reflected by the idea of people thinking that Trump’s political trash talk makes him a “patriot.”

IF ANYTHING, PEOPLE have a questionable comprehension at times of the Constitution. Such as that esteemed political philosopher of 1970s television, Archie Bunker (played by actor Carroll O’Connor) who once in a discussion about gun control responded to wife Edith (actress Jean Stapleton) who thought the Second Amendment referred to not making graven images by saying, “That ain’t the Constitution, Edith. What you says is the Gettysburg Address.”

Before you denounce the point as being that of a fictional character from four decades ago, famed television producer Norman Lear who created “All in the Family” has said that Trump shows “utter contempt” for the Constitution.

All of which makes me question how we’re defining the concept of “patriotism” these days. Is it really nothing more than blind faith to someone no matter how absurd the utterances from their mouth in public become?

Consider that the same Morning Consult poll showed 58 percent of people think Trump’s decision to share classified intelligence information with Russian government officials was “inappropriate” and that 50 percent think Trump was wrong to try to sway former FBI Director James Comey to end an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

ARE THESE REALLY the actions of a patriot? Or do we really not fully comprehend the concept of supporting one’s’ nation?

TRUMP: 6 percent say he's patriotic & don't like him

Which to my mind has always meant holding the nation’s needs above that of any one individual – while Trump always comes off as thinking that HIS needs outweigh the masses.

Writing that last line reminded me of yet another cinematic moment; “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” As in dialogue from the 1982 Star Trek film “The Wrath of Khan.”

Perhaps Trump, and many in our society would be better off if we’d pay heed to the words of Mr. Spock, rather than Archie Bunker!

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Casting a ballot to maintain status quo

I went to an early voting center Friday, and came walking out of the polling place feeling like I did my part to maintain the political status quo. Nothing more!

Many of us haven't paid the least bit of attention. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

It’s election cycles like this one that I envision cause many people to think there is no point to the process. As it was, when I arrived in the morning, no one was present. I got to walk right up, pick a voting machine, and cast my ballot for the municipal elections that my current residence gives me a say in.

ACTUALLY, MOST OF the posts that I was given a say in turned out to be ones in which the incumbents ran unopposed. The school boards in my area had some choices, but they were literally cases where I was to pick multiple members and the number of “losers” will be few.

From what I can tell, I’m in the norm.

It was last week that Cook County Clerk David Orr said that 67 percent of the posts that were up for grabs across the county were unopposed. Only 334 of the 1,031 contests had challengers.

For a couple of posts, there literally were no choices. I was asked to “write in” a name. Perhaps I should have proclaimed myself to be a candidate. It would have been as legitimate as anyone else.

FOR THE RECORD, I’m not a candidate for any office. I left those spots blank.

Now the reason I cast my ballot early even though I didn’t have any extreme sentiments in favor of any specific candidates (although I have to admit the mayor in the municipality I’m currently residing seems like an affable sort and probably is qualified – which is good because no one else seems to want the post) is because of my professional duties.

I’m not sure yet if I’m needed by anybody for Election Day work. So getting things out of the way in casting a ballot now when I had a free morning just made some sense.

It really makes sense in those election cycles where there is interest and the early voting centers can be a way to avoid long lines. Which I’m pretty confident I can get away with saying that Tuesday will not have.

BUT THIS ISN’T a presidential cycle. It’s not even a run for the state Legislature, which is a post that many people theoretically comprehend has some significance, but in many cases can’t be persuaded to get off their keisters to cast a ballot.

In many cases, they don’t even know who their legislators are – and I doubt anything will happen between now and the next election cycle those people run in that the public will become better informed.

This is the municipal level, where the government geeks like to believe is the one where all the “real” governing is done. The tax levies are approved that set the property taxes on your home

The local ordinances are set that determine the particular quirks for your community.

BUT TOO MANY of us take the attitude of actor Carrol O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character who on "All in the Family" supposedly went for decades without voting, and said he wasn’t about to waste his ballot on petty little offices. Only the big ones for him!

Perhaps we are better off if people who can’t be bothered to learn about their local governments stay out. I’m sure there are those who think the 2016 presidential election was one in which clueless people cast ballots – thereby causing chaos for the masses.

But I do seriously believe that we as a society are better off if we educate ourselves about what is happening around us and take a public interest. Even if it’s just so we can make educated arguments about how messed up our government officials are.

That’s why I felt compelled to cast my ballot for the status quo. I want the “right” to tell my government officials how “wrong” they are.

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“Alt-right” synonymous with “bigot?”

It is the new phrase that came out of the 2016 election cycle; “alt-right.” As in not the standard issue conservative who leans toward the Republican party, but an alternate version.
 

TRUMP: Election opened nasty can of worms

Of course, what makes them alternative is that their racial hang-ups are a little more intense. In fact, they are the base of these people having anything resembling a political philosophy.

IF WE WANTED to be purely honest, we’d simply say they’re bigots. But the “alt-right” term comes from those people who want to legitimize any sense that one’s racial sentiments ought to be permitted to be a basis for government policy.

And also don’t want anything resembling use of the term “cracker” to refer to themselves.

Now I know there are some people who are getting upset these days with the perception that the Republican Party has been overtaken by bigots. They want to think there’s some moralistic overtone to the conservative thought process by which they have become the political party for white people.

They want to argue that not every person who cast a vote for Donald Trump’s presidential bid did so for racial reasons. In short, they’re willing to talk a lot of smack to avoid the very real fact of modern-day politics.

PEOPLE WHO VOTED for Trump either really do have the ridiculous notion that white people are being discriminated against because they’re no longer permitted to discriminate against people not like themselves. Or, they’re more than willing to look the other way when it comes to being around the bigots of our society.

Perhaps to them the notion of being around non-white people with some authority is more offensive than being around white people who are willing to use physical force to maintain their sense of place in the world.

I have one person I knew back in college who, on Facebook recently, said we ought to refuse to use the term “alt-right” and replace it with “all white.” It would be more accurate, she says, if we didn’t try to make the term “alt-white” sound respectable.

How far will alt-right rewrite history?

Yet this is going to be the very focus of much of the rhetoric we’re going to hear in coming years. There are people who must take seriously notion expressed by author George Orwell (as in “1984”) that “history is written by the winners.”

THEY PROBABLY THINK this past election cycle was a “war” in which they’re trying to take back the country from all of society’s undesirables – as in the ones whom the deplorables think are truly disgusting because of their repulsive sensibilities about life!

In that context, “alt-right” is merely a part of rewriting history. And not seeing the incredibly obvious in that photograph playing big on the Internet these days with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in front and a whole slew of white people filling the room.

It is a way where we can go back to the old way of thinking of things, in which a “Martin Luther King, Jr.” was a borderline-Communist agitator for spouting out nonsense about equality and non-violence who tried falsely to portray himself as a Christian.

Let’s not forget that some people do have a twisted sense of their Christian religious faith – I still remember once covering a Ku Klux Klan rally outside the Statehouse in Springfield, Ill., where their “pastor” led everybody in a prayer for God to strike the Earth with a plague that would wipe out all the non-white people.

NOT EXACTLY IN line with any serious religious teachings I have ever heard.

Yet these are the individuals who are being given some credence. Who are being treated as though they have something essential for our society to hear. And whose hostile rhetoric somehow bears a legitimacy to what else is being said.

So how should we truly think of these people? What terms should we use to describe them with a sense of honesty?

There are times when I watch the old “All in the Family” reruns on television and think that actor Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character bears relevance to what is happening today. Which makes me wonder if actor Sherman Hemsley’s “George Jefferson” is who many of us will turn to for the proper retort!

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Everybody wants to believe everyone ought to be just like themselves

Megyn Kelly, the blonde babe news anchor for Fox News Channel, is getting more than her share of ridicule on the Internet these days for her statement on air this week that both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ were white.

Believe it or not, I’m not about to join in the abuse. Yes, it’s a nonsense-thought to have when you think about it.

YET I DON’T doubt that many a person just perceives things this way. It’s that instinct amongst us that everybody has to be just like us. Otherwise, maybe it means there’s something wrong with themselves.

That is what makes the modern-day reality of the 21^st Century in our society so scary for some – we’re not all alike. Nor should we have to be.

We’re at a point where we ought to quit thinking of the concept of a “Black Santa” as some sort of joke, and maybe a recognition of what we all are. Besides, we all ought to realize that Santa Claus is a Latino, flying around the skies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer fueled with “Magic Dust” (or so said Cheech Marin of the Cheech & Chong comedy team).

For Kelly to want to perceive Santa as a fat old white man is just a realization of who she is. Anybody who’s surprised that she’d think that way is the one I would want to question.

WHAT ELSE WOULD you expect from her?

Actually, my initial reaction when I learned of Kelly’s comments (which were in response to a commentary published at the Slate.com website and written by a black woman who wrote about being confused as a child because Santa in her house was black, while he was white everywhere else) was to recall a moment from my own college days.

One day in a class where we were engaged in a conversation either about Aristotle or Plato (I’m not sure exactly which one), somebody made a comment in support of the philosopher and referred to his “Christian” values.

 

To which the professor tried to hold back a laugh when he explained that the philosopher in question was not of any religious faith that could be called “Christian.”

THAT STATEMENT PROVOKED a debate amongst the students that took up the entire rest of the class session.

“Of course he’s Christian,” some students said. “We wouldn’t study him if he weren’t Christian,” others wanted to believe. “He’s a good person, so he has to be Christian,” was also heard.

There were some students who were not in agreement, and even tried arguing back that the words “Christian” and “good” and “moral” were not necessarily synonymous with each other.

Not that any of the initial group wanted to hear of it.

PERSONALLY, I RECALL that day in class as one of the most humorous moments of my academic life. Although I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that others probably viewed it as some sort of moment when they were exposed to subversive thought.

Just like I’m sure that some people probably want to view the idea of a non-White Santa Claus as violating everything they want to believe about our society.

I ultimately came to realize that “Santa Claus” is about a concept – one of sharing and giving, which is what the upcoming Christmas holiday can be at its finest. (At its worst, it’s nothing more than a greedy gift grab – but that’s a commentary for another day).

If some people feel the need to believe that “sharing” and “giving” are concepts only relevant to themselves, then perhaps they’re saying more about their own hang-ups, and we should pity them for being so close-minded.

BESIDES, DIDN’T THE whole concept of Santa Claus and Jesus being either “white” or “black” get resolved all those decades ago by the “Archie Bunker” and “Henry Jefferson” characters on “All in the Family.”

 

At least when actor Carroll O’Connor’s Bunker character persisted in claiming that both Jesus and Santa were white, he was just going for a cheap laugh!

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