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The Election – Pretending It’s Like It Used to Be When People Could Say What They Think
Have you ever felt nudged to write, but the topic you feel inspired to wax prolific about is an incendiary one that will certainly raise the hackles of most readers? That’s me… today. But lest I live with an acute awareness of my own cowardice, I’ll give it the old college try.
I think I might have been a weird kid. After I saw my mother fall apart when JFK was assassinated, politics grabbed my five-year-old imagination. I became obsessed with watching the news, including the unfolding of Johnson’s swearing-in, the funeral procession, and the nightly footage about the war. Later, I would sit on the floor right in front of our Zenith black and white TV to watch the Democrat and Republican conventions with my parents; two people who were never on the same page about anything, let alone politics.
We were taught civics in school, frequently given assignments to read the newspaper and look for articles about the work of the administrations’ various agencies, and then write an essay about it. In fourth grade I dressed like a hippy and protested the Vietnam War because my mother was a Democrat who’d married the wrong man so she started hanging out with young people who were into the 60s scene. I wanted to support her, plus I thought I looked cool in a headband and a fringed leather vest.
My dad, on the other hand, was a Republican. He was a harsh man, ambitious to a fault, and very critical of me. I was the firstborn, and damned smart (if I do say so myself). He had wanted a son. Despite his efforts to turn me into a mini version of himself, I had my own ideas about life. He eventually disowned me, but that’s another story. So … for obvious reasons, I thought my mom was cooler than my dad, and since she was a Democrat, I became one once I was old enough to vote.
Now, you might think my early fascination with politics might have produced a precocious intellectual when it came to party affiliation, right?
Uh, no. That’s not human nature. Young people, of which I was one at a point, are mostly flailing through early life, looking for something to hold on to, something to belong to, an identity that sets them apart, but not too much lest they be shunned as a geek or nerd or whatever the word is these days. In my case, I had been taking care of my mother for as long as I could remember, and she had trained me well. My job was to encourage her out of her depression, listen to her tell me her terrible secrets, and always respond with a pat on the back and a hug, telling her she would be okay. That was all fine as long as I didn’t need anything from her.
In due course, my first vote was for a Democrat: Jimmy Carter in 1980. I confess I hadn’t done my homework, being fully preoccupied with surviving as a young person without any real family support. But I do recall, vividly, the Iranian hostage crisis. When Reagan won the election and the hostages were immediately released, it got my attention. Reagan had been my governor while growing up, so I knew him in a way, as only a kid could. And something began to clarify within me.
Now, the changes didn’t happen overnight. Listening to Reagan’s speeches, I often thought to myself that he didn’t sound all that smart, and how could people listen to him ramble on as he sometimes did. But again, I was still young and far too busy digging myself out of the chronic need to find another place to live, and seemingly always moving from job to job. There was little time to ponder the greater implications of current-day politics.
Years went by as I worked full-time during the day and attended evening classes to get my undergrad and graduate degrees. It wasn’t until Clinton came into office that one of my friends, a carpooling buddy, red-pilled me with Rush Limbaugh. I complained for the first twenty minutes about having to listen to “this guy.” But the commute was hours long and as I grew weary of my own voice, I found myself listening.
And agreeing. Everything I had learned in school came rushing back along with the memories of growing up as a precocious political junky by the age of eight. I realized how much I had missed the brilliance of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in balancing the guardrails against human nature’s darker tendencies, and the beautiful spirit within each of us that requires freedom to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
When Donald Trump announced he was going to run in 2016, I knew in my gut that he was the guy. You might wonder why, right? So did my husband. He’s still not over it.
Here’s why.
I spent over thirty years in consulting, much of that time pursuing large contracts with the government. Sometimes this type of marketing activity was done in the due course of normal consulting activities. But other times, it was my sole area of responsibility. No, I wasn’t a sales-y kind of personality and I didn’t wine and dine potential clients. I listened to them. I showed them, with my own stories, that I understood what they were dealing with. I would say things like, “It sounds like you are looking for …” And out of that process, they told me more. A mutual trust began to build. I worked hard, spending hours in their bidders’ libraries … alone, learning as much as I could. They noticed.
I don’t mean to brag, but of all the contract proposals I was involved with as a lead person, I remember only one that was not awarded to the firm I was associated with.
That’s the marketing side of things. On the consulting side, I played the role of leader/mediator in large organizations where it was necessary to bring people from different divisions into a single team. Commonly, organizations are made up of siloed divisions where politics dictate who aligns with who, and who is on the way out. Sorry to be so blunt.
My job, sitting in a room of people from different organizations who were suspicious toward one another, let alone hostile toward me, was to say the quiet part out loud, but in a way that neutralized and stripped an issue down to the facts without value judgment, including acknowledging the legitimacy of different points of view.
I guess if I were a politician, it would be called diplomacy.
What does this have to do with Trump? He gets the value of connecting with people. It’s the human connection that opens doors! People want to be heard and seen and understood. Lord knows that we need more of that right now. Every day now, I hear another story about the impending possibility of WWIII. Given where we are today, the day before the election, I don’t see any other answer than a Trump presidency. Who cares what his personality may offer while in the limelight? What matters is what he accomplishes, and I understand that behind the scenes, he is kind and funny and the hardest-working president of my lifetime. Not to mention, the most courageous. Look, we don’t want WWIII, do we? No. And I can tell you without a doubt, Kamala Harris has nothing to offer in bringing peace back into the world.
All of that to say this: when Trump announced in 2015, I immediately saw what it meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah … I’d had plenty of chances to watch him on The Apprentice. That was enough for me to see how he operates. He instinctively understands human nature, opens up communication, and facilitates win-win deals. He is both a high-level strategist and tactical implementer. He’s not tangled up in abstractions rooted in ideology aimed at somehow fomenting confusion and disintegrating the fabric of society. He knows what fundamental parts of the “system” need to be in place to make a country hold together, enabling “we the people” to thrive.
Listen. Think about this. We as a country have been undergoing a process of disintegration. There are forces at play (and no, there’s no one evil villain behind the scenes … at least not a human one) that have combined to undermine the integrity of our systems and institutions.
Donald Trump can bring us back to wholeness.
The world will be better for it.
Even for those fighting like hell against him.
We the People need our country back.
Vote Trump.
Published in General
*applause*
Not TL; Did Read.
Excellent
Thank you!
I can read this several ways, one in which your father was a Republican and one in which your father was a Dimocrat.
Can you perhaps explain just a little bit?
BTW, The Apprentice was a bit after I quit watching TV.
How’s this?
Haha. I think you said it all. A little more complicated and mysterious than simply suffering from a dim emotional meter. But not much.
Over the past few weeks an observable phenomenon became increasingly apparent: more and more people openly support Trump. There is no social stigma, despite Democrat efforts to re-establish it (“Fascist!” and “Hitler!”).
We will see, but this seems a strong reason for optimism.
Agreed.
And the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves, for “nominating” a whack-job of a leftist loon like Harris, compared to whom Trump is just a “loveable little ball of fuzz,” as Rush self-described from time to time.
I am smiling from ear to ear!
This was my first presidential vote also. Jimmy Carter was my man because dad said so. Everyone here in MA was a democrat. That’s just what you do. My parents have passed. Now us democrat kids are 5:1 conservative.
I’m sorry you didn’t have a good relationship with your dad. My father was a union iron worker. Every day he complained about management and how the company was sticking it to him. One time I thought, why don’t you just work somewhere else? We are in central Mass. There are always jobs everywhere. Now I see he really felt beat down and controlled by ‘the man’.
One time when I was a teenager he brought me into the foundry. It was hell on earth. Afterwards he said I brought you in here so you do something else with your life. I did. I really miss him.
This is one of your best GLW.
Trump says the quite part out loud, but there is plenty of judgement, and no acknowledgement of different points of view.
Win or lose, it will fall to Trump’s successor to bring as back to, whatever wholeness means.
I say this as Trump voter. I thought that he should have been a one term president, up until the Democrats started prosecuting him with vague laws that didn’t really apply to him. He showed the way for Republican politicians that were looking for an alternative to mimicking Bush or Romney, but who would still be aggressive in pushing for conservative values.
DeSantis was my ideal candidate, and he did change his political style because of Trump. He did so while still remaining DeSantis.
So, yeah, two cheers for Trump.
Wow, that’s a cool coincidence!
I have a lot of thoughts about why people are shifting to what is now understood as more conservative … maybe I’ll write a little about that.
Your description of your father reminds me of my own father at the dinner table; complaining about things at work, diminishing people and calling them names. It made for a tense dining experience for the rest of us. There’s more of a story there, but not for today.
I’m curious about what you ended up doing??!!
Thank you for your kind words.
Ah … yes. On your point regarding judgments. I did make judgments! … but as an outside consultant, it was not my place to share those thoughts or act on them. My job was to depersonalize and frame issues, focus attention on identifying root cause/risks, formulate solutions and actions steps, and hold the team members to account by keeping the work visible and reportable. Visibility goes a long way toward motivating people toward higher performance levels.
And of course, I reported to the top executive … and they all knew that. It definitely helped attribute some pretty significant pseudo authority to me. :)
As for Trump’s “plenty of judgment” … I have a little bit different take on him. I once worked with a partner at one of the Big 8 firms who had temper tantrums. It was pretty disconcerting, but after a while I realized it was a tactic to set people back on their heels. At the time, he was the best negotiator in the firm. I’m not saying that Trump isn’t thin-skinned … he may be. I’m saying that he uses many artful ways to do his deals. And everything, whether a problem to solve, a policy to implement, a infrastructure project to build … is a kind of deal to him. (my opinion).
All that said, when the primaries were shaping up, I really wanted DeSantis. I still want to see him run in the future. But right now, we need Trump. He’s already shown us that he’s a no-holds-barred man, willing to give his life for his country. I hold him in high esteem because of that. He’s the guy. Determined to save our beautiful country, and willing to die trying.
Thank you for your great comment.
We always ate together at the dinner table. Sometimes it was tense. I dreaded the, “what did you do today”, statement. It wasn’t a question. I couldn’t leave until every morsel on my plate was gone, not necessarily eaten.
I am wrapping up a carrier as a controls engineer. I push stuff around with computers and I can still get my hands dirty.
Oh, the dreaded long nights sitting at the dinner table after everyone else had finished and left, chewing on the same piece of tough steak for what felt forever. Sounds like a great career. My favorite contracts were always with the engineers.
Creamed tuna with peas on toast. Yugh. Gross. I love food but I still wouldn’t eat that. We didn’t have dogs in the house. The cats would only eat a few things. I got good at keeping food in my cheeks and clearly asking to be excused to the bathroom.
You have got to be kidding me!!!! That’s the first and only thing my mother taught me to make. Ugh! Food in the cheeks … wish I’d thought of that! Thanks for the belly laugh.
… I thought I looked cool in a headband and a fringed leather vest.
JENNY!!!!!
Hahaha! Thanks for that
… a carpooling buddy, red-pilled me with Rush Limbaugh.
I wish that El Rushbo could have seen today!
RIP God and Country-loving Patriot!