Examining Greatness

Sometime Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, people are going to be unhappy with the outcome of the presidential election. Over half of the electorate, in fact.

I confess I don’t know what “Make America Great Again” means. I guess my key questions are, “If we are no longer great, when were we great? When did we start becoming great? Is there a year or event that marks our retreat from greatness? When we were great were things great for everyone, or even almost everyone?” My father thought the 50's were great, but then he was a white male working in corporate America, successfully navigating a path upward through the large group of people who comprised the middle class. I tried to remind him that the time that was great for him wasn’t necessarily that great for everyone. Kind of like my brother who, every Thanksgiving, opines, “Ham, probably the perfect food.” To which I always add, “Unless, of course, you’re Muslim or Jewish.” He response is a shrug. If it’s not his problem, it can’t possibly be a problem, right?

Back in the 1980s I felt lonely and isolated as the Reagan Revolution ushered in a decade of conservatism. I was who the polls said I was, the minority opinion. I said that if you wanted to predict the outcome of an election, find out who I was supporting and pick the other candidate. Of course, Reagan conservatism didn’t resemble anything like what ideologically conservative purists of today envision for the country; I didn’t like the direction he wanted to push the country (backward, IMO), but he recognized that he was the leader of a diverse nation and that slow movement, based on compromise and statesmanship, was not just the proper course, but the only course.

For better or worse, depending upon your POV, he succeeded in his big picture goals and slowed, but certainly did not stop, the progressive (fine, leftward) drift of the country. President Reagan spoke Conservative (and to conservatives) but was, at his core, a centrist, as were his successors, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. At the risk of underestimating him, if George W. Bush had philosophical position, I could never figure it out. He struck me as something of a puppet of the neocons, especially in terms of foreign policy, rather than his own man. Despite the rantings of the alt-right, Barack Obama has also been a centrist. (Center always looks farther to the left or right than it really is if your POV is left or right.)

Hilary Clinton is many things (and if you don’t recognize that your own biases, one way or the other, fuel your perception, why are you even reading this?), but will be, if elected, a centrist. I admit that I do not understand Donald Trump, politically or any other way, because his positions on issues have been all over the map from year to year, decade to decade. His current supporters’ rationalization that he is somehow now a conservative conveniently ignores history. Should he be elected, I would expect a similar roller coaster ride, and not just in the stock market. I do worry that he could tilt the Supreme Court in a direction that sees the past through rose-colored glasses. That alone may be enough to have you vote for or against him. It’s enough for me to oppose him, but there’s more that I might share on my decision in the next day or two. Or not, because I’m not trying to change minds as much as clarify my own thinking.

DT vs. BC

A lot of people are trying to defend Donald Trump by comparing him to Bill Clinton. I would suggest that if the best defense you can muster is to claim that someone else is as bad or worse, that is a pretty hollow strategy. However, in that I wouldn’t want any woman I cared about near either one of them, they do share at least that commonality. I think they are (were? – can people change? And if you argue that Mr. Trump can change, can Mr. Clinton? Can criminals?) both sexual predators, but in very different, and important, ways. Thus, I would suggest there is a significant difference between the two. I admit that this is based on only partial evidence, the recent release of the hot-mic tape.

Some want to excuse Mr. Trump’s offensive language by suggesting that “all guys talk like this when they’re alone [occasionally implying, at least, if they’re real men].” I am not claiming “real man” status for myself (because, IMO, if you have to claim it, like being cool, there is already cause for doubt], but I know too many real men who don’t, would never, talk like that to or about women.

And while I did not serve in the military, I did live in a frat house at an all-male college. Of course I heard talk like this, but not from anything like all or even a majority of my reprobate fraternity brothers. In fact, that all-male atmosphere was one reason why that fine institution (named for Alexander Hamilton while he was still alive and before he was cool) was not a good fit for me.

You see, I like women. I enjoy their company. Many are my friends. My first thought is never, has never been, of them as potential sex objects. No, I, and many men like me, think of them as people first. I never referred to (or even thought about) women as p***y, or piece of ***, and have never used the c-word to refer to any woman. If you cannot make that same claim, then you might want to consider that you just might have at least some part of your brain that is sexist.

And I think that may be the difference between Clinton and Trump. (Now I have no inside information about how Clinton talked or talks around his buddies, but this is America, and like Matt Drudge I don’t need real facts to back up my opinions, on either candidates or hurricanes.) Mr. Trump revealed himself in that tape. I think Clinton fits more into the category explored in the Tom Petty song, “The Man Who Loves Women.”

It seems to me that Clinton probably had, and may still have, for all I know, the sexual loyalty of a dog in heat. Because he was more than happy to take advantage of and manipulate the women upon whom he cast his perpetually roving eye, he opened himself up to legitimate accusations. And he certainly knows how to manipulate language and the legal system, as well, if we are to give credence to old allegations of sexual assault. But I don’t think he sank to the level of Mr. Trump’s crudity. I don’t see him as sexist or misogynistic.

Am I seeing what I want? Maybe. Selective perception isn’t confined to any group or person. However, I would suggest that Secretary Clinton is not to blame for whatever transgressions he might have been guilty of, just because she wanted to believe what worked best for her and her family. That, perhaps more than anything else about her, makes her like most of the rest of us.