or is it?
I stopped reading my email a couple days ago when I got this subject heading:
“YOU ARE A RACIST, HARRY”
It was followed by a couple additional emails from the same author who I warned I would stop reading emails from all together if I didn’t stop seeing the “n” word spelled out in full in them. I won’t be reading the others and it will end a very long cordial line of letters going back five or six years.
Here’s what my old corespondent wrote with my asterisk laden alterations inserted:
“I see from your blog that your 2 digit IQ mind just can’t allow you to treat our respectable President-elect with the same modicum of reverence you keep according your “n*****” Obama. Sorry your parents didn’t raise you right… respect all people. Why don’t you post on your website how much you want to see the poor normal people of northeastern Minnesota to suffer as the result of your “n*****’s” vicious attacks against us. What would your Mom and Dad say?”
In answer to the-last-question – my parents would have told me what I told my daughter when she was being taunted by a boy on the playground in second grade – “ignore him.”
I can ignore my old corespondent’s email but I can’t ignore a man who has insulted critics and innocents alike weekly since he began running for the Republican nomination. If my corespondent thinks insulting a Republican candidate’s wife’s looks, is respectable then I’ll reciprocate by saying it would be a pretty picture to see Donald Trump on his knees before Vladimir Putin. I doubt that the KBG, or its modern equivalent, got that photo but I call on the Russian Prime Minister to release the video of the “golden shower” if indeed he’s got a copy of it locked in the Kremlin’s vaults.
Its funny but I was probably the last person in America to hear the allegation about the “golden shower”. An hour before last Saturday’s SNL began I called my brother to talk about the deteriorating health of our uncle. Over the course of our conversation my Brother mentioned a shower and I had to ask him what he was referring to. I was taken aback but thanked him because, had I not been told, I would have been utterly mystified by the opening of Saturday Night Live. My critique? SNL’s opening wasn’t that funny. Too obvious. To easy.
Since my old corespondent tunes in to my blog despite my recommendation I’ll address a second and more important issue he raised: “the poor people of Northeastern Minnesota.”
This is a reference to Obama’s last minute attempts to prevent mining developments in Northeastern Minnesota. Its a fair point that doesn’t need the word “n” to disparage Obama. It was a last minute means of keeping the environmentalists on the Democrat’s side after Trump takes over. I have my own reservations about sulfide mining but I’ve seen the Twin Cities trample Northeastern Minnesota before so I appreciate the resentment of those in the mining community.
Then again, when I get to China I might have a couple days inhaling the infamous coal burning smog when I get to Beijing. Let’s hope our future billionaires can start mining Psyche once we learn to make robots and cheaply ferry the asteroid to Earth in bits and pieces. It will take hundreds of thousands of workers to manage that high tech operation. Maybe the grandchildren of coal miners can get in on that.
And then there is the charge that I am a racist. Maybe I am. I have heard lots of black folks – years back – claim that only white people can be racists. I never bought that but maybe its true …….or maybe my corespondent thinks that I am a self hating white person and I hate white people. I don’t buy that either. I could never snuggle under the covers with my grandsons if I found them that repellent.
Finally there is the title to this blog piece: imitation as flattery. If its not obvious I’m simply doing what millions of others are doing after the President Elect has flipped his middle twitter at them and followed the President Elect’s lead. Hell! Being aggressively rude got Trump elected President so maybe it can do something for the majority of voters who didn’t get their way due to the Constitutional mechanics of our presidential election system…….just maybe the majority can titter Trump to do sensible things.
I heard a remarkable debate on NPR today which suggested that Trump may push the Republican Party to support its worst nightmare since I was in grade school sixty years ago – “socialized medicine.” That would astound even Obama’s critics who wanted the “single payer” system and it would eviscerate the private insurance system.
Already lots of Trump fans have been shattered to hear him back off his great Mexican wall which the Mexicans think is a joke.
It turns out that Donald Trump wants to be loved. I guess it never occurred to him that he might end up being hated. I’m quite prepared to be impressed if he pulls off solving what have become seemingly intractable problems. If he does I’ll even offer my grudging respect. Reagan got that too despite my reservations about him. However, I never detested the ever sunny and humble Ronald Reagan. If Trump pulls that off I’ll be amazed. Until then, when he flips my side the bird I’ll join the chorus of his imitators.
