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Ain’t That America, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

November 10, 2012 Martha Thomases 0 Comments

(Not going to gloat.  Not going to gloat.  Not going to gloat.)

Now that the 2012 election is behind us, what have we learned?

*  Donald Trump is an idiot.  This is not a new lesson.  Those of us who live in New York City have known it since the 1980s, when SPY Magazine revealed his idiocy on a regular basis.  My son, the economics major, points out that, despite The Donald’s claims to be a brilliant business guy, his fortune is less than half of what it would be if he had simply left his inheritance in an index fund.  However, the depths of his stupidity, compounded by his overbearing ego, have rarely been so well defined on the national stage.  Can we all agree to ignore this loser from here on in?

*  Speaking of return on investment, it seems that all the money in the world doesn’t make a difference if the electorate doesn’t want to be persuaded by your message.  The hundreds of millions of dollars that Karl Rove raised from various billionaires was less effective than the Obama army of volunteers.  Citizens United did not beat citizens, united.

*  The United States is changing.  We are a more diverse country.  If we are going to have a Republican Party (and we should), I would like it if they were more like the Party which counted my mother and her father as supporters, at least until the Viet Nam war changed their minds.  This sounds like a contradiction (the country is changing, so we should go back to the 1950s?).  Howerver, Republicans at that time believed in small government to solve problems.  They didn’t deny the problems.  They were not necessarily the party of the rich.  They were the party of the local.  Today, they are the party of the hyper-rich, and then the rural, the old, and the stupid.

*  As we become a more diverse country, we should remember that there is not just one way to be a patriotic American.  The best way we can do this is to get God out of politics.  I’m not opposed to religion per se (I, myself, am pleased to be Jewish, albeit of the Reform variety), but rather the way it is used to stifle debate, which goes against my religion (see: Jewish, Reform).  You can believe any damn thing you want, but once you tell me that God wants you or your candidate to win, you reveal yourself to be an idiot, and you should know that.

*  Similarly, if you tell me that for me to do something that is forbidden by your religion violates your religious freedom, you tell me that you don’t understand what the term, “religious freedom,” means.  It is my fondest wish that the Supreme Court will remember this.  As long as Scalia is on the bench, I’m not so sure.

*  The changing demographics demand a different level of discourse.  Over the past 48 hours, I’ve heard pundit after pundit talk about the Hispanic vote (which has grown a great deal since the last election).  They talk about how candidates must appeal to this massive voting bloc.  Which would be all well and good, except that there is not a single Hispanic bloc.  There are citizens whose ancestors came from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Equador, etc.  These groups have different traditions and values.  In some cases, they don’t even like each other.  And, of course, even within these groups, there are individual differences among humans because, despite what the pundits seem to imply, Hispanics are humans like the rest of us.

*  People waited on line for hours to vote.  This is fabulous.  Well done, America!

*  The black guy won.  Again. Get over it.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases is not gloating.  Well, maybe a little.

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Comments

  1. Pennie
    November 10, 2012 - 5:42 am

    Yay for the America I’m so proud to be a part of. For years, demographers have pointed out that by ( filll in the year), our country will have a different composition than Robert Young and all those happy days 1950’s TV shows portrayed.
    I believe this to be a watershed election in so many ways. As Martha noted, the acclaimed rising tide of “new” voting blocs are composed of human beings who are culturally, racially, and linguistically different. Hispanic, Asian, Queer…you name it. This election, many in these blocs voted for Obama because he attracted their votes and touched their electoral sensitivities in a way that Mitt didn’t. It was Romney’s election to win. He blew it badly simply because he was/ is incapable of demonstrating empathy with the aforementioned groups, no less so many others.

    So for now, these groups voted as blocs. Whether that happens agin in a similar fashion remains to be seen.
    Bottom line, the Elephants have been called out as being in touch with a draining, disappearing America. The time, they have already changed.

    Unlike you Martha, I really don’t care if that party survives. I am good with dialogue. But, these Elephants have made it clear they aren’t open for dialogue. They obfuscate, obstruct, and deny. This is not the best of democracy. It is selfish and stupid.

    I look forward to the next four years where a strong leader steps up to continue and redefine. It’s Obama’s to go for.

  2. The Liberal Frank Miller
    November 10, 2012 - 8:00 am

    I miss Spy Magazine. Their article on the fraud that was the Clarence Thomas hearings should have been trumpeted from the mountaintops.

  3. Howard Cruse
    November 10, 2012 - 8:17 am

    I second Pennie’s Yay. Now if the Democrats could just keep the campaign machinery that they’ve just used to keep Obama in place well oiled and active enough to regain a majority in the House of Representatives two years from now, not to mention a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, maybe some important problems could finally get addressed.

    Ah, what would we do without our wish lists.

  4. Martha Thomases
    November 10, 2012 - 9:05 am

    We need more than one viable political party in this country, or we get complacent. There should always be someone around to kick our assumptions in the butt, even if our assumptions are correct.

  5. Rene
    November 10, 2012 - 9:52 am

    Making Donald Trump the hero and role model of Patrick Bateman was one of the great things in AMERICAN PSYCHO. Seconded only by showing how only a psychopath devoid of real feelings could believe Whitney Houston’s syrup confections had any real feelings in them.

  6. Elisa Thomases
    November 10, 2012 - 11:52 am

    Donald Trump a financial whiz? How? His casino lost money and went bankrupt. How does a casino go bankrupt?

  7. Mike Gold
    November 10, 2012 - 4:54 pm

    Scalia believes religious freedom only exists on a national level — if your state wanted to, say, ram any single religion down your throat by maintaining Sunday blue laws, they can do so at will. And they do.

    If I want to buy, say, a car in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and much of Maryland on Sunday, I’m fucked by a bunch of bigots who believe it is somehow unholy to sell cars on the Christian god’s day off. It’s not that Jehovah Motors or Worldly Wagons can make their own religious decisions: they don’t have a choice.

    If I want to buy a Tampax at my local mall in Bergen County New Jersey, right across the river from godless Manhattan (or is it still Hymietown; I get confused) on a Sunday I’m similarly fucked. But if I wanted to visit that very same mall on the Sunday AFTER Hurricane Sandy, I could: they suspended the holy blue law because of their god’s wantonly destructive event.

    I regard this as that god’s mea culpa.

  8. Reg
    November 10, 2012 - 10:00 pm

    Martha, Mike, Doug…how do you think Thomas Friedman’s most recent op-ed is going to play in the community…home and abroad?

  9. Martha Thomases
    November 11, 2012 - 5:37 am

    Reg, I’m not a big fan of Tom Friedman, so that affects my response. However, I do think that we too often over-simplify what Jews want (see above, differences among Hispanics). Most (but not all) progressive Jews tend to support the two-state solution, and want Israel to get out of the persecuting Palestinians business. I think it will help if the Israeli establishment understands that.

  10. Mike Gold
    November 11, 2012 - 8:52 am

    Friedman is a yutz, but Netanyahu is a dangerous demagogue. I don’t expect true democracy in any theocracy, be it Syria, Israel or the United States. But Netanyahu is determined to let the situation deteriorate so he can impose more draconian sanctions and, ultimately, justify bombing Iran and elsewhere. I just hope his nukes have all shorted out.

    I don’t care what Jews want in the middle east. As I’ve said all too many times before, put 10 Jews in a room and ask a question and you’ll get at least 11 different opinions… 12 if I’m in that room. The Jews put Netanyahu’s government in place, the Jews keep Netanyahu’s government in place. The idea of conflating “Israel” and “democracy” is a pathetic joke.

    Excuse me. Now I’m going to watch Dr. Strangelove again.

  11. tom brucker
    November 11, 2012 - 3:43 pm

    I am proud to be in the new minority, the white male. In college I took an experimental course in racism and Pedagogy. One revelation (shocking to me, I admit) is that the majority cannot see its own oppression when it takes the form of “Normal”. I could generalize and say that Republicans failed to see beyond their”normal”, but that fails to recognize minority Republicans. What did happen was the party failed to LISTEN to its minority members. Good politicians must be capable of listening without bias.

  12. Vinnie Bartilucci
    November 11, 2012 - 3:57 pm

    To this day, I still precede Donald Trump’s name with “short-fingered vulgarian”.

  13. Mike Gold
    November 11, 2012 - 4:36 pm

    Tom — I believe the psych behavior you’re discussing is called the “identification with the aggressor” syndrome.

    Or, perhaps, the “Ubi Est Mea” phenomenon.

  14. Reg
    November 11, 2012 - 5:22 pm

    Martha, Mike…thanks for the insights. I’m not going to push to understand the animus towards Friedman, but I do appreciate the reminder that neither Latino, Jewish or African Americans are monolithic in groupthink. I suspect the GOP is finally beginning to grasp an inkling of that truth….

  15. Martha Thomases
    November 12, 2012 - 6:55 am

    Reg, Friedman was a staunch supporter of the Iraqi war. In fact, he so often insisted that it would be over in six months from whatever date he was speaking that there are those who refer to half a year as a “Friedman Unit.”

    He’s someone who is to the right of center, but perceived to be liberal, which pushes all dialogue to the right. And, as we can see from my example above, he doesn’t exactly admit to being wrong occasionally.

  16. Mike Gold
    November 12, 2012 - 7:39 am

    Friedman us also rather unfocused. I’m not suggesting he is politically inconsistant — being on the Right or the Left isn’t necessarily (nor should it be) a list of mandatory positions. He’s simply vague when he tries to make connections in building an argument. I sort of prefer seeing him in person on a panel show than reading his stuff; the conversation can be of interest.

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