The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

History will remember Donald Trump.

But it will not remember him kindly.

Pop quiz – think about the great people you remember, both in your own life and in history.

Maybe the names that come to mind include Amelia Earhart and Harriet Tubman and Joan of Arc and Copernicus and Paul Revere and Jim Stockdale and the Chinese kid who stood in front of the tanks at Tienanmen Square and Florence Nightingale and Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela and the Mothers who march in Argentina demanding to know what happened to their children and that Naval Academy guy who walked into the protest in Portland with his hands up and was beaten by armed goons and every firefighter and every cop who have ever rushed in when others are rushing out and every schoolteacher who has sheltered children with her body while a shooter stood over them with a gun.

The list is long. The list of brave people is long. The list of brave people who, at great risk to their own safety or their own financial security, have taken a stand on the behalf of right is long.

Now think about all the rich people you can remember.

I mean, people who are known for being rich.

Not for doing anything positive with their wealth.

Just – for being rich. And having gold toilets. Or whatever.

Even better, think about all the people you know who became rich through inheritance. Through someone else’s ideas or labor, not even through their own work.

I’ll wait.

And – I can’t think of anyone.

I mean, there must be people in history – lots of heirs and heiresses. But – they do not stick in my mind.

They do not stick in my mind because they are insignificant.

Who cares about them? Who cares about what they did? It’s not even that nobody cares about what they did – it’s that they didn’t do anything for anyone to care about.

But there are worse things than to fade into insignificance.

Even worse than being forgotten would be to be remembered as a complete failure as a human being. As a buffoon. As a waste of space.

And that is how Donald Trump will be remembered.

And that is his great fear.

His biggest concern appears to be his TV ratings. He wants to know that he is – literally and figuratively – seen.

Oh we see you all right, Donald. We see you and we know. We know you are a pathetic little man who has never once in your entire life done anything brave, done anything for anyone else, done anything on your own. If it weren’t for your father’s money, you would be working at a 7-11 somewhere and you wouldn’t even be doing that very well.

Your great fear is that you are incompetent and stupid and incapable and that you are not great and guess what?

You. Are. Correct.

You think having money makes up for all of this but it does not.

I have no idea how much money Colin Kaepernick has but I do know this: 100 years from now – 500 years from now, I hope – I hope the United States still exists in 500 years, Kaepernick will be remembered as a hero and Trump will be remembered as the worst president this country has ever had, a loser so pathetic that his father had to buy his way out of the military (seriously – bone spurs?) and into college, and who failed at everything he tried.

In 1936, at the university in Salamanca, the rector of the university, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, gave a speech. General Franco’s chief advisor, General Millán Astray, heckled Unamuno, yelling, “Long live death!” which I think we can all agree is a stupid and confusing thing to say.

Millán also shouted, “Death to intellectuals! Down with intelligence!” so you see where he fits in here. (Millán is the Trump figure, just in case. 🙂 )

Unamuno responded.

General Millán Astray is not one of the select minds, even though he is unpopular, or rather, for that very reason. Because he is unpopular, General Millán Astray would like to create Spain anew — a negative creation — in his own image and likeness. And for that reason he wishes to see Spain crippled, as he unwittingly made clear.

This is the temple of intellect. And I am its high priest. It is you who are profaning its sacred precincts.

I have always, whatever the proverb may say, been a prophet in my own land. You will win, but you will not convince. You will win, because you possess more than enough brute force, but you will not convince, because to convince means to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack — reason and right in the struggle.

And yes, they sentenced Unamuno to death for what he said.

But Unamuno was right. His words endure. And eventually, the fascists were overcome because THEY WERE WRONG. THE FASCISTS LOSE IN THE END, DONALD, AND THEY ARE REMEMBERED AS PATHETIC LOSERS.

 

At least now we know who they are. I guess.

What do you do when you discover that people you love, like, and/or respect turn out to be Trump supporters?

Let me re-phrase that.

What do you do when you discover that people you USED TO love, like, and/or respect turn out to be Trump supporters?

I discovered months ago that I had friends and relatives who were racists and hence, I assumed, Trump supporters. Yes yes yes I know correlation is not causation but this one seems pretty clear cut to me.

I thought perhaps their racism was born out of ignorance. That they truly did not know that the life situations for Black people in this country are so different from the life situations for white people like them and me.

After all, I, a person who reads voraciously and who seeks information, didn’t even know until recently about sundown towns or redlining or that Black people couldn’t get the GI Bill or join unions.

I just watched Reconstruction and was horrified at how evil some people in the south were after the Civil War and how horribly Black people were treated. I was appalled at my ignorance (once again) and disgusted at my poor education (also once again).

I thought perhaps my friends and relatives were in the same situation: that they, too, lacked knowledge and information. That once they had that information, they would change their views on things.

Because how can someone with complete information have racist views?

Well guess what.

People with complete information can have racist views if they are racists.

Haters gonna hate.

Last year, I saw one of my best friends, L, whom I hadn’t seen in person for several years. “Are you a Trump supporter?” she asked.

“WHAT?” I answered. “WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THAT? THAT IS ONE OF THE MOST INSULTING THINGS I HAVE EVER BEEN ASKED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!”

“I’m sorry!” she said. “But you had always voted for the conservatives before!”

“Well yeah,” I answered. “But I’m not a f*ing idiot!”

For what it’s worth: I voted for Rs for president until the 2016 election, when I voted for Clinton. As I said, I am not a f*ing idiot and I love my country. And after what has gone on for the past four years, both at the national and at the state level with the Rs, I will never ever ever vote R again.

“WHEW!” she said. “I was worried. My mother has gone off the deep end and is a Trump supporter and I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

She explained, “My mom won’t watch anything but Fox news. She says she is a ‘trusted advisor’ to Trump – she even has a wallet card they sent her! But all that means is that they send her surveys with biased questions – ”

L knows what a biased survey question is, BTW. She has a master’s degree in sociology.

” – surveys with biased questions and then they lift her language and use it in their campaigns! I have tried to tell her the truth and give her the facts, but she does not want to listen.”

Last week, I was messaging with another friend. We were both bewildered at friends and relatives who have turned out to be Trump supporters.

“What do you do when otherwise good people support Trump?” I asked him.

His response was direct and hard to hear.

That the goodness is flawed.

That there is hate and selfishness at the heart of the “good.”

That Trump supporters are not “otherwise good.” You can’t be “otherwise good” if you support Trump and all his works and all his empty promises.

Which I suppose I knew but didn’t want to admit.

His situation is heartbreaking – he barely talks to his mother now.

I am relieved that at least the people I need to cut off are not close to me. I can do without the woman in my book club and some of my cousins.

But I still don’t get it. I don’t understand how someone can appear to be such a nice person – my cousins are lovely in person! LOVELY! – and yet support that man. How does that happen? How do they become racists in the first place? I don’t understand. I just don’t. And it breaks my heart.

 

 

 

Also if sleeping your way to the top is possible how can I do it because I am tired of being at the bottom

And it starts. The sexist attacks on Kamala Harris.

Are we surprised?

No. No we are not.

This is the way it goes – the way insecure, pathetic, weak men discredit women and yes, I am talking to you, Mr President, who has very very small hands that his own wife doesn’t even want to hold, and you, Rush Limbaugh, who called Harris a “hoe,” and any man who thinks that the fact that he has a penis makes him superior to a woman and makes him fit to run the world.

We are shrill. We are emotional. (Because anger is not an emotion so therefore men do not get emotional.) We have hormones and you know what that means.

And we use sex to get what we want.

(How does that even work? How does a person – a woman – even use sex to get ahead at work? Do you write a contract? How does the quid pro quo get established? Do you discuss the terms before the sex? Or is it just understood? Why isn’t there a handbook for this? Why have I done my whole life wrong? WHY WASN’T THERE A CLASS ON THIS AT BUSINESS SCHOOL? UT-AUSTIN YOU FAILED ME.)

A person I used to respect sent me a link to a story from January 2019 claiming that Harris had “slept her way to the top.” This was his triumphant proof that Harris is not qualified to be vice president.

I will save you the trouble of reading it. It says that Harris dated Willie Brown, who was the mayor of San Francisco, for a short while, when she was in her late 20s. He appointed her to two state commissions.

This is “sleeping your way to the top.”

My acquaintance thinks Trump is the epitome of brilliance and accomplishment and that Harris, who got into and graduated from Howard and got into and graduated from Hastings and was elected San Francisco DA and was elected California AG (twice) and was elected California senator and won huge court cases as a prosecutor, is the person who has done nothing on her own merits.

How many people did she have to sleep with to accomplish all that LORD HAVE MERCY SHE MUST BE EXHAUSTED.

So Trump, who didn’t take his own SATs, whose admission to Penn was facilitated by personal connections and a bribe, who inherited his money and has never accomplished anything on his own except drive businesses and an entire country into the ground, is the standard by which we should measure success?

But Harris, who has a resume that is so bright I need to wear sunglasses to look at it, is the loser who parlayed a few dates with Willie Brown into membership on two state commissions into a brilliant career but IT’S ALL BECAUSE SHE SLEPT WITH WILLIE BROWN?

She must be amazing in bed is all I have to say./sarcasm

Also – I have been on a city commission and I was just appointed to another one. Trust me when I say commissions are not the route to power. You serve on a city commission because you care deeply about the issue, not because you value your free time, not because you enjoy sitting in a windowless room until 11 p.m. on a work night listening to citizens testify in two-minute increments about a deeply controversial issue as they glare at you and imply that you are in favor of disemboweling kittens and puppies when the real situation is that the city just doesn’t have $15 million in spare cash lying around and you personally also do not have that in your checking account.

Commissions are work. That is all. They do not benefit the members personally. We do it as a labor of love because we care about our communities.

So.

1. Sex is currency that can result in career advancement
2. There must be rules somewhere
3. That I have never known about
4. Commissions are a pain in the ass

Which means that the commissions are a smokescreen and it was all the sex Harris must have had with Brown only he didn’t control the juries or the voters and I AM SO CONFUSED.

But the real takeaway is that very powerful men are scared of Harris and that? Is a very good thing.

Rock on Kamala. We are with you.

Part II: In which I do the math about Kamala and everyone she had to sleep with 

And another thing that has me so, so angry about how that guy treated AOC and how her response to him was analyzed – even the analysis is sexist.

Warning – this post is kind of a mess because I am writing it in bits and pieces throughout the week. I sort of have a point but this is not one of those thesis/three supporting paragraphs/restatement of thesis posts. It’s rambling. Forgive me.

Here’s a quotation from The Cut’s analysis of the sexism in the Times’ piece:

As the Times put it: “Republicans have long labored to cast Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as an avatar of the evils of the Democratic Party, a move that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has used to bolster her own cheeky, suffer-no-fools reputation.”

She’s “cheeky?” When is the last time a male politician was described as “cheeky?”

And another quotation, this one pointing out that it’s unusual for women to challenge men. Which – isn’t that what the entire women’s movement has been about? For the past few centuries?

The Times’ story on the speech bore the headline “A.O.C. Unleashes a Viral Condemnation of Sexism in Congress” and kicked off by noting that Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman in Congress, who arrived there in 2019, “has upended traditions.” It called her speech on Thursday “norm-shattering” and described supporting speeches made by her colleagues — including one in which Pramila Jayapal recalled being referred to as a “young lady” who did not “know a damn thing” by Alaska representative Don Young — as a moment of “cultural upheaval.”

All these words somehow cast Ocasio-Cortez and her female colleagues as the disruptive and chaotic forces unleashed in this scenario, suggesting that they shattered norms in a way that Representative Yoho’s original, profane outburst apparently did not. (Perhaps Yoho’s words weren’t understood as eruptive and norm-shattering because calling women nasty names, in your head or with your friends or on the steps of your workplace, is much more of a norm than most want to acknowledge).

You know what this reminds me of? This idea that AOC is shattering the status quo?

(Which – considering they didn’t have a women’s restroom in the Senate building until the early ’90s OMG don’t even get me started on women’s restrooms – maybe she is. )

The cover article that Time magazine ran in the early ’90s called, “Why Are Women Different?”

And now when I google the article, I find that it was called, “Why Are Men and Women Different?”

But I could have sworn when the story was published, it was called, “Why Are Women Different?”

There was a huge backlash – we were so angry.

(I am almost positive it was called, “Why Are Women Different?”)

And men didn’t even understand why.

Fish don’t see the water.

We were angry for the same reason I get annoyed that only non-white characters in a story have their ethnicity identified. How often do you read a description that includes that someone is white?

(And what is it that Black men are so often characterized as “dignified” and Black women are “sassy?” Isn’t that a bit stereotypical? Not to mention bad writing? Show, not tell, people.)

That I get annoyed that it’s only when the person is a woman that her sex is defined: a female judge/pilot/detective/coroner.

The default is assumed to be male.

The default is assumed to be white.

If you don’t know the sex and color of the person in question, the default is white male.

The Times story (did they change the title of the story? WE WERE FURIOUS) – or at least the title – implied that men are the standard against which women are measured.

And white male power – or, as it’s called in the piece in The Cut, “power” – is looked at the same way. It’s the standard against which other power is measured and it’s the power pie from which others (not white, not men) take it.

White male power is so assumed as to be wholly indistinguishable from what we simply recognize as “power,”

I mean, we know men are the standard to which the world is built. Thank you, Caroline Criado-Perez for writing that amazing book, Invisible Women, where she shows us how – where she confirms what we already knew! – that the world, including furniture, seating in public transportation, gym equipment, temperatures in public spaces, medication, medical research, and pretty much everything else is designed for men and not for women.

We know it’s true.

It’s just that we are so tired of being reminded about it and having to fight it.

 

I was gone for a while and I come back and the world is not better.

You guys.

This crap is getting so, so old.

A man calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “f*ing bitch” and “out of [her] freaking mind.”

He disagrees with her opinion.

Instead of countering her opinion with facts, he goes straight to ad hominem attacks that include a sex-based insult and an assertion that she is not sane.

This tactic of not countering a statement with facts is so, so common. That one I can almost overlook. I frequently get facebook comments claiming that what I have posted is not truthful.

I ignore those comments. The links I post lay out clear arguments with data. If the commenters (soon to be ex friends) think they are not the truth, they may respond with facts that disprove the argument. It is not on me to convince people who cannot even construct a decent argument.

And this tactic of sex-based insults is also so common that I don’t even notice it anymore.

Except now I do.

And it makes me angry.

The only thing he left out was questioning whether she was on her period and telling her not to be so emotional. (Except you know – she wasn’t the emotional one – he was.)

We women have been discredited for millennia. Women who dared to speak their minds have been called crazy and burned at the stake and committed to mental institutions against our will.

In 1893, police admitted Agnes to a local mental institution because of complaints from her neighbours. It seems she told them that people were plotting to steal her money and she ‘believed her life to be in danger’. This led to a diagnosis of paranoia. Increasingly angry and ‘non-compliant’ with her incarceration, she was transferred in 1895 to Hubertusberg Psychiatric Institution near Dresden.

[Question: Who among us would not be “angry and non-compliant” at being unjustly imprisoned? Who among us does not get angry when reading a news story about police brutality related to someone “resisting arrest.” WHO AMONG US WOULD NOT RESIST AN UNJUST ARREST?]

Women are called shrill and emotional. Our hormones make us unstable.

Men tell little boys, “You throw like a girl!” (Instead of just, you know, teaching girls how to throw a baseball properly.) When men want to insult another man, they call him a “p*ssy.” One of the very worst words you can use on a woman in the US is a word I won’t even type out but it’s a term that has caused me to gasp when I have heard it on a TV show.

The very fact that being called anything related to femaleness is considered derogatory – why? Why is it so so bad to be a woman? Why do some men hate us so much?

Ted Yoho went straight to the “but I have daughters” argument.

Which – dude? That makes it worse as far as I am concerned.

But then, it shouldn’t matter! It should not matter that he has daughters.

And I say this as someone who has used this same argument against a man and am only now seeing how wrong it was.

When I was 19, I worked as a waitress in a bar over Christmas break one year. One night, as I was leaning over a table, wiping it off, a man grabbed my butt.

I was so shocked that I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. This had never happened to me before.

But a few minutes later, I figured it out.

I marched over to him and said, “Don’t touch me.”

His eyes flew open. “But your butt was so cute!”

“Don’t touch me!”

He laughed.

Which – also Step One of How to Infuriate a Woman: Discredit Her Emotions by Laughing at Them.

“How would you feel,” I hissed at him, “if someone treated your daughter like that?”

(Did I not mention he was old? Like at least 40?)

He shrugged. “I don’t have a daughter.”

I was undeterred. “Well IF YOU DID.”

But now, I realize this was the wrong argument.

The argument is not that men should treat women with respect only because they want other men to treat their own daughters with respect. They should not treat us with respect out of fear that some other man might mistreat their daughters.

They should treat us with respect because we are human beings.

Sheesh.

It should not be that complicated.

But that’s the argument that Yoho resorted to. Sort of. Except not really.

He just implied that because he has daughters, he is incapable of sex-based insults.

“Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, I’m very cognizant of my language,” Yoho had said, in a speech in which he did not mention Ocasio-Cortez’s name, and in which he nonsensically refused to “apologize for my passion, or for loving my God, my family, and my country.”

You guys, I am so tired of this crap. I am so tired of these men. I am so done with them.