I can’t help but think of political people as human beings, the candidates, and followers. We all know fear and challenge; we all need to go to the bathroom sometimes.
I think of the terrified progressives and liberals and Democrats – their nickname is “the bedwetters,” so often disappointed and ridiculed and alarmed.
Unlike the people they oppose, their nerves are shot.
I’ve yet to hear a single Trump supporter say they fear the President will lose this election. This is both their strength and their weakness.
Fear is often a great motivator for action. Arrogance often leads to defeat. Every smart and honest political person in the country knows President Trump is in trouble and has been all year.
Progressives will not persuade voters to vote for their candidate, neither will the people in the big trucks and MAGA hats. People will follow their hearts and the winds that blow in their lives.
The beauty and occasional horror of democracy are that the people really do decide, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
But democracy was never a great system; just the best system around.
I sometimes think this campaign’s real meaning is a message of the heart, not of anger and lament.
The issue of compassion has become a club in America, used to beat down people who care about other people.
It seems to me that the country is divided now by two kinds of people: those who feel responsible for the poor, the downtrodden and the needy, and those who do not.
Almost every major issue breaks down that way. I’m with Gandhi. Through all of history, compassion eventually wins, so does love.
Leaders don’t create this kind of schism, they reflect it. We are a broken country, millions of Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall. Time for a healer, not a Hun.
In 2016, it was time for one kind of leader, in 2020 it’s time for another. I’m not afraid to concede I feel something for Donald Trump when I see one desperate lie and fantasy after another come out of his mouth, as if his fierce determination will somehow carry the day.
The magic has drained from his puffed-up face, porcine eyes, and ludicrous hair. It is no longer a fascinating curiosity. It is just sad. Even his cliches are worn.
Nobody believes the lies anymore; the true sign of obsolescence is when nobody is listening any longer.
Trump, to the surprise of almost everyone, almost surely himself, is turning out to be one of the most consequential Presidents in American history.
The bedwetters are hysterical – with lots of justification – over our next Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett.
But she is a human being also, and one of fierce belief and independence.
I wondered how she might be feeling as Trump brags about her as a pliant tool of his salvation, a vote to be taken for granted.
I bet she doesn’t like it, and I imagine Donald Trump might regret casting her in so patronizing and dismissive a way.
Like her or not, she is a very strong and independent woman, the kind Donald Trump has never understood. If I were him, I would not be bragging about controlling her in so outrageous a way, gloating about her as his flunky and rubber stamp.
It tells me he is not able to learn or grow.
Still, Trump really did shake things up. He really did change things. He woke a lot of people up, including me. He really did leave a legacy we will all be dealing with for many years.
He taught us about the need to change, the value of humanity, the importance of paying attention, and also about the need to change thoughtfully and humanely and honestly.
Remarkably, he taught us important and often conflicting things – we need to be compassionate to everyone if we are to succeed as a country.
Also, that truth does matter, and so does cruelty and dysfunction. 200,000 dead and rising is a lesson we will perhaps never forget, another kind of legacy.
Trump speaks for the left behind and the aggrieved. He taught us the dangers of ignoring great masses of people in distress.
Yet, in many ways, and he has also been instrumental in leaving so many people behind, from immigrants to the poor to his own loyal followers. Displaced white men saw him as their Messiah; history will show him as their Judas.
He sold them out.
He’s getting to seem pathetic now, making up new factories and vaccines and bank accounts that don’t exist. Biden will have a good night Tuesday.
It is very sad to see this broken man flailing and drowning, in so deep over his head, and even sadder to see the people who trust him so fervently get abandoned again.
Even now, some of them are beginning to see that Donald Trump was the problem all along, not the solution. It’s the oldest story in the world writ large, the rich screwing the poor.
Hope can sustain us or derail us.
Politicians, like the rest of us, have their time, their moment, and then, one day, the magic is gone and it can’t be reclaimed. You can only lie so much, it only goes so far. There is no magic want to bring it back.
This reckoning has happened to me more than once, most recently a few years ago when my books suddenly stopped selling, and my editors would no longer return my calls or speak to me.
It was a hard time for me, but it is a part of life for everyone, even the rich and the powerful. I embrace radical acceptance.
If I were having a drink with Donald Trump (can you imagine?), I would tell him that this can be a gift when your time is up, not humiliation or defeat. Grace is all about acceptance, and there are many good and meaningful things to do in this world.
Letting go is essential in our world or any life.
The humiliation comes when you don’t accept reality and insist on being dragged, screaming, and whining from your perch.
I am a five-time New York Times bestseller, and I can testify that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of life, or the lives of people.
When I go into the operating room, I am not thinking of my best-selling books and my small moment of fame; I’m thinking about seeing my wonderful wife come charging into the recovery room with a big smile on her face seeing that I am alive.
And then, I think about what I will write about it all.
Without humanity, we are just disconnected voices screaming into the wind.
In fighting so savagely and cruelly, Trump is only soiling himself. You can’t turn the clock back when your time is up. You can only move forward or perish.
I accepted this time in my life and turned my creativity towards my blog, and my small acts of great kindness.
To me, this is greater success, something more successful and meaningful that almost all of my books. If you accept change, it can open some doors. If you don’t, the doors close all around you.
I’ve been following the polls about Trump and the election for a year now, and they have never really changed. In all that time, he has never once been ahead, his popularity has never risen.
People are sick of Donald Trump; he is no longer the agent of great change; he is what needs to be changed.
That is not just my personal view; that is the feeling in the air, the desperation in the White House, the fury in the country, the stirring of so many fed-up people.
This has been the evenness and message of this election all along.
When you can’t tell the truth from lies, then you can’t see the truth, and that is the fatal flow the Greeks talked about when it comes to powerful rulers. Hubris.
Trump is skilled at distraction, but too much distraction leads to chaos. And he just can’t stop. Human beings do not wish to live in chaos if they have a choice. In November, they have a choice.
Joseph Biden Jr. is the anti-Trump. He is what people want and need. In that sense, it doesn’t matter who gets appointed to the Supreme Court, or what taxes he did or didn’t pay.
Or even what plans and policies go up on websites. It’s just time for something different. The magic is gone.
It doesn’t really matter so much who “wins” the debate Tuesday night.
It matters a lot to pundits and reporters. But ordinary people are trying to get away from the pandemic, keep their jobs, feed their kids, and stay alive and solvent.
Biden has already won it.
By not having dementia, he wins.
He benefits from one of the biggest lies of the presidential campaign. By being a decent human being, he is victorious just by showing up.
Trumpism has inverted morality for so many people; it’s not surprising, so many of his followers don’t care about the truth.
Lying is a virtue in that world; evasion is savvy; cruelty is honesty. That doesn’t work for most people forever and is not a vision for the future.
This is a formula for grievance and vengeance – nuts to the elites – but is not a stirring formula or vision for governance.
When push comes to shove, people expect the government to help them out when they most need it. Otherwise, they don’t really want to hear about it. Trump’s obsession with himself and his own welfare keep him from grasping the meaning of empathy – there is no space in his head to worry about anybody else.
Does one really need to be a cable news pundit to see how fatal a flaw that is in a politician?
Trump has brought us to the edge of the Apocalypse, and people don’t want to live in his dystopian world. That’s what they will vote on.
Nor do they want their children to grow up in it. Give him some credit; he has been both bold and decisive in many ways, which is what millions of people yearned for.
It would be exceptionally foolish and short-sighted for progressive people to forget how many people love this man and what he is doing—time for them to change as well.
The tragedy of Donald Trump may be that there was a real leader somewhere stuck inside that broken human being, someone who really could have brought needed change and bold thinking to the government through his charisma, fearlessness, and connection to many people.
Now, we will never know.
From the first, he has been a TV president, a caricature of himself, a reality TV star playing at being President, while all the while, he was funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into his bank account on every single one of his 270 golfing trips.
Believe me that is something working-class people will notice and think about.
So we have Trump revealed now. His whole persona turns out to be a lie, and I can only imagine the roto-rooter going through his head right now in rage and fear.
I think there will be no clear winners or losers here; life is just more complicated than that. There can only be learners, victims, and passersby.
And I accept my own challenge. I didn’t fight on Facebook; I don’t hate the President, I won’t hate Amy Coney Barrett either.
Each setback is another chance to commit and move forward. That’s the message I hear in the 2020 Presidential Election.
I hope every American watched 60 minutes last night and the segment about the Wall that was built. Beyond interesting. But Trump supporters will let this roll under the carpet too. Nor will they look into the cost of Trump’s inauguration or the fact that most of us pay our taxes but somehow he’s gotten away without paying for years. Old news. But even while battling illness and poverty I was not let off the hook from paying mine. I realize that Covid has not affected everyone but it will. This is a unique disease. Years ago, you got the measles, mumps, chicken pox and your siblings got sick too but then you were immune (except in the case of chicken pox which left you vulnerable for shingles). This doesn’t seem to be sure with Covid. There are people who’ve gotten it twice according to some. So while Trump has his rallies and spends the tax payers’ money on golf outings more and more Americans are going to die. And all Trump had to do was wear a mask and make mask wearing a mandate.
Words of wisdom. Amy Coney Barett will be confirmed: that is reality. I, too, imagine that she doesn’t appreciate being designated as DJT’s poodle s if the election goes to SCOTUS. DJT and his supporters don’t seem to realize that once a SC justice is confirmed, they are not beholden to anyone. Conservatives revere Scalia, Barrett’s mentor, but Scalia sometimes enraged them with his rulings (flag-burning, warrantless searches, free speech). Gorsuch, a Scalia devotee, set their hair on fire when he ruled that LGBT people are protected under Title IX. Barrett couldn’t be any more conservative, but she is brilliant, thorough, totally professional: no one’s poodle.
Very well said!
“The issue of compassion has become a club in America, used to beat down people who care about other people.”
That is society in a nutshell. I’m hoping for change.
Daddy’s Girl
Re your “She is a human being also, and one of fierce belief and independence.”,
I respectfully doubt she is independent. She’s imitating the values of the ideal mother of the 50s. pretty, nice, goes along with (powerful) men, efficient, organized, serving others.
A group of us talked about Barrett Sunday. We’re mostly women of the 70s who rejected the Phyllis Schafley suburban women roles our 50s mothers played, serving husband and children. We opened and knocked down doors and enjoyed something our moms did not, the kaballlah joy and fulfillment you talked about recently. Many of us think Barrett is playing “Daddy’s Little Girl” role. She followed the conservative Roman Catholic ideal, pleasing her lawyer dad and his abstraction mind set (“abortion is always wrong”), not informed by fellow feeling, not being attuned to the details of the feelings of, to take one example, a desperate young woman who can’t control contraception, the mother who will consider suicide at another pregnancy, or another, the parent who finds out his child’s life ended by a legally obtained gun by a classmate.
Listen to her little girl voice. A signal. How she adores daddy-like “successful” men. A lot of so-called “enlightened men” fall for the subservient woman pose. David Brooks included. Independent? That is exactly what she appears not to be. She appears to be a 50s woman who had the legal doors opened for her already. She does not seem to have made that step of independence which shrinks call individuation. She apes her daddies’ ideals. She has not developed her own self. She appears not to have gotten that “room of her own.”
Eva, I don’t know her, I’m inclined to see what she does…you may well be a lot wiser than I am..
First impression.
Hope I’m wrong
I think folks should look up Amy Barrett’s affiliation with the People of Praise religious group.
The ideas of the group are too numerous to list here but are rather eye opening.
I would really love to see a list of All the lies Donald Trump’ has said. It seems that has become quite a talki g point of the left with no back up. What is up with the media? Why is it so important for them to trash a regular human being as much as they do. Who is their cult leader that they have to suck up to. It feels alot like jealousy to me. OR is it a certain protection for the people that are hiding alot of illegal things. Why is Donald Trump in sooooo much trouble and if he was don’t you think they would of loved to have thrown his add in jail by now?
People need to muster up some prospective. Get a hold of themselves.
We all come from the same place
Get along already
I share Eva’s sentiments. I’m 70 and I remember the hell so many women went through because of unwanted pregnancies. The religious right opposes abortion but they don’t want to help women by paying them livable wages, giving them affordable health care, and affordable daycare. I cut a long-term friendship with a woman because she just couldn’t understand the “financial situation” of a divorced woman with health problems and with children (me). The irony was her husband was a professional (as was mine) and she was a co-worker worker with me working at minimum wage. If her husband was a jerk (didn’t want to pay alimony or child support) and left her she would have been exactly in my position. If Trump choose Barrett, it must be that she can help him in some way. Trump doesn’t care about family values or abortion. Give me a break! He’s hoping if he loses the election the Supreme Court will call the election a hoax. After my divorce, I didn’t have healthcare for decades so I didn’t get needed surgery nor was my MS discovered. So yes I’m very worried about Obama’s healthcare being destroyed. There’s two many Americans who literally die because of lack of insurance and if you don’t have insurance you can’t get evidence of you being really sick in order to get disability.
Dear Jon, I have good days and bad days depending on how fragile I feel. I try to say in the moment and not fill myself with too much media or negativity. I have had a lifetime of challenges, both mentally and physically, so I shy away from too much hype. But your blogs are just what I need. A fair and grounded view: a positive heart-warming, personal story. I believe you are making a difference for many including myself. Your soul speaks to you and you in turn share your light on several levels. As Oprah has said, “Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself. Use me, use me.” I believe you are doing the same in your own unassuming and genuine way. You have have found your calling. And don’t let the turkeys get you down! (Don’t know who said that! )
I am a Democrat and a liberal. I bristled at the term “bedwetter”. I looked up the definition: “anyone who panics easily when things don’t go their way”. I guess I am a bedwetter then, because things are definitely not going my way nor the way of our environment, our constitution, our marginalized citizens, etc., etc. I live near the southwest border between Arizona and Mexico and I read in our local paper about the destruction that trump’s vanity wall project is wreaking on our environment. Animal migration patterns are being disrupted and animals are quite literally dying at the base of the wall. On one wildlife refuge in Cochise County, millions of gallons of water from an aquifer are being pumped out for wall construction and in the process destroying riparian areas and the home to several endangered species. This aquifer water is “fossil water” that is 6000 years old. The wall is desecrating sacred Tohono O’odham ancestral land. And last year the border patrol only arrested “a handful of migrants” in this area. Those are just a couple of examples. But we all know of the devastation that trump has caused on so many levels in this country. Many of these things you write about so well, Jon. My husband and I are campaigning to get out the vote among Democrats who didn’t vote in the last election. But there is also a fair amount of teeth gnashing and hand wringing going on in our home as well. ?
I was a bed wetter, Im not ashamed of it..
I think what we all have forgotten about the Roe vs. Wade decision, is that conservatives, including Southern Baptist leaders were happy to see the decision that was made in 1973. It was not until around 1979 that things changed. One of the most enlightening articles is from Randall Balmer on the real origins of the religious right. The pro-life movement has always been about how to obtain a large enough voting bloc from the religious fundamentalists to secure as many wins as possible for the Republican Party. Paul Weyrich was the mastermind behind creating the pro-life movement as a hook to muddle the lines between politics and religion. I think people need to look no further than the religious right to see how the white supremacy groups have been nurtured into being. According to Randall Balmer, segregation of church schools while maintaining their charitable nonprofit status was what ignited the religious right movement. However, as Billy Graham said in 1981, “The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” The movement for its leaders has never been about family values and protecting the rights of the unborn. A great mantra for the followers. For the leaders it has always been about greed and power. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133