Life Between Two Bookends
I was born in 1940, the same time Hitler vowed to make Germany great again. He started with a massive military buildup, then vowed to teach certain groups of citizens a lesson they would never forget (well, they would once dead), then he started to invade one country after another to amass an empire for the great new Germany, then came the massive war killings and the concentration camps. Death and destruction was everywhere,—little of the planet outside the Americas was left untouched. I was too young to remember any of it, and was lucky enough to live in a part of untouched America. Back in those days when our nation went to war everyone sacrificed, not just soldiers. One might legitimately have called this a noble war to defend countries being invaded.
Since then I don’t think I personally have ever been called on to sacrifice anything during any of our invasions and bombings, well past 50 now, that our country carried out on foreign countries for differing reasons.
Now 76, winding down a very comfortable and enough good luck life, there is the possibility that Trump could be our President, one who has vowed to make America Great again. He pledges to start by a massive military buildup, has vowed to teach certain groups of citizens a lesson they will never forget, he will be known as the jobs President, albeit the jobs are not likely to be living wage jobs. He will restore law and order by allowing everyone not a diagnosed looney to carrying guns around in public. He has already reduced tolerance for diversity and encouraged violence to teach certain groups a lesson via violence he has openly encouraged. It is hard to say where his first violent intolerance of diversity will start. He has never helped the less fortunate at any point in his life. His successful business model is based after the following principle: In every action between two people, someone will get the short end of the stick. Be sure the other sucker always gets the short end. And like a lot of the wealthy, he finds ways to stiff others in legal ways—through loopholes and laws put in place to make sure the wealthy have a clear path to more wealth at the expense of others. All this stealing from others to make himself even richer Trump calls being smart.
I suppose people sometimes change but it is hard to envision Trump changing his disregard for others at all. He went through almost a half dozen campaign managers, all of whom thought they could change or control him. His speciality is lobbing personal insults toward anyone who gets in his way. He appeals to anyone angry. It doesn’t seem to matter what they are angry about; as long as they are angry about their lives, his anger fits them to a tee. They are angry, he is angry, and so he is their candidate. He actually went to an Evangelical convention of ’true believers’, gave a speech, got their endorsement, and on the way out a reporter asked him when he last went to church. Trump replied, “I am too busy with more important things to do, I have no time for church.” Oddly enough, the least observant amongst us would never confuse the talk, or actions, of Trump with Jesus Christ. It would be hard to find a single similarity.
At any rate it seems possible that I could actually spend my whole life sandwiched in the good times between the really bad times of Hitler and Trump. The big difference is not in their temperament, but in the kind of weapons available during their respective times. Everyone, everywhere, better hang on to their hats. Should he get elected it will be a bumpy ride with rubble and mass deaths at a level hard to imagine. Between domestic riots and foreign adventures chaos will reign. A deep economic recession will be the least of our worries. Those of us my age have little to lose, no need to nit pick about in which of the next few years we will die or suffer—Trump just gets added to the medical burdens— whereas our younger citizens have so much more at stake. A huge percentage of the young are already suffering, even in this country, where depression in our younger population is at the highest level since the great Depression.. The world is way too much with us these days, what with all these gadgets driving a thoughtless busyness. Perhaps this compulsive immersion in non reality via all these electronic gadgets has made Trump a viable candidate. If life is nothing else it is always good theatre. I thank God, or anyone who will listen, that I lived in the era between Hitler and Trump. Better than winning the lottery.
