Back in the late nineteen fifties when America thought it was funny that Ralph Kramden threatened to launch his wife, Alice, to the moon with a sock to the jaw, the laughing has stopped--- thankfully. Unfortunately, the current administration is still locked, through its leadership, in an apartment in Brooklyn. Despite the ridiculous comedy the Trump administration has turned into, laughing in the face or fist of spousal abuse, is no longer a funny situation TV plot. How long and how low does the Trump White House have to sink to shock enough Republicans into even the mildest of actions? Trump has refused to enforce sanctions levied against Russia by Congress, brought unmonitored foreign intelligence agents into the Oval Office and done everything but have a PDA with Vladimir Putin.
Throughout the last Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton and others yanked the cord of the alarm bell and warned about putting the nuclear codes in the hands of an egoist. The President has famously said that everything is on the table when it comes to protecting the country. Apparently for Trump, selling the sanctity of America’s institutions and traditions seems to be part of a good bargain, possibly under the table. The question for every loyal citizen, “what is being traded away in that bargain?”
I have written little about the Me Too or the Time’s Up movement. I am almost embarrassed to say I feel compelled to now, not because of any lack of support but because I took it for granted that women are my equal. I have lived with, and am living with again, racism in the White House so what made me think that misogyny would not return. Call me naïve but the thought that a man who bragged and laughed about spying on scantily clad teen girls and made jokes on TV about dating his daughter…yes, I am speechless. The incongruity of white women turning to him with the prospect on the horizon of doing what African Americans had done eight years prior and change the trajectory of history was disappointing. Not because it was a tribal thing to vote for a woman, but because as blacks, progressive whites and other people of color had done, the ability of the candidate was paramount; being a man of color was a bonus. Somehow suburban white women were hoodwinked into believing that a carnival barking, reality TV personality, with little command of the language other than to speak in car salesman superlatives, could run the world. I am sure one of the first things Mr. Trump learned at the Wharton School was, ‘you get what you pay for.’My hope is that we have not paid too heavy a price for a lightweight.
Ralph Kramden’s best friend Ed Norton scurried around in sewers for a living. Mr. Trump has replaced the disheveled Norton with General Kelly. Kelly has skirted the edges of racism, lied on national television and is now covering for a wife beater. The sewer is backing up
Bang, Zoom, to the moon Alice
Vote in ’18 for Change
