I'm Concerned

    To be honest, I never thought Donald Trump would be President.  I've been wrong before.  For example: I've been married twice so I'm used to my judgment being called into question.  I suppose, like most people I engaged in partisan hyperbole during the campaign.  The normal kinda "hair on fire" rhetoric that's fairly common.  It just didn't seem reasonable to me that a campaign based almost solely on the gullibility and fears of supporters could be successful in this internet age where people can be their own fact checkers.  In terms of the popular vote, I and the pollsters were  right.
    So, what do I think went wrong?  The short answer is: Hillary was a very bad candidate who would have made a very good President.  Donald Trump was a very good campaigner who will make a very bad President.  In more detail, I think the machines in several key states were tampered with and have been tampered with since 2004,  just as the computer experts demonstrated they could be when they were brought on-line.  The anomalous results in Wisconsin kinda prove that.  Rove's behavior on national television in 2012, shows he thought the fix was in in Ohio.  I don't think Trump was a party to that state by state tampering.  I doubt if there is enough trust flowing to Trump from the Republican establishment.  I also think the audits of those suspect machines as part of the recount efforts made relatively certain it can't and won't happen again.  I think the immediate Republican embrace of the so-called "Russian connection" was them knowing a fig leaf when they saw one.  I can't see anyone in a position of authority thinking destruction of confidence in our elections is a good idea.  If the truth were known and if I'm correct, it would result in the serious prosecutions of hundreds of Republican officials.  On the local level, I don't think these people were guilty of much more than cynical partisanship run amok.  On the national level there isn't a jail deep enough but what can you do?
    In this connection, it is very important to remember the ultimate power resides with those who actually count the votes.
    Having said all that and partisan nonsense aside, I wasn't particularly concerned.  Trump would throw red meat to his WWE constituents while appointing a cabinet that would amount to a Russian style kleptocracy.  Reagan redux.  There would be scarring to our national psyche and the deficit and debt would take a hit but that would motivate eventual progress.  We actually are a Leviathan and have to move slowly into the future.  Unlike Reagan, there will be no generation of kids growing up thinking Trump was their kindly grandfather.  I was amused.
    I began to become concerned when Trump's first conversation with Putin resulted in the naked Russian aggression in Aleppo.  That displayed a level of cooperation with Putin that can only be described as unhealthy.  It made two things plain.  1: Trump and Putin knew Obama's hands were tied as a lame duck.  2: Trump's financial entanglements with the wrong Russians is a serious and obvious concern.  I don't think he's bright enough to know his loyalty to the United States is being compromised by manipulating his personal interests.  Those close to him have interests so parochial as to blind them.
     Lyndon Johnson said to beware of the "great beast of the right".  I think Trump has inadvertently poked that beast.
    At the same time as Trump was carrying on about protecting us from those big, scary mooslim terrorists the first terrorist attack carried out on American soil of his presidency was the arson of the mosque in Victoria, Texas.  Stripped of the partisan freight, an attack on a house of worship is, in fact, an act of terrorism.  I typed in "mosque arson in the United States",  looking for more information on that particular attack.  The results were eye-opening.  It turns out there has been a wave of these types of attacks roughly since Trump started to illicit fear against the "other".  To be sure, at least one of these attacks was Muslim on Muslim sectarian violence but the preponderance were simply terrorist attacks carried out by American grown terrorists motivated by the culture of fear being cynically motivated for political gain.  That is certainly concerning.  In my mind, deliberately or inadvertently  motivating terrorist activity is totally unacceptable.  These attacks have not be characterized as terrorist acts by U S officials.  That's totally understandable.  It's doubtful if these people of such little understanding could conceive it for what it really is.
    In the middle of thinking how to point out what it really is, the deadly attack in Quebec occurred.  Within hours the Canadian officials recognized the attack as an act of terrorism and called it such.  They did not point out it was an export of the underbelly of American politics but it certainly is.  In a discussion of the Quebec attack, I pointed that out.  One response was; how can you blame Trump for something that happened in Canada ?  That is a simple answer.  Hitler was directly responsible for the things that happened in Austria particularly and western Europe in general in the late '30s.
    I'm not a big believer in comparing Trump to Hitler.  I don't think Trump has the brains for that type of comparison.  It sounds flip to say but Hitler did write his own book.  However, the results of broadcasting exclusion and fear are so similar as to be more than a little disturbing.  These ideas are wrong and dangerous.
    I'm concerned because we have a president ( the lower case is intentional) who encourages and ignores domestic violence and that has escalated to actually exporting a culture of terror. It won't take long for other nations to make the connections I have.  That will make our position in the world precarious,  to say the least.
    The combination of kleptocracy and aggressive exporter of terror is a very bad thing.

What You Can Expect

    One thing's for sure.  You can expect me to get better at this since, right now I couldn't be any worse.
    I was born just about the dead middle of the last century.  Since I was born in the middle of the baby boom I obviously have no claim to a unique perspective.
    My interest in creating this blog is mostly politics.  My grandfather was a union president in the 1920's and my mother, at one time was a local Democratic Committee woman.  Aside from those beginnings, my views have been formed by my education, my reading and observation thru a long life.
I was a home renovation carpenter for 30 years.  Before that I was a cab driver for 10 years. I've been a mill/foundry hand.  I was once a deckhand on the Ohio River.  As a boy I was a farm hand.  I also was a real estate salesman between the ages of 19 and 23.
    I am a graduate of and believer in the Dale Carnegie Institute.  That means, if you ain't buyin what I'm selling I need to sell it better.  I studied but did not get a degree in Military and Diplomatic History at a small extension campus of North Carolina State University on Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Other than learning I did not want to teach I did learn to read in a systematic fashion.  A friend of mine referred to it as learning how to learn.  I am a compulsive reader and I retain a great deal of what I read.
    In the following posts, my politics and overall take on life will become obvious.  You are invited to comment.