I HATE TRUMP, 2:  08-19-17, 9:00 AM CDT

I have always hated Trump, even when he was a star on reality TV.  Even before.  To me, The Art of the Deal is really The Art of the Steal.   That is what all businessmen are, fundamentally, especially big businessmen:  thieves.  One of my professors (Harvard Law, 1987!) told the class that someone—I guess it was JFK—once said that property is theft.  He was so right!  I absolutely hate the rich.  A little guy like me, worth only a couple hundred million, can’t get justice in this country.  Look at poor Bernie Sanders’ wife, the way she is being persecuted.  If only we had a poor man like Bernie as President—a real man of the people!

Some rich people, though, are made of good stuff.  Take Carl Icahn. He had the guts to resign as Trump advisor.  A real rock of integrity!  I wish he’d raid one of the companies I own.  Being swindled by Carl would be an honor!  And then there all those corporate execs who resigned from Trump’s business council, saying: ““Intolerance, racism and violence have absolutely no place in this country and are an affront to core American values.”   I totally agree with that, except for the fact that America has always been a sinkhole of intolerance and racism.

Thank goodness there are a few Republicans with basic decency, people like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Arnold  told Trump on Facebook:  “The only way to beat the loud and angry voices of hate is to meet them with louder and more reasonable voices. And that includes you, President Trump.  In fact, as president of this great country, you have a moral responsibility to send an unequivocal message that you don’t stand for hate and racism.”

It’s time Arnold also took Donald to task for his degrading remarks about women.  After all, he ought to know.  He carried on an affair with the housemaid under his wife’s nose and has been accused multiple times of sexual violence.  But, hey, he says he’s sorry.  Besides, what counts in Hollywood is not what celebrities say but what they do.  I mean, maybe Alec Baldwin has done a few foolish things, but nothing can take away from his send-ups of Trump.  Even his daughter probably forgives him.

Donald doesn’t get it.  He thinks that there is moral equivalence between people who wave Confederate flags and spew racist rants with legitimate protestors who have to resort to violent means of self-defense.  So what if they shoot a cop in Florida or destroy public property in North Carolina.

Racist cops all over America have been harassing and murdering innocent black young men for centuries.  That’s because all white cops are bigots.  Everyone knows that.  Some wise-ass conservative at the country club asked me to define bigot.  I don’t know why they let in these guys—probably went to a state university.  Anyway, what I told him is this:  A bigot is anyone who thinks in terms of categories and views people as ethnic, religious, and gender stereotyped.  “Blacks are lazy and criminal,  Jews are money-hungry and crooked, Gays are effeminate.” All white cops think that way, which is why I can say they are all bigots.

Trump doesn’t get it, because he is a rich dumb businessman. People like him are what’s wrong with this country.  All they think about is money, which is why they are always whining about taxes.  I went down to the Porsche dealer yesterday to pick up my car—I wanted the leather seats polished up—and the redneck grease monkeys were all complaining about “duh govimint”  and moaning about paying high property taxes for the crackerbox houses they live in.  It made me sick even to think dumbass guys like them could vote.  One of them said he was fed up with supporting public schools that teach kids to hate their parents and refuse to expel violent troublemakers.  As if people like them hadn’t made the country what it is—a racist society that voted for Trump.  If he hates public schools so much, why doesn’t he do what I do and send his kids to a private school.

Well, gotta go.  Henry Louis Gates is speaking at my downtown club today.  His title is:  “Whiteness—Is it a Crime or just Disease?”

I.V. Commoner

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Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina

9 Responses

  1. Allen Wilson says:

    Hilarious, but unfortunately also very accurate. A perfect description of the mentality.

  2. Vince Cornell says:

    I’m just curious if folks who see this on FaceBook will join the Fleming Foundation by accident because they’re too dim to see that the post is actually mocking them.

  3. Avatar photo Thomas Fleming says:

    A Scottish journalist who interviewed me yesterday had only seen the opening sentences or so and wanted to know why I hated Trump!

  4. Robert Reavis says:

    You know it’s over when Stonewall Jackson’s descendents are appearing on Democracy Now! Never mind what they had to say about family history, the mere appearance says it all. It’s the triumph of ignorance and a deep disrespect for souls.

  5. Alexander Coleman says:

    Anyway, what I told him is this: A bigot is anyone who thinks in terms of categories and views people as ethnic, religious, and gender stereotyped. “Blacks are lazy and criminal, Jews are money-hungry and crooked, Gays are effeminate.” All white cops think that way, which is why I can say they are all bigots.

    Priceless.

  6. George Gaudio says:

    Brilliant

  7. Andrew G Van Sant says:

    I think JFK’s father made the family fortune by rum running from Canada during prohibition.

  8. Avatar photo Thomas Fleming says:

    He had many ways of making money, rum-running not the least, but he also sold black-market oil to the Germans before the US entered the war and even fleeced his mistress, silent film star Gloria Swanson. It takes a special kind of man from a special kind of family to seduce a woman then rob her blind. Jack did not come out of nowhere.

  9. Andrew G Van Sant says:

    Fruit falling from the family tree