The Zeitgeist

Donald and Melania Trump voting in New York on November 8, 2016

Trump Win Proves the Election and System isn’t “Rigged”

Note: This appeared originally on The Huffington Post on November 9, 2016

The election wasn’t rigged.

Confounding the pollsters, the pundits, the media and conventional wisdom, Donald J. Trump, entertainer, entrepreneur and real estate developer was elected as the next President of the United States.

Improbably, a billionaire became the voice of the common man having run a populist campaign pledging to give voice to the ignored, the dispossessed and disenfranchised – those left behind in the high tech revolution, those passed over in the massive cultural changes of the past dozen years, those who felt palpable insecurity with the evaporation of much manufacturing, the explosion in health care costs and those who tired of accommodation and appeasement of violent Islamic extremists.

Trump put together a victory without the benefit of carrying the Northeast or the West Coast – the Trump win was a win for the “Flyover States,” as the middle of the country is sometimes derisively dismissed by the coastal elites. It was also a win for Texas and Dixie – the South rose up to repudiate an increasingly liberal and progressive vision of America as embodied by eight years of President Obama. Even Florida narrowly slipped out of the Democrats’ grasp. This is the first presidential election in perhaps a century that was accomplished without winning New York, Illinois or California.

The Trump win can be compared in to Richard Nixon’s in 1969 when Spiro Agnew’s “Silent Majority,” the everyday folks ignored by the media ushered in GOP rule as a reset to America’s “cultural revolution” of the 1960s. Trump’s victory also has echoes of Andrew Jackson – a sometimes vulgar and coarse blunt-speaking, hard-charging guy who eventually also overcame the disgust of the entrenched elites of his day and the dynastic entitlements of the Adams (John and John Quincey) family.

A majority of American voters were just not that into Hillary. Never an especially likeable figure and never an especially good retail politician, Hillary oozed aristocratic entitlement and fixed, smoke-filled room inevitability, which is why Obama was able to beat her in 2008 and why Bernie Sanders came awfully close in this primary season. That it was “her time” and “her turn” didn’t resonate with most folks.

In a sense it really was FBI Director James Comey who put Trump over the top. With his campaign swooning in the polls just two weeks ago, Comey’s letter to Congress about Huma Abedin’s laptop and more Clinton emails was the tipping point for many Americans. No matter that just before balloting Mr. Comey cleared Hillary yet again, the sense of many people was that Hillary was slippery, untrustworthy and dishonest. That Trump was able to maintain two weeks of self-discipline, stay on message and not go off the cliff on irrational Twitterized tangents made a big difference for many undecided voters.

Finally, the Trump victory also shows that the path for Republican majorities is in part paved with stifling discourse about people’s bodies and people’s bedrooms. Trump was heavily reticent on abortion and highly tolerant of the LBGT community, two areas of often strident posturing by GOP candidates in the past. People just want more tolerance and want candidates focused on big picture issues, not what goes on in their boudoirs.

Mr. Trump gets a solid GOP majority in the House and a secure one in the Senate along with winning The White House. A big mandate to roll-back much of the past eight years. Now all the kids have to play well together to get things done for the American people and we all have to hope and pray that Trump is capable of rising to the august office of the presidency so his late parents, his family, the GOP and the American people will be proud to have elected him.

The Zeitgeist

The Race for President: I’m With No One.

Stuck in the Middle with You, Wondering What It is I Should Do.

This column appeared originally on The Huffington Post on August 1, 2016 and in several newsppaers around the country that week.

After having watched both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions I’m solidly convinced that the political world has been sent to a paradoxical dimension not tethered to any of the familiar signposts of the past 80-plus years.

Just as the Internet and mobile devices have disrupted traditional media, traditional shopping and even traditional dating and social mores, the brave new world created by technology seems to be having a tsunami effect on every aspect of American life up to and including presidential politics.

Millions are reached with withering tweets in nanoseconds that obviate the impact of hour-long speeches and lengthy policy analyses. Tens of millions of dollars are raised from millions of donors almost in real time with the touch of fingers on a mobile screen that obviates the need for big money from big donors. And we are now in the midst of a presidential campaign that would have been unimaginable even four years ago.

Hillary Clinton gave the speech of her life on Thursday night, July 28^th to end the Democratic Convention. Up until that speech I harbored a solid and visceral hatred for this woman. Now, thanks to her oratory I now only have a solid ambivalence – which is progress because there are millions of Americans out there just like me.

The gradual transformation from hate to ambivalence is possible partly because the Republican standard-bearer is so utterly repugnant to me in just about every which way. Donald Trump does not represent my morals or mores. His predilection for Don Rickles-esque insult and endless pejorative politics is repugnant to my sense of civility and decency. (And, please, I don’t mean to insult Mr. Rickles who does put-downs in jest, not with intent as does Mr. Trump). He attacks people’s wives. His business practices don’t jibe with caring for the working man. His impulsive temperament and thin skin and his complete inability to accept criticism scare me witless. He’s the first Republican since 1940 to run on an isolationist platform. He wants to eviscerate global free trade which could cause a worldwide recession and who knows how much military tension, especially with China.

He wants to undermine NATO and he’s an enabler of Vladimir Putin’s adventurism and he goes on “ABC This Week” with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, July 31^st and lies about his Putin relationship, contradicting a half dozen video clips from the past three years of him saying the opposite. He wants to raise taxes. He has no plan to cut the deficit. He actually takes the National Enquirer seriously. Hardly anyone of any consequence in the GOP backs him. Still.

Hillary Clinton also makes me queasy. I don’t like her poor judgment with her emails while Secretary of State. I don’t like that she lied for a full year about the emails. I really don’t like that she went on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace on July 31^st and lied about it again, to the point that The Washington Post gave her performance “Four Pinocchios.” I don’t like what she and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz did to Berne Sanders and that Hillary hired Wasserman-Shultz immediately on her resignation as Chair of the DNC.

I don’t like that she and her husband knowingly raised tens of millions for their foundation from foreign interests while she was Secretary of State and the lush speaking fees they both got personally over the past eight years. I can only imagine how much fruit will be shaken from the trees by Bill if Hillary is elected President. I don’t like that the worldwide radical Islamist terror epidemic is given low priority by the Democrats; that she was part and parcel of the massive pressure on Israel which went so far as to interfere in Israel’s elections on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents. I don’t feel the Iran nuclear deal will keep the world safe because the Iranians have been flouting their violations of the agreement in the world’s face day in and day out. She also fails to take the federal deficit seriously. It’s blossomed to $19 trillion and growing.

She absolutely came across as more human and less power-hungry in her acceptance speech and made some good points but like many Americans I don’t completely trust her and the sound of her voice is like nails on a chalkboard, so the likeability factor is sorely lacking. That she is the pro-NATO anti-Putin candidate as a Democrat is the world put upside down.

I’d probably have voted for Bernie Sanders had he won the Democratic nomination even though I disagree with most of his policies, primarily because he’s likeable because of his honesty, integrity and consistency. (For me and millions of Americans character does matter).

So, like many Americans, right now I’m at “none of the above,” meaning I can’t vote for Trump and I’m not ready to vote for Hillary. This will be a wild ride over the next three months leading up until Election Day. It may be that voter turnout in November will be very low owing to so many Americans’ discomfort with either candidate and many will just sit on their hands and stay home. Right now, many of us are in limbo with nowhere to go – so I’m stuck like so many folks I know in the void for the first time since I started voting in 1980.

The Zeitgeist

Star Trek: Above and Beyond. Third Film of New Generation Delivers.

I first started watching Star Trek in the fall of 1966 on what was our family’s only TV – a 19-inch black and white Zenith that sat on a metal rolling cart in the living room of our two bedroom apartment. (It wouldn’t be until at least 1970 that we first got a color set even though NBC was running shows in color way before ‘66.) I was eight years old during Star Trek’s first season and that my parents tolerated my fascination with this show that aired after my bedtime is something which I’m most grateful for all these years later. As a kid and then a teenager the thing I wanted most to do in this world was to pivot at warp factor two and bring all photon torpedoes to bear. So, you could call me a lifetime Trek fan.

For the uninitiated, Star Trek is the story of the Starship Enterprise, a giant battleship in space on a peaceful five year mission to explore the galaxy and go where “no one has ever gone before.” Getting to the outer limits of space is made possible by traveling beyond the speed of light at “warp speed.” At the helm of the Enterprise is Captain James T. Kirk, an all-American boy from Iowa. William (“Priceline Negotiator”) Shatner originated the role of Kirk 50 years ago and played the character both in the series and a slew of movies from 1979 to 1994. Kirk’s main sidekick is an alien officer from the planet Vulcan named Mr. Spock, played from 1964 (in the very first pilot) until his recent death by Leonard Nimoy.

In 2009 due to the graying and gradual demise of many key cast members (and also to remake the epic for a new generation) Paramount Pictures relaunched and rebooted the original Star Trek crew with a whole new cast playing the old familiar characters. Star Trek from 2009 was a huge gamble – could the original Trek characters be replaced by new actors like the Superman, Batman and Spiderman franchises? The answer at both the box office and from fans was a resounding yes.

Which brings us to the newly released Star Trek Beyond. This is the third film in the new generation of the original reprise and it’s pretty safe to say it’s the best of the three so far. (Not that the first two were anything less than very good). Directed by “Fast & Furious” Justin Lin, Beyond moves at breakneck speed and at a breathless pace but doesn’t feel exhausting or overdone. The special effects are outstandingly creative and majestically executed so that not only are they awe-inspiring but 90 percent of them have plausibility as being technologically possible – which was one of the key effects hallmarks of the original series from the ‘60s.

Starting with the 2009 reboot, producer J.J. Abrams assembled a terrific ensemble cast. Nearly everyone in the crew clicks together and feels like the children or the clones of the original cast. Chris Pine as Kirk does an amazing job playing a 1967 William Shatner while at the same time bringing a millennial sensibility to the role, a tough combination to pull off. Zachary Quinto nails Nimoy’s Mr. Spock and truly outstanding in his cloning is Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. You’d think they injected him with the late DeForest Kelly’s DNA. Beyond in addition to nonstop action also features full-out Trek humor with the Spock-McCoy banter as spot-on as if it were Nimoy and Kelly on the old Desilu sets in ’68.

The supporting cast of Simon Pegg as Scotty, Zoe Saldana and Uhura and the late Anton Yelchin as Chekov all hit the bullseye as well. Pegg was also the principal writer of the film. Idris Elba as the villain du jour (Krall) is sufficiently mad and menacing and truly a delight is Sofia Boutella as a stranded woman warrior and Kirk ally, Jaylah.

Without being a spoiler, Beyond features a lot of derring-do, suspense and danger for the Enterprise crew but knowing full well that a sequel must certainly be in the offing, you know the galaxy and the Federation will be saved, evil will be eradicated and hope restored with a bright future for humanity, but you’ll have a great time watching the heroes from Star Fleet bring it all home.

Beyond is probably one of the three best Star Trek movies produced since 1979 and if you like Trek, science fiction or action films, this is very much well worth the price of a theater admission and absolutely should be seen either in 3-D or on a really big screen.