With the mass exodus of staff and advisers from the Trump administration,  there is only one word to describe Herr Trump.  My apologies to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

To the tune of “Maria” from West Side Story.

(spoken) 
Pariah . . . 
(sings) 
The most accurate description I ever heard: 
Pariah, Pariah, Pariah, Pariah . . . 
Exactly describes how I feel in a single word . . 
Pariah, Pariah, Pariah, Pariah . . .

Pariah!
We’re stuck with Herr Trump the Pariah..
And isn’t it a shame 
Herr Trump can be so lame
It’s true. 
Pariah!
It’s time to dismiss that Pariah, 
And suddenly we’ll see 
It doesn’t have to be
’63!  (1863 that is.)
Pariah! 
Say it loud and America’s thinking, 
How much Kool-Aid the alt-right is drinking. 

Pariah, 
I’ll never stop saying Pariah! 

The most appropriate sound I ever heard. 
PARIAH!

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Every new car on the road today monitors the air pressure in that vehicle’s tires.  It is a very handy feature, enabling us to correct an abnormal situation before it becomes critical.  Over the past 72 hours we have learned Donald J. Trump also has a pressure monitor, but it works in the totally opposite direction.  It measures the amount of political pressure his failing administration can endure before he is forced to do what other decent human beings might do purely based on instinct and the needle on their moral compass.

A lot of people much smarter than I have made important observations over the past three days.  But as I prefer, I am more interested in those comments which are least expected and represent counter-intuitive expression.  Yesterday, I was struck by the response from Al Sharpton when asked whether Trump’s comments over the weekend confirmed he is a racist.  Sharpton, who is known for hyperbole, took a different tact.  He explained he had no interest in opining whether any one individual was a racist.  Our focus should be on whether government policies promote and defend racism.

So let us examine, not what Trump said about the white supremacists in Charlottesville, but what he has done since Friday evening.

The Department of Homeland Security froze funding for grants to 31 applicants “including several groups dedicated to combating white supremacy and de-radicalizing neo-Nazis.” NOTE:  DHS said the grants should focus more on prevention of Islamic terrorism. (Source:  TheHill.com/August 14, 2017)

During a Fox News interview on Sunday, Trump said, “I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff (Joe) Arpaio. He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration.  He is a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him.”  Last time I looked, “great Americans” do not get convicted of racial profiling.

Of the three corporate CEOs who resigned from Trump’s economic advisory council, Trump took to Twitter to insult Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier.  No such rebuke was offered when Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich also announced their decision to leave the group.  You guessed it, Frazier is African-American.  Plank and Krzanich are white.  The Trump University lesson:  When confronted with an inconvenient truth, attack the black guy.

Which is what led me to the subject line in today’s post.  Instead of “pounds per square inch,” we too should pay attention to the Trump pressure monitor which measures PSI.  However, in this case, it stands for “policies supporting intolerance.”

PERSONAL NOTE:  Thanks to the many friends and readers who expressed concern about my mental well-being after the events on Friday and Saturday in Charlottesville, knowing I had attended Mr. Jefferson’s University and Charlottesville was my home for four years.  As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, there is a silver lining to the Trump era.  There  is nothing that justifies the death of Heather Heyer.  But as Trump has done so many times over the past two years, he has made it impossible to deny that race is still an issue in America and has exposed the haters and their enablers for whom they truly are.

WISH I’D SAID THAT

Kudos to fellow blogger Bill Palmer who used the occasion of domestic terrorism in Charlottesville to illustrate the role white privilege plays in our society.

In the hours after the attack, I went out to lunch. I walked around the streets. I went about my day like any other day. No one looked at me like I was a terrorist. No one asked me to disavow the terrorist actions of my fellow white man. If anyone had asked me whether I agreed with the actions of these white supremacists, I’d have been happy to explain that I find them repulsive. But the point is that no one even asked me. Because that’s how it works when you’re white. (Source: The Palmer Report, August 13, 2017)

Bill, thanks for a valuable insight.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

It’s 2017.  One would think the United States (or South Korea) could produce recording equipment that accurately captures what is being said.  But it appears that is not the case.

I know!  I know! You’re wondering what triggered this post and where could he possibly be heading.  Patience, dear reader.

Actually, it was the 48th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20th.  That evening we thought we heard Neil Armstrong say, “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,” as he descended onto the lunar surface.  As we now know, he actually said, “One small step for a man…”  Perfectly understandable.  Armstrong was over 235,000 miles away and the signal was being relayed via electronics with less processing power than your smart phone.

Which brings us to the present day.  Candidate Donald J. Trump created a similar controversy when he supposedly used the word “bigly” during his first debate with Hillary Clinton.  Political pundits and lexicologists had a field day.  And as is so often the case today, the candidate’s staff was quick to clarify the situation.  You may have thought you heard “bigly” but what Trump actually said was “big league.”  Remember, it was the microphone’s fault.  The same one that picked up Trump’s heavy breathing during the debate.

It makes you wonder what else did Comrade Trump say which was garbled as it wended its way through the audio pipeline.  Could it explain the string of broken campaign promises and constant lying?  Here’s the most obvious case which suggests Trump was actually telling the truth.

At a May 26, 2016 campaign rally in Billings, Montana, Trump delivered the first of what would became known as  the “winning speeches.”  Here is what was reported.

We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore.

I have spent a lot of time in Montana and have enjoyed every minute of it.  Helena is one of my favorite cities and the boat ride which traces Lewis and Clark’s voyage through the Gates of the Mountains on the Missouri River should not be missed. So I don’t mean to disparage the fine people in Big Sky Country, but I’m afraid the one thing they lack is state of art audio equipment.  In this case, Trump’s microphone had an unusual defect.  It was unable to pick up the letter “H”.  In the interest of historical accuracy, I want to correct the record.  This is what the candidate actually said.

We’re going to whine. We’re going to whine so much. We’re going to whine at trade, we’re going to whine at the border. We’re going to whine so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of whining, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t whine anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to whine anymore.

So, don’t tell me Donald J. Trump doesn’t keep his promises.  In this case, he told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  And it was probably the last time he did so.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Something had been gnawing at me.  But I could not quite put my finger on it.  I had to draw on my creative process, especially the observation skills.  I needed to remember it’s not always what you see.  Sometimes, it’s more important what you don’t see.  And there it “wasn’t.”

From his first day on the job, Sean Spicer seemed out of place.  And it took his being replaced with Anthony Scaramucci to see why that was.  And as if the change in Trump world personnel was not enough, “the Mooch” himself, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” laid it out when he told host Jake Tapper he would do whatever he could to make Sean’s replacement Sarah Huckabee Sanders “better.”  His first piece of advice?

Sarah, if you’re watching, I loved the hair and makeup person that we had on Friday. So, I would like to continue to use the hair and makeup person.

Trump World has always been about appearance versus substance.  Every time I see Donald Trump, I cannot help but think of Harold Hill, the traveling salesman and con artist in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man.  When Trump talks about American carnage, he might as well be singing, “There’s Trouble in River City.”  Except in this latest off-Broadway revival the river is the Potomac.  And while “professor” Hill pretends to be a music teacher and band leader, “president” Trump has also made many promises he never intended to fulfill. And, like Harold Hill, he plans to leave town with  his  pockets lined with ill-gotten gains.

Which brings us back to Scaramucci.  Sean Spicer was, like Marian the librarian, a native of River City who Trump enlisted to help sell his message to the naive residents of a rural Iowa town. But, as we now know, while Trump will say anything to lure the common folk into his web, he prefers to spend his time with the rich and beautiful.  His women must be beautiful.  One can only imagine whether Ivana would be first lady if only she had stayed in shape like Emmanuel Macron.  His male companions must be equally handsome and wear Armani suits. (Oh, I forget, with the exception of the Russian ambassador to the United States and the Russian foreign minister.)

As I watched excerpts from Scaramucci’s press briefing on Friday, my first reaction was, “Did Donald and Ivana have a third son we’ve never seen before?  Or has Trump green lighted a cloning program at NIH?”  Until Friday, I always thought Jared Kushner was “Mini-Me” to Trump’s “Dr. Evil.”  But Jared only looked like a Trump.  Scaramucci is the whole package.  Apparently, he shares the boss’s addiction to alternative facts and a vision of this bizarro world on the Potomac where everything is going just fine and everyone loves Trump.

Spicer’s immediate resignation following Scaramucci’s appointment as White House communication director was consistent with The Music Man’s story line.  Did Sean, like Marian, eventually see through the scam?  One can only hope so  and that enough of Trump’s supporters come to the same conclusion. Otherwise, the “Shipoopi”* will certainly hit the fan.

*For those unfamiliar with the score, “Shipoopi” is a musical number in Act II of The Music Man, sung by Harold Hill’s former partner-in-crime Marcellus Washburn in which he explains the mystical forces which are bringing Harold and Marian together.

For what its worth.
Dr. ESP