History, Politics & Current Affairs

Trump & Tariffs: Increasing Inequality Is the Whole Point

Donald Trump’s attacks on parents who buy a lot of toys for their children have nothing to do with dolls or pencils. His recent comments have made some parents think, “I feel guilty about how many possessions my kids have; maybe Trump’s right and they SHOULD have fewer toys.” But he’s just attempting a diversion from the real issues he doesn’t want you to think about.

A Way to Shift More Power to the Richest 1%

Do you think Trump ever gave a thought to whether rampant materialism would make his children more selfish or shallow? Of course not. He doesn’t want you thinking about how he’s trying to create a future with even greater wealth inequality. He supports the restrictions on freedom, product availability, and product quality caused by restricting market availability. He likes billionaire-owned companies that engage in monopolistic practices. He’s all for power grabs by autocratic government entities and corrupt politicians—as long as he gets a cut.

The autocrat in chief and his friends want to tell you what you should and shouldn’t be able to buy, at what prices, and from whom. They want to control the market so they can create more opportunities for themselves to receive more financial kickbacks or power. Their support for heavy tariffs is about increasing their power while taking away yours.

Free Trade Increases Peace, Prosperity & Safety

Isolationism doesn’t make a nation stronger, safer, happier, healthier, or more peaceful. Strong international relationships, including trade, lead to a greater variety of available products, lower prices, and many more chances to buy things of better quality. People have known this for literally thousands of years. By trading with other countries, all countries involved can optimize sales of products they’re good at and that they have enough resources to create. That way nations can import things that are too hard or expensive to make at home, improving the standard of living across nations.

Greater access to affordable commodities leads to fewer wars. Wars interfere with the benefits of free trade, destroying trade routes and stopping the influx of needed materials, and the outflow of products from exporters who rely on foreign markets.

Beneficial Trade Agreements Lead to “Soft Power”

Making trade with other countries easier and more affordable makes our trading partners fonder of our products, sure. It also makes them fonder of us as people. The incentives to treat our trading partners with greater respect and appreciation lead to warmer relations. When we make trade deals, we also build positive relations that give us “soft power”—the power that comes from positive feelings, trust, and mutual respect. Strong trade agreements can lead to greater tourism, cross-border business deals that allow for faster innovation and business growth, stronger border agreements, and more information sharing regarding health and security matters. Strong trade agreements also help countries build alliances against rogue states who might want to attack or invade them.

Limiting Trade Restricts Freedom

Adding heavy tariffs and destroying trade agreements benefits oligarchs and corrupt government officials. Such people have the power or money to create regional monopolies, decide what items the market will or won’t sell, and push resources toward their favorite suppliers. When oligarchs and autocrats are in charge, they make international trade agreements giving lower tariffs to countries that promise to bend the knee politically, or that pay kickbacks to corrupt officials in our country.

The reason for Trump’s tirades about how many dolls or pencils small children own isn’t based in concern over modern child-rearing methods. He’s not stoking your guilt because he cares about your children’s welfare. Trump harps on dollies and pencils because he doesn’t actually believe in a free market. He wants to up-end conservative support for free-market capitalism, the holy grail of traditional Republicanism.

For its many faults, pure free-market capitalism does support the freedom to buy what you want, whether the purchase is wise or foolish, well-made or shoddy, bad for you or good, as long as you can pay for it—or can pay the bank fees on your line of credit. A free-market economy is the antithesis of having a government entity tell you what you can and can’t buy, use, or enjoy. It also tends to lower prices, and lower prices on commodities means increased freedom and opportunity to buy exactly what you want, at a price you can afford.

Protectionism & Isolationism Don’t Lead to Safety or Prosperity

Protectionism is the belief that taxing imported goods more highly, restricting or refusing their importation, and giving special deals to domestic businesses benefits domestic businesses and helps one’s own nation’s economy to grow while avoiding providing unfair benefits to those outside one’s borders. Isolationism, which often increases at tiems of greater protectionism, preaches that outsiders, their products, and their ideas are not to be trusted, and that we leave ourselves weakened and vulnerable if we make treaties, trade agreements, or join organizations like the United Nations that seek to create international legal structures and encourage economic, social, and health equality.

Such “America first” protectionist and isolationist politics and economic leanings have been popular at various times during the last two centuries. Many who have followed them believed that such policies would exclude unwanted “foreign influences” on culture and business, and would avoid the dilution of a supposed American way of life.

The result of this distrust of interactions with outsiders has instead often been a more insular way of thinking that led to greater xenophobia. What’s more, protectionism and isolationism left U.S. businesses and financial institutions at greater risk of failure because they did not diversify their funds, product pipelines, or markets across national or continental borders.

Doesn’t Capitalism Have Significant Flaws?

Free-market capitalism tends toward rampant materialism and encouraging ever-expanding markets, even when that causes pollution, dwindling natural resources, or social problems. It supports a mentality that says buying more is necessarily better, and that your success and appeal are based on what and how much you buy. It encourages waste and disposal instead of repair or reuse of resources.

Clearly, this system has many terrible flaws. But there are limitations on these downsides, including environmental impact laws and free-trade agreements that ameliorate many downsides of unfettered capitalism.

For millions, the chief attraction of a free market is that it supports the individual’s freedom to choose what to purchase and how much, IF a person has sufficient capital to do so. A good thing about a free market open to many sellers and buyers is that competition provides downward pressure on prices, and it tends to push the worst products out of the market based on lower demand. Those who can provide a greater variety of goods at better prices tend to do better.

Antitrust Laws Help Balance Free Markets

For the past century, the U.S. has had strong antitrust laws to avoid monopolistic practices (like having one big company buy up or destroy all its competitors, thereby driving up prices and driving down quality). Limits on monopolies help us avoid price-gouging and lowering of quality standards, and allow small businesses to compete more fairly with larger ones.

Other Laws Affecting Free Markets in the U.S.

Over the past century the U.S. has also developed a strong legal framework regarding the health and safety of products sold in the U.S. We’ve also passed thousands of laws about the safety and working conditions of those who produce goods and services on U.S. soil. These laws help to ameliorate further downsides of expanding markets. These include risks to human beings that are increased when competitiveness is prized above health, safety, and wellbeing.

Heavy Tariffs Are Hardest on Small Businesses

On the other hand, creating significant impediments to free trade through untargeted tariffs widens imbalances between resource-rich and resource-poor countries and people. This often leads to greater hostility between nations, and between people of different financial means. Smaller, more entrepreneurial companies bear the greatest brunt of high tariffs, and are at greatest risk of failure because they don’t have the scale and resources to pay huge tax levies or customs bills.

Higher Tariffs on Imports Can Lower Our Own Standard of Living

When Trump slaps tariffs on foreign-made goods imported to the U.S., he drives up prices at home, destroys jobs, crushes U.S. businesses and industries that rely on export sales, and destroys the trust of other nations in our government, or financial instruments, and our companies. The primary reason for a U.S. president to do that is so he and his friends and family can make more money and consolidate more power by taxing people in the U.S. who want or need imported goods. This takes money from everyday people and lowers their standard of living.

That shift, which disempowers the vast majority of the U.S., is the point of this unnecessary financial mess. Trump doesn’t care about you or your child. He doesn’t want to reset U.S. buying habits out of concern for the moral or financial welfare of the nation’s people. He just wants to grab a greater share of your resources for himself and his buddies.

Don’t fall for it.

Film & Television, History, Politics & Current Affairs

Anti-Fascist Podcasts to Help You Through Dangerous Times



If you’re feeling hopeless and frightened about what’s to come under Donald Trump, I recommend two excellent fact-based podcasts with riveting stories about just how bad things have gotten in the past in the U.S., what we learned from those times, and how we moved forward. To find them, log into your favorite podcast provider and listen to Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra (seasons one and two), and Oona Chaplin’s Hollywood Exiles podcast. 

In the 20th century, many anti-constitutional fascists held powerful positions in the U.S. government, both overtly and covertly. They used their power to badger, intimidate, blackmail, and destroy the lives of thousands of law-abiding people of all races and levels of power, fame, and influence. Federal government branches and agencies largely moved beyond using fascist tactics as a matter of course—for a while. But people in power are using them again, and things are likely to get extremely ugly over the next four years. Understanding how long and hard we fought against fascism within our government in decades past, and how its power waxes and wanes over time and around the world, are essential. Learning this painful but necessary history reminds us what we have overcome before, and how important fighting against the encroachment of authoritarianism and fascism are to the health and strength of this—or any—nation.

The Constitution’s power will be tested again in the coming years. Our social safety net, national security, the immigrants within our borders, and our alliances with other nations will all come under fire. Safeguards against increasingly dangerous climate change will be impacted as we again step away from the Paris Agreement, and we’ll lose the respect and support of allies we’ve relied on for decades, even centuries. Will we make it through this time as a democracy? I don’t know. But I find it helps me to understand how the pendulum has swung back toward freedom and away from fascism throughout the history of the U.S. It can do so again—but only if we are vigilant and brave enough to fight against the encroachment of authoritarianism.

You may be familiar with Rachel Maddow. She’s been a broadcast journalist on radio and TV for decades, and is the most popular and respected news analyst on the cable news channel MSNBC. After her years studying at Stanford University, she was a Rhodes Scholar, and then she went on to become a successful writer, progressive radio personality, and television news journalist. She’s written several best-selling, well-received, carefully researched books on the oil and gas industry, American military power, the grift and scandals surrounding the vice presidency of Spiro Agnew, and the history of fascism in America. She’s been on MSNBC only one night a week for a couple of years now as she works on her podcasts and works with Steven Spielberg’s movie version of Maddow’s podcast Ultra. However, she’ll be back on MSNBC at 9 p.m. Monday through Friday for the first 100 days of the Trump Administration. She’s excellent at setting news into historical context, and explaining how events differ from those in the nation’s past, and how our leaders compare to those of other times and other nations.

Maddow’s Ultra is about the rise of fascism in America, particularly from the 1920s to the 1950s. The podcast details the stories of senators and congressmen, religious leaders, supposed patriots like aviator Charles Lindbergh, and even FBI head J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover—the most powerful lawman in the country—and his henchmen blackmailed people, spread damaging lies about people’s politics and actions, infiltrated legal gatherings, and hounded people—sometimes to death—with innuendo, subterfuge, threats, thugs, even physical violence. Hoover even had the FBI send Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an anonymous letter encouraging him to kill himself. I’ve read a great deal about the ugly underside of this period of U.S. history over time, but I still learned much from Maddow about just how extensively our government was infiltrated by fascists and even literal Nazis during the 1940s.

Oona Chaplin is a young (born in 1986) actress who comes from a storied family. Her mother’s father was actor, director, producer, and early film production innovator Charlie Chaplin, the most popular actor of the early 20thcentury, and perhaps the most famous man in the world in the 1920s. Her mother’s grandfather was the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill, who won four Pulitzer Prize awards for drama. She was named for her grandmother, Oona O’Neill Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s fourth wife. Oona and Charlie Chaplin had a long and happy marriage despite Charlie having spent most of their life together being hounded by J. Edgar Hoover and anti-communist agitators in or related to the movie business.

Hoover’s FBI threatened Charlie Chaplin with deportation while the actor was traveling outside of the U.S. Despite Chaplin having spent four decades living and working in the U.S., building up its film industry, paying millions in taxes and raising millions more in World War II war bonds, and never being part of or affiliated with the Communist Party, Chaplin was under constant surveillance and threat by the FBI. While on a trip outside the U.S. in the early 1950s, Chaplin was warned that he was not welcome to return to his home in the U.S. He did not set foot on U.S. soil again for two decades, and he never lived here again.

Oona Chaplin’s deep investigation into communism in the film industry is fascinating and well told. Parts of her story are personal, including interviews with her mother, actress Geraldine Chaplin, who moved abroad with her parents Charlie and Oona when her father was blacklisted while she was a child. But Oona Chaplin also dives at length into the stories of other film industry notables whose work and personal lives were ruined by the Hollywood blacklist. Her interview with the daughter of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the most famous member of “The Hollywood Ten,” is riveting. The Hollywood Ten were ten movie screenwriters, producers, and directors who refused to answer questions about supposed or real (and completely legal) communist affiliations when questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare. They were imprisoned for contempt of Congress for refusing to name names of others who were communists or who had attended communist meetings (which were, again, legal), and were blacklisted by Hollywood for over a decade.

Dalton Trumbo wrote Academy Award-winning screenplays (including the classic Audrey Hepburn film Roman Holiday) under pseudonyms during his years on the Hollywood blacklist. Oona Chaplin’s interview with his daughter Mitzi Trumbo is powerful. So is her interview with actress and professor of acting Ellen Geer, the daughter of blacklisted actor Will Geer, whose career was destroyed until the early 1970s, when he had a late-life resurgence when he played Grandpa Walton on the TV show The Waltons in the years just before he died.

Chaplin provides keen insights into her own fascinating family’s experiences during the days of Hollywood’s and the FBI’s anticommunist witch hunts. But she also sets them in the context of their time, making their stories and those of other victims of Hollywood blacklists understandable and accessible to listeners unacquainted with this sad part of American history, while providing new details for those of us who have followed this saga for decades.

While the stories Maddow and Chaplin tell are often dark and frankly horrifying, they’re important to resurface and re-examine if we want to learn from the nation’s past mistakes, and to fight the encroachment of fascist tendencies into our government and our personal lives today.

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Charlie Chaplin as The Little Tramp and Jackie Coogan as The Kid in Chaplin’s 1921 silent movie The Kid

History, Politics & Current Affairs

Fighting for Freedom

It is devastating but right and beautiful that the U.S., Canada, the UK, and other nations give brave service people a day every year to remember what they have given for us, and to thank and bless them for their unimaginable bravery and willingness to put others’ lives before their own. My deepest thanks and gratitude to all who have served, been wounded, sacrificed, and died to keep this nation a Constitutional republic. I bless and honor those who have fought and died to help other nations stay and become free countries that upheld the rule of law, extended justice and equality to their citizens, and gave refuge to those who escaped from fascism and other horrible political systems to find a better life. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”—and those whom he (or she, or they) would count as friends.

On this and every Veterans Day, I hold my Grandpa George’s World War I dog tags in my hand and remember what he did for this country. I am grateful to the members of my own family who’ve put themselves in harm’s way to serve their country, including my father, my Uncle Woody, my Cousin Mike (currently serving), and both of my grandfathers. My Grandpa George, who was born of a German immigrant mother and a Swiss immigrant father, spoke only German at home, and was still reading his beloved Goethe in blackletter German script on his deathbed. Grandpa and his nine siblings were deeply steeped in German literature, poetry, and music. How horribly painful it must have been for him and his family to see him go to Europe to fight against and kill his mother’s former countrymen when they invaded France during World War I. And how many millions of other U.S. service members have given everything, everything, everything they have to protect us, to keep other nations free, and to fight against invasion, aggression, terrorism, fascism, communism, and religious extremism? Bless them and the many millions more at home who suffered, feared, sacrificed, and grieved for those they loved who went to war and gave up everything for us.

Their sacrifice is beyond imagining. Let’s be worthy of it. Let’s stand up for our nations’ freedoms, laws, values, and constitutions. It’s the very least we can do to properly thank those who served and died on the battlefield to make and keep the U.S. and other nations democratic republics. Let’s continue to fight the good fight in honor of our ancestors—and for those who are still to come.

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My grandfather’s World War I dog tags, given to him when he joined the U. S. Army in 1917.

Oddments, Politics & Current Affairs

It’s Not Too Late

It’s not too late to try, to try again, to stop doing the things that hurt you. If you’re still here, it’s not too late.

I’ve had to restart my life over and over. It’s been hard, exhausting, frustrating, expensive. I made mistakes, undervalued myself and my skills, and thought I could do more than was possible for me. I trusted some—even some family members—who gaslit, stole from, lied to, and even betrayed me. But I trusted others who’ve repaid me for my trust over and over again.

I went to places where I felt out of my depth and believed I was a huge failure. And there I met wonderful friends who saw me struggle but still believed in me. I’ve made friends half my age and twice my age, and they’ve taught me many things I couldn’t learn without them. I’m grateful that I didn’t give up on myself or them.

No, I didn’t give up on myself or the world. I knew I had to be strong for my child, and her love and faith in me made me stronger. I didn’t stoop to thinking that everyone was bad just because some people treated me badly. I learned to be more humble (and I’ll need to keep on learning that, painfully but importantly, till I die). I’ve hated the embarrassment and humiliation that taught me important lessons. Emotional suffering is not a gift; it’s torn me up. But I have indeed learned from misfortune. It made me both stronger and more tender.

A large print ad posted in a window says the following in black text on a white background: "Start in November. Start in your 40s. Start on Friday. Start at 5 pm. Start on 31st. Start late. Start."
A brilliant ad by Studio Yuch, Jakarta, Indonesia

Life has taught me to be tenacious, to try over and over—I learned this so well that I’ve many times made myself ill with effort. But I also learned how to at last move on when situations were clearly not healthy and not fixable. I learned that sometimes relationships of various kinds—business, romantic, friendship—can’t work even when both people are kind, honest, and good. That doesn’t mean they were always wrong or bad, nor that they weren’t worth trying. Sometimes they simply run their course, at least in one form. And sometimes exes make marvelous friends.

I’m much better at taking breaks and stepping away from emotionally dangerous people now. I still work on trusting that doing the best I can is good enough. It doesn’t seem to be so, and I can’t attain many of my goals. I disappoint myself daily. But I try to forgive myself for not being the perfect child my parents taught me I should be to be worthy of love and respect.

I do try. I do.

I’ve learned some bad things by having to get back up on the horse after so many falls. I learned to be more anxious. I learned to not trust that someone else would necessarily be there if I fell. I learned that a few of the people who loved me could be cruel. Some actively wanted to hurt me. But those people are few, and I’m not in contact with them anymore.

I have a lot of emotional scars. My body can’t do all it once could. I hurt every day, and probably will every day from here on out. But I’m still glad to be here. Not all the time, of course. I’m frightened of the fragility of democracy, of the consequences of Earth’s battered ecosystem, of the rise in fascism, and the increases in incivility and actively hateful rhetoric and action. But my fears aren’t enough to make me quit. We’re still here, and I’m glad. We can still start new things. We can make and do and sing and fix things. We can love.

I’m glad you’re here with me. Let’s start something.

Film & Television

The Deliciously Hyperreal World of The Bear

The Bear, Hulu’s award-winning series about life in the high-pressure restaurant world, is too intense for some. I get that—its energy and angst can be heartpoundingly relentless. But the show is also breathtaking, delicious, funny, heartwrenching, and simply gorgeous to watch.

This series is a showcase of exquisite acting, editing, writing, cinematography, direction, and amazing food. The Bear also shows Chicago as it really is, from its dark grittiness to its shimmering glory. The stories, energy, highs and lows have a heightened intensity, but through intense energy and drama, the characters portrayed by this company of remarkable actors expose what feel like genuine depths of emotion.

These characters feel real to me, sometimes painfully so. I’ve known and loved people who were maddening yet endearing, damaged and broken but trying to be and do something better, wildly talented but unable to save themselves from their deep insecurities, and painful to be around but missed when they were gone. I recognize them in this show’s characters, whose fragile hearts and souls are exposed to us in a raw and visceral way that has left me whispering “wow” to myself more than once.

The Bear takes us into the lives of these people in ways I’ve never seen a TV series do before. If you haven’t tried it yet, you may very well love it. My family thinks it’s worth getting Hulu just to watch this show.

Art, Film & Television, Theater

Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman, often described as one of the greatest actors of his generation, was born on July 23, 1967. The Academy Award-winning actor (he earned his Oscar for his portrayal of Truman Capote) died a decade ago, but his impact is still frequently mentioned among actors and critics.

His close friend, the humorist Shalom Auslander, has written a new memoir in which he discusses their close friendship, and their shared feelings of self-hatred. Feh, the title of the memoir, is a Yiddish word meaning, essentially, “yuck,” and Auslander says it describes the feelings of disgust with themselves and hopelessness about their lives that he and Hoffman were often consumed by.

Hoffman’s genius was in portraying people who are constantly fighting this inner monologue that tells them that they’re hideous, weak, and worthless. Auslander’s July 18 interview on NPR’s Fresh Air provides illuminating insights into himself and Hoffman. However, it is painful to listen to stories of gifted people who are overcome by darkness despite their enormous gifts and the love outsiders feel for them.

Though best known for his film acting, which garnered him four Oscar nominations and one Academy Award, Hoffman was also a prominent theater actor. He was nominated for three Tony Awards for his performances in three classic American plays: Sam Shepard’s True West, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

To honor Hoffman’s storytelling power on what would have been his 57th birthday, I recommend you watch one or two of his 55 film performances tonight. Here are some of his best:

Capote

Doubt

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

The Master

Boogie Nights

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Almost Famous

Magnolia

History, Politics & Current Affairs

When the Supreme Court Grants Immunity to Rampaging Monsters

Millions voted for Trump despite plentiful warnings that he’d fill the Supreme Court with corrupt far-right activists in the pay of conservative billionaires who’d enable anti-democratic power grabs. Millions didn’t believe Trump could be so deeply hateful and vengeful. They refused to believe that he’d gleefully attack the laws, customs, welfare, and the Constitution of the United States that he was hired to protect.

Yet here we are.

Now the Supreme Court’s intentional delays and anti-Constitutional rulings have removed the possibility of a public trial examining Trump’s treasonous incitement of a deadly riot until after November’s presidential election. Six “justices” have impeded justice for a man who believed his own vice president deserved a public lynching on the Capitol grounds because of a refusal to subvert Constitutional requirements at Trump’s command.

Those who voted for Trump in 2016 were too naive and trusting, and too willing to ignore the signs of his incipient fascism. In their fear and misapprehension, they made excuses for his blatant and repeatedly proven financial corruption, racism, and misogyny. They bought his lies and repeated them in his service. They have no excuses now.

Trump has shown us who he is, repeatedly, publicly, and dramatically, thousands of times. We all know what he wants to do.

But building hatred toward those who voted us into this deadly, dangerous, chaotic man’s orbit will not stop him. That kind of vengeful thinking builds monsters like Trump, and leads to terrorism and civil war. We must love what this nation could be enough to fight for it—nonviolently and lawfully. And we must love the elements of human decency that most people, including those who consider voting for him, still hold in their hearts. We must remember their humanity. Let’s reach out in kindness, despite the irrational fears and anger that Trump has so masterfully created in them. The need to save our democracy should be greater to us than the desire to avoid annoyance and frustration, or the impulse to smugly insult Trump supporters’ choices and fears.

Does that mean we need to be polite and quiet when they roll over us? Never. We must be bold and loud and persistent. But we must respect others’ humanity as we amplify truths and persistently correct misapprehensions about Trump. We must point to the current administration’s successes, and remind people of Trump’s egregious actions while in power.

Do not be defeatist or fatalistic. When you’re fighting a monster who’s burning the gates to your city, you don’t give in because it’s tiring and sweaty work. You don’t take a nap when a fire-breathing dragon sets your baby’s crib alight. If we give in, our home will burn to the ground if we don’t do our part to save it.

We’re all tired. We’re all disgusted. So were millions in Hitler’s Germany who used their disgust over and fear of and exhaustion with fascism as excuses to turn their backs on the destruction of their nation from within. If they made it out alive, they had to live with the consequences of their fear and inaction for the rest of their lives. They had to watch their beautiful and beloved homeland’s people (and people from around the world) lose freedoms, be ground in the dirt, suffer, even die because of their leader’s unchecked power.

Don’t set yourself up to feel that kind of sorrow and shame.

Get angry.

Push back.

Speak up.

VOTE.

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The Statue of Liberty during a solar eclipse, June 2021 | Anthony Quintano, Wikimedia Commons (CC-by-2.0)

Politics & Current Affairs

Everyone Deserves Respect, Dignity & Autonomy—Sex Workers Included

A usually well-respected defense lawyer, Susan Necheles, today engaged in a so-called “sluts and nuts” defense of her client, Donald Trump, in his current hush-money trial. She painted Stormy Daniels as wacky and not credible by querying Ms. Daniels about her spiritual practices on the stand. Even worse, she branded Ms. Daniels as insincere when she said she had felt scared and anxious on the night she and Trump had sex. She implied that Daniels’ expression of fear over thinking she was in a situation in which her safety and career could be compromised if she didn’t agree to sex with Trump was unbelievable.

And that’s disgusting.

Trump is accused of paying Ms. Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about a sexual encounter they had nearly two decades ago. While such payoffs are not necessarily illegal, paying off someone to hide information that could materially affect public opinion during a presidential campaign is. So is lying about that to the federal government.

Ms. Daniels made clear that she never intended to have sex with Trump. She thought had been invited for dinner and a talk—two entertainment professionals having a discussion that might lead to a business deal. Perhaps he’d offer her a stint on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice TV show. She even teased him when she showed up and he was in silky pajamas, and told him to go get dressed—which he did before they talked for two hours.

Ms. Daniels asked if he was always so rude as to show up for dinner in pajamas, and not even have any food to feed her? She teased him, shaming him into getting dressed in something other than a satin robe. When he constantly interrupted her answers to his many questions, she asked him if he was always so self-absorbed. She thought she’d set a tone that showed she was in control of herself, and capable of setting boundaries and setting him straight when he treated her without respect and dignity. It seemed to be going well.

Trump and Ms. Daniels talked about work and families. The then-60-year-old man said three times that his then-27-year-old guest reminded him of his daughter Ivanka—both were beautiful, smart, and not given the respect they deserved.

But after two hours of talk, when she excused herself to use the bathroom, she walked out to find Trump in his underwear on a bed, looking at her, obviously ready and waiting to have sex with her. Her stomach dropped. She worried what the bodyguard would do if she said no. Would the bodyguard let her leave? Would Trump? What would happen to her career? She’d not wanted to go dinner with Trump in the first place, but only did so because her manager had said it could be a good career move to talk with him, and “What could go wrong?”

Lawyer Necheles acted incredulous that the famous Stormy Daniels wouldn’t be willing to have sex with just anybody at any time. How could she of all people be anxious when a large, powerful, famous man with a big bodyguard just outside the door made it clear that he expected her to give in to him? Necheles acted as if it were unbelievable that Ms. Daniels, then a married woman who had worked as an exotic dancer and a porn movie star, should have any compunction over, preferences about, or fear for her safety when faced with an potential sex partner whom she hadn’t chosen or approved. A man famous for having sex with lots of young women. A man who had determined that Ms. Daniels was regularly tested for STDs, but who had no such proof of his own to offer about his health.

Necheles acted as if every sex worker is just a careless and worthless person with no right to respect, dignity, or physical autonomy. No need to be concerned for her health and safety. No reason to say no to a married man over twice her age who expected her to do whatever he wanted—and who didn’t even wear a condom during their encounter.

No one should EVER feel pressured into a sexual situation with anyone. Not even a (supposed) billionaire with fame, power, and a reputation as a litigious bully (which he had even back then).

Ms. Daniels says she was not raped, and not forced to have sex. But the power imbalance between her and Trump was huge. Their age imbalance was enormous. The amount of respect Trump got as the star of a popular TV show vs. the respect Stormy got as a woman who had sex on camera for money was vastly different. Ms. Daniels says she went along with his wishes, but that she felt numb, that she dissociated, that she asked herself how’d she’d gotten herself in that situation. She was shaking so much afterward that she had trouble putting her boots back on to leave. Because she’s a human being who felt shame for being in a situation that scared her, and humiliation for thinking that she mattered to Trump as more than a sex toy.

If a person isn’t interested in having sex, says no, asks to stop at any time, or was willing in the past but is no longer, it legally makes no difference whether that person is one’s wife or a X-rated movie star. Pressuring anyone sexually is wrong, regardless of career, personal experience, number of partners, or current relationship. The idea that someone who has sex as part of her job should be totally without preferences about partners, fear about unwanted encounters, or concern or say over who uses her body, is repugnant. And using such a defense in court is outrageous.

History, Politics & Current Affairs

Recognizing the Humanity in Our Enemies

Aw, look at the cheerful, playful, lighthearted colleagues laughing together! They’re just taking a few minutes off from their jobs—they oversaw prisoners at Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp, in 1944. Yes, the happy folk in the uniforms are literal Nazis, members of the Schutzstaffel (aka the SS) taking a break from classifying, torturing, perhaps even killing the sick and terrified people whose lives they oversaw. Because even fascists and their apologists can be happy and have fun sometimes.

These smiling staff members were human, so they were naturally multifaceted, and even had some good qualities. Hey, even Hitler loved his dogs. The noted aviator and aeronautical designer Charles Lindbergh was brave and inspiring—but also a fascist sympathizer and appeaser. Coco Chanel was a groundbreaking fashion designer and style maker—who knowingly romanced, lived with, and spied for a powerful German diplomat during World War II. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an activist and the namesake of his civil rights champion father, started his career as a respected environmentalist. But now he takes money from (and spews anti-scientific anti-vax rhetoric supported by) far-right American millionaires who also bankroll Trump. Former game show host Donald Trump himself makes many people laugh, shout, and feel excited about America—and regularly praises and says he wants to emulate dictators who imprison, torture, and murder their own people.

But it’s important to remember that people who do such things are still human. If we fully demonize and refuse to engage with those whose goal is to oppress and kill us, and show no respect to those who love them, we can’t get through to the millions of independent voters who are on the fence. If you demonize and dehumanize them, you fail to show them how people of good will can see and honor the humanity in those who disagree. You risk making yourself look like an ugly, irrational opponent. And you make compromise with dignity harder.

If you paint your opposition as less than human, you give strength and a rallying point to your enemies. Nobel Prize-winning diplomats like Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu made this clear, many times. Their ability to help long-term foes find common ground and face each other as human beings deserving of respect allowed them to broker peace and reconciliation deals that had long been inconceivable beforehand.

That doesn’t mean we should ever let down our guard, trust would-be oppressors or their apologists to have our best interests at heart, or fail to fight their dangerous, dehumanizing rhetoric and efforts to gain power. We must use every tool against their actions that the law allows.

And we can’t refuse to fight or take sides against our internal enemies just because their opposing candidates aren’t perfect. Lofty ideals sound lovely, but when a would-be dictator is at the door pointing an AK-47 at you and telling you how he looks forward to dismantling your democracy with his fascist friends, you don’t wait for Superman and Wonder Woman to show up. You push back, you support the candidates who are least objectionable, and you fight like hell to keep the fascists out of power.

Pragmatism is called for in such circumstances. Being “pure” and refusing to vote for a less inspiring (or even mediocre) candidate is no virtue when the alternative is a vote for a candidate who is an active danger to democracy. Nor does refusing to vote keep you clean in such a political environment. Refusing to vote is still a choice, and that choice has consequences, up to and including allowing the election of a dangerous person by an active minority of people. Don’t let fatigue, boredom with the news, or a temptation to be passive let you give away your ability to keep fascists out of power.

It’s such a delicate balance, remembering the humanity of the opposition and understanding their appeal while not underestimating their strength, letting down our guard, or failing to stand strong against lies and fascists. But we MUST do these things. Because eternal vigilance really IS the price of liberty. 

Film & Television, Music

The Wham of Sam: My Sammy Davis Jr. Ephiphany

In honor of Sammy Davis Jr.’s 98th birthday today, I’m sharing this piece I originally wrote about him back in 2006. Thanks again, Sammy.

A few months ago, I was doing a difficult job that lasted six weeks instead of the two I thought I’d signed on for. I was commuting about 10 hours a week (and I hate driving), and the job required intense focus on thousands of important details. I learned a lot, the people were kind and helpful, and the work they did was important, but I felt out of place, frustrated, and blue.

I tried reminding myself of all the things going right with the job: I was employed, working with good folks at an institution that improves people’s lives, making enough so that I didn’t have to work two jobs, and setting a good example for my daughter by showing that sometimes we do things we don’t enjoy in order to pay our dues, fulfill our obligations, be helpful, and earn a living.

Of course, while my brain understood all this, my heart felt cranky and sad. I was frustrated that the talents I feel are the most valuable and worthy ones I have to offer weren’t being used to the extent I’d like to use them. And then I had my Sammy Davis Jr. epiphany.

To try to make the hours in stop-and-go traffic feel less gruesome, I realized I needed to find fresh and uplifting tunes. I love NPR (which recently featured an interview with Sammy’s daughter, Tracey, who discussed her new memoir of her father), but sometimes focusing on the latest events in Fallujah while stuck on a bridge for 30 minutes just feels too nasty and I need music. I rummaged through my CDs and found one I’d bought a few months back but hadn’t listened to much yet. It was a CD of songs performed by a man I must now admit I used to think of as one of the poster children of Vegas kitsch: Sammy Davis Jr. But the best part is the name of the album: “The Wham of Sam.”

I must digress at this point. Are you already asking yourself, why would Laura buy Sammy CDs in the first place? Well, because I heard one of his songs in a store somewhere and was reminded what a fine voice and a great sense of expression, style, and warmth he had at his best moments. The many TV appearances he made during the 1960s and 1970s were so filled with Vegas schlock and corny stylization that he was almost a self-parody by the time I started listening to music in earnest. He was doing campy, obvious, cool cat riffs during his showy performances with Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas and on The Tonight Show, and I couldn’t be bothered. I knew I’d loved his portrayal of Sportin’ Life in the film Porgy and Bess when I’d seen it on TV as a tiny kid, but I don’t think it’s been on TV since about 1970 so my memory is now faint, and I loved his performance as the Cheshire Cat singing “What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?” in a strange 1966 animated parody variation of Alice in Wonderland.

His turn as groovy evangelist Big Daddy in Sweet Charity is a classic sixties moment that featured Sammy’s charismatic rendition of the song “The Rhythm of Life,” but somehow I forgot about that. The big hits he had when I was a kid, like “The Candy Man,” felt too cutesy and pat to me, and I dismissed him, with his goofy hipster patois and giant diamond rings, his membership in the Rat Pack, and his public support of Nixon was too bizarre. (I still shudder when I remember the much-publicized photo of Sammy’s adoring, awkward, full-body hug of Nixon.)

But when I heard him singing over the speakers at some chain store I thought, damn, no wonder this man was so popular. Listen to the feeling he puts into that line! What clear, clean enunciation! What sophisticated, tasty phrasing! So I swallowed my pride and hung out at a CD store listening station for a half hour, listening to selections from a number of his albums. I bought two, one of ballads and one of swingier songs. What a good move that was. But then I got distracted and hardly listened to them.

Anyway, back to my commute-hour epiphany. I popped “The Wham of Sam” into my CD player, and right there, boom, I was hooked with the first song, the star of the album, “Lot of Livin’ to Do.” The horns grabbed me immediately, and the energy, which starts out high, somehow continues to build with every measure of the song. The band arrangement by Marty Paich is fabulous, swingy in the style of Sinatra’s terrific “Ring-A-Ding-Ding” album (one of my favorite albums of all time, by anyone—it was arranged by the legendary Nelson Riddle).

“Lot of Livin’ to Do” is big and brassy and has something new going on at every turn, but the band never outshines Sammy, whose phrasing is exact and elegant. His syncopation is so sure and it builds right up to the payoff moments. He knows when to pull back a little and when to let it rip. The intonation and enunciation are beautiful, but beyond his technical chops, he works the lyrics just right. He’s thinking about what he’s saying, he means what he’s singing, and I believe every word. He was sizzling and I was thrilled, sitting in a traffic jam on a bridge near Seattle at 8:30 a.m., bouncing up and down in my seat.

I must have listened to that song six times in a row on the way into work. The words crept into my brain and Boom! I had a revelation. The words aren’t Shakespeare; they’re standard upbeat lyrics, and the song was originally written for the musical Bye Bye, Birdie, which is fun but not Sondheim. But somehow, sung with that bravado and joy and excitement and underscored by that hot band, the lyrics spoke to me:

“… [T]here’s wine all ready for tasting / And there’s Cadillacs all shiny and new / Gotta move ’cause time is a-wastin’ / There’s such a lot of livin’ to do. / There’s music to play, places to go and people to see / Everything for you and me / Life’s a ball if only you know it / And it’s all waiting for you / You’re alive, so come on and show it / There’s such a lot of living to do.”

I heard it, and I believed it. I figured, hey, this slight man had a four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, a glass eye, grew up without his mom, had to deal with relentless racism from day one, and performed in hotels that he was barred from sleeping in because of the color of his skin (until he became a big name and helped break the color barrier in show business). And man, did he love life. He ate it up and went over the top, drinking and smoking and skirt-chasing, and hanging out with some unsavory folks, yes—but he also took a song like “Lush Life” and sang it like he’d lived it. He sang every song as if he lived it. And he meant every word.

He brought fun and swing and life into everything he sang. Sometimes the hipster kitsch of it was too much for me, and sometimes the low-brow, I’m-gonna-please-everybody style of his later years felt like he’d dumbed-down his act, especially considering what sophistication he was capable of. His desire to please everybody and be up, up, up all the time cheapened his rep in the eyes of many of us, but the joy he brought to life, the beauty he found in it and made for others.

That devotion to wringing every drop from it reminded me how lucky I was and how many wonderful things are around for me to enjoy. I thought it seemed a sin to waste another day in disappointment that I’m not doing more exciting work, and I vowed I’d make good things happen, find them, make sure they’re a part of every day of mine, and every one of my daughter’s days, too. I figured if Sammy, who had so much trash to contend with, could take his talent and shoot it off like fireworks, why can’t I take whatever gifts I have and make something fine and exciting of them, too? I may not be the dynamo Sammy was, but I don’t have his struggles either. And one doesn’t have to be a superstar to find something splendid in each day, or to make fine things happen.

So from that day forward I’ve reaffirmed my dedication to finding and doing good work, to making beauty, to learning something good and doing something kind each day, to being grateful for the opportunities to enjoy life more and to worry less about my dwindling savings (and how long it takes to find good jobs), and to writing regularly and with purpose. In a roundabout way, I have Sammy to thank for inspiring me to start this site. The wham of Sam, indeed.