What Donald Trump Taught Me About Life

Life is funny.  From my own perspective, middle age is a little late in life to be learning basic life lessons.  Honestly, I am not sure if this says more about life or my capacity to learn, but I have recently learned some basics.

It gets funnier.  Forgive me Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this over my shoulder from some ethereal plane…if such a plane exists.  Mom and Dad, now gone for several decades, taught me many life lessons.  Some were time released, as they said they would be, but over time I came to say, yeah, Mom was right, or Dad called that one.  The odd thing, though, is that I just learned a big one from the most unexpected source.  One of my most profound life lessons was not only recent, but I learned it from a man for whom I have absolutely no respect.  That man is Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States.  

The only irony here is the source I just listed.  I don’t mean “life lesson” in any way meant to be ironic.  President Trump pulled back the curtain of ignorance from my previous understanding as if he were some well meaning ‘in loco parentis.’  Mr. Trump, in all of his Trump-iness, has essentially knocked down the first domino, which in turn knocked down several others, revealing things I wish I had known, and could have been taught, at a much younger age.  

I’ll explain.  (And if you already know these, bear with me.  This may be more confession that news flash.)

For starters, let’s explain racism.  I know…I know.  Nobody wants to hear that shit.  Relax.  This wont be long.  It’s very simple.  Racism is about power.  That’s it.  Racism has nothing to do with what I thought it had to do with.  After spending 56 years trying to talk to it, negotiate with it, etc, I learned I was on the wrong road.  I was in the wrong town.  I wasn’t even in the dimension that racism exists.  My previous view was that racism was some sort of misunderstanding about the facts of whom, how, and why different people live their lives, and that familiarity and such would educate the uninitiated into a flat, golden meadow of egalitarianism.  I informed my parents, back in the ‘70s that racism would be conquered in my generation.  I can still feel what it was like to have that conversation.  I was rather certain of it.  On the other hand, they were so certain that I was wrong that they did not use many words in any attempt to set me straight.  They just said, “you’ll understand when you’re older.”  I did not know I’d be this much older, and that Donald Trump would be my teacher.  And…in fairness to Donald Trump, I don’t think my parents could have thoroughly diagnosed my malignant misunderstanding, and removed the ignorance tumor as Donald Trump did so many years later.  

In fairness to my parents, Donald Trump did not know that he was knocking down the first domino in this discovery process.  In fact, Donald Trump doesn’t even know I exist.  I’m grateful for that.  And now, I can be grateful that the mere fact of Donald Trump’s existence taught me one of life’s greatest life lessons.  Racism is about power, and not about information…and facts don’t matter.  There is the next domino.

Racism is about power.  Racism is a power system.  Racism is an organized way of gaining, holding, and wielding power.  And facts don’t matter.  Power systems are things like populations, but especially communities within broad populations.  Organized religions.  Political parties.  Cliques.  Genders.  However people can be organized, someone can coalesce and hold power within them.  And here’s the thing, when it comes to holding and wielding power…facts don’t matter.  

Don’t get me wrong, facts are beautiful things.  I love ‘em.  Watching facts come together is like watching the creation of a mandala, each fact a grain of colorful sand in a beautiful design.  Better yet, once facts are established as genuine truth, they are never, ever swept away.  The mightiest mountain range is a speck of ephemera compared to an established piece of truth.  Trust me, I’m a fan.  I trust facts.  I believe in them.  Systems can be beautiful as well as useful.  Complex systems like whatever makes this website work as a utility for all of us is mind-bogglingly awesome.  Or simple things like water expanding as ice when it freezes as opposed to contracting like…virtually everything else does.  A tiny fact like that is like a thread that, once pulled, keeps revealing more facts.  More knowledge.

Contemplating Trump’s existence, such that it is, reveals that power systems can exist in defiance of facts…and reason.  They can exist in accord with facts, but when they don’t, power systems don’t fail.  Also, when they knowingly come on conflict with facts, they back truth down.  Pursuit of power differs from pursuit of truth in this way.  And while pursuit of truth does not always have 100% accuracy, the pursuit can not survive a conflict with reality.  

The next domino is that people basically fall into one of two categories.  Being the complex creatures that we are, we are not uniformly one or the other.  We tend to have aspects of both, and the systems that we create tend to be mixtures as well.  But, in my new understanding, we see the world one way or the other.  Pursuit of power or truth.  The games we create tend to be heavily one or the other.  Checkers is about power.  Chess is about power, with more aspects of truth.  In fact, the pieces in the center hold the most power, but require the most truth.  The pawns with the least power function exclusively with and to the extent of their power.  American football is mainly power, but has the same complexities as chess depending on position.  European football is about truth.  Power is almost useless.  

Christianity is about power, but having the complexities of American football.   (By now I believe I am well beyond the word limit that BS wants in a single composition, so I will be brief to flesh out this idea.)  Jesus was truth.  (Although not everything said about him was true). St. Paul was power.

One last domino, if I may.  The political spectrum is not a flat/straight line.  The political spectrum is a circle.  Picture a clock.  Truth is located at 12 o’clock.  Power is located at 6 o’clock.  10 and 2 represent different approaches in the pursuit of truth and justice.  The space between 10 and 2 represent the area of compromise.  This region is not well suited to orthodoxy, purity or power.  In this region, you win some, you lose some, and you wait for another opportunity.  This region relies heavily on process.  In the 4 hours between 10 and 2, or in the 120 degrees between North West and North East, location is essential.  Every minute of policy difference has meaning.  Conversely, on the bottom of the dial, there is no position other than 6 o’clock or South on the compass.  Every minute of difference is less power.  

As such, power and truth are different. Truth is fact based, and known.  Pursuits of truth are not differences in how one feels.  It represents a difference in perception or understanding…and with regard to policy it is often compromise in what is known.  Power is the one that does not compromise.  Power does not even make concessions to facts, as Professor Trump has shown.  Only in pursuit of power do facts not matter.  

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