Sometimes The Truth Hurts


Reading time – 2:13; Viewing time – 3:04  .  .  .

A friend offered a link to a New York Times article entitled “Democrats Are Playing Checkers While Trump Is Playing Chess.” He wrote, “The president’s manipulation of racial, cultural and economic anxiety will continue to serve him well politically. Until it doesn’t.”

So I read the article and recommend that you do, too. Here’s my reply.

Yeah, well, the truth hurts. I agree with all of this, albeit with frustration in my heart.

I see at least three pieces. First, is the substance of the issues that are important to people, like the crumbling of our towns and cities when people are displaced by rapid global changes; like the demographic upheaval caused by the incremental national shifting to a non-white majority; like the loss of manufacturing jobs, the majority of which are attributable to technology and innovation.

Second, there is the fear people feel over all these issues. Nobody has solved the globalization issue, for example, and it leads to fear, then anger, then irrational, self-defeating behavior, like Brexit and Trump. Christian whites have privileges that are incrementally being challenged, the reaction to which manifests itself in the extreme of neo-Nazis chanting, “Jews will not replace us” and in white supremacist hate spewing and in voter suppression fueled by anger and indignation over our nearly nonexistent voter fraud.

Third – and I’ve been saying this for a long time – Democrats are HORRIBLE at messaging. Recognizing that Ds have some good ideas, the way they present them is at times incoherent, uninspiring, self-defeating, inconsistent, punch-less and at times insulting. I’ve often wondered if anybody at the DNC has taken even an elementary course in marketing.

“I’m with her” – really? Assuming the notion of the Hillary team was that such language would rally women and feminist-sympathizing men to the D side, that pretty much slapped everyone else in the face, because nobody but family and close friends of Hillary were all about her. We humans are all about ourselves and the D’s messaging completely failed to recognize that.

Tara Thomas at the coffin of her Green Beret husband, Shawn, killed in Niger in February, 2017

Another way the truth hurts is when we see that the President of the United States has failed to honor those who sacrifice their lives for our country. Perversely, in their death they make it possible for him to lie about caring about them. Their death preserves the freedom for him to falsely accuse former Presidents of having blown off our fallen military people. Their coming home in flag-draped coffins gives him the freedom to make condolences to the families of our military dead all about himself.

How long will the 38% tolerate his behavior?

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we’re on a path to continually fail to make things better. It’s my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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2 Responses to Sometimes The Truth Hurts

  1. John Calia October 18, 2017 Reply

    Great post, Jack. I wholeheartedly agree with your first and second points. However, I disagree with your third. The D’s don’t just have a messaging problem. They have a solution problem. They continue to offer backwards facing solutions to 21st C. problems. Our nation has a severe middle skills gap and an overabundance of Millennial college grads. The solution is not to offer free tuition. The middle class has been hollowed out by globalization and technology. The solution is not to support the trade union paradigm that worked well in the 1950’s.

  2. dominickpalella October 18, 2017 Reply

    You question, Jack, in this latest blog “How long will the 38% tolerate his behavior?”

    Here’s the answer: Both the 38% and the other 62% of us will just have to tolerate his behavior because we agree that whoever is elected, we must accept their behavior until their next election. Of course, we can always march in the streets, sign petitions in protest, and plead with members of Congress to do the right thing. However, only they can decide whether his behavior is tolerable for them, regardless of public opinion polls.

    Apparently, most members of Congress find that his behavior is quite tolerable at the moment. All we can do now is to hope they might change their minds over the next three years and agree among themselves if they want to do anything that might endanger their next election results. TrueDemocracyNow.org