Frank's Musings

Trump’s statement that scientists don’t know what’s happening to cause California’s wildfires made me realize that he believes his own BS. This is alarming Trump is not irrational. He’s just maniacal.

Trump lives in a world of his own making, without regard to what most of the rest of us have learned is real. He and most of his supporters seem also to live in worlds that have major inconsistencies with what mankind has determined advances civilization.  The curious thing is that they don’t have to agree on either Trump’s definition of reality, or with that of any other of Trump’s supporters. What they all agree on is the irrelevance a common definition of reality.  They believe that one is a sucker to accept other people’s weltanschauung.   

Other members of Trump’s coalition of supporters apparently have decided that the disruptive policies of a Trump administration created conditions that were conducive to the accomplishment of their own individual goals.  They have access to capital, or they have the skills to thrive in a minimally regulated economy.  Moreover, they are not burdened by values that require expense to uphold, e.g. non-materialistic objectives such as human equality and justice.  They have no long-term view and always ask the question, “What’s in it for me?”

This coalition of solipsists and opportunists is probably not more numerous than half of eligible voters, even in states with a combined electoral college majority.  They proved themselves, however, to be more motivated to cast their ballots in 2016 than the losing sid.  Fortunaately, the Biden-Harris campaign barely found a way to convince the public of its responsibility to participate in the election and preserve the efficacy of our democratic form of government.

It was most encouraging to hear the Biden administration referred to in th news as the true heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, 

If Governor Andrew Cuomo had been a private citizen, not in a position of power when he committed the acts of which he has been accused, he could be excused for behaving like a commonly sex-starved man.  However, he is an elected official who is expected to act according to a higher standard.  That makes the charges grounds for at least reelection campaign opposition.  It may also make him subject to an impeachment proceeding.  In fact, any person in a position of employment advantage or with other social power over others could  even be hauled before a criminal court.

As an American state governor it is appropriate for him to resign his office if the charges have any chance of being proved truthful.  In any case, Andrew Cuomo is going to have a very tough row to hoe in order to stay as New York’s chief executive or any other office, for that matter. 

Donald J. Trump himself believes the world is nothing more than a figment of imagination. In his mind, all others might as well also live in their own fantasy worlds. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what he or anyone else does.  If we have learned anything from four years under a Trump administration of the U.S. Government, it is the danger of entrusting the leadership of our country to the rule of someone who personally has never had to believe that anything outside of his own mind has any objective reality.

There are many ways in which this was evident from his behavior before his election victory in 2016, to wit his tax frauds, his financial scams, his repeated divorces, his sexual gallivanting, his ignorance of history and social mores, his total disregard of social and commercial obligations, etc.  Luckily for him, those and other traits were consistent with the frustration felt by large numbers of the voting public at their perceived unfair treatment by society.   As a result, he was recognized as a convenient standard bearer for an American political party that needed a way to game the electoral process and win control of society’s powers of taxation and regulation.

Alas, it turned out to be a deal with the devil.  The next presidential election turned the Republicans out of power, although by only the narrowest of margins.  However, if the Biden administration can succeed in restoring government to service pf the best interests of the majority of the people it should be able to widen its congressional majority and assure its reelection in 2024, too. 

 Certainly, his abandonment of Matt Gaetz illustrates the continuance of Trump’s pattern of behavior.  Indeed, it is textbook solipsism.  The mystifying thing about it has been the unshakable allegiance that Trump enjoys from his supporters.  There is enough of it to make him and others think that should there again be weakened support of the electorate for centrist and progressive policies as bedeviled the Clinton campaign in 2016, a Trumpist election campaign could win in 2024. 

The enjoyable quiet of my i-phone’s ringing was an unanticipated consequence of the suspension of normal activities because of the pandemic  Or so I thought. 

My wife and I haven’t gone out at all frequently in over a year—not to theaters, not to concerts, not to work meetings, not to parties, not to stores.  Really only to doctors’ appointments.  That has meant that I have gotten out of the habit of muting my i-phone when in many of those locations.  As a consequence, I had also forgotten to check whether I have restored audibility to my i-phone’s ringer by looking at the little switch on its side.

Following an unusual silencing of the i-phone ringer in the last few months, I apparently forgot that I had to move the switch back to the “on” position after having turned the ringer off.  I didn’t notice that something was the matter with my i-phone until my daughter told me, through my wife, that recently I never seemed to answer her calls.   I did receive a few phone-mail messages from others.  I stopped getting constant spam and Chinese language nuisance calls.  That, of course, was a blessing.  However, it eventually dawned on me that there was something wrong on my end.  Repeated attempts to find how I might have set my phone to change all incoming calls to vibrate or silence instead of audible ringing were all fruitless. 

On her third attempt, however, my wife discovered that the mute switch on my i-phone’s edge was on.  In fact, I had forgotten that there even was such a switch! 

Now that my wife and I have received our second vaccination doses, we are looking forward to travelling, attending baseball games, concerts, movies, restaurants, etc. again.  Hopefully the next pandemic won’t occur during our lifetimes.  Whether it does or doesn’t, perhaps the world will have learned a few lessons from this one that will reduce the toll in human lives.  Someone may also figure out more quickly than I why his i-phone isn’t working right.