We live in strange and polarized times. I came home from an errand on another side of the San Fernando Valley today and when I pulled in front of the house I realized that I hadn’t deposited a couple of checks. So I said to myself, “Go do this.” So I headed the car up the main drag, Foothill Boulevard, to the shopping center with a Wells Fargo on one side and Albertson’s on the other. As I drove I saw billowing flags with “Trump 2020” emblazoned on them. I thought, “My God? Here?”
I live in what I refer to as the “redneck swath of the 28th Congressional District,” which is Adam Schiff’s district, just by the by. Congressman Schiff is loved here. My neighbors love him. A lot of them have met him. The local business people know him and my bankers all know him personally and call him by his first name.
But today was not about rejoicing in what a wonderful congressman we have, today was a Trump rally. So I deposited my checks, tried the door of the bank, which was closed early, I guess because of the rally, and decided to go see what I could see. This was a real deja vu for me. The last time I wandered into a demonstration I was 19 years old (49 years ago next spring) and the issue then was the Vietnam War. I ended up getting tear gassed that night. It was an unforgettable experience. If you want to journey down memory lane with me, hit the link.
So I listened to the speakers on the truck with the sign “Trump Unity” and if there are two words that don’t belong together in the same sentence, it’s those two. A representative from Latinos for Trump got up to speak as well, and that’s a group like Chickens For Colonel Sanders. I marvel at the fact that any Latino man or woman would support Donald Trump, but I marvel at the fact that anybody at all does. I’ve been marveling at that fact since early 2016, when I realized with horror how far his trip down the escalator, replete with paid extras, had gone.
The speakers didn’t say anything that you haven’t heard before. Same drivel, different rally. One speaker said that the yous and mes were “crazy” because we didn’t appreciate how Trump had saved “thousands of lives” when he stopped some of the air travel from China vis a vis coronavirus. And that coronavirus was “not his fault.”
While this commentary was going on, the street began to fill up, with people from our side of the political spectrum.
So the two sides faced off and chants of “fuck Donald Trump” echoed through the air, which of course I lent my voice to, heartily. The other day I published a story, “We Hate You With The Intensity Of A Thousand Suns” and that’s how I feel about Trump. When he burst on the scene, straight from the tabloids of New York City and his fringe television performing career, I knew exactly who and what he was. And from that day until this one, I have written over 3,000 pieces on the phenomenon which is Donald Trump. He’s not a politician, he’s the bastard child of television and wingnut media, soaring on a combination of inherited wealth and monstrous ego, and hitting a chord of shared grievance with a certain portion of the American electorate — who I pray to God wake up and realize that they’re voting against their own self-interest, but even as I say that, I don’t hold out much hope.
These thoughts ran through my mind as I moved through the crowd, taking photos. I spoke with a young woman carrying a placard and she told me that as she came up the street Trump supporters told her, “We’re gonna rape you,” and “black lives don’t matter.” Nothing like a little intimidation on the sexual violence scale, followed by a chaser of racism to kick off the weekend, eh what? But this is Trump’s America and women and POCs are to be solidly kept down.
So the crowd kept swelling and the battle lines were drawn: on the north side of Foothill Boulevard, the Trumpites, and on the south side, the libs, Democrats — in my mind, the Americans — facing off the crazies. And of course, in their minds, that’s exactly the dynamic as well. They believe they’re the real Americans and we are the crazies. That is the essence of this conflict.
As the crowd grew, so did the police presence.
If you look in the center of the picture, you can see a cop with what looks to be a rifle in hand. That’s the rubber bullet rifle. Rubber bullets can mess you up badly. A photographer on the east coast lost an eye from a rubber bullet, while she was covering a Trump protest a few months back. This is not a game.
Gradually, the crowd increased and the cops cut off the street both on the east and west sides. Then the news vans started showing up.
By this time, a few people with gas masks were showing up as well. The woman who told me that a Trump supporter had said, “We’re gonna rape you,” came up to me and said, “If you get arrested, do you have somebody to bail you out?” I said that I was in no position to get thrown into a paddy wagon, being on the mend from chronic health ailments which had disabled me some number of years back. Also, the appearance of gas masks was sobering, because I had no intention of getting gassed. Once you’ve been through that experience, quoth the raven becomes your mantra. I was eyeing my car and deciding that I was going to have to bail from this scene sooner rather than later.
Then the police helicopters appeared and they announced, “You are assembling unlawfully. This is your last warning to disperse.” I hadn’t even heard a first warning, but I wasn’t about to argue with this much hardware, on top of a row of cops with batons, and rubber bullets and I had no doubt, tear gas.
There were three more choppers besides this one.
Apparently, the Trumpites had a permit to assemble and the “protesters” across the street did not. The Trumpites were told to leave and did and then we were told to disperse as well.
I had to find the long way home since Foothill Boulevard was closed off, so I got on the freeway and drove to an exit that allowed me to approach the house from seven miles east, since I couldn’t drive two miles west because of the road block.
This is Hometown, USA in the era of Trump. Neighbors don’t speak to neighbors. Friendships have shattered, and family relations are frayed. There are pundits who predict that Americans will be in the streets post November 3, no matter how it comes down. May God help us to unite, because we truly are lost right now. There are two Americas, and unless we literally start ghettoizing portions of cities and states for denizens of each one, I don’t know how we can continue to live side by side. Maybe it will be like it was today, where each side makes a display, and shares their views, and then goes home. I hope so. I truly hope so.
I lived through Watergate, Vietnam, Nixon, all of that, but today is different. Back then, we were one people. We were divided and torn over matters of great import and emotions ran high, but we were one people. I have never seen this level of division in America prior to Donald Trump. I pray that we find a way to heal ourselves.
They are not the crazies. They are traitors, and always have been. Why in the hell all Democrats are not pounding this fact into the heads of the entire world, I will never know. Trump is not a bad President, he is a good traitor.
All Arnold gave away were floor plans.
The entire world knows what’s going on here. It’s how we tell the people who are deluded about Trump to wake up is the quandary.
They live in a bubble and refuse to look at the truth. I really ain’t clever enough to deprogram them. I could re-educate them, but I don’t know how to erase the black board.
I believe what divides us as people has always been there. It is just out in the open now as it hasn’t been in a lot of years. When the nation gets her girdle back on she will squeeze the bigots and haters back where they’ve hidden before. And we will get back to the business of love thy neighbor and the golden rule stuff.
I condemn Republicans for their racism and the way they blame all the problems in the world on people that are different. However, I am just as bad because I blame ALL of the world’s problems on conservatives. Of course the difference is that I am right. Ha!Ha!
What amazes me is that a significant portion of the population either don’t see or wilfully ignore the obvious: Trump was elected by Putin, he’s working for him to sow dissension and wreck the government and its institutions, and he’s profiting from all this as a career crook. As a friend said to me, you can cure ignorance, but you can’t fix stupid.
This is absolutely true. Even Richard Burr, a Republican, said the other day that the Russians are trying to sow discord and distrust of democracy. But these clowns don’t hear that. That is what is terrifying. Even their own elected representatives are trying to tell them what’s what. Even Marco Rubio, for God’s sake, said that election interference was alarming.
Thank you, Ursula – for then and for now (and for in-between).
Thank you for showing up to read every day, Nancy.
“hitting a chord of shared grievance with a certain portion of the American electorate — who I pray to God wake up and realize that they’re voting against their own self-interest, but even as I say that, I don’t hold out much hope.”
Ursula, that “certain portion” has been voting against their own self-interest now for close to 40 years. All they’ve wanted (and pretty much all they’ve gotten in return) is that *someone else*–preferably a minority–suffers even more. It’s the classic scheme that allowed racism to flourish in the Deep South for generations after the Civil War. The more-or-less well-off *conservative* white power structure made certain that their (despised and unwelcome–except for voting) poor white trash had someone else to look down on and to whom they could feel superior. The ploy was basically, “You’re poor white trash but, at least, you’re not a n****r. And, if you vote for us, well, you might never be better than poor white trash but you’ll still be better than that n****r.”
Reagan prettied it up by promising tax cuts that would ultimately be paid for by cutting the social programs that helped *those* people (the Cadillac driving welfare queens; the folks using their food stamps to buy steak and lobster when “hard-working stiffs” were scraping by on “ground meat” and Hamburger Helper). But it was just the same pig with a different shade of lipstick.
Listening to the Trump talking points, the simple, stupid points about protecting the second amendment, bla bla, was mesmerizing. It’s like the lyric from that old song, “What a fool believes, he sees.” That ought to be Trump’s theme song.
Stay safe! This worried me.
You would think that Himself’s comments about how the fires are because we’re not keeping the forest floors clean (“not raking the forest”) would clue them in. (FWIW, most of the current fires are on state or privately-owned land. And nearly all are not in “forests”.)
The biggest problem, is that he doesn’t care to send any assistance to “blue states”.
If you look at the Republican party as the Confederate party.
It all makes sense.
I just do not understand how anyone can follow DT. I have noticed that his followers are loud, rude, short-tempered, prone to violence and not well-educated. Some are downright deranged. Those who are wealthy, want to keep it that way no matter what they have to do. Money plays a big role in how things are decided.