The Oppenheimer Report 10/23/17

Another one of my favorite musical artists died last week. Gord Downie, front man for The Tragically Hip was the most recent casualty, succumbing to a brain tumor last week. Canadian music lovers are in mourning, and somewhere in Canada there is I’m sure a Hip song playing at this very moment. I started listening to the Hip in the late 80’s while still living in Buffalo, and they were extremely popular in that border city. Strangely, the band never really took off elsewhere in the U.S., which I never understood. I think they are hands down the best rock band to come out of Canada, period. I was always envious of my stateside friends lucky enough to see them in some small club. Like them or not, The Hip left their indelible mark on Canadian music and Gord Downie will forever be deemed one of Canada’s best and most unique ambassadors of rock and roll.

The other night I turned on CNN, and all I heard was people yelling over each other. This now seems to be the norm in my divided country; nobody is listening, and EVERYBODY is talking. I fear Trump’s insensitivity, rudeness, and disrespect are contagious. The subject of this latest scream-fest involved the un-presidential faux pas involving the widower of a soldier killed in that recent ambush in Niger. The general spin is that his administration is trying to dodge the real story, which is that the army somehow failed these soldiers. Nobody looks good in this latest nonsensical scandal. Politicizing the grief of a fallen soldier’s family is about as low as you can get. Once again Trump looks like an impulsive child. Can you imagine being Trump’s Press Secretary, or Communications Director, or Secretary of State? Or Melania for heaven’s sake! Hey, she knew what she signed up for when she married him, right?

I’m tired of hearing about what a fool and an asshole Trump is. I think that case has been made quite convincingly by the media and the pundits. Astonished and indignant at his decidedly un-leaderly behavior, we gasp, horrified by his latest outrageous tweet. Trevor Noah, The Daily Show host did a very funny monologue on Donald wherein he likened him to a petulant 5-year-old. It would have been funnier if it wasn’t so true.

So how did we get here? Talk about putting your big boy pants on. If you don’t like where your democratic society is headed, why blame the leaders we elect? Does not the electorate bear some of the blame? This was not a hijacking, or a military coup. This bozo won the electoral college in the United States presidential election. An arguable majority of Americans felt that it was time to drain the swamp and they would have elected Idi Amin if they thought he’d do that. I often say defensively that I didn’t vote for Trump, which albeit true, does not exonerate me. Either by apathy or inaction, I indirectly contributed to this. There is no question that Trump is a boorish, and maybe a hateful, ignorant fool, but he also represents a change from the status quo. All the people who are screaming and yelling about the fury that he has unleashed must not have been paying attention to the seething cauldron of rage bubbling underneath the calm complacent parallel universe some of us live in. Racism is alive and thriving in America, women are paid less than men for commensurate jobs, guns and violence are everywhere, and in this age of hyper spin, the average American can’t tell what is really happening by watching the news. Donald may be an asshole, but don’t shoot the messenger.

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED