100 days, 100 nights, to know a man’s heart/
And a little more, before, he knows his own
************
Lost in the hubbub of the news this past week was the passing this week of soul singer Sharon Jones at the age of 60 from pancreatic cancer. Releasing her first record when she was 40 years old, she made an abbreviated but very bright arc with her career. Backed by the Dap-Kings, Jones had a truly soulful voice, one that will be missed.
Looking for something of hers to play for this week’s Sunday Morning Music, I thought that one of her biggest hits would be appropriate for the times in which we are living. It’s 100 Days, 100 Nights.
It’s a powerful song with a simple premise, as the lyrics at the top attest– a person shows their true self in a relatively short time. I think most of us would agree to that. I thought this really applied to the early days of the president-elect’s transition. He has staffed his transition team and pick cabinet members that are beginning to show his true heart.
And it ain’t that different from the heart he showed us on the campaign trail, folks. Did you really expect him to change?
He’s chosen primarily white men who have long histories of racist, misogynistic, nationalistic, xenophobic and homophobic words and actions. These are not men whose positions have evolved on these things. They are there to put Trump’s words into action. He told us who he was on the trail and he’s sticking to it now.
There are many of you out there who say that your vote for him was not a vote for those beliefs, that they are not yours, that you are not racist or homophobic or xenophobic. I take you at your word and know for a fact that many of you are not those things. But you must realize that your vote was a tacit endorsement of all those things right down to the nastiest little dig. You chose and found acceptable the entire candidate who proudly wore those badges and when he follows up on doing the things that he said he would do, even the ones you thought were not to your liking, those actions belong to you.
And when you say that if he tries to strip away our rights you will stand with us, I need to know at what point do you step forward to protest? There were plenty of Germans in the 1930’s who were not Nazis and didn’t hold any of the racist beliefs of the party. But they also didn’t step up in protest and went along with the crowd. They became the crowd and soon there was no place for protest, no one willing to hear a voice in dissent. And we all know how that ended.
One of the scariest things I’ve read in the last few days was an article that stated two leading economists have stated that Trump’s economic plan could succeed in a big way. I am not scared of his success, it’s just that under this scenario it would be an explosive growth that would be very short term and very, very costly in the longer run, perhaps four or five years. The deficits would explode and it would all end with a huge crash in our economy, one perhaps rivaling or even exceeding the levels of the Great Depression.
That’s Depression with a D.
That in itself is scary. But the part that truly alarms me is that in the time of this short term growth, say four years, Trump would gain popularity and wider acceptance. The economic growth would distract the attention of the wider population from the fundamental changes to our society he would be enacting. When our pocketbook is doing well we don’t want to pay attention to how the rights of others might be faring, the vast corruption that may be taking place, how the environment might be suffering or that our first amendment rights may be eroding. And possibly so much more.
Our distraction will be our undoing.
And the president-elect is a master of distraction and diversion.
So while we usually judge a presidency by its first 100 days, I think we can begin Trump’s from the moment they declared him the winner of this election. We’ll soon know his heart. Sing it, Sharon. Have a good day.
Redtree Times 