'Deportee'

Has a nation ever been so befouled, beclowned and besmirched by someone charged with its care and leadership before? What was so broken in an obtuse third of the American personality that we allowed such an exceptionally awful man to rise to power?

It is no accident that as soon as Republicans began to mildly pushback on Trump, his first response was to immediately lash out at women. (In this week’s case it was again White House reporter and CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins). It’s a deranged form of self-soothing for the deeply flawed, misogynistic, sexual predator/president.

And once he got into office, how was it not plain for all to see that he was not merely a belligerent buffoon, but he was in fact using his power to enrich himself and his family while destroying the very fabric of our society and breaking through the moral barricades of our institutions to allow his criminal scrum of scoundrels to pillage and plunder?

To steal from the neediest among us to further line the greasy pockets of Palm Beach dilettantes and deadbeat debutantes. The sort of people a saner nation would mock mercilessly, or at the very least, invent new forms of sitcoms and comedy to satire.

Instead, these bejeweled weasels inveigle themselves further into the foundation of our society. Buying their way into our media, fashion and attention spans. Trump himself is like a rabid muskrat chewing on the dining room table’s legs while a dysfunctional family sits down to a Thanksgiving dinner of cold duck and crow.

We have gone from counting our blessings to airing our grievances and bickering with each other to the point of calamity. The folks who would divide us think they can still function without those they seek to exile and shun; denying the modest and deserving a place in a functioning society. Bifurcating us to the extent we distrust our our one-time friends and neighbors. Fomenting discord to encourage the aggression that has seeped into our national character is both dysfunctional and dangerous.

To deny benefits and protections to anyone, regardless of their backgrounds, is to deny all of us the very spirit that allows this country to function and move forward.

Marginalizing and punishing a sector of society that doesn’t adhere to the dogma and bigotry of a reactionary movement, designed to enrich its leader by exploiting grievance and racism, is as lethal to our land as any plague or pestilence.

That sort of vitriol and anger hurts the host as well as the intended targets of the resentments and retributions. The pervasive defilement of our our principles in service of one man’s ego run amok is exacerbating our current existential predicament.

If you view a nation at its core as aligned in common cause under a power greater than ourselves (to borrow a phrase from recovery), then we must surrender a bit of self-will to flourish in a functioning society. Not in some dictatorial sense of course, but in the interest of equanimity and balance.

This concept should be, and often is, written into the charter of any functioning civilization, a trade-off we all make to have our hard-earned tax dollars go towards providing for a military and an infrastructure that works for the protection and prosperity of us all. It is a downpayment on securing our very way of life. A bedrock of common decency upon which true exceptionalism can be built.

MAGA loves to quote ‘One Nation Under God’ but they refuse to behave with the humility required to surrender to a power greater than ourselves, which is in many ways a foundational prerequisite of citizenship.

Of course we have to trust that political power is being wielded by a duly elected and co-equal branch representing the interests of the many and not just the oligarchy. The few who curry favor with a tyrant to amass wealth and turn a blind eye to the persecution and suffering of the many are never true patriots. They instead seek to undermine our checks and balances for personal gain, rewarding avarice and eschewing the attributes of altruism.

After Elon Musk helped Trump win Pennsylvania using his vast wealth to usurp democracy in the interest of his own ambition, he gutted and destroyed U.S.A.’s global soft diplomacy by ‘feeding USAID into the wood chipper’, basically creating the Ebola outbreak we are now witnessing ravage the Democratic Republic of Congo. Just a fraction of the millions who will suffer and perish as a result of the actions of just a few terrible men, and in DOGE’s case, outright teenagers.

That all of us are afforded an equal say in the ‘beautiful argument’ of our democracy (to quote a Springsteen line) that moves forward the ideals and the patriotic quest of opportunity and freedom for all.

The ‘American Dream’ should always extend across its borders and for much of the last century it did just that - in the form of international aid. Despite the echoes of imperialism so central to our song, we did a lot of good in the world as well. Turning our back on that will only bring the nightmares closer to home.

The founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, when writing about the need to overcome self-will run riot, in the interest of placing our trust in a power greater than ourselves said it best, ‘The philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off. Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin.’ (This was a lesson our country seemed to understand after World War II when the Marshall Plan helped rebuild a devastated Europe and shared the bounty of our industrial might and booming economy with much of the world that only recently had been at war with itself. It was a good investment and the right thing to do because it (mostly) helped foster the peace and stability required to remain a superpower.

One can easily apply these prophetic words from AA literature to MAGAism itself and extend them to the concept of isolationism. They have placed their faith in one man over the many, believing we can trade in global order for a multipolar world run by a handful of despots and ‘strongmen’. There is nothing strong about refusing to care for your neighbors, it is both miserly and weak. And always leads to ruin.

The ‘America First’ movement are turning their backs on the ideals and institutions they pay lip service to while their so-called leaders are stripping it for parts and sneaking out the back door with our nation’s precious jewels and priceless artifacts. Both literally and figuratively.

We learned this week that Trump is making all federal grants align with ‘MAGA’ ideals or they face termination. This is as anti-American and as arrogant as it gets and will affect all aspects of our lives for generations.

As will the fast tracking of immigration cases by the Trump administration intended to overwhelm courts with burdensome case loads and denying due process to migrants seeking asylum and citizenship. They are deliberating manipulating the system not in the interest of expediency but to increase deportations.

Overwhelmed judges are more likely to push cases through rather than give them the time and scrutiny they deserve. Long lines are forming outside of immigration courts; lives hang in the balance while overloaded dockets decide their perilous fates.

Folks looking for a better life are not only being punished, they are being harshly and negligently processed through a system that has become a caricature of what was in place before Trump took over. Immigration was always a difficult issue - and other administrations have been overwhelmed in dealing with it, but none before this one sought out chaos as an ideological strategy.

Individuals subjected to such treatment will have their lives forever changed by yet another callous effort to go against the very grain of this nation by the architects of ‘America First’, namely the spiteful runt of a White nationalist, Stephen Miller.

Senate Republicans just this week approved another $70 billion to fund this unethical immigration machine through the end of Trump’s second term (and of course he is gearing up to steal a third term if we don’t stop him). Most of this money will be spent on ICE and the for-profit detention centers that have become the apex of the authoritarian design and kleptocratic rule of this ever burdensome mad king.

Trump gets a piece of every venture that comes under his purview - and the overpriced warehouses that are being purchased for the purposes of illegally housing immigrants are a major source of his graft.

There is no doubt in my mind that the overinflated sale prices of these buildings and the contracts being handed out to private prison companies like Geo Group and CoreCivic are resulting in massive kickbacks to Trump.

They certainly aren’t spending the money on healthcare and adequate food for their detainees. Men, women and children are denied due process so MAGA consiglieri, (such as the obviously unintelligent but overtly corrupt Markwayne Mullin, who comes across as some sort of Temu Chuck Norris engineered to appeal to the kind of stunted men who would want to become ICE Officers in the first place), can make a profit.

A wholly shameful occupation in this dark moment. The GOP are perpetrating and purveying what will go down in history as one of the shameful eras in American history; they represent a party that is completely adrift not just from the values that we should adhere to as a society but have placed greed and reactionary violence above humanity.

I know Donald Trump and I know how deeply pleased he must be with all the suffering his causing. He comes from a family that is generationally racist, and he has raised children that will carry on his ignorance and venality.

We are letting the worst among us dictate our fate as a nation and this should outrage us all to the point we no longer tolerate it. POTUS has reshaped this country in ways we may come to regret for centuries. We can already see its effects in our everyday lives - and as hard as it is to not look away that is exactly what we must continue to do.

To document and bear witness to this administration’s crimes so we can not only begin to hold them accountable when we take back the House and Senate in November, we can also use their cruelty in this moment to educate future generations about the evil that can transpire under the guise of patriotism and normalcy.

Nothing is normal about this moment. You don’t have to go far in the U.S.A these days to see examples of people behaving poorly. We need to counter that with acts of love and tolerance, of acceptance and courage.

Humility is one of those attributes we don’t speak enough about in public life, especially in politics. The idea of serving others has been jettisoned in favor of a sort of judgmental, personality-driven politics. The notion of domination has supplanted a more sober approach to governance which fully takes in takes into account how the actions of the individual affects the lives of the many.

We have seen this dynamic at play most explicitly on the issue of gun control where a nation ruled by Republicans are unable to admit and accept that we have a crisis with firearms in this country. They are too beholden to the NRA and the regressive views of many gun owners, allowing children to suffer tragic fates the adults in charge could have stopped.

Our loftiest goals as a nation, the idea that ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ should be enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, came from English Enlightenment thinkers; specifically John Locke, who was known as the ‘father of liberalism’.

His influence on Thomas Jefferson was apparent in our founding document which set out to define those unalienable rights (at the time those rights obviously were not extended to women, indigenous peoples or enslaved persons of which Thomas Jefferson himself was an owner and abuser), but that does not make their inclusion any less significant in the trajectory of our nation.

The genesis of our transformation from such opaque origins was indeed there in this founding philosophy, a kernel of hope existed amongst the moral blindspots - and that was ironically the concept that this new government was created to protect - the rights of the people, not just monarchs, tyrants or wealthy landowners.

At least in language, if not fully in deed, there was an expansive view on what a country could be, and the Jeffersonian insertion of the word ‘happiness’ introduced the concept of virtue and personal betterment rather than just the pursuit of wealth.

Our founding fathers, despite their foibles (to ascribe a polite term to obvious moral defects) saw back on July 4, 1776 that for a nation to truly be great, it had to live by certain frameworks; those core values were the undergirding of the ‘American Dream’ for two-and-half centuries.

In this hour of their dismantling, we must rise to protect our own underpinnings; speaking out and taking action in every creative way imaginable.

Happiness is not simply material comfort, though access to basic necessities should be a right to all no matter where they are born.

It is extending the protections and promises of this once bountiful land of hope and dreams to all. We strengthen and buttress our identity as a nation by being brave enough and big enough to include all who seek to join us with a seat at the table. Fulfillment comes from doing the next right thing; this works for both individuals and countries.

That is what Woody Guthrie meant when he sang, ‘this land belongs to you and me’, the legendary folk singer who also penned ‘Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)’ about another regrettable chapter in our nation’s shameful treatment of immigrants.

Woody was no pollyanna when it came to injustice but a true messenger of hope, bearing a reminder to the people, all the people, that our genesis as a nation includes them too - and not to let any cynical, greedy, in-it-for-themselves corrupt politician tell them otherwise. Ever.

Stand up. Speak out. Share truth.

Guthrie was also no fan of Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr. and wrote two songs about his wretched landlord’s discriminatory practices in the early 1950s when he lived in a Trump building - Beach Haven, in Coney Island. But I digress.

I’ll write about my years on the folk festival circuit as a road manager and my associations with the Guthrie family another time. But whether it was Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie or John Sebastian, my ears always perked up when the Woody songs and stories came out.

One of my favorite memories from those days was a tribute concert to Woody Guthrie at the Kennedy Center to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday. Jackson Browne performed along with Rosanne Cash, John Mellencamp, Lucinda Williams, Tom Morello and many others.

Back at the Foggy Bottom boutique hotel after the show with friend and folk singer Joel Rafael, who performed as well and is great ambassador of Guthrie’s legacy, we were in the tiny little elevator when none other than Ramblin’ Jack Elliot stepped in with us and started chatting.

Ramblin’ Jack was one of Woody’s closest friends and traveling companions, falling under Woody’s spell when he was 19 years-old. He learned to play guitar and sing from Woody himself, spending nearly two decades under his tutelage, and also mentored a young Bob Dylan.

Elliott was still going strong and carrying the torch back on this night in the fall of 2011. It reminded me of the resilience of what some might think of as a modest tradition. There’s a strength in an American music that very much belongs to the people who make and consume it.

Much like jazz and blues, in folk there are elements of all sorts of cultures that get mixed up in a truly unique gumbo of graciousness and earthy illumination because, elementally, that is what speaking truth to power through the arts is: an act of gratitude in the face of enormous challenges and outright evil.

A beacon in darkness.

A nutritious meal for the soul so to speak. A coat of many colors in a chilly wind.

There is grace in both creatively sharing the news in a form that sparks joy and pointing out that a better day is coming.

The Trump regime is systemically denying basic human needs to people innocent of crimes and undeserving of the demonization an entire party has built its brand upon. It is not only shameful, it is anti-American.

Nothing could be in further opposition to who we have always aspired to be as a nation and a people. They are an artless administration and we must stop them now.

We will counter this reactionary darkness with spirit - with truthful, uncompromising messaging and hope. They will be singing songs about these times in a hundred years.

Let’s give ‘em more to sing than ‘Deportees’. Let’s change this trajectory we are on now and extend our open arms to all who want to work hard and build their own American Dream.

Before it becomes even more of a nightmare. Be well.

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