Fmr Pres Trump: Left Boogeyman or Biblical Golem of Antiquity? Nah… Just Bedrock of our National Survival!
By Stephen Mayo
Everybody needs a Golem once in a while.
Explanation: Jewish legend dating to 6th century Prague (present day Czech Republic) records a powerful being, an imitation of a man, even a monster of sorts created from matter, earth or soil. This mystical force, called a Golem, was conjured to battle threats, including pogroms and blood libels (false accusations of ritual murders and other crimes) to Jewish Europeans according to Rabbis at the time. People today will recall a version of this village horror tale in Frankenstein, a novel by early Victorian author Mary Shelley which helped usher in the genre of scientific and technological dystopian terror at the beginning of the modern industrial age.
If you follow the press coverage of the present presidential race, you might perceive the 45th President, Republican Donald J. Trump, as a boogeyman; you might construe him (mistakenly, I would argue) as a manifestation of the Frankenstein monster. As the mild-seeming, attractive and pleasantly tempered Democrat nominee Kamala Harris enjoys a fair “pass” by the established legacy media’s scandalmongers and slanderers, Trump has drawn all species of accusation, insult and name-calling (abetted, undoubtedly by his coarse manner, bombast, indelicacy of phrasing and rhetorical excess). This week we heard accusations of a truly poisonous nature of his alleged fascism and Nazism from former office-holders and military “brass,” DC insiders, and shop-worn political pundits (mostly Democrats, and disaffected GOP “hands,” “out-in-the-cold” policy bureaucrats and disgruntled former Trump allies and employees; now outlawry in their old circles!). These charges have been unreasonbably, factually unfounded and to this student of history, thoroughly out of line.
For established, experienced Democrats to associate Trump with the disgraceful, 1930s-era pro-Hitler, German-American “bund” and liken him to Adolf Hitler, is beyond the pale.
No physical, documentary or textual basis has been offered for these gross lies. Nothing even ancient – perhaps from the former president’s even more undisciplined and silly time in prep school, college or graduate school – term papers, crib notes or third-party (and likely hearsay-based) reports of any late-night dormitory blather. Yet, the widely leftist, print news sources deliver the slander with no mild comment or even superficial examination. And never mind civically-virtuous suggestions of “bi-partisan” DC cooperation between right and left, while Harris’s supporters and media boosters never miss an opportunity for tendentious references to Trump’s MAGA fans and allegedly radically-rightist, populist political base. This, despite the fact that polling and research indicate that traditional Democratic sectors, including public servants, middling bureaucrats and, of course, increasing proportions of the African-American and American Spanish-surnamed communities generally. are embracing Trumpian values The unfortunately shrinking population of workers in manufacturing and related trades must be accounted in Trump’s favor; especially since Globalism and free and unfair trade practices have worked their havoc on our once-glorious American Industrial Revolution legacy.
That this bare-knuckled, mildly (by any standard of analysis) conservative advocate has earned the enmity and distain of the American cultural, artistic and academic quarter is no surprise. Since my student experience four decades ago, the scholastic and campus left has never been charmed by Trump’s naked entrepreneurial zeal and brazen material display. It certainly will not welcome Trump’s rhetorical bluster delivered plainly and with a bedeviling simplicity that sometimes, unfortunately, suggests a lack of seriousness and deliberation. Too bad; since his practical, sensible and often-brillinatly imaginative choices for our national direction could be broadened to attract moderates, members of the “chattering classes” and other’s of a subtler disposition;
But with the media’s soft handling of the democrat standard-bearer, what is there to compare to? The 2024 campaign deserves a serious examination of immigration, the economy, the challenge of foreign totalitarian states and Islamist terrorism – but do not expect it from today’s cultural and intellectual media-sphere.
Now, back to our Golem. After contemplating the Democrats’ feverishly over-characterized nightmare boogeyman Trump, consider another view. He is an epochal power-force. Delivered for our benefit; the sum-force of our unique, world-liberating philosophical, economic and cultural evolution as a nation. Not likely to be repeated. With the world on the brink of Middle Eastern conflagration; traditional European states in disarray, without a hint of their future destinies apart from a survival dependent on the favor of one of the world’s few remaining superpowers. What choices remain to American voters?
The GOP pick is no gentleman and no charming, Western European dandy, bleeding-heart humanitarian or even a student of history; but he is no “Hun” or “Mongol” of antiquity the Dark Ages. He has proven survivalist instincts. Hewn from the native, naturalist and immigrant narrative of the nearly three American Centureies. He is an experienced operator, an old business-hand with a long record of success, failure and yes, recovery. He has dealt with Uber-avaricious competitors, all manner of underworld and under-handed capitalist and labor extremism. He has endured all kinds of politicians and bureaucrats; his former Democrat “playthings” and his present Republican buds! Since his first term as president he has survived foreign provocations, two assassinations plots, two groundless and witless impeachments and managed to not get his country into a single military conflict of any size. He has promised to not get stuck in a European ground war that does not have immediate importance to the United States; but has promised to help our selves and our best allies, among them the State of Israel, stamp out genocidal threats to their peoples’ existence and the peace of the Free World. I believe him!
He has promised to deter worldly organized and uncontrolled and un-organized threats (read: the recognized borders of our American Democratic Republic) to the United States’s independence and sovereignty from Asia, Eurasia, the Southern Hemisphere, and especially from Iranian Islamist irredentism.
The Golem was crude with no speech or personality according to the Kabbalistic texts I’ve scanned, This is the near-universal portrayal of candidate Trump today too. Just like these biblical characters; devoted and single-purposed to their own survival and that of their creators and sponsors. Similarly, Trump’s allegiance to the Constitution and our sovereign nation and government (to which he has previously signed an oath of office!) is logical, self-preservationist and obvious. This deeply flawed, often jester-like figure; an American mediocrity, just what our founder-doctors enabled within our federalist design. No perfect choice to be sure; but what other American figure is more prepared to confront our multiple international competitors and collaborators, antagonists and allies, enemies and dependencies? One tough schm**k to be sure. But whom else are we to call to handle the even greater schm**s in today’s World?
The sources inform us: the Golem of Antiquity was made from a base, earthly substance. Former developer Trump’s background in development may be especially relevant for the 47th presidency. His composition may be said to be greater than soil or clay; this property buyer, excavator, contractor, pourer of concrete, erector of steel, glass, stone and mortar; this employer of men and women on for the 47th presidency Former President Trump is made from sterner stuff; New York City bedrock.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR – WESTCHESTER RISING
The Case for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in this Year’s Presidential Election
Our nation will make what is probably the most consequential election choice since 1860 and 1932 this fall. Like many Americans, I did not get my first choice for the 2024 general election (I actively supported this past spring the candidacy of Ambassador/former Governor Nikki Haley for the Republican Party presidential nomination).
Indeed, however, a choice must be made and the quotations attributed to our 35th and 40th Presidents should serve as a guide in making that choice. For me, it is a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz on the Democratic Party ticket:
· Kamala Harris has the resume for the nation’s highest office. She has demonstrated experience and a solid record of public service at every level of local, state and Federal government. As a prosecutor in California, she won battles against transnational criminals, for-profit colleges, home foreclosures and corporate polluters. She has more national experience as a Senator and Vice President than did Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Trump when they were elected;
· Vice President Harris is a consensus-oriented pragmatist. While it is true that she had a very liberal voting record as the Senator from California, she learned to broaden her appeal to the center of American politics during her tenure as Vice President and now as a Presidential candidate. Her commitment to include prominent Republicans in her cabinet is evidence of that appeal;
· Vice President Harris would be a far better fiscal and economic steward than her Republican opponent. While she needs to give her proposals greater specificity, most economists and fiscal analysts believe her policies would achiever lower rates of inflation and interest rates as well as provide a better return on public investment. The same cannot be said for the Trump-Vance team.
Lastly, and the most compelling reason for me – and countless numbers of prominent Republicans – is that Vice President Harris stands for the rule of law and our Constitution. Many Republicans and independent voters view this election as a choice between democracy and autocracy. Kamala Harris warrants election as our next President.
Stephen R. Rolandi
Larchmont, NY
(Mr. Rolandi, a lifelong Republican, served in executive positions in the Koch, Giuliani, Bloomberg and Paterson administrations. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Public Administration at Pace University and City University of New York and active with Principles First and Republicans for Harris).
The Electoral College Protects Democracy
One of the least understood aspects of our presidential election system is the Electoral College. It is singularly important because the President is the only public official elected by the entire nation.
From the Founding era till now, American states have been diverse, with different climates, geographic features, industries and cultures, ranging from cities to farmland to frontier settlements. The needs of people living in a city differ from those living on a rural farm or ranch or small town.
It is neither fair nor just nor freedom-promoting for a few large population cities to rule over people in rural areas whose needs are different, overwhelming them by the sheer number of ballots they can produce. For example, those who live in a large city might not need a car because they could get where they need to go by walking, bus or train. But in rural or suburban areas, people must have a car to get to work, school, grocery shopping, or medical appointments. The price of gas and the tax rate affects both, but has a disproportionately negative effect on one group. The Electoral College pushes a potential President to meet with and understand the needs of diverse groups, not just stack up votes in large cities and ignore those who grow our food and produce the resources everyone needs. Allowing a few large cities to control who becomes President, as relying on popular vote would, skews his perspective and is grossly unjust, effectively disfranchising everyone else.
The Electoral College Forces Candidates to be More Moderate
“Objections to the Electoral College …are virtually all rooted in the assumption that unfettered “democracy” is the only ideal which should characterize all major governing principles. The founders believed in consent of the governed. But they were also aware that unfettered democracy was and is a substantial, potentially lethal threat to freedom and individual liberty….in order to protect against majoritarian abuses…[which] might bring to power a popular demagogue [who] might be able to manipulate the opinions and attitudes in major population centers so that those centers swamp the more diversified interests of the country at large….The founders were well aware of such risk and designed an ingenious system to protect the individual citizen from the potential crushing power of an oppressive national government. They crafted a combination of democracy, direct government, and republic, representative government.” (The Electoral College: Critical to Our Republic, Josiah Peterson.)
All our citizens, rural or urban are important, disfranchising some by focusing only on large cities is not only unjust, bt damages everyone by enabling unbalanced policies that reflect only the interests of large population centers. This would be akin to taxing the tips of service workers but not the bonuses of CEOs and financial traders. When bad economic policies raise the cost of food, it hurts the ordinary worker but not government officials who make far more and vote themselves massive raises and expense payments. If gas is high and the roads are a mess, those who pay for their own cars and gas suffer but for pols who voted themselves free cars and gas at the taxpayers’ expense, it doesn’t hurt at all. And when it doesn’t hurt at all, they have no incentive to change their actions.
Thomas Jefferson noted in his First Inaugural Address: “…[F]or that will (of the majority) to be rightful, it must be reasonable, that that minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.” To be reasonable and just, a majority and a President must take into account others’ needs and interest. Pure majorities can be, and often are, tyrannical, and must be checked and balanced. (Venezuela provides an overwhelming example of the devastating impact that a powerful, popularly elected, centralized government can create.)
Without the Electoral College, Many People’s Votes would Not Count
A presidential election must be more than a popularity contest that enables mob tyranny. The Electoral College is a built in self-check so that low population but important states that produce our food and resources for products also get to choose. People in rural areas are more independent and individualistic than people in cities In many aspects of life, such as growing their own food and being able to fix things–even roads and fences, they are less dependent than city dwellers, who rarely have the skills or the equipment to take care of things they depend on someone else to do. These practical experiences build differences in perspective on how government should function; the Electoral College forces presidential candidates to hear both perspectives and figure out how not to burden one group at the expense of the other. Without it, the voices of people in rural areas and smaller states would be overwhelmed by mere numbers and their essential perspective ignored.
Rural people understand more about the essential processes of life: working for months to prepare ground, plant, nurture, water and protect before even seeing a sprout. Those who only see the fruits of months of labor packaged, wrapped and ready to cook and eat do not understand how regulations and forcing unreliable energy sources (which take up farmland with massive arrays ) lower production and strips the profit from small farms, often destroying them.
New York used to be much more agricultural, one of the largest dairy and peach states; well into the 20th century there were potato farms on Long Island. Now, one party dominance with no built-in feature to counterbalance has overdeveloped what was farm land on Long Island, separated city residents from those diverse communities, and made those products come from farther away. State policies dominated by New York City thinking damaged rural areas. Because of the tax system, rural New York was diminishing in population even before crime-facilitating bail and sanctuary city policies pushed hundreds of thousands out of lower New York–reducing our congressional delegation and thereby Electoral College votes.
America is a diverse country; we must keep the Electoral College because it results in better polices for all of us. And it is time to develop more checks and balances in the New York State legislature. A one party system is always tyrannical.
For Further Reading: The Electoral College: Critical to Our Republic – Josiah Peterson;
Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College – Tara Ross
Judith Niewiadomski,Yonkers
