{"id":25857,"date":"2016-11-05T00:01:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T07:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=25857"},"modified":"2016-11-05T00:01:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T07:01:29","slug":"trump-played-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/trump-played-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump Played Me. Here’s How"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Donald<\/a>
Donald Trump played me this election cycle. He’s thinking bigger than ever.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Donald Trump played me. He\u00a0got exactly what he wanted from me this election season. And what he wanted, deep down, was not my vote. What he\u00a0wanted was my attention. And he got it in the form of my glued-to-the-TV fascination with this 2016 version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon — Donald being the creature and the lagoon being the current state of the American psyche.<\/p>\n

He got it.\u00a0He got my attention and the attention of\u00a0everyone else on the planet with access to a smart phone.<\/p>\n

A Vote for Trump?<\/h5>\n

I wouldn’t dream of voting for Donald Trump. Yet he has absconded with something nearly as valuable — my time and mental energy. For months now, Trump has inhabited the front of my brain. His antics have been plastered to the inside of my forehead.<\/p>\n

\"Donald
Trump played me when he told NBC’s Chris Matthews a woman should be punished for having an abortion if it’s illegal. NBC News Video<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wake up in the morning wondering, “What the heck is The Donald going to do today?” My thoughts turn to\u00a0Trump, not fondly, of course, but\u00a0with a hefty\u00a0frisson of anticipation. How will\u00a0the Republican nominee for president raise my hackles\u00a0today? How will he once again make me feel oh-so-superior to this venal lummox with the fake suntan whose name glitters on\u00a0edifices\u00a0from Las Vegas to Pennsylvania Avenue?<\/p>\n

In June Trump\u00a0claimed the U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had \u201can absolute conflict\u201d in presiding over Trump University\u00a0litigation because Curiel\u00a0was \u201cof Mexican heritage.\u201d In July Trump\u00a0insulted the family of Humayun Khan, an American Muslim soldier who died in combat in Iraq. In September he\u00a0was overheard boasting on an “Access Hollywood” videotape<\/a> of\u00a0grabbing women’s crotches and popping lifesavers before imposing pouty-mouthed kisses on unsuspecting subordinates.<\/p>\n

He’s Upped His Game<\/h5>\n

This past week, however, my fascination has turned to horror. Why? Because Trump has upped the ante. He’s playing an even more dangerous\u00a0game. It’s one that seeks to\u00a0undercut Americans’ (and the world’s?) faith in American representative government by suggesting that American elections are rigged.<\/p>\n

So, right now I’m doing a little double take. What’s happening? What is it about Trump — but also about me — that causes\u00a0me to lavish so much of\u00a0my attention, my chi, on\u00a0a flimflam man? A showman who has turned an American presidential election season\u00a0into a bawdy, reckless, long-running, grade-B narrative about — himself?<\/p>\n

Trump played me. How did he pull that off? Clearly, something in me has gotten hooked in by Donald Trump. A button has been pushed.<\/p>\n

What’s the button?<\/p>\n

I don’t think Donald Trump is very smart. His vocabulary is minimal, his attention span even more so. As the first presidential debate with Hilary Clinton approached, Trump’s team couldn’t get him to focus long enough to prep for the debate, with ludicrous results for the candidate.<\/p>\n

How Trump\u00a0Played Me<\/h5>\n

But I do think he’s shrewd. He knows how to get and hold people’s attention. He holds the attention of his supporters by playing on their outrage at being left out of the national conversation. He holds the attention of knee-jerk moderates like me by locating and tweaking my — usually quiescent\u00a0— capacity\u00a0for\u00a0outrage.<\/p>\n

What outrages me?<\/p>\n

People who don’t play fair, that’s who. People who violate other people’s trust. And this election cycle, I thinking of one person in\u00a0particular. It’s a man whose monumental disregard\u00a0for fair play — for respectful give-and-take between competing interests and points of view —\u00a0runs the risk of dismantling a fragile institution. And that would be the United States of America,\u00a0which has survived for 240 years thanks largely to simple, human trust.<\/p>\n

On a Lincoln penny\u00a0you can read the words, “In God We Trust.”<\/p>\n

But, imo, trust in God is not what makes American successful. What makes America great\u00a0is our 240-year-old\u00a0ability to trust our fellow citizens, fallible as we and they clearly\u00a0are.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>
Scott Dikkers had some fun taking jabs at Trump’s obsession with losers and losing\u00a0in his satirical book “Trump’s America.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the years, Trump has refused to pay<\/a>\u00a0countless suppliers and business associates. He has reneged on deals, violating his colleagues’\u00a0trust. He\u00a0admits to sexually assaulting numerous women and getting away with it — betraying women’s\u00a0trust.<\/p>\n

In other words, Donald Trump does not believe in that most basic premise\u00a0of civilization\u00a0— trust. And, somewhere in that not-very-bright brain of his, he\u00a0has glommed onto\u00a0something essential: He\u00a0has figured out how to mess\u00a0with the fragile web of mutual trust\u00a0that holds societies\u00a0together. What’s more, he’s\u00a0figured out that messing with that trust gets him the one thing\u00a0he wants more than anything (including the presidency?) and that is — attention. Lots of it.<\/p>\n

Are We a Nation of Losers?<\/h5>\n

Trump’s assaults on trust\u00a0scare the heck out of people like me, people whose world view is predicated on mutual respect. We are people, I’ve noticed, whom\u00a0Trump often writes\u00a0off\u00a0as\u00a0losers.<\/p>\n

So — is that the\u00a0button that Trump has been pushing all these months? Has he been pushing my\u00a0“Am I a Loser?” button?\u00a0Am I a loser?<\/p>\n

And if Trump is the Creature\u00a0from the Black Lagoon, what and where is that lagoon?<\/p>\n

I think it’s\u00a0a place where people have decided not to trust each other.<\/p>\n

Here’s a post I wrote when I still thought Trump was laughable: “Jesus Was a Loser. Does That Make Trump a Winner?”<\/a> Here’s one from when I thought everybody could see how inept\u00a0Trump was:\u00a0“Donald Trump Outs the Elephant in the Pro-Life Room.”<\/a>\u00a0And, finally, here’s my\u00a0Donald-Trump-Meets-Pope-Francis<\/a>\u00a0post — which\u00a0gives me hope that humanity has not totally lost its mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/a>
Is Donald Trump the Creature from the Black Lagoon? If so, where’s the lagoon? Image courtesy of Greg Willis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Donald Trump played me. He got what he wanted from me this election season. And it wasn’t my vote. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1820,1821,78,34,1562,1822,82,282,1823,1228,1824],"class_list":["post-25857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-black-lagoon","tag-chi","tag-civics","tag-dont-miss","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-politics","tag-rigged-elections","tag-television","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}