The Only Good Foreigner is Rod Stewart

Of the many stickers, posters, and other political ephemera I have hanging in my office, one of my most favorite is a bumper sticker referring a joke from the great webcomic Wondermark. It's so great, this is at least the second time I've used it as the header of a post. If you can't read it, it's amending a famous old quote attributed to Ghandi to now read "First they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. Then their children claim it was their idea all along."

I think it so very perfectly encapsulates our desire to constantly re-write and whitewash the past. Since history has already decided who the good side and the bad side are in most every conflict, it's pretty easy to look back and pat ourselves on the back for our presumption we would have been squarely on the good side. It's what allows us to pretend like everyone loved MLK and the freedom riders and the lunch counter sit-ins, because they were so obviously correct, when at the time, a majority of the nation disagreed with what the freedom riders were doing and felt lunch counter sit-ins were doing more to hurt the cause of civil rights than help it.

We've got another handy example of this happening in real time as Trump's attempt to ban entry for travelers from numerous nations was shot down, only to be followed by a ramping-up of immigration enforcement and deportations, with ICE raids happening all across the nation and ICE agents working to lie about who immigrants are to paint them as villainous. And, of course, this is likely to only get much worse following Trump's SOTU, in which he played the classic xenophobic card of claiming all of our problems are due to dirty, dirty foreigners and their dirty, dirty foreign ways.

A popular narrative to try to sell these policies is that the people we're deporting or not allowing to enter the nation are bad and dangerous people, and keeping them out/kicking them out is a matter of national safety. Many others counter that by pointing out that a large number of people being deported/prevented from entering are actually refugees, very often refugees from political violence either directly inflicted by the US government or indirectly through regimes supported and financed by the American government.

But regardless of the position take, ultimately the heart of the debate is whether these people are "worthy" or "deserving" to be in America, in large part defined as whether they're fleeing something truly dangerous, thus giving us a moral imperative to accept/continue to allow these refugees.

The problem is that for one side of this "debate," there seems to be no one who is truly deserving.

Side note: this pretty well parallels the Right's concern over the "deserving" poor. Realizing that a platform of "Fuck the poor, let them starve to death in the streets" is not terribly politically palatable, they instead attempt to divide the poor into the "deserving" and...well, they pretty much never articulate the implied other category, again I'm assuming largely because it's not terribly palatable to many. But given the constantly-shifting and extremely-narrow criteria it takes to meet the definition of "deserving," it leaves one to strongly suspect they truly see no poor people as deserving of assistance.

It's pretty easy to understand this by looking at a case in which it's extremely difficult to argue the "deserving" portion of the immigration debate -- Jewish refugees during the Nazi regime. As you can see from the poll below (from the twitter account Historical Opinion, though I snagged them from this pretty good WaPo article) in 1938, about 2/3rds of Americans not only opposed allowing refugees fleeing Nazi persecution into America, but actually agree that "we should try to keep them out."

Of course, you could argue it's easier to see which opinion is "correct" with the benefit of hindsight and all that. But hindsight wasn't really necessary for the second graph below, which is the results from a poll conduct after Kristallnacht, so it wasn't really a secret that the Nazis were pretty shitty to Jews and other groups they didn't like. Not that the Nazis had exactly ever hid this fact, but I suppose you could make the argument that in the early days of the regime people might not have known to take them seriously. But once they started instituting official mass violence against Jews and other minorities, it's hard to argue that people could have assumed the Nazis weren't serious about all of their anti-Semitic proclamations. Not only that, but this poll question was only asking about whether we should accept children who are fleeing Nazi violence. So you can't even make the (already absurd on its face) argument that there might be Nazis posing as refugees to sneak into America and then...I dunno, take us down from the inside? Whatever the argument is, it doesn't hold up when we're discussing children fleeing from the Nazis. If ever there was a group that would be the dictionary definition of "deserving immigrants," I think you'd be pretty fucking hard pressed to come up with something better than children fleeing Nazis.

But as you can clearly see, a strong majority of the nation felt children escaping from the Nazis did not meet the definition of "deserving" immigrant. So I could write several thousand more words on the problematic construction of dividing immigrants/refugees into "deserving" and "not deserving," but nothing I could write would make this point nearly as well as this poll result. If Jewish children fleeing Nazi violence does not meet the bar of "deserving," I think it's safe to say no one ever will. Although, of course, now pretty much everyone would agree that we should have accepted these children fleeing the Nazis. Just like I'd be willing to be that in 50 years it will be so obvious that we should have been open to accepting Syrian refugees.

But of course that belated realization will be just about as useful to Syrian refugees as it was to those Jewish children denied entrance to the US...

For those that don't get the reference in the title, you really need to watch Much Apu About Nothing

A Shithole by Any Other Name Is Still As Exploited By Colonialism and Imperialism

So Trump has said something really stupid and racist again and we're all angry about it (this sentence should probably precede every post I make for the next several years). It was obviously stupid and racist and bad and this is most definitely not going to be some contrarian post about how, like, he wasn't really wrong if you think about it, you know, or some bullshit about how it's good he said it.

Nor do I want to minimize what he said -- calling large swaths of the world "shitholes" and the implications about those places and the people that live there, especially when this comes from the President of a world superpower, has real effects and does real damage to real people. Everyone condemning Trump is right to do so.

Now here is where the obnoxious contrarian "but" comes in. What I can't jibe with is a central feature of many of these condemnations, which is that Trump is violating some great norm or going well beyond the pale here. Certainly his rhetoric is unsavory, but if you think Presidents like, say, Nixon didn't say this exact same kind of thing, then...I dunno. Go listen to the many White House recordings of him saying exactly these kind of things. Maybe not these exact words, but the same sentiment.

But more than the nasty rhetoric, I can't stand the insinuation that Trump's assertion that there are "good" and "bad" nations and that we only want people from "good" nations and those "bad" nations need to quit whining and get their shit together is somehow a viewpoint unique to Trump or his brand of far-right incoherence more generally. As Corey Robin has done a yeoman's job pointing out repeatedly since Trump first entered the presidential race, most of Trump's views (and his actual policies since becoming President) are pretty boilerplate Republican views (even more, they're often pretty traditional bipartisan views). He just doesn't put as nice of a sheen on them. Here's Robin discussing this while Trump was but a candidate, but there's plenty more where that came from and I highly encourage you to read all of his work on Trump.

Even more to the point, though, Trump's castigation of African nations as "shitholes" is, again apart from the course language, pretty much been official US policy since...oh, the founding of the United States. Hell, take a look at the person most often used as contrast for Trump's "unpresidential" ways -- his predecessor, Barak Obama, who is often held up as the eloquent, compassionate statesman we wish the President could always be.

Well, what were Barry's views on these shithole African nations? He told them, basically, to quit whining about colonialism, slavery and racism and to admit that everything wrong in Africa is their fault and they need to get their shit together. From the article: "And yet the fact is we're in 2009," continued the US president. "The West and the United States has not been responsible for what's happened to Zimbabwe's economy over the last 15 or 20 years." (Click on through for more victim-blaming fun!)

The difference between Trump and Obama in their view toward the political and economic problems facing so many African nations is not a difference between compassion and belittlement, it's a shared belittlement divided by using nice or mean language. Eloquence in defense of colonial empire is effectively no different than vulgarity in defense of colonial empire, at least in terms of outcomes.

And really, one could argue that Obama's eloquent defense of empire is more dangerous than Trump's artless bumbling, as empire sure goes down easier with pretty language and thoughtful speeches than it does with the equivalent of a drunk fratboy bragging at a kegger.

So I end this rant as I have many of my Trump-related rants by looking for the silver lining in our current dystopian hell scape; in this case, its that Trump's inarticulateness serves to sharpen the contradictions (as an old Marxist might say) of US policy. At least with this jackass crowing about our foreign policy in the most crude and brash way, people might start to see the problems with what we're doing to the world.

Or to put it in an even simpler way: at least he's admitting how we've always officially viewed these places. And the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem...

Everyone Wants Nuance (But Everyone Hates Nuance)

The vast and growing #MeToo movement has long since moved from exposing the people pretty much everyone knew were creepy abusers (your Harvey Weinsteins of the world) and has moved on to exposing people that are a bit more surprising (Al Franken comes to mind), though at this point, we probably shouldn't be surprised by any man being outed as an abuser or harasser, save maybe a Fred Rogers or Tom Hanks.

Recently we've seen a prime example of someone I think most people were surprised got called out in the person of Aziz Ansari, whose generally-thoughtful writing and comedy around gender relations and whose position as a relatively-outspoken feminist made him seem like one of the least likely to be called out. But called out he was, by an anonymous woman's account of a really shitty date they had where she felt pressured to perform sexual acts she didn't want to.

There's a lot to unpack in this story, but the angle I find most interesting is where this fits in the larger #MeToo movement. One thing those opposed to this movement toward some justice for women (or at least an acknowledgement of the difficulties they face) have focussed on relentlessly is the concept of nuance -- that is, are all men who have been accused of bad behavior to be all lumped together? For instance, as was constantly heard throughout the Franken affair, sure he shouldn't have done what he did, but that didn't make him Weinstein. And shouldn't that matter? Shouldn't we talk about that difference?

Predictably, this crowd has jumped all over the Ansari story as proof that those crazy feminists have gone too far again. The New York Times said Ansari is guilty only of "Not being a mind reader" while WaPo has deemed this "A gift to anyone who wants to derail the #MeToo movement" (which I assume means them, because that's exactly what they're doing). Anyway, you can find a million more hot takes on this line of thinking, where the regressive forces of people who are so concerned that in the middle of the thousands and thousands of women coming forward to tell their tales of abuse, assault, and harassment, a man might be inconvenienced have finally found their hallelujah moment.

Except...this story is really what these people have been calling for all along, a nuanced portrayal that recognizes it's not a white/black dichotomy of good and bad, that consent is not always a completely straight-forward matter, and that there are degrees to this kind of thing. If you actually read her story, you'll see she presents a pretty nuanced understanding of what happened, and indeed, it was only after parsing through the nuance that she came to see it as a sexual assault. Why, it's almost as if she did exactly what all these people so concerned about nuance and not getting carried away say they want, and yet it's still not good enough.

Because the bigger point is that sexual consent is not simply a yes/no matter, and is impacted by all sorts of things (remember, I bet very few people explicitly said "no" to Weinstein or Cosby, yet we don't forgive them their crimes for that). As this great piece points out, consent is just the baseline, not a get-out-of-jail-free card, and it's not ridiculous to expect men, (all men, but especially men who make a big public deal out of what a feminist they are) to conceptualize consent beyond a simple yes/no. It's not a terribly difficult or onerous task to recognize that gendered power imbalances exist and then take the incredibly minuscule effort required to address that. Whether it be the fact that women are socialized since birth to prioritize the feelings of others (especially men) over their own, to try to navigate an impossible Madonna/Whore complex, and of course, to fear for their safety should they dare explicitly say "no" to a man, it's clear that it's not as simple as saying no and walking away, as the incredibly offensive NYT opinion piece linked to above claims.

But what that horribly offensive NYT piece (seriously, don't read it unless you've taken your blood pressure meds this morning) misses is that, no, Ansari didn't need to be a mind reader to know she wasn't comfortable. You know what magical powers he did need? The ability to have a conversation at an adult level. For instance, maybe after the third or fourth time he forced her hand onto his penis and she clearly wasn't into it, maybe he could have been a grown up and spoken to her? Remember, this isn't a 15 year old kid figuring out what all this stuff is, this is a grown man who literally wrote a book on romance and relationships. But instead of actually seeking out her consent (her active consent, if you will), it seems that Ansari took the fact that she wasn't screaming "RAPE!" at the top of her lungs to mean she must be into it, right? I mean, who has ever heard of a woman going through with a sex act she didn't want to simply because she felt like she had no other choice?

Gee, if only there were a handy hashtag one could use to quickly find literally thousands of such stories.

In that way, this reaction to the Aziz Ansari story seems to be like a modified version of Lewis' Law ("the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism") -- something like "the reaction to any particular #MeToo story justifies the need for the #MeToo movement."

Because the real impact of the #MeToo movement is not that we're outing famous abusers (though it's great that's happening), it's bringing to light all of the many much smaller ways women are harassed, intimidated, and abused on a daily basis that don't rise to the level of the explicit legal definition of rape. It's about recognizing how the personhood of women is so easily discarded by men whenever it's convenient to them. Or, to put it a much more nuanced way, it's about recognizing that just because someone didn't do what Harvey Weinstein did doesn't mean they're incapable of being shitty to women.

The Brazen Conceptual Activities of the Wealthy

So Trump is an obnoxious asshole, but he is good for some things -- laughing at his insanity as we inch ever-closer to the destruction of all humanity, driving a nail though all meritocracy-based arguments about American society and/or politics, and of course, hilarious pictures of super-long ties (seriously, what is up with dude's ties?).

What I think Trump is especially useful for is how well he pulls back the veil of rich person executive culture in a way that few others have. Anyone who follows most any news about corporate malfeasance knows that the majority of corporate executives do basically nothing of any meaningful or substantial use -- they golf, they drink, they have meetings with other do-nothing rich assholes, and just kind of putter their way through their days, collecting giant checks and stock options along the way.

But their life of do-nothing opulence is typically only visible to those who seek out information about them; I think most people assume they must be working hard. After all, they're CEOs and high-level executives! Surely they're doing something. And, of course, these CEOs and other executives will be glad to tell you about all the hard work they're doing, albeit without providing any evidence of having done any actual work. But again, I think the majority of people don't give it much thought at all and instead just fall to the default assumption that those above them on the economic ladder must be working much harder then they are. You know, American meritocratic myths and all that.

Trump is a fantastic example of this kind of do-nothing corporate ridiculousness. By all accounts of his professional life prior to the White House, he was pretty much the archetype of what I'm discussing -- he'd golf and have discussions with important people, but his actual money came from inheritance, not from any actual work he'd done or good deals he'd made (indeed, more than a few accounts have argued he'd have more money if he just sat on his inheritance and never actually tried to do any of his beloved deal-making).

While he was just any other rich asshole, like most all other executives, could skate by on reputation and a political and media environment that worships wealth and is unlikely to question its holders, the office of the President carries with it some level of scrutiny. I'm certainly not arguing that contemporary American media really hold the President's feet to the fire, but there's at least a certain level of scrutiny about basic aspects of the job and his performance thereof that just doesn't exist for the CEO of a hotel chain. Not to mention, of course, that simply by being in the world of partisan politics, no matter which side, you instantly have a group of people on the other side with a vested interest in scrutinizing what you're doing, again in a way that no random CEO is ever going to experience, save some sort of major scandal.

So when you switch up the corporate penthouse for the White House, you start to get stuff like this, where people leak what your daily schedule is actually like.

Now in the linked article, Trump's absurdly lackadaisical schedule is presented as some sort of aberration, but I'd argue this looks pretty much exactly like any other rich asshole's schedule. It might be different than that of your typical President, but compared to your typical CEO, I'd bet it's basically run-of-the-mill.

What really stands out to me is not how short and light the scheduled day is for someone whose job supposedly carries such great weight, but more so how it's conceived of by Trump. Especially this sentence:

The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting.

This is the purest distillation of the worthlessness of high-level executives one could possibly find. What you or I would call "screwing around" and what any of our employers would call "knock that off and get back to work," for Trump and his ilk is "Executive Time."

Ooooo! Executive Time! Time for doing executive stuff! He's not "sitting on his couch watching TV," he's having "Executive Time!" He's not "fucking around on Twitter," he's having "Executive Time!" You see, you and I are not executives, so when we sit around watching tv and scrolling social media, we are doing nothing special. But when An Executive sits around watching tv and scrolling social media, they are doing Important Executive Things.

And I've not a doubt in my mind that this is not cynical manipulation by Trump, as if he knew he were just dicking around doing nothing of any worth but felt the need to dress it up. No, it's pretty clear he (and those like him) genuinely see this as qualitatively different from when you and I do it. It's not hard at all to believe Trump honestly believes that his twitter and TV time is of vital necessity, and therefore is truly, genuinely part of his working day.

But again, this is almost assuredly not an aberration in the high-levels of the corporate world. I'd be willing to bet the CEO of wherever you work is having their version of executive time right now. It might not be Fox and Friends and twitter, but it's of similar value.

So there's a small silver-lining: Any time any person tries to make the argument that wealth is obtained through hard work can simply be presented with the schedule of Mr. Trump, the schedule of a very wealthy and therefore successful businessman. And then the rest of whatever they have to say can be completely ignored, as it already should have been, anyway.