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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2017)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2017 Founded in 1873 DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager OUR VIEW E ach week we recognize those people and organizations in the community deserving of public praise for the good things they do to make the North Coast a better place to live, and also those who should be called out for their actions. SHOUTOUTS • The many thousands of workers on the North Coast who each day create, distribute and provide goods and services that make the region a better place to live. Many often go unrecog- nized as they go about their jobs and don’t receive the recognition they deserve for their hard work. As Labor Day approaches, we should all take time and say thank you for all they do. Trump raises an army By CHARLES BLOW New York Times News Service I Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Teammates cheer on their anchor leg runner at the finish line of the Hood to Coast Relay in Seaside on Saturday. • Organizers, volunteers and the more than 19,000 partici- pants of last weekend’s 36th annual Hood to Coast Relay, which raised $700,000 for Providence hospitals across Oregon, includ- ing Providence Seaside, and the fight against cancer. Runners and walkers came from all 50 states and 43 countries and participated in three events last Saturday: the 199-mile Hood to Coast Relay, the Portland to Coast Walk Relay and the Portland to Coast High School Challenge. It marked the fourth year that the Providence Health and Services system was the primary beneficiary from money raised in the events. After runners finished their trek from Timberline Lodge to the Seaside Promenade, thousands cele- brated on the beach and into the evening with live music perfor- mances and plenty of food, drink and camaraderie. • Jim Servino, the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce’s membership director, who is leaving the cham- ber and moving to Texas to be closer to grandchildren. Servino has been active in a number of the region’s nonprofit organiza- tions and chamber members recognized him for his service at a networking breakfast earlier this week. Former Warrenton Mayor Mark Kujala has joined the chamber, taking over as member- ship director. • Penny Cowden, executive director of the Columbia Memorial Hospital Foundation, who was named to the board of governors of the National Association of Nonprofit Organizations and Executives. The group is comprised of members from all 50 states, and it oversees the codification of guidelines on a national level that govern sound charitable practice. Cowden has more than 20 years experience in health care philanthropy and has held executive positions with major health systems in four states before joining Columbia Memorial’s foundation. • Supporters of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, which recently teed up its first Birdies and Bogeys charity golf tournament in Seaside. The inaugural event raised $3,000 from players and sponsors, which will be used in the center’s continu- ing wildlife rehabilitation efforts. CALLOUTS • Those who are already trying to profit through scams, online and telephone fraud and price gouging in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. North Coast’s residents are reknown for having gener- ous hearts and a great desire to help those in need, but beware of the scams that are already cropping up. The Texas Attorney General’s Office says it has already received more than 600 complaints and that the number continues to grow each day. Officials are warning about fake fundraisers that prey on peo- ple’s sense of charity that are being shared in a verity of for- mats online and through fraudulent telephone campaigns. Authorities are urging people to only donate to established organizations. The Federal Trade Commission advises peo- ple to use it’s charity checklist when donating to relief efforts. The checklist can be found at https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/ articles/0074-giving-charity#Checklist. Suggestions? Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look. know that Harvey is heavy on America’s heart. It is certainly heavy on mine. My oldest brother lives in the hard- hit suburban Hous- ton town of Hum- ble, just outside of George Bush Inter- continental Airport and on the shores of the Spring Creek and the west fork of the San Jacinto River. And now the storm is barreling toward my hometown in north Lou- isiana where my mother and two of my brothers live. I’m anxious. I wish that I could take a reprieve from politics and simply focus on the human suffer- ing and human altruism on display in the affected areas. But, alas, I can- not. Politics keep creeping in. Politics keep occurring concurrently. Dealing with devastation Set aside for a moment that Don- ald Trump is the person who pulled America out of the Paris climate accords, even though models suggest that climate change makes severe weather more severe, and as Polit- ico reports, “Harvey is the third 500- year flood to hit the Houston area in the past three years.” Forget for a moment that, according to Slate, just 10 days before Harvey made landfall Trump signed an executive order that included “eliminating an Obama-era rule called the federal flood risk man- agement standard that asked agencies to account for climate change projec- tions when they approved projects.” The final assessment on how this administration handles the storm can’t be made while it still rages, but what Trump says and does now is open to analysis. In that vein, a line from Trump’s joint news conference with the president of Finland stood out. When asked about pardoning former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio as Harvey was making landfall, Trump responded: “Actually, in the middle of a hur- ricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally.” Consider what this man is saying: He used the horror and anxious antic- ipation of a monster storm menacing millions of Americans — particularly in Houston whose population is 44 percent Hispanic — in a political cal- culation to get more ratings and more eyeballs on the fact that he was using the power of the presidency to for- give, and thereby condone, Arpaio’s racism. Theory Why does Trump continue to do things that are so divisive and alien- ating to the majority of Americans? Why does he keep fueling the white- hot fire of his base to the exclusion of the other segments of the country? I have a theory: Trump and the people who either shield or support him are locked in a relationship of reciprocation, like a ball of snakes. Everyone is using everyone else. The oligarchs see Trump as a pathway to slashing regulations and cutting taxes for the rich. According to a July analysis by the Tax Policy Center, “Nearly 40 percent of the tax cut would flow to households in the top 1 percent of the income distribu- tion, giving those earners an average annual tax cut of around $270,000.” Establishment Republicans see him as a path to reversing the New Deal. Steve Bannon-ists see him as a path to the “deconstruction of the AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster President Donald Trump salutes as he arrives on Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House Wednesday. administrative state.” All Republi- cans, but particularly the religious right, see him as a securer of conser- vative Supreme Court justices. The blue-collar Trump voters view him as a last chance to breathe life into the dying dream that waning industries and government-supported white cul- tural assurances can be revived. And the white nationalists, white suprem- acists, racists and Nazis — to the degree that they can be separated from the others — see him as a tool of vengeance and as an instrument of their defense. Trump sees all these people who want to use him, and he’s using them right back. Trump made an industry out of selling conspicuous consump- tion. He sold the ideas that greed was good, luxury was aspirational and indulgence was innocent. Trump’s supporters see him as vector; he sees them as market. Marketing is how he has made his money and attained his infamy. That is why he is so obsessed with the media and crowds and polls (at least when he was doing well in them): He sees people, in his die-hard base at least, who have thoroughly bought into the product of Trumpism and he is doing everything to please them and make them repeat customers. But in addition, and perhaps more sinisterly, I think that Trump is rais- ing an army, whether or not he would describe it as such, and whether or not those being involved recognize their own conscription. This is not a traditional army, but it is an army no less. And, when I say army, I’m not speaking solely of armed militia, although there is a staggering num- ber of guns continuously being put into circulation. As the NRA’s Insti- tute for Legislative Action wrote in June: “Each month of Trump’s presi- dency has seen over two million fire- arm-related background checks. Only in 2016, when Americans faced los- ing their Second Amendment rights forever, did the FBI run more checks during a January to April period.” I’m also talking about the unarmed, but unwavering: the army of zombie zealots. Raising an army How do you raise an army? You do that by dividing America into tribes and, as “president,” align- ing yourself with the most extreme tribe, all the while promoting mili- tarization among people who sup- port you. You do it by worshipping mili- tary figures and talking in militaris- tic terms. You reverse Barack Obama’s executive order on gun control. As PolitiFact put it: “Obama’s order made it mandatory for the Social Security Administration to release information about mentally ill recipi- ents of Social Security benefits. This information would then be included in background checks, essentially prohibiting people with mental ill- nesses to buy guns.” You cozy up to police unions and encourage police brutality. You do this by rescinding Obama- era limits on the militarization of police departments; a move that, according to The New York Times, allows these departments “access to military surplus equipment typi- cally used in warfare, including gre- nade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets.” You do this by defending armed white nationalists and Nazis in Charlottesville. You do this by defending monu- ments of Confederates who fought to preserve the noxious institution of slavery, and you do it by tweeting the coded language of white suprema- cists: “Sad to see the history and cul- ture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beauti- ful statues and monuments.” You do this by pardoning Arpaio, a man who joked about an Arizona jail being a “concentration camp,” signaling to people that racist brutal- ity is permissible. You also do this by attempting to reduce or marginalize populations of people opposed to you: Build a wall, return to failed drug policies that helped fuel mass incarceration, ban Muslims, curb even legal immigra- tion, increase immigration arrests. Dealing with investigation And why raise this army? Again, I have a theory. Should something emerge from the Robert Mueller investigation — an investigation that is continu- ing unabated even as Harvey rages — that should implicate Trump and pose a threat to the continuation of his tenure, Trump wants to position any attempt to remove him as a polit- ical coup. His efforts to delegitimize the press are all part of this because one day the press may have to deliver ruinous news. In that scenario, Trump knows that the oligarchs and establishment Republicans would be quick to aban- don him. Their support isn’t intrinsic; it’s transactional. But the base — the market — the ones with guns as well as those who are simply excited, the die-hards, the ones he keeps appeal- ing to and applauding, will not for- sake him. They see attacks on Trump as attacks on themselves. Trump is playing an endgame. In the best-case scenario, these die- hards are future customers; in the worst, they are future confederates. If these people should come to believe — as Trump would have them believe — that establishment systems have unfairly and con- spiratorially acted to remove from office their last and only champion — another thing Trump would have them believe — what will they do? What would Trump’s army do if he were compelled to leave but refused to graciously comply?