John Ogozalek teaches history and economics in upstate New York. He was disappointed by the 2016 election, to put it mildly. But one good thing happened: he lost 15 pounds. I, on the other hand, expressed my nerves by eating chocolate ice cream. I gained ten pounds.
John writes:
Well, there’s a lot that Donald Trump has done in his short stay in the White House. A lot. Next to none of it good by my reckoning.
But I can say he helped me lose 15 pounds this summer. Really.
Trump wasn’t the only reason I dropped the weight. A nasty stomach flu I nicknamed the Alabama Slammer got me off to a fine start back in June. And, then when I went to donate blood and was rejected for having high blood pressure, I knew it was time a change.
But, really, it’s Trump who has been contributing all along to my mission to lead a healthier life. Part of it is due to my grossed out reaction to a picture I saw on Facebook of his huge gut….or was it the one of his huge butt? Boy, that guy is out of shape. And, by the way, how dare he EVER comment on what some woman, man or other living creature on this planet looks like.
What also happened, though, is that I had a serious, delayed reaction to Trump actually taking the oath of office as president. Yeah, the inauguration happened back in January but its full, orange, tsunami-like toxic impact didn’t really hit me until I walked out the door on the last day of school. My God, what have we done???
I’d been living in a bubble of hoped for objectivity. Some might call it denial. You see, I spend much of my waking hours during the school year teaching government or thinking about teaching government. Government and economics. And, despite my own personal feelings about POTUS 45, I have tried damn hard to present my high school students with the facts in a balanced way.
But, hell, this past school year took a lot out of me. I didn’t realize how much it drained me.
I have these wonderful students, a good number of them Trump supporters. They’re kind, decent, hardworking kids. I can’t get mad at them. Well, not for more than a few minutes at a time.
Then we have TRUMP. And, the people who voted for Trump. And, the people who gave Trump money and wear his stupid hats and put up with his indefensible, despicable behavior. Who ARE these people who like this JERK? Damn them for screwing up our country!
But…..wait….those are the same students, the same people who I really like. What???
Wow! Textbook cognitive dissonance. Me. Our country. What a mess we are all in.
So, yeah, I lost the 15 pounds. It’s really revulsion. Aversion therapy, as it were. Every fast food restaurant sitting on a steaming hot eight lane highway kind of reminds me of Trump’s big butt. In fact, Trump looks like a fat, greasy, cheap hamburger to me.
So, I’ve just been stepping on the accelerator all summer long and driving right on by all the junk food.
Nice thing is….I’m moving a lot faster these days. I’m a lean, mean, liberal voting machine. Well, the 54-year-old version.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“In fact, Trump looks like a fat, greasy, cheap hamburger to me.”…good description!!
I could tolerate how he looks if he would say something that showed he has some impulse control, English comprehension, compassion, understanding, willingness to learn and intelligence for the job. Everyday brings a new pile of garbage. (I also agree with, “… how dare he EVER comment on what some woman, man or other living creature on this planet looks like.”)
It is hard to understand why anyone supports our ignorant Orange grabber-in-chief. I keep reading articles that attempt to define these people. Guess I’m not the only one who can’t figure it out.
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The election of Trump has also, at least from my perspective, further drawn the curtain back, thus exposing more of the education privatization efforts billed and sold to the public as “Reform” and “for the children,” especially after his appointment of Ditzy DeVos (sorry about that, couldn’t help myself, the cadence of it just fits). The chorus of pro-private cries from even the most outspoken and notable public Corporate Reformsters seems—SEEMS–to have died down because the whole DeVos appointment fiasco drew much-needed attention from the public on what the privatization/reform agenda truly entails. In short, did the appointment of DeVos, via Trump’s election, inadvertently stoke a mostly-uninformed public into delving further into what “reform” efforts are really about? If this is the case, it’s most serendipitous for public education if you ask me…..
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There was a single graph in a report in the Sloan Economics Review that explains very, very clearly just why Mr. Trump appealed to so many working-class people. The graph shows that since 1776, productivity and real wages rose steadily and steeply, together, IN TANDEM, until about 1975. After that point, real wages leveled off, became stagnant, while productivity increased dramatically, by 88%.
In other words, and this should be a shocker: The value of goods and services created by American workers nearly doubled since 1975, and ALMOST NONE of that value was realized by working people.
Of course, a lot of that increased productivity was due to tech, so folks on the right make the argument that it was owned back to capital, not to labor.
But working people in the U.S. have been looking for a long, long time for the Democrats to do something about giving them a piece of the pie. They want some, a little even, of all that increase in value. They see other people enjoying those fruits, while they can’t afford to buy diapers. Mr. Trump promised to drain the swamp, MAGA, put workers back to work with a trillion-dollar infrastructure program, buy American, establish protectionist policies (to protect jobs, he said), blah blah blah.
But mostly, he said to them, “I’m not those guys.” People voted not FOR Trump but AGAINST the raw deal they think they’ve gotten from Republicans AND Democrats, whom they can’t tell apart from one another. The vote said, “A plague on both your houses.We’ll go for ANYTHING different from what we’ve seen.”
All that is just reportage. I am making NO COMMENT about whether workers were right that they were going to get a New Deal. That should be obvious enough.
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Lloyd,
AGREE!
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“But mostly, he said to them, “I’m not those guys.” People voted not FOR Trump but AGAINST the raw deal they think they’ve gotten from Republicans AND Democrats, whom they can’t tell apart from one another. The vote said, “A plague on both your houses.We’ll go for ANYTHING different from what we’ve seen.””
Yes, yes, yes and, can I say it again? YES!!! Until Democrats learn this lesson, we will continue to get Trump and, egad, worse.
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You know I agree .
But although I would be just as aggravated . And would not be getting a good nights sleep, but at least I would be getting 5 hrs sleep.
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I do agree. a minor correction.
“They see other people enjoying those fruits, while they can’t afford to buy diapers.”
Unlike the poor they can buy those diapers . They as a family are putting in more and more hours to do it . With little or nothing left over for their children’s future. One month or two away from joining the poor.
Much of the luxury we see the electronic bling and the flashy cars (discretionary consumer spending ) is financed on credit . The true health of the economy can be seen the Federal Reserves reluctance to raise interest rates . On 7 year auto loans . And a housing market returning in some areas to pre crises levels fueled by 3% mortgages. While incomes stagnate.
The Clinton years a stock market bubble. The Bush years a housing bubble, each had paper assets replacing income to generate spending .The Obama years a full throttle attempt to reignite either. While the policy that caused the decline was ignored. And parts of that destructive policy, was shoved in the face of reluctant citizens like snake oil .
Was that economic decline responsible for their vote . Demagogues and fascists always thrive in times of Economic stress . Even if those who vote for them do not understand why the scapegoating is so appealing.
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Well said, Joel. You have a point. But many, many working people run out of money to buy diapers these days. Here, one of the best pieces of reporting I’ve read in some time:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/diaper-banks-child-poverty_us_5983538ae4b00f0084ae8687?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=__Must%20Reads__082717&utm_content=__Must%20Reads__082717+Version+A+CID_9f5cfa30ef5ee8e3c2d879aff547ea44&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=READ%20THE%20STORY&ncid=newsltushpmgspecial__Must%20Reads__082717
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“With little or nothing left over for their children’s future. One month or two away from joining the poor.”
…….
I read somewhere that the average person has $10,000 in savings. The Repubs want to privatize Social Security. Whether or not it happens the forecast for the future is dim. There will be a lot of people barely surviving.
tRump is pushing for a tax cut for the wealthy. Those who voted for tRump wanted to ‘shake up the system”. People who paid any attention to his actions would have known that he really only has his own best interests at heart.
He is a con man and now the whole country is suffering. I still don’t understand his supporters who STILL believe he is doing good. Is hatred and fear enough reason to support this incompetent individual?
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Bob Shepherd
I again agree . But were they the Trump voters . Sanders was right “poor people don’t vote” . Not in the number they should.
As for welfare reform one of 7 big Reagan dreams brought to us by Slick Willy.
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true that, Joel
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Carol, the average household in the U.S. with any indebtedness had, in March, 2016, $16,048 in credit card debt. In 2014, there were 44 million Americans with student loan debt averaging $37,172.
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Obviously the future of this country is in deep trouble. What is to happen when people can’t exist on Social Security and there are no backups? What happens when student debt can’t be paid off after a lifetime of working at cheap wages?
We need progressives who care about people not politicians who put themselves first. Why is the GOP, and tRump, seriously considering tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy?
The government cannot continue to pay for more military hardware. Either we care about the people and provide some help or we continue to kill and destroy overseas. We cannot kill our way to peace. Somewhere this has to end.
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False dichotomy, Carol.
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Carol Malaysia,
You are absolutely right in all that you say! Perfectly put. But we might not have SS at all in order to determine if it will be enough to live on. Harlan, BTW, is on SS.
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Great story! May it motivate me to lose 25.
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That Dump is a huge ton of garbage. Garbage in, garbage out. He not a well person.
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First where can I get that stomach flu . Although I should be glad that I only put on 5 pounds . I spend half my time slamming the Orange monster and the other half my democratic friends, who do not see how they created him . No they are not the coastal elites but they buy into the memes of the “coastal elites” . The education wars being one of them . Amazing how issues created by right wing Oligarchs have been adopted by “establishment Democrats ” . The corrosive effect of money on our politics . Again
“Politics,Who Gets What When and How .”
It would be nice to sleep more than 4 hours.
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my democratic friends, who do not see how they created him
too much truth in that, alas
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Yes!
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I can definitely empathize with John Ogozalek. I did not have a clue that Trump would win. I thought for sure he would lose because he was so obviously, so blatantly a horrible, despicable, clownish, hideous human being. He started his campaign with a hand grenade against Mexicans and Mexican Americans. He made outrageous statement after outrageous statement, insulted the war record of a war hero, and his misogynist past was exposed. Not to mention he never held any elective or even appointive office in government. The man was a cheap trashy reality TV personality and a real estate mogul of questionable practices. Some were predicting that Trump would win: Allan Lichtman, Mike Moore, Cenk Uyghur, Mike Malloy and others. I blame the electoral college, all the corporate money sloshing around, the fact that we are stuck with a duopoly, third parties and independents need not apply. But watch out with those independents and third parties. Independents/3rd parties also include the far right wing and libertarian jackasses who want to return us to 1839. Oh wait, that’s the current GOP, a far right wing/libertarian movement party.
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It was very predictable that he would come very close to winning if not win . The Republican party had a pretty good Idea that no Democratic candidate would draw the percentage of Black voters that Obama did . Their efforts at voter disenfranchisement was aimed to insure that.
“What do you have to lose” was perhaps very telling . If you did not make progress in 8 years of Obama ,what was Hillary going to deliver that was enough to bring you to the polls.
Perhaps there was another candidate who offered more radical change. Who could have motivated other demographics of the electorate. Blue collar workers and young voters . To make up for the decline that was predicted .
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Perhaps there was. . . .
LOL
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Do you really wish to do away with the electoral college? Just because it permitted Trump does not mean it is inherently unfair given that the USA is a Republic, a federation of different states with differing interests, no where more clearly so than in education. What is the philosophical argument against the electoral college? Blame Hillary, if you want, but not the well tested compromise system of the electoral college. Or do you think the states should merely be administrative districts of the federal government as is the case in France?
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Harlan, what do you think the Electoral College that Alexander Hamilton described in #68 of the Federalist Papers, which would prevent the election of a demagogue or a foreign agent?
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Harlan,
You would be lucky to live in France, even with stinky Macron as President.
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Thanks, Diane. It’s always a honor to be in the company of the people who contribute to this blog.
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Comparing Trump to a cheap, fast-food hamburger fits since the Kremlin’s Agent Orange has no brains.
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Those comments were inappropriate.
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