The Dog-Whistle President

If you know anything about dogs, you know that their keen hearing is approximately 1,600 times better than that of human beings. Years ago, someone devised a training tool in the form of a whistle for dogs which uses sounds to which only they can hear and respond. Why mention dog whistles now as the country is embroiled in violence, a worldwide pandemic that will not abate as long as people refuse to refrain from social gatherings and the resultant massive unemployment? Because enablers of Donald Trump can now claim bragging rights for letting him run amok, destroying what semblance of law and order we once enjoyed. In gratitude, Trump has been using age-old, but no less despicable, triggers which rile up his “base” and send them into the streets sporting everything from bows and arrows to AR-15 assault rifles. And once these “very fine people” on the other side of a conflict run into a crowd of peaceful protesters exercising their Constitutional right to be protesting, they attack them as well as the police and National Guard personnel sent to calm things down. The Guardsmen and women are not armed. Someone sporting an assault weapon is.

What is so galling about Trump’s machinations is that he pretends that he is not responsible for fanning the flames of racial divisiveness and hatred, even as he has tweeted thousands of words to the contrary. He even went to far as to threaten to release “vicious” Secret Service K-9 dogs on people who are gathered in peaceful protest across from the White House in Lafayette Park. It must have been a surprise to their handlers because this is not really what these special animals are trained to do.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the leader of the Free World is unhinged. A combination of his lust for control, racism, lack of money and a nasty personality coupled with extreme narcissism has led to deaths in excess of 105,000 innocent people whose only crime was being infected by an unseen and heretofore uncharted virus. It is no wonder that people are filled with impotence, rage, frustration and fear and are now protesting in the streets nationwide, venting their spleens at the one visible manifestation of the Corona virus, Donald Trump. Why has Trump become the poster child for the virus and subsequent violence in the streets? Because his refusal to act early to stem the virus from entering the U.S. from the real source, Europe, instead, focusing on restricting Chinese visitors meant that American travelers to Israel and beyond were unknowingly infected and thus, traveling unchecked.

The unfortunate death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department was the match that lit the tinder, but it is still too soon to detail the ramifications of this calculating and cold-blooded murder because it is rare to see videos of such crimes posted widely for all to see. Nonetheless, it must be seen, and it must be addressed by the authorities in cooperation with all citizens.

Granted, no one should condone the looting, burning and pillaging of businesses in almost every region of this land. We can say we feel the frustrations of minorities, which have become exacerbated under Trump’s racist beliefs and practices, but we should not be surprised. The violence was so predictable and so unnecessary that we should all just sit down, reboot ourselves and try to find a peaceful way to a dialogue which is so sorely lacking by this administration.

Just as the 105,000 and counting, Americans lost to a totally preventable virus and the trillions of dollars authorized by Congress to be spent to try to stem the suffering of 40 million unemployed Americans, we should remove the president before we are lost forever as the “first nation among nations.” Imagine asking our foreign leaders to stop punishing their minorities merely because they are in the minority when we do not practice the same behavior ourselves. Five minutes on YouTube would dispel the myth long-held here that we are somehow not racists and oppressors of minorities who are our citizens. Make that two minutes.

Thanks to the violence that is spreading throughout our entire country, we cannot claim that a few disgruntled people in large cities are responsible for the rioting and attacks on police and the wanton destruction of private property. The falsehood being spread by none other than the highest legal authority in the land, the Attorney General of the U.S., William Barr, is that the “far left” managed to riot spontaneously everywhere. A few minutes on YouTube illustrates the absurdity of his claims and dispels them.

The Instigator-in-Chief does not appear to work too often, but clearly, one of the things he does excel in is inflaming age-old social conflicts. But make no mistake, everything Donald Trump does has the full backing of the Kremlin and Putin. Since the days of Stalin, Russians have tried to interfere in our democracy by creating controversies internally. They knew they could not attack the U.S. on a traditional battleground, so they chose instead to interfere using our soft underbelly, race relations. It is no different from the KGB teaching Yasser Arafat how to use explosives to kill innocent Jews worldwide. It benefits Russia to have stable democracies fighting amongst themselves. They thrive on the world’s conflicts.

Frankly, I cannot recall a time in my life that has brought on flashbacks of that troubled time in our history as the past few days have. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 and cities from Philadelphia to Los Angeles were aflame, we could see and smell the smoke rising from the Nation’s Capitol over a local hilltop. Clearly, the issue of race relations in the U.S. needs to be addressed again, but this time, not in Congressional commissions or blue ribbon panels. We have tried all of that, and we still find cities smoldering today. In the end, the only thing that will save us is having honest dialogue with our neighbors and finding resolutions that do not involve a return to violence.