PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The aspiration in the headline is one I hope comes true.

Palpable racism is another reason why Donald Trump doesn’t deserve to hold the nation’s highest political office and should be shown the door next November.

Former Member of Congress, now media analyst Joe Scarborough, described Trump’s continuing racism in a column in the Washington Post this morning.

”President Trump can’t help himself. The former reality-TV host was warned by White House staff, his campaign team, financial contributors and Republicans on Capitol Hill that his afternoon news conferences were causing political damage. But after a weekend of tweeting out conspiracy theories about former presidents and insults aimed at cable-news pundits, the president was at it again Monday.

“And, true to form, Trump burned himself.

“His coronavirus ‘update’” ended abruptly after he hurled a bigoted remark toward an American journalist who grew up in West Virginia. When CBS News’s Weijia Jiang asked Trump about his misleading testing comments, the president blurted out: “You should ask China.”

“Jiang’s family emigrated from China when she was two. For what it’s worth, Trump’s own mother immigrated to the United States when she was 18, and his wife, Melania, gained an “Einstein Visa,” reserved for those of “extraordinary ability,” in 2001. After Trump’s snarling China comment, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump until he abruptly retreated from the presidential podium.”

Typical Trump.

He can’t stand the heat so he gets out of the kitchen. More to the point, he conducts what could be called a “continuing campaign of distraction.”

When opposition mounts, he distracts by inciting controversy.

He did so again last weekend by issuing an astonishing number of tweets – more than 100. All of them trashed persons he didn’t like, who asked hard questions, or had not supported him. Incendiary language. Exactly his intention. Washington Post writer Michael Gerson labeled it “a tweet storm.”

As Trump stumbled away from his press conference, Scarborough reported that he couldn’t help but be reminded of Trump’s racist 2016 attacks aimed at Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel. The then-candidate, Trump, said he couldn’t trust Curiel because he was “Mexican.” But Curiel is an Indiana native; his parents immigrated there from Mexico before he was born.

More Scarborough: “Four years later, Trump’s Republican Party has become numbed to its party leader’s daily outrages — the racist attacks, the 18,000 lies (and counting), the petty insults, the breaches of constitutional norms, and the gross incompetence that has worsened the covid-19 crisis in the United States and has driven America to the edge of a depression. These GOP politicians have long believed that ignoring Trump’s unfitness for office is their best political play…”

With Scarborough, I ask, what will it take for Republicans to stand up to Trump, including his every deranged tweet, every racist remark, his failure to execute the responsibilities of his office. Perhaps polling showing Trump could lose will prompt some Republicans, finally, to stand up for character, not Trump swill.

If they rise to the occasion and oppose Trump, they may be able to look themselves in the mirror.