Perspective from the 19^th hole 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

First, I post this blog on Memorial Day 2024, so it is appropriate to write something on that important Day before moving into another column on how Donald Trump boggles the mind – my mind.

Think of the standard phrase, “Thank you for your service.”

When I say that to a veteran who has served the United States of America with distinction, I mean it.  “Thank you for your service.”

It is an appropriate accolade for those who have served – and, to get back to Trump, he has never done so (though, below, I recount how he, incredibly, he has denigrated those who have served).

So, back to my blog post for today.

Okay, as a regular human being, think of stuff you would never say.

Then, think of Donald Trump.  He says all that stuff.  Plus, he believes it.

Such as:

• Wants to model himself after Adolph Hitler who supervised the killing of six million Jews, even as he, Trump, keeps the Hitler book Mein Kampf, by his bedside for easy reading.

• Says immigrants are “poisoning the blood of country,” even as the fact is that all of us either are immigrants or have been descended from immigrants.

• Says the late Senator John McCain, a veritable hero from the Vietnam War, was not a hero because he got captured – and that stupid statement comes from a person, Trump, who never bothered to serve his country.

• Wants to model himself after Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal in the Silence of the Lambs film, whom Atlantic Magazine describes this way:  “Amid an anti-migrant tirade at a rally earlier this month in New Jersey, Trump gave a shout-out to the “late, great Hannibal Lecter, referring to the fava bean–loving cannibal played by Anthony Hopkins as a ‘wonderful man.’”

• Sees women as sexual objects, believing that groping and raping them is the province of every man.

• Sees President Joseph Biden as the architect of the FBI’s trip to Mar-A-Lago to find the national security papers that Trump had embargoed and sequestered.  Plus, Trump even said Biden was “out to kill” him by the FBI’s actions.

But, have no doubt – every time Trump talks he will liken himself to dictators and autocrats that he wants to model.

I’ll give Atlantic Magazine the last word today.

“’At what other moment in American history could a presidential candidate praise a fictional serial killer (Lecter), and inspire almost no reaction at all?’

“…the nation shrugged, because this was simply the latest in a long list of 2024’s bizarre and disorienting moments.  ‘The scale of the abnormality is so staggering,’ ABC’s George Stephanopoulos argued recently, ‘that it can actually become numbing.’

“But Americans’ reaction is less like numbness and more a response to something like airsickness, which results when we experience a disconnect between our senses — a nausea-inducing conflict between what we know and what we see.  

“Motion sickness is caused by a discrepancy between what the inner ear detects and what the eye sees.  The effect can be vertiginous — so the way people avoid being nauseated is by trying to ignore the dissonance.

“Call it anomie or call it airsickness — we find ourselves in a land of confusion. Trump pays off a porn star and yet is hailed as a champion of Christian values.  He mocks prisoners of war and calls dead soldiers ‘suckers,’ and his MAGA base is thrilled by his patriotism.

“And, Trump brags about his tight relationship with America’s implacable adversary, Vladimir Putin, claiming that the Russian president will release detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, ‘for me, but not for anyone else.’

“To hear conservative Christians argue that personal character doesn’t matter, or to witness self-described constitutional conservatives defend a relentless attack on the rule of law, is disorienting.

“To see advocates of law-and-order embrace rioters who attacked the Capitol and beat police officers is baffling.

“To watch the party of Ronald Reagan embracing isolationism and following Trump in truckling to the Butcher of Ukraine, Putin, is bewildering.”

My conclusion:  Fully agree.  Trump is ludicrous and disorienting.

And, the point about the duplicity of so-called Christians who hail Trump despite paying off a porn star is worth another post from me.  Later.

For now, allow the unsettling Trump stuff to boggle your mind.