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.

Two columnists tried valiantly this week to answer what for me is an unanswerable question:  Why supposedly rational people vote for Donald Trump who wants to be a dictator in America.

This question has irked me for months.

In Trump, we have:

• A convicted felon.

• A rapist who views women as nothing more than objects.

• A person who vilifies the military he wants to lead as commander in chief, including by calling the late Senator John McCain – who was a genuine military hero – a failure because he got captured in Viet Nam.  Trump, of course, never served.

• A person who wants to deport millions of immigrants, though he, himself, is part of a family of immigrants.

• And, speaking of immigrants, a person who says immigrants commit more crimes than others as they enter the country, but, of course, the facts say otherwise.  Those already here commit more crimes.

• A person who values dictators like Vladimir Putin from Russia and Kim Jong Un from North Korea, and says he wants to be like them.

• A person who values Adolph Hitler, one of the worst criminals – if not, THE worse – in history.

• A person who views himself as being the only person of value.

That’s Trump.

And it is possible he could win the election.

Before moving on to the views of the two columnists, the Washington Post showed up with solid information on the speaking style of Donald Trump, which it labeled crazy under this headline:  “Abrupt shifts, profane insults, confusing sentences” – and this, too, adds to not understanding people can vote for him when he doesn’t say anything understandable.

“Trump’s recent public appearances have been strikingly erratic, coarse and often confusing, even for a politician with a history of ad-libbing in three consecutive presidential runs, a Washington Post review of dozens of speeches, interviews and other public appearances shows.

“His speeches have gotten longer and more repetitive compared with those of past campaigns.  He promotes falsehoods and theories that are so far removed from reality or appear wholly made up that they are often baffling to anyone not steeped in MAGA media or internet memes.

“Trump’s unusual delivery has inspired comedy routines and armchair diagnoses for years.  Long, meandering stemwinders, provocations, brazen falsehoods and blunt language, jokes and insults have distinguished his speeches since he launched his candidacy in 2015 calling Mexican immigrants ‘rapists.’”

Now, for the analysis by the columnists – Philip Bump from the Washington Post and Tom Nichols from The Atlantic Magazine.

From Bump:  “A secretary of defense, chief of staff and joint chiefs chairman who served under Trump offered warnings about the former president that his base is primed to ignore.

“One of Donald Trump’s most effective and most useful tactics in rebuffing criticism has been to insist that any critic is operating in bad faith. There are no valid complaints about Trump, he insists, and there are no reliable complainers.  Saying something critical of the former president means that you are not loyal to the former president and, therefore, that your criticism is tainted by your anti-Trump bias.  Question-begging as political defense.

“It works. People who are supportive of Trump are almost definitionally inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt, meaning that they are predisposed to assume that he’s the one approaching a point of debate from a more defensible position.

“Put those things together and we get where we are today.  A phalanx of former Trump advisers and appointees has delineated the ways in which he embraces fascism, hopes to implement authoritarianism, disparaged the military and offered praise for Adolf Hitler — and the most likely reaction from Trump’s supporters will be that they are just anti-Trump haters.”

Bump adds that “the insistence on personal loyalty that Kelly describes as Trump’s primary motivation means that his supporters will dismiss concerns out of hand

From Nichols:  “Donald Trump’s opponents are continually stunned by the disconnect between his ghastly behavior and his polling numbers.  But millions of voters support Trump because of his offensiveness, not in spite of it.

“The belief that at some point Trump voters will have finally had enough is an ordinary human response to seeing people you care about — in this case fellow citizens — associate with someone you know to be awful.  Much like watching a friend in an unhealthy relationship, you think that each new outrage is going to be the one that provokes the final split, and yet it never does:  Your friend, instead of breaking off the relationship, makes excuses. He didn’t mean it. You don’t understand him like I do.

“But this analogy is wrong, because it’s based on the faulty assumption that one of the people in the relationship is unhappy.  Maybe the better analogy is the friend you didn’t know very well in high school, someone who perhaps was quiet and not very popular, who shows up at your 20th reunion on the arm of a loudmouthed boor, who tells offensive stories and racist jokes.  She thinks he’s wonderful and laughs at everything he says.

“For millions of the GOP faithful, however, Trump’s daily attempts to breach new frontiers of hideousness are not offensive but reassuring.  They want Trump to be awful — precisely because the people they view as their political foes will be so appalled if he wins.  If Trump’s campaign was focused on handing out tax breaks and lowering gas prices, he’d be losing, because for his base, none of that yawn-inducing policy stuff is transgressive enough to be exciting.

“Some Trump voters may believe his lies.  But plenty more want Trump to be terrifying and stomach-turning so that re-electing him will be a fully realized act of social revenge.  

“Exactly why so many Americans feel this way is a complicated story, but a toxic combination of social resentment, entitlement, and racial insecurity drives many Trump voters to believe not only that other Americans are looking down on them, but that they are doing so while living an undeservedly good life.  These others must be punished or at least brought down to a common level of misery to balance the scales, and Trump is the guy to do it.”

Nichols adds that “unfocused rage is an addiction fed by Trump and conservative media, and the MAGA base wants it stoked continuously.  If Trump were suddenly to become a sensible person who started talking coherently about trade policy and defense budgets, they would feel betrayed, like hard drinkers in a tavern who suspect that the bartender is watering down the high-proof stuff.”

There you have it.  A little about “why” some voters go with Trump.  They want revenge and they feel good about getting it with an egotist.

*********

As a footnote, NY Times writer Nicholas Kristof, a columnist with connections to Oregon where he drew up, shows up today with this trenchant analysis:

“What should we think as Donald Trump urges people to vote in January, confuses places and names, fumbles for words, simplifies his speech patterns, describes recent experiences that did not happen and in public seems increasingly vulgar, menacing and unfiltered?

“It’s unarguable that Trump is acting even more erratically than he has in the past.  It’s also indisputable that Trump is at an age when many people see a physical or mental decline over the following four years.”

So, in conclusion, I say let Trump live out his remaining days in private, not in the presidency.

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.

For at least another day, I depart from wondering about the scoundrel running for president, Donald Trump.  A worthy respite.

Sam Skillern is a friend of mine here in Salem, Oregon, and he has done a superb job leading Salem Leadership Foundation (SLF) even now as he heads toward what I assume will be well-earned retirement.

But, I forgot that Skillern and I share a background in journalism.

This came through in a missive from Skillern early this week.

I reprint it here in my blog because it is, (a) well written, and (b) calls us to live out our faith in Jesus, even as we face a presidential election that could elevate Trump again to the Oval Office, perish the thought.

Here is Skillern:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear – but of power, and love, and a sound mind.  (2 Timothy 1:7)

There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear …  (1 John 4:18)

As a journalism major (OSU ’82), I’m a student and a consumer of news.  I was fortunate to learn the craft in the post-Watergate era of journalism, when facts were king.  No accusation or quote could be published/broadcast without at least two (better yet three) independent confirmations. 

Also, there was the News department and the Editorial department:  One for facts, one for opinion, with a firewall between them.
 
Of course, journalism wasn’t perfect in that era … but oh how things have changed! 

Today, thanks to social media and smart phones, virtually everyone is (or thinks they are) a journalist.  But the lines have been blurred – actually, obliterated – in those two important areas:  Facts and opinion.  Just the facts, ma’am?  Cross-checking facts?  Truthfully telling the story without spin?
 
With my degree and through my work with SLF, sampling a wide variety of media outlets is something I do.  I listen and read on both sides of the dial – not to become a disciple of any one outlet, but to know what’s being said and what impact it’s having.  

My heart is troubled.  It’s not merely the disregard for facts and the glorification of opinion … it’s the fear-peddling!  Especially from talking heads and outlets that claim to be God-centered. 
 
Fear is not from the Lord.  Fear is the opposite of Love.  It’s in the Scriptures (above).
 
I’ve been engaging a little experiment.  I want to make sure my impressions are accurate and not fake news.  So I’ve been analyzing and prayerfully discerning many news sources.  Again, on both sides of the aisle. 

There’s a glut of fear.  Name-calling.  Slander.  Fear, Insinuation.  Gossip.  Fear.   Repeated lies.  Conspiracy theories.  Fear.

 
Both science and faith contend that such behavior is unhealthy.  For individuals and community.  So why do we persist?  Especially the Christ-follower? 

With a contentious election nigh, we can’t control what others say.  But we can control – based on facts – what we believe, say and do.  And even if the facts are hard and harrowing, we don’t need to peddle fear.  Just the opposite.  

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.

Given the current political season when polls are made public every day, I am talking my own poll.

Not on politics because, if for no other reason, I already have voted using Oregon’s mail ballot voting process.  Kamala Harris and Tim Walz get my vote!

But, if you were king or queen for a day, what golf rule would you change?

For me, the answer is easy.  If a player hit a good golf shot, but it ended up in divot created by another player who did not fix it, I would give free relief.

Now, there is no relief as so many golfers have found, including the late Payne Stewart who hit into a divot once in a late round of the 1998 U.S. Open, couldn’t get out cleanly, and ended up losing the tournament to Lee Janzen, though Stewart won the next year just before he unfortunately died in an airplane accident.

Given Stewart’s experience, not to mention my own, my summary above is such an obvious rule change that I cannot believe everyone doesn’t agree with me.

So, my poll – obviously not a scientific one – produced these results, which I list without the names of those who made each suggestion:

• From a friend:  Nothing matches your suggestion about being able to move a ball which rests in the divot of another careless golfer who failed to replace or sand it.
  
  I’d also change the rule about grounding a club in a sand bunker.  Why is the sand such a holy place?  We have to hit from the divots of others.  We can now ground our club in penalty areas, why not the sand?

Comment:  Good point.  Plus, if you were to take time to read official golf rule #12, you would find out a lot of other stuff that makes this friend’s point even more solid.

• From another friend:  I would pick either free relief from a tree root or raise the limit on the number of clubs allowed. 

Comment:  The root rule makes good sense; in the games I play at my course, all of us follow this rule.  As for more than 14 clubs, my golf bag is already too heavy.

• From another friend:  First, this isn’t fair because you know all the rules and I don’t.  Therefore, I am going to suggest that a rule be added that allows one mulligan per round.  I mean, yes, I already golf that way, but I think it should be more formally part of the game.

Comment: This is not a rule change, but a new rule – and a good one.

• From another friend:   I’d suggest re-visiting the language on pin placement.  I believe it says there “should” be 3 feet of level ground on all sides of the pin.
  
  We’ve all had instances playing impossibly tough pin placements where there was only a yard or so of flat ground prior to a steep hill. Not a fair pin and significantly slows pace of play.  Perhaps language should say “must” be 3 feet.

Comment:  Good point.  The language on pin placement, as I understand it, is advisory.  Placing the pins still relies on the judgment of the person doing the work, so it is important for that person on the maintenance crew to understand placement realities.

• From a head golf pro:  He said he would “play the ball down” every time, thus not allowing “preferred lies” around any golf course at any time.

Comment:  This would be tough, especially in inclement weather in the Pacific Northwest, but, to be sure, this head pro knows more golf than I do, so I’ll take him at his word.

• From another pro:  He said he would always place bunker rakes outside the bunker, not inside.  This is not necessarily a rule change, instead a change of advice, but, as the poll taker, I rule that it is a permissible comment for this poll.

Comment:  I can go both ways on this suggestion – rake inside or outside the bunker.  As I understand it, the United States Golf Association (USGA) advice is to keep rakes outside, so the USGA agrees with this pro.

Good suggestions, all.

So, I’ll be talking with the USGA and the R & A about adding these changes and additions to the next official golf rules book.

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.

One of my favorite books – yes, a golf book – is a “Season in Dornoch:  Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands.”

It was written 25 years ago by a famous golf writer, Lorne Rubenstein, who, with his wife, went from his home in Toronto, Canada to live in the small town of Dornoch. 

There, over about four months, he and his wife lived in a flat above a bookstore, played a lot of golf on one of the greatest courses in the world, Royal Dornoch.  He and his wife wandered around meeting venerable Scottish citizens.

And that produced his book.

For my part, I have had the privilege of visiting Dornoch on several occasions and playing the course, a links-style test which earns its monicker, Royal.

It is one of my very favorite courses in the world, perhaps standing only second for me because I also love my favorite, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club where I live three houses from the first tee in Salem, Oregon.

Why do I write about this again?

Well, it always is fun to write about Royal Dornoch.

And I do this in connection with a note in Fore Magazine, which is produced by the Southern California Golf Association, of which I am member, along with the golf association in Oregon.  The note heralded the 25^th anniversary of a “Season in Dornoch.”

From Fore:

“Lorne Rubenstein had no distractions such as LIV when he spent a summer in Dornoch back in 2000, an experience he eloquently detailed in ‘A Season in Dornoch.’

“The 25th anniversary edition includes a new introduction and afterword, plus Herbert Warren Wind’s New Yorker piece on the course.

“What Tom Coyne writes in a new afterword:

“Scotland is the protagonist of these pages — its people and culture and history seep into every word of this odyssey.  A story that could easily have read as an indulgent boondoggle instead brims with a pedagogic generosity.

“We might have come to learn about a golf course, but we leave educated about a people, a country and ourselves.”

So, armed with a flag from Royal Dornoch given to me by a good friend in Salem, along with a book – “Personal Memories of Royal Dornoch, 1900-1925 by Donald Grant — I am setting out to read “A Season in Dornoch” again.

It will be about the 25^th time through the book for me, which is appropriate for the 25^th anniversary.  More good reads are in store.

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.

The presidential election, if you can go by polls these days, appears essentially to be tied.

With all due respect to reputable pollsters, I am not sure there is any way for polls to be accurate these days.  Often, respondents who are asked to express a view don’t express an accurate one.

Still, I think Kamala Harris has one thing going for her in the final days of the campaign.  In a name:  Donald Trump.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. put it this way:  “If the race turns Harris’s way, it will be because she used Trump’s wild rhetoric against him.”

More from Dionne:

“Vice President Kamala Harris has an indispensable ally as she closes her presidential campaign.   She carries messages from him nearly everywhere she goes.   His name is Donald Trump.

“At a United Auto Workers union hall in Lansing, Michigan on Friday, she showed video of Trump demeaning the labor of autoworkers by describing them as simply taking parts ‘out of a box’ and putting them together — ‘we could have our child do it,’ he claimed — and declaring his hatred of overtime pay.

“On Saturday night in Atlanta, the video presentation focused on a shamefully dismissive comment by Trump about Amber Thurman, who died in 2022 after being unable to access medical care because of the state’s abortion restrictions.  Trump, Harris said, was ‘cruel,’ and ‘still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and suffering he has caused.’

“For Republican-leaning voters who can’t stomach Trump but are reluctant to vote Democrat, she has highlighted the threat he poses to freedom and constitutional democracy.  Clips of Trump describing his political opponents as ‘the enemy within’ and threatening to use the military against them make the point more dramatically than anything a critic could say.

“And if Harris is looking to back up her new ad calling Trump ‘unhinged, unstable, unchecked,’ he provided pornographic evidence by admiring the size of golfing luminary Arnold Palmer’s p____.”  [I use the blank because I can’t find a way to type the full word, but you get the drift, right?]

Dionne continues that “Trump’s indiscipline offers Harris a chance to seize back the momentum she enjoyed from three surges:  Her buoyant emergence after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, the success of the Democrat convention, and her pummeling of Trump in their single debate.”

Like some analysts, Dionne suggests that Harris’ closing forays should focus on female voters and “an overlapping group of college-educated moderates and moderate conservatives.”

Or, what about Black voters who, some analysts argue, are turning toward Trump?

For my part, here in the cheap seats out West, I find that hard to believe, at least in large numbers that could include the election result. 

Similarly, Dionne writes,  “Black political leaders largely dismiss talk of a substantial defection to Trump among Black men — ‘I almost brought my husband here with me to dispel that,’ Detroit City Councilmember Latisha Johnson joked at a Harris early-vote rally here on Saturday.”

One other thrust for Harris.

Dionne says she can “into Trump’s blue-collar vote by reminding union members of Trump’s attitudes toward labor, as she did at the Lansing UAW rally, hitting Trump hard on tax cuts for the wealthy and contrasting the loss of manufacturing jobs under Trump with the revival of manufacturing under Biden.” So, I say, Harris go!  Take Trump with you to every venue and report how ba

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.

There are at least two good reasons to write about golf courses in Scotland:

• Golf in the “home of golf” is so much fun that it is good to be able to write about it again.

• Doing so means that I can forget about one Donald Trump who thinks he should be president again, but should get nowhere near the Oval Office.

Links Magazine performed a service this week by writing about the “best modern golf courses in Scotland” – and the good news for me is that I have played two of them.

So, with credit to the Links writer, David DeSmith, I start this blog with a description of these two.

• Castle Stuart Golf Links (Inverness)

“Golf course architect Mark Parsinen was at it again near Inverness, on the shore of the Moray Firth, this time co-designing what was envisioned to be another destination course with another architect, Gil Hanse.  

“And a destination, it is.  Now a member of the Cabot family of golf properties, Castle Stuart Golf Links at Cabot Highlands gives today’s players everything they could want from a modern links:  Room off the tee; challenging approach shots to imaginative, well-guarded greens; excellent playing conditions; and views of the sea (and the eponymous castle itself) that will forever be etched in your memory.”

I played this course on one of our trips to Scotland and, in only one turn around 18-holes, loved it.  The links-style character of the course tests all shots, even as you look out at the Firth of Fourth. 

As usual in Scotland’s links-style layouts, you often play a lot of shots close to the ground so they run out.  Which is why one of the favorite clubs in my golf bag is my 7-iron.

• Machrihanish Dunes (Campbeltown)

“Architect David McLay Kidd’s design – he did it in 2008 — at the tip of the Mull of Kintyre is a throwback to an age when courses were not so much created as discovered, just as next-door neighbor Machrihanish Golf Club was by Old Tom Morris.

“At Mach Dunes, environmental restrictions meant that Kidd could identify tees and green sites and shape them a bit, but very little was done elsewhere.  The land on which the course sits today has shorter grass than when Kidd arrived, and some wildly entertaining greens, but otherwise it’s much as he found it — something that has earned it the label of “the world’s most natural golf course.”  There are blind shots, big dunes, forced carries, and an occasional long walk from green to tee.

“But the overall experience is a wholly exhilarating one, and one that will give you a good idea of what it was like to play golf in Scotland back in Old Tom’s day.”

When I played Mach Dunes, I also had played its more famous neighbor Machrihanish Golf Club.  So, I had the full Mach experience.

Kidd’s course was fun to walk, as I did with my wife, Nancy.  Blind shots?  Yes.  But, still, a very fun day on the links.

Including these two, here is how golf writer DeSmith started his Links Magazine story:

“As the acknowledged ‘Home of Golf,’ Scotland has a long and proud history with the game, and especially in regard to the courses on which the game is played.  The Old Course in St. Andrews is the most famous course in the world, in part because of its age and history.  Old, it most certainly is.

“The same can be said for many of Scotland’s other most-revered courses, including its other Open rota sites at Carnoustie, Royal Troon, and Muirfield.  These famed courses date back more than 100 years, and in that time, they’ve earned praise from all comers.

“But Scotland hasn’t been resting on its laurels.  Over the past three decades, it has seen more than a dozen spectacular new courses debut — courses that vie with the country’s best and attract visiting golfers like thirsty men to whisky.”

DeSmith adds that “attributes that constitute a ‘modern’ course in Scotland are a bit different from the ones that might characterize such a design in America or other parts of the world — largely because so many of them are links courses that honor and include traditional links features.

Here, for the record, is a list of the other “modern Scottish courses” that met the Links Magazine writer’s test:

• Loch Lomond Golf Club (Argyll & Bute)

• Kingsbarns Golf Links (St. Andrews)

• Dundonald Links (Irvine)

• The Renaissance Club (North Berwick)

• The Castle Course (St. Andrews)

• Trump International Golf Links (Aberdeen)

• Ardfin (Isle of Jura)

• Dumbarnie Links (Leven)

So, golf in Scotland?  A great experience, though getting back to Trump for a moment, I would decline to play Trump International in Aberdeen, Scotland.  There are far better courses there than to align with Trump.

With wife Nancy, I have had the pleasure to travel to Scotland – her parent’s homeland — five times. Each trip, with modern and old courses alike, was great fun.  And, not just fun.  But a distinct pleasure to relive golf in the “home of golf.”

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.

The Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know is one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of “Just Saying,” the Department of Words Matter, and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.

So, inquiring minds want to know:

1. DO PURCHASES BY CREDIT CARD REQUIRE SIGNATURES?  The Wall Street Journal says no.

So, why do we still sign?  The answer is that signatures have been customary for many years, though, in fact, under law and management processes, they have been optional since 2018.

The Journal reports that Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express dropped the requirement to sign for charges like restaurant checks in 2018.

They don’t look at our scribbles to verify identity or stop fraud.  Taps, clicks and electronic signatures took over the heavy lifting for many everyday purchases — and for many contracts, loan applications and even Social Security forms.

The John Hancock was written off as a relic useful mainly to inflate the value of sports memorabilia.

• WHY DO BIG TRUCKS OFTEN PARK OUTSIDE REST AREAS ON MAJOR HIGHWAYS, EITHER AT THE ENTRANCES OR EXITS TO THOSE AREAS?  Here is what Mr. Google says.

“Big trucks often park at the entrances or exits of roadside rest areas because there is often a shortage of available parking spaces within the rest area itself, forcing drivers to park on the ramps when they can’t find a spot to rest inside; this is primarily due to the high demand for truck parking compared to the limited capacity at most rest stops.”

I beg to differ, at least on occasion.  I have seen rest areas open for more trucks, with some still sitting at the entrances or exits.

Oh well.

•  WHAT IS “OLD GROWTH” TIMBER?  I found out the answer last week.

And, to state the obvious, I am not someone who worked in forests all his life, but I thought I knew what the term “old growth” meant.  Just old trees.

No.  I found again that I am not as smart as I thought I was.

The issue came up because a few of us at Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club, where I play most of my golf in Salem, Oregon, were asked to help with a club project.  It was to spread wood chips on a walking path toward a stand of old growth timber.

A retired forester friend of mine – we were together on the path project – said the definition of “old growth” refers to trees that are at least 200 years old.  The ones at Illahe are “only” about 150 years old.

There.  Aren’t you glad you know more about this than you did before I wrote this blog?

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.

Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols – I know I quote him a lot but that’s because he’s so quotable – performed a valuable service a day or so agpo when all he did was quote Donald Trump.

Thus, my blog headline.

This was Nichols’ introduction:

“Trump, of course, tops the leaderboard for gobsmacking moments, and this week, his comments ran the gamut from vile to hilarious to head-scratching.  Even so, nothing could match his description of the January 6 insurrection — one of the darkest moments in American political history—as ‘a day of love.’

“This vertigo-inducing moment occurred during Trump’s Univision town hall two nights ago.  A Cuban American construction worker named Ramiro González said that he was ‘disturbed’ by Trump’s behavior on January 6, but wanted to give Trump a chance to win back his vote.

Trump’s answer was a slurry of sentence fragments and passive constructions, but its mendacity was unmistakable.

From Nichols, this quote from Trump: 

“Some of those people went down to the Capitol, I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action.  Ashli Babbitt was killed.  Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there.  We didn’t have guns.  The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.

“And when I say ‘we,’ these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows.”

There.  That’s Trump.

In general about Trump, Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin quoted Kamala Harris:

“His staff won’t let him do a ‘60 Minutes’ interview.  Everyone has done it except Donald Trump.  He will not debate me again.  I put out my medical records.  He won’t put out his medical records.  

“And you have to ask:  Why is his staff doing that?  And it may be because they think he’s just not ready — and unfit and unstable and should not have that level of transparency for the American people.”

Rubin reports that Harris hit the same notes in a series of battleground rallies describing Trump as “unstable and unhinged.”  And at a rally, Harris even played clips of Trump labeling his political opponents as “the enemies from within … those people are more dangerous than Russia and China.”

More from Rubin:

“Trump, as even mainstream outlets acknowledge, is becoming angrier, more threatening, more explicit in his authoritarian vision — and more incoherent.  The uptick in unsteady, off-kilter performances has increased.  On Monday, he seemed to prove Harris’s point at a bizarre town hall at which he cut off questions and swayed to the music for nearly 40 minutes.  On Tuesday, he rambled, insulted the interviewer and American autoworkers, and then veered wildly off topic when asked a basic question about his economic plan.”

So, there is no way for any sane person to understand Trump, the incoherent one. 

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.

A few columns in major national newspapers recently have followed a question-answer format to help readers understand more about politics as the national presidential election heads into its final weeks.

I use that approach today, though, in fact, I both ask the questions and provide the answers.

QUESTION:  What ought to mark presidential candidates?

ANSWER:  Solid character based on years of experience handling tough public policy issues.  Plus, rigorous adherence to the truth.

QUESTION:  What qualities do you value in a presidential candidate?

ANSWER:  Candidates who appear as they are without crafting an image that displays them as what they are not.  Call this a “what you see is what you get” ethic.

QUESTION:  Name another particular credential you value in a candidate.

ANSWER:  The ability to admit an error if a candidate has made one, correct that error, and then move on without being called a flip-flopper – unless, of course, that is what a candidate is doing…just responding to political winds.

QUESTION:  Name another value.

ANSWER:  The willingness to accept the outcome at the polls without instituting a riot to overcome the outcome.

As for Trump, if he loses the election, he says he intends to use U.S. troops – yes, American military troops — to go after what he calls “radical-left lunatics.”  Who knows what he means by that term?  Perhaps just those who oppose him.

QUESTION:  What is really at stake in this election?

ANSWER:  The future of America as we know it.

Consider this from writer Peter Wehner in The Atlantic:

‘The nominee for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is a squalid figure, and the squalor is not subtle.  His vileness, his lawlessness, and his malevolence are undisguised.  At this point, it is reasonable to conclude that those qualities are a central part of Trump’s appeal to many of the roughly 75 million people who will vote for him in three weeks.

“They revel in his vices; they are vivified by them.  Folie à millions.

“Trump may lose the election, and, by that loss, America may escape the horrifying fate of another term.  But we have to acknowledge this, too:  The man whom the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘the most dangerous person to this country’ is in a razor-thin contest against Kamala Harris, a woman who, whether you agree with her or not, is well within the normal boundaries of American politics.

“If he loses, he will not concede. Trump will instead attempt to tear the country apart.  He can count on the near-total support of his party, and the majority of the white evangelical world.  They will once again rally to his side, in the name of Jesus.”

To which, in regard to the last phrase, I say “balderdash.”  Trump does not deserve to be listed in the same sentence with Jesus.

Or, this from Washington Post writer Dana Milbank that summarizes Trump derangement:

“Under the stress of the final weeks of the campaign, Trump has somehow become ever more bonkers than he already was.  Over the past week, he proposed using the National Guard or the military against ‘radical left lunatics’ on Election Day, and he called the United States an ‘occupied country.’

“He stood onstage at what was supposed to be a ‘town hall meeting’ and swayed and danced to his campaign playlist for 39 minutes.  He bickered with an interviewer at the Economic Club of Chicago and slurred words at a rally in Georgia.  He threatened to impose 2,000 per cent tariffs on cars.

“He called his opponents the ‘enemy from within’ and made up stories about migrant gangs taking over buildings in Colorado.  He held a Fox News event with women and proclaimed himself ‘the father of IVF,’ then acknowledged he asked a female Republican senator to ‘explain IVF’ to him.

QUESTION:  What have you had enough of in this election?

ANSWER:  Donald Trump.

I have had more than enough – read, too much – of Trump as he preens to become president again.

I thought of this yesterday:

What if we had a presidential election that met this overall goal:  Talk truth, add context, and get a penalty for lying.

Imagine that.  We could vote on the basis of what we heard, without having to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Won’t happen.  No, it won’t because, unfortunately, many voters in this country want the negative, even the lies, which is why they hew toward Trump.

Don’t count me among them.  So call me poly-anna – or a supporter of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

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.

The question in this blog headline crossed my mind the other day when I was walking around the golf course.

So, today, I posit the answer.

This:  Trump is an avowed fascist.

I wasn’t sure what fascism meant, though I knew that Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy before I was born, was one – a fascist.  So, I looked up the term.

Here is what it means:  Fascism is a far-right form of government in which most of the country’s power is held by one ruler or a small group, under a single party.  Fascist governments are usually totalitarian and authoritarian one-party states.

Trump wants to be THE LEADER in America. 

Not the president for all citizens.  But THE LEADER, more in the form of a dictator than a president.

And he has said that, if he wins election, he will set out to injure or kill those who oppose him, even if it means the U.S. military is directed to do his bidding pursuant to his role as commander in chief.

He wants everyone to do his bidding because, you know, he is always the smartest person in any room, facts to the contrary.

When General Mark Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he told New York Times reporter Bob Woodward:  “President Donald Trump is a danger to the nation.   We have got to stop him!

“He is the most dangerous person ever.  I had suspicions about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist.  He is the most dangerous person to this country.  A fascist to the core!”

For his part, Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols, who interviewed Miller, added this:

“I have long resisted the use of the word fascist to describe Trump.  But almost a year ago, I came to agree with Milley that Trump is through-and-through a fascist.  He is not only unhinged in his narcissistic self-obsessions, a problem which itself renders him unfit for office; he is also an aspiring dictator who demands that all political life centers on him.

“He identifies his fellow Americans as ‘enemies’ because they are of a different race, national origin, or political view.  And he has threatened to use the powerful machinery of the state and its military forces to inflict brutality on those fellow citizens.

“All of this raises the question, once again, of what it will take, what will be enough, to rouse the last undecided or less engaged American voters and bring them to the ballot box to defend their own freedoms.”

I wonder the same thing.

What will it take for Americans to avoid voting for a fascist – Trump?