Whiner Leader

The people who revere Donald Trump are routinely characterized as “angry,”and their anger is often characterized  -- even by those who think Trump a buffoon – as justifiable or at least understandable.  An editorial in the Washington Post put it this way: “The grievances they speak to are real: a sense that the economy has left too many people behind, that globalization and technological change are helping the few while stranding the many.”

Please.  Or to put it another way, globalization-schmobilazation.

These people are not angry.  What they are is whiny. If there is a whinier, more put-upon group of people than Donald Trump’s followers I don’t know who it would be.  They hold these two ideas to be sacred and self-evident: (1) They are unhappy; (2) It’s somebody else’s fault that they are unhappy.  They love their victimhood, and they relish the prospect of Trump vanquishing their tormentors.  They do this even as unemployment is at historical lows, interest rates are miniscule, inflation is non-existent, and more of the vehicles of choice for these folks, pickup trucks, are being sold than have ever been sold in the history of the world.

And yet, they say they are angry. Foot-stompingly, sneeringly, smoke-coming-out-of-their-ears angry. What is their problem?

In a previous post, I wrote: “Normal people are mystified by the way Donald Trump can repeatedly say bizarre, even irrational things – he witnessed something that didn’t happen, he thinks members of one religion should be kept out of the country -- and his poll numbers go up. It’s as if a light bulb goes on over the heads of these newest Trump converts: ‘Wow. I knew he was a blowhard and a bigot, but now I see he’s also delusional. I’m voting for him!’ Unexplainable, seemingly. But, of course, what his people see in him isn’t about any of that. It’s about his promise to ‘make America great again.’ And by ‘great’ what his mostly white male followers understand him to mean is a time when people who looked like them had all the good jobs; when there weren’t all these weird non-Christian religions around; when blacks, Hispanics, and women knew their place; when political correctness didn’t prohibit decent white folks from putting down racial and ethnic minorities.“

Meanwhile, if you needed further proof of how utterly clueless the Donald Trump true believers are – proof that includes all of the above plus his belief in a mythical giant wall, his affinity for throwing tens of thousands of people out of the country, his call for the murder of women and children in the Middle East, his calling an opponent a pussy for not embracing water boarding, and on and on -- his remark about shooting people provided it. This is a perfect double whammy: (1) When he said “I could shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” he was absolutely right. His followers wouldn’t care if he committed such an act because they are oblivious to everything he says and everything he does, and respond only to the persona he projects, the one that does such a good job of playing to and nurturing their many resentments and imagined grievances; (2) They don’t get that when he said that, he was making fun of them. He was telling the world that his posse is so dense, so zombie-like in their adoration of him that he could do anything and they wouldn’t care. To be a blind follower of an intellectual and moral lightweight, and to not understand that you are being told by that person how blind you are and being ridiculed for it – that’s clueless.

Dear Trump peeps: If you are unhappy with the circumstances of your life you are absolutely free to improve on them. Nothing the government is doing or not doing is stopping you. Same with Wall Street big shots, the mainstream media, Muslims, immigrants, the Chinese, minorities, and so on. Your problems are of your own making, and so are the solutions. Electing your man to the presidency (or congress or the governorship or the school board) won’t make it all better. You won’t all of a sudden get the job of your dreams or get along better with your spouse. Your guy keeps telling you you’re being “ripped off,” something you clearly love to hear because you’re so fond of seeing yourselves as victims. Perhaps you can explain how you’re being ripped off. He can’t. Please be specific. Otherwise, you’ll just have to accept the New York Daily News’ characterization of Trump’s win in New Hampshire: “Dawn of the Brain Dead”.

The Villain Stan Kroenke

I was a follower and fan of the St. Louis Rams and I enjoyed their company while they were here.  I rooted for them to win, and, like everyone else, was exasperated when they played poorly which was, as we all know, most of the time. I will miss them. Having thus established my bona fides in this regard, I will say this: The demonization of Stan Kroenke and the outpouring of vitriol against him – the foot stomping, the insult hurling, a lawsuit for cripes sake, and an undoubtedly very expensive Super Bowl ad by a local personal injury lawyer -- is misplaced and comes across as childish and provincial. I don’t know Kroenke and have no interest in defending him, but the crimes with which he has been popularly charged, singly and in combination, seem to have been borne of anger and disappointment but not rationality. To wit:

Kroenke callously blew off St. Louis and should be ashamed.  Kroenke is in the entertainment business.  He owns a show.  And when you own a show, whether it’s a football team, a tent revival, or the ice capades, you’re going to locate it where you think it will attract the most customers and generate the most revenue.  That’s your job and it’s certainly your prerogative.  Where you grew up has nothing to do with it.

Kroenke betrayed the people who “supported” the Rams all these years.  People
who say that make it sound like folks donated their money to the enterprise – that they didn’t want to buy tickets to and attend Rams’ games but did so out of a spirit of generosity or civic duty. They were doing Kroenke a favor. In fact what they did was hand over money in return for which they were granted admission to and given a seat at a football game.  Quid pro quo.  They did what they wanted to do and they got what they paid for.  As for so-called emotional support, I’m not entirely sure what that means but it doesn’t sound like something grown-ups ought to bestow on a sports team.  Enjoy your team’s victories, mourn (for an hour or so) its losses, and understand that emotional entanglements are not adult-appropriate

Kroenke put an inferior product on the field.  It was an inferior product for the most part but I don’t see how you can make the case that it was because of anything Kroenke did or didn’t do.

Kroenke lied. Well he did say at one point he’d try to keep the team in St. Louis.  Maybe he didn’t really mean it.  Or maybe he changed his mind.  Or maybe he lied.  So what? People lie, and they certainly don’t always tell the whole truth.

Kroenke has enough money and shouldn’t be trying to get more by moving the team. Not your call.  How much money someone has and wants, whether it’s Stan Kroenke, your next door neighbor or your co-worker one desk over, is none of your business.

Kroenke took cynical advantage of a dumb stadium lease clause. He did, indeed; “dumb” being the key word here. The stadium’s proprietors signed on to the ridiculous idea that the team could get out of the lease if the stadium failed to reach a certain level in stadium tier-dom, and Kroenke used it to get what he wanted.  You would, too.

Kroenke’s move is a blow to the region’s economy. In reality, it will have almost no effect on the region’s economy.  What football fans, in their anger and disappointment, have a hard time getting their heads around is that they are in the minority. The majority is in one of these categories: (1) Might check the Rams’ score Monday morning but never attend or watch games; (2) Are only dimly aware of the existence of the Rams; (3) Are only dimly aware of the existence of football.  Only hard-core fans see this development as a tragedy.  Nobody else does and the regional economy will shrug it off.

Watching and rooting for the home NFL team is fun.  Many, many other things are also fun.  We should quit worrying about Stan Kroenke, a guy we never even heard of until about five years ago.