Senior officials say Trump is reckless, the White House is chaotic, and that America is in danger.
What if we are heading to a disaster of some kind? Are you prepared?
Yesterday this blog said Trump was "bunkering down." I showed a photo of Trump and said it was a "self protective, bunkering posture." I have been informed I was wrong. I should have said "hunkering." Trump is "hunkering down."
To hunker is to crouch down, to make a smaller target. One hunkers down in a hailstorm or when receiving enemy rifle fire. The phrase "to bunker" means to hit a golf ball into a sand trap or to put heavy oil into a ship's fuel tanks. Mine is a common error and linguists have a name for it: syntactic blend, where two similar sounding words get confused.
So I made a mistake. I asked myself, WWTD? (What Would Trump Do if he were confronted by having made a usage mistake?)
1. First, he would deny he made an error and immediately attack. He would say the supposed experts and language police were just one more example of why people hate Democrats, who over-regulate everything with their nitpicks and stupid outrage. Democrats make worse errors than he did. Investigate Democrats.
1. First, he would deny he made an error and immediately attack. He would say the supposed experts and language police were just one more example of why people hate Democrats, who over-regulate everything with their nitpicks and stupid outrage. Democrats make worse errors than he did. Investigate Democrats.
2. Then he would double down and say he knew exactly what he was doing--that he's a smart guy, really smart--and he intentionally used the word bunker, and for darned good reason. In the face of threats or distress people move into a bunker--a fort or place of refuge. He would use bunker in a sentence: "After Democrats lost Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan by huge margins, they bunkered down with the Socialst left, trying to reverse the landslide decision of the American people and my tremendous victory."
They "bunkered down", i.e. went to physical or ideological bunkers..
Intimations of Disaster.
Americans have always imagined and feared disaster. These may be the "end times" foretold in scripture.We survived the Cold War, we survived Y2K, but disaster is top of mind once again, especially in the high drama era of Trump. The Bob Woodward book, and now the NY Times Op-Ed make the point that Trump is reckless and ignorant enough to stumble into catastrophe. He is a careless boy at the controls of a complex machine, but maybe--maybe--the adults in the room can prevent disaster.
There are the usual disaster suspects: Climate change (and Trump peremptorily pulled us out of the Paris accords.) Electrical grid or internet vulnerability (but Trump is oddly close to the Russians who might well be the attacker.) Disease Contagion (but Trump is pulling us out of UNESCO.)
And nuclear war. Trump talks of winning nuclear wars.
Bunkers and bomb shelters are getting popular again. AM talk radio advertises survival gear, storable food, and firearms for "preppers," people prepared for surviving disaster. Nuclear accidents or confrontations no longer seem unthinkable, because Trump talks about it as a viable strategy to deal with North Korea and Iran. There is a growing 1950s sentiment when well-marked bomb shelter signs were visible in subways and building basements. For forty years the idea of sheltering faded from mind. Congress' own bomb shelter at The Greenbriar in West Virginia has become a tourist attraction.
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| Bloomberg: Shelter for the very, very wealthy |
That is changing.
The very day I wrote of "bunkering down" Bloomberg had an article on bunkers, the suitable getaway for Silicon Valley billionaires. They fly to Nevada, then get onto a Gulfstream jet, then fly to New Zealand. The bunkers there are underground, luxurious, and hidden. The pilot of the Gulfstream gets to bring his family, so in the event of nuclear war, a pandemic, or a pitchfork revolt of the 99% against the one ten-thousands of one percent, they will have a faraway place to go and the pilot to fly them there.
Non-billionaires can get a backyard bunker for the price of a full size car or pickup truck. At $200 to $400 a square foot they are less expensive than a kitchen remodel.
Talk in the news is that Trump is furious. Several reporters used the word "volcanic" in his mood. Trump tweeted "TREASON" in all caps. Trump is upset. The revelation that his senior aides are actively working to restrain and subvert him means that their future words of caution and restraint will be less effective. Trump has been warned that they are enemies within, not allies.
Trump was elected president. Americans can worry that the nation may not survive it, but people who so choose to can take family precautions and hope to survive a blast and wait out the fallout in a bunker.
Trump was elected president. Americans can worry that the nation may not survive it, but people who so choose to can take family precautions and hope to survive a blast and wait out the fallout in a bunker.
The language experts say I should have said Trump is "hunkering down," but I said "bunker down," because that is what I was thinking.
3 comments:
There was a realization that shelters were of no use.
In the event of an apocalyptic event there wouldn't be much point in surviving, and those who are intent on it are delusional. The reasons are many, and the faint hope of shelters was cold war naïveté.
The op-ed was a brilliant move and will hasten the end. He will now occupy himself with a paranoid rampage through the West Wing, and beyond, that will no doubt embolden others to rebel. It is setting the stage for removal from office with the takeaway being the reference to the 25th amendment, which stood out for me as a curious addition to an otherwise predictable dissertation. I find it hard to believe that the writer composed it in a vacuum. It's a conspiracy, the only real one we've seen so far.
This should be our plan: when the billionaires scurry down the holes ahead of the pitchforks, we seal them in. Start over.
Here's the problem. Let's say somehow Trump is impeached. Then Pence gets to be President. After all, Pence said that God told him He wants him be President. How much better would he be? If you listen to him, you get the impression that he would replace the Constitution with the Bible. There are many people out there who would like that. You can forget Roe V. Wade. Those women would be jailed for murder. Every decision would be based on the Scriptures. In other words, a Pence presidency would be just as fruit cake as the current one. Be careful what you wish for.
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