Littering as metaphor.

     “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
          ― F. Scott Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby, 1925

Writers cite this quotation frequently in this Era of Trump.

Trump is the change-agent a great many Americans wanted, and still want. Change-agents destroy things. They challenge norms. Trump reveals weaknesses in the American system of government and its institutions: Congress, especially, but also our campaign finance system, our law enforcement, our news media, our currency, our trade relationships, our alliances, our immigration system, and our laws regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Trump is often spontaneous and inconsistent in his disruption, which reads as "careless" to observers, which is why we see the quotation at the beginning of this column.

It is unfair to blame littering on Donald Trump. We had careless littering before Trump and we had performative political littering, too. It was celebrated by the political and cultural left as graffiti in opposition to oppression. It was "people's art." It was sticking it to "the man." 

But today's guest post by John Coster makes a fair point. Trump is changing what it means to be a good citizen. He is a reversal of whatever residue there is of JFK's call for patriotic sacrifice, bear any burden, pay any price, ask what you can do. 

Trump's patriotism is each person winning. We are a nation of winners in competition with losers. Trump's norm-breaking behavior includes selling our country and the world on the notion that this is a dog-eat-dog world and always has been, and Trump is just revealing and acting on that simple truth. People and businesses and countries look out for themselves, Trump included. Survival is about power, not some high-minded, noble, rules-based courtesy to entities larger than yourself. Take what you can because that is what everyone else does. Look out for number one. If you can grab a benefit, do it until someone stops you. If you can transfer a duty to someone else, do it until somebody or something stops you. Don't be a sap.

In that mindset, only a sap would bother taking fireworks litter home with them.

John Coster is a technology investor who managed, and now consults to, multimillion-dollar electrical installations for major technology firms. He also does hands-on missionary work among the homeless population on the sidewalks of Seattle.

Guest Post by John Coster

Is the way we live a symbol of who we have become?

I live on Alki Point in Seattle, which is on a remarkable urban beach with both city and mountain scapes. You can Google pictures. It's a beautiful stretch of coastline. The entire three to four miles is blend of sea walls, sandy beaches, boat ramps, ferry docks, fishing piers, shops and restaurants, old shipyards and of course, bike lanes. There is even an underwater city park for scuba diving (where I got PADI-certified). The tide flats during king tides are a marine life lover’s dream. It’s one of the city’s most popular playgrounds. Summer nights mean you’ll see cruisers showing off their custom bikes and classic (and not so classic) custom rods. There are volleyball tournaments all summer, art fairs and street food. 

Yesterday people staked out their spots early on the stretches of beach and park areas. Wall-to-wall canopies, beach chairs, grills and music of every style and ethnicity. 

Last night my wife and I walked down to see if we could catch a glimpse of the big fireworks being held across Eliot Bay. We didn’t need to. The entire stretch of beach was lined with commercial-grade fireworks being fired off by ordinary people along the boardwalk and beach. Just people blowing off serious fireworks in the middle of crowds. The air was thick with smoke as hundreds of mortars shot up and boomed around us. The few police sat in their parked cars with red and blue lights and watched. We watched for a while but decided it was pretty unsafe, especially after a mortar went off on the ground, so we waded through the crowd and walked home. 

I was up early today and walked the beach. It was a mess. Trash everywhere as you might expect, but what shocked me was how much garbage was left from all the illegal fireworks. Everything just left for someone else to clean up. 

I was thinking how maybe that’s appropriately symbolic of who we have become. Or maybe with few exceptions in our nation’s history- we tend to make a lot of noise, blow things up (and even flaunt its illegality) and let someone else deal with the aftermath. Maybe our current administration with its selfish and narcissistic leader is just a mirror of our broader culture (not everyone of course) which is why so many see nothing wrong with his worldview. 

Your Up Close correspondent in Seattle.

 

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