Donald Trump

America is No Longer the Leader of the Free World

~ Randy Blazak ~ 3 Comments

March 4, 2025

Many of us watched the February 28th White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is abject horror. One of our most heralded allies was being attacked by Trump and Vance like a child being berated for breaking a window with a baseball. Then it became clear that it was the set up. An ambush for Trump’s Russian bosses. Vance badgering him to apologize. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend chiding him about not wearing a suit (when few of Trump’s White House chums have). I wanted Zelenskyy to just say to Trump, “Mr. President, are you aligned with America’s ally, Ukraine, or Putin?”

We know what Trump would have said – “I’m not aligned with anybody.” 

In that moment, it was clear that America was no longer the leader of the free world. That our allies could no longer rely on us and that we weren’t going to lift a finger to defend democracy. In that moment, Trump gave Putin the green light to obliterate Ukraine. At the United Nations, we voted with Russia (and North Korea) against the condemnation of Russia’s 2022 invasion. The following actions backed that position up, including halting support of military aid to Ukraine, ceasing cyber operations against Russia, mass firings at the CIA and FBI, and Trump asking to end U.S. sanctions against Russia. What more could Vladimir Putin ask for? (I’m sure we’ll find out.)

Trump’s capitulation to Russia and the falling in line of the MAGA cult rings familiar. In the years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were Americans, including in Congress, that thought the United States sending billions of dollars to our European allies to fight Nazi Germany was a big ol’ waste. Those nations weren’t sufficiently “grateful.” This included after Germany began their brutal blitzkrieg of Great Britain in 1940. They wanted England to at least give us some of their islands in the Caribbean for helping them. But FDR said, F that. We’re all in for freedom.

What launched the American century began in the first global conflict. During the “war to end all wars” (aka WW I), isolationist voices had the day, until it was clear that Britain and France REALLY need our help (and a ton of American merchant ships were being sunk by U-boats). On April 6, 1917, we declared war on Germany and shut that shit down. By November of the following year, the war was over. And the United States was the new hot shot defender of freedom, our perfect hair blowing in the wind. Ever since that moment in 1918, lovers of freedom and democracy knew we were their ride or die. Sure there were some ethical lapses, Central America, Vietnam, but for the most part we were the good guys on the planet.

That ended last Friday. The global realignment, long envisioned my MAGA architects, has jettisoned its long held alliance with Europe, viewed as decadent by Steve Bannon and white nationalists, in favor of an allegiance to authoritarian regimes like Russia. France is “socialist” and Moscow has clean subways. Sure, political dissidents are thrown into Siberian prisons, but Moscow has clean subways. We are now a part of the axis of evil and Trump and his handlers could not be happier.

I often tell the story of the time I was at a meeting at the U.S. embassy in London in 2018. I was there as a part of a government-funded trip to study how the British respond to violent extremism. We just happened to be at the embassy the day President Trump was attending a summit in Helsinki, Finland with the Russian leader. We all watched the press conference where Trump famously said that he trusted Putin’s assertion that Russia didn’t interfere in the 2016 election, over the evidence presented by his own intelligence agencies. The shock among the career diplomats I was watching with was palpable. They immediately scrambled to craft a response to the fact that the U.S. President and had just publicly chosen loyalty to the biggest dictator on the planet over his own nation.

We don’t know if Putin has some serious kompromat on Trump (perhaps the pee pee tapes are in a vault in the Kremlin) or Trump just really wants to be an authoritarian (or both), but Trump’s mandate is clear. He’s out for himself. He’s never read the Constitution, or The Bible for that matter. I’d lay odds he’s never read a complete book. He’s the transactional president. If it serves him and the sycophants that kiss his ass, he will throw Americans and their security under the bus. He will wage war on our allies, like Canada and Mexico, and sing the praises of dictators like Turkey’s Erdoğan and Hungary’s Orbán. Whatever fluffs his fragile ego.

Trump is murdering America.

So, sorry Ukraine, and other nations fighting to be free and democratic, we now have our own fight to win.

The Myth of Merit

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

February 15, 2025

We love our myths. They bind our cultures together. Whether they are creation myths or heroic myths of the eternal return, they resonate with our collective senses of self, what Carl Jung called the archetypes of the collective unconsciousness. This is certainly true of the “exceptional” myths of America.

We’ve been hearing a lot about “merit” lately. Trump/Musk has tried to make the case that anybody in a job who is not a straight white man is a “DEI hire,” who got the position because of some imagined quota instead of their inherent qualifications for the job. After the DC air collision last month Trump railed on former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (who is gay), saying, “We can’t have regular people doing this job. They won’t be able to do it, but we’ll restore faith in American air travel.” Then he went on about how dwarves are being hired to be air traffic controllers.

The message was clear. Only straight white able-bodied cis-gendered men are qualified for the job. Everybody else is a diversity hire. White men have “merit.”

When I explain the value of meritocracy to my sociology students I describe it basically as the combination of talent and effort. Meritocracy is the belief that anyone in America can make it up the economic ladder and what you lack in talent can be made up for with extra effort. If you want to be an NBA star or a Shark Tank entrepreneur, just put the work in and you’ll get there. And if you’ve got lots of talent AND drive, the sky is the limit. I use the example of Taylor Swift as someone who has loads of talent and an insane work ethic.

But Taylor also has had the advantage of being an attractive white woman. Just look at how Beyoncé has had to work twice is hard for fewer accolades. It might not be the best example but race is a major factor in the merit calculation and it translates to the fact that white men have a much lower bar to be seen as having merit. 

Just look at the range of completely unqualified nominations that Trump has put forward, like Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, and Robert Kennedy, Jr., just to name a few of many. Their complete lack of merit makes Marco Rubio look like a supreme statesman in comparison. (Maybe that was the intent.) Perhaps Pam Bondi has the resume to be the U.S. Attorney General, but we know how attractive blondes are promoted by beauty pageant CEO Trump. The Trump administration has an Affirmative Action program for bootlickers. Merit matters less than loyalty. (Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s recent comments on Ukraine demonstrate how supremely unqualified he is for this job.)

The kleptocracy of the Trump regime is an illustration of the myth of merit in America, where women, people of color, and other marginalized populations have to work twice as hard for half as much and then see their accomplishments chided as the result of of some set-aside DEI program. It’s not surprising that many white men see valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion as a threat to their path of privilege, because it is. These men have always had an advantage and they are not about to relinquish it so easily.

But as Jim Morrison sang in 1968, “They got the guns but we got the numbers.” These men are a shrinking demographic and a unified effort will pry the keys out of their creaking fingers.

Trump’s Shock & Awe Plan to Collapse the American Economy

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

February 4, 2025

These first two weeks have been dizzying. Trump and his billionaire bros have attacked multiple aspects of our democracy. They have ripped the guardrails off while Democrats have stood there, dazed and confused. The flurry of bias-motivated executive actions, appointments of merit-less droogs hell-bent on dismantling the imagined “deep state,” inflation driving tariffs, saber-rattling at our allies, and the pardoning of violent criminals who, in 2021, tried stop democracy in its tracks. It’s all too much.

The chaos of Trump, ripped from the pages of Project 2025, is the intent. In a normal world, each action would occupy a few weeks in the news cycle, but there’s a dozen actions a day. The chaos is the point. The opposition is playing Wack-a-Mole to each insane impulse from the orange madmen who is declaring war on our allies with one hand and canceling Black History Month celebrations with other. He’s throwing countless federal employees into economic crisis (as well as those, like me, who are employed by federal grants), while blaming the airline crashes on Obama and dwarves. It’s like being punched in the face over and over again with no chance to land a counterpunch.

Trump didn’t invent this strategy. Bush used it to destroy Iraq in 2003. Twenty-two years ago, they called it “Shock and Awe.” Use the military might of the United States to overwhelm Iraq and out of the chaos, create a machine that would profit post-war contractors. Just Google: Halliburton, Iraq, and Profit. This “shock doctrine” (as Naomi Klein called in her 2007 book) has a history of effectiveness. The disaster capitalism employed in nations like Chile was utilized to generate billions in profits for war contractors in Iraq. This week, as witnessed by the plunging of markets after Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Trump has brought disaster capitalism to the homeland and he and his billionaire bros stand to take home all the money.

The shock doctrine relies on chaos to shake up markets and political organization. Not only is the opposition stuck on the back foot trying to respond to each affront, economic destabilization paralyzes the working class who is more worried about inflation and holding on to their jobs than developing a strategy to fight back. Meanwhile, oligarchs are positioned to swoop in and calmly reassemble the pieces in a way that permanently protects their power and profit. This happened in Russia in the 1990s and it’s happening here now. It’s like that scene in It’s a Wonderful Life when there’s a run on the banks and George Bailey tries to calm the panic, saying, “Don’t you see what’s happening? Potter isn’t selling. Potter’s buying! And why? Because we’re panicky and he’s not.”

Trump, unregistered foreign agent Elon Musk, and their army of gangster capitalists are crashing the economy on purpose. Shipping migrant labor across the border, ludicrous tariffs, rampant deregulation, and appointing insanely unqualified loyalists are all meant to tank financial stability. Trump no longer needs his MAGA troops who were told he would lower the price of groceries on “Day 1.” They served their purpose of installing him back in the White House. They will suffer at the checkout line along with the rest of us. But at least they got to “own the libs.” Musk, now with the keys to the U.S. Treasury, can let the air out of America’s tires and jack up his global banking portfolio and Trump’s voters will have no idea what happened.

Like Mr. Potter, Trump’s billionaire bros will come in to “manage” the economic crisis. The German National Socialist Party did this when the Great Depression hit Germany. They consolidated power with the promise of affordable eggs. And now, when we look for the storied institutions of democracy to prevent an authoritarian takeover in the United States, including a free press, an independent judiciary, and a non-partisan Department of Justice, we will find they have been hollowed out during MAGA’s war of the “deep state.” Trump’s vow to purge the FBI of agents and analysts who investigated January 6th should be all the warning Americans need.

It’s easy to draw on the rise of Hitler as a historical parallel. And even though Melania has claimed that Trump kept Mein Kampf on his nightstand, Donald probably isn’t going back 90 years for a playbook. The rise of Putin and the rule of Russian oligarchs provide the formula. Just read Garry Kasparov’s 2015 book, Winter is Coming. Putin used economic calamity and the fear of Chechen terrorists to dismantle Russian democracy, making him President for Life. Dissidents get poisoned or sent to a Siberian gulag. Trump using the federal government to go after his political enemies is a page out of his comrade’s manifesto.

So what do we do?

We’ve have three weeks of the worst assault on American democracy in our lifetime. We’re all in shock that it’s really this bad. And it’s going to get worse. We can’t depend on Chuck Schumer and the corporate toadies of the Democratic Party save us. Many of them are in line to profit from the consolidation of power by the billionaire class. The Democrats who stand against them need to make themselves known now (or hang separately, as Ben Franklin said). But this is about us first. Us who are battered and defeated by the task at hand. Do we retreat into Netflix binges, or is there a path forward?

This is great opportunity to remember the practices of mindfulness. We’re all in reaction mode right now. Personally, I’ve had to resist the desire to punch someone, especially fellow working class people who think DEI is their enemy while their egg prices skyrocket. This is time to stop. Take a pause and breathe. Then we can start planning. There’s a great device popular in AA circles called “HALT.” Does this situation make me “Hungry Angry Lonely or Tired”? If so, just stop and take stock. So slowing the freakout roll is key.

Swiss sociologist Jennifer Walter offers a simple strategy to re-enage with solutions. First, focus on a few key issues you care about instead of being overwhelmed by the tsunami of fires that need to be put out (to mix metaphors). Second, find trusted sources of information who can do the work of providing needed facts and analysis. Third, if their goal is to overwhelm you, take mental health breaks. Meditation is a favorite “self gift” of mine. Next, Walter suggests taking 48 hours to respond to a news story to let your emotions subside and sort out what’s important. And lastly, build community to share the load. My faculty union president sent out an email last week, entitled, “What to Do in a Burning House,” asking faculty not disengage but step forward. I immediately joined a union committee.

Progressives, real patriots, and those who just care about the price of heat this winter, have been knocked to their knees by the Trump/Musk war on the buttresses of American democracy. But it’s time to stand back up. A lot of the heavy lifting is going to be done by lawyers who still have access to the courts to stop Trump’s actions, many of which are illegal and/or unconstitutional. The rest of us who are not the uber rich have a role, whether it’s monkey-wrenching the shock doctrine or building a viable alternative to Trump’s fear-fueled vision of America. Take a breath. We will do this.

DEI Makes America Great, or How Trump Ended the American Century

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

January 28, 2025

Watching Trump dismantle the very fabric of America is soul crushing. This is the final nail in the coffin of the American Century. Every day another pillar of democracy is attacked by a petulant man with deep-seated inadequacy issues. I fear for the America my daughter will inherit. But if Trump has is way of striking down the 14th Amendment, she may not even be an American.

On day one, Trump ended federal spending on DEI programs, a favorite bogeyman of some straight white men who see efforts for equality as “reverse racism” and a bunch of other complete b.s. that is viewed as threatening their “God-given” right to sit in the privileged seat at the top of the heap. The federal government now has the right to discriminate. I’ve worked in the DEI field for over 15 years and I’ve seen these men whine and whine. As one of those very privileged men, I’ve tried to talk to them, bro to bro, about how embracing the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion makes their own lives better, even more profitable.

But then they got the most insecure bully in the land as their “defender.”

The Trump chaos hits me on a personal level. Besides the fact that all my federal DEI work was just cancelled (so much for affording groceries), much of my work to make workplaces safer spaces for others, including women and people with disabilities, is unraveling. The racist attack on DEI mirrors the racist attack on Affirmative Action in years past. White men fear their hold on power is slipping, and it is. (It should be pointed out that the primary beneficiaries of Affirmative Action have been white women and white men who are veterans.)

I could write a dissertation about how Donald Trump is taking a big steaming dump on the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. but let me make just two important points about DEI.

DEI programs make workplaces safer and more productive. A famous study in the 2000s found that when employees felt respected for their identities, they were 4.4 times more productive. That means that instead of spending energy dealing with Racist Johnny, Sexist Carl, or Islamophobic Betty, they put that energy towards getting the task at hand done. DEI programs can educate around issues like implicit bias and micro-aggressions that suck the energy out of employees who are members of marginalized groups. Instead of spending time negotiating the minefield of co-worker bias, they can focus on the work, which increases profit.

And these workplaces are more safe. Not just emotionally but literally. I did some work in the local construction field after black construction workers were harassed (including a noose being hung on a construction site). If I was a black worker who had been hazed by fellow white workers, do you think I’m going to concerned about white workers’ safety? Hey, if Cleatus looks like he’s about to step off a third story girder, I might just think, “Oh, let’s just see what happens.” Workers who value inclusion look out for each other. As they say in the military, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. There is great benefit in creating safety by creating equity.

Secondly, DEI programs can help creating workforces and leadership that reflects the population being served. “Merit” is a myth. This fable that skill required should be the only criteria applied ignores the, not decades, but centuries of discrimination that have kept millions of Americans, including straight white men with disabilities, out of career paths that allow them to create intergenerational wealth. As much as it makes MAGA soil their Depends, America is no longer a country for old white men. The piece of the pie that looks like the father on Father Knows Best is rapidly shrinking. There are now more women in the workplace than men (so men better know how to see them as co-workers and not “girls.”). My incredibly diverse Gen Z students don’t even know what the acronym “WASP” stands for. No amount of ICE raids (starring Dr. Phil) will change the changing face of America. Trump can try to kick trans people out of the military, but the American rainbow genie is out of the lamp. DEI programs can help facilitate these welcome changes in a way that sees Americans for who they are, not force them to hide in the attic to allow fragile white men imagine they are in control.

On Inauguration Day, which was also MLK Day, Trump dared to mention Dr. King’s dream. If Trump was a scholar instead of a buffoon, he would know that King believed that his envisioned “symphony of brotherhood” would not be achieved until the institutional levers of oppression were dismantled. DEI programs are a vital tool in getting us there, as part of our broad civil rights goals. My great hope is that Trump, Musk, and the other white men of privilege who have decided to wage war on American diversity, the vital need for equity, and the great cultural and financial benefit of inclusion, are met by a much larger movement that burns their ideology of hate in the ash heap of history. If not, making America the 19th century again will end the promise of American greatness.

Read: A Study Finds That Diverse Companies Produce 19% More Revenue and How Diversity Increases Productivity

With the J6 Pardons, President Trump Just Set Up His Coup

~ Randy Blazak ~ 3 Comments

January 22, 2025

He said he was going to do it, so we shouldn’t be shocked. We hoped there would be some rhyme or reason, some forethought, some restraint. But there was none of that. President Trump blanket pardoned approximately 1500 of the terrorists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to overthrow our democratically elected government. This includes the most violent attackers who beat Capitol police, causing injury, trauma, and death. Today the leaders of violent extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys walk free and our nation is much less safe. Trump did this in his first 24-hours as president.

Almost 30 years ago, I had just completed my PhD when Timothy McVeigh drove a Ryder Truck full of ammonium nitrate fertilizer up to the federal building in Oklahoma City, lit the fuse and ran. The explosion killed 168 people, including 19 children in the building’s daycare center. On that spring day in 1995, my research went from focusing on racist skinheads to the even darker corners of the far right. This included interviews with militia members in western Montana in 1998, who told me in very clear terms that the only salvation America would be born from a violent civil war.

The patriot militia movement that birthed McVeigh and his fellow anti-government extremists would die, not with a bang, but with a whimper at the turn of the century. Janet Reno’s Department of Justice broke up numerous plots, aided by many community members reporting bomb-making neighbors. The 2000 election of George W. Bush took the wind out of their sails as many of their core issues, like guns and land rights, had gone mainstream. On June 11, 2001, McVeigh was executed and exactly three months later, the nation would launch a new war on terror.

But the racist reaction to the 2008 election of Barrack Obama, the Tea Party, and the advent of social media, brought the militia movement back. The election of Donald Trump and the COVID pandemic took it from survivalist bunkers to the laptops of soccer moms. And the end result was the violent assault on our Capitol sparked by conspiracy theories that used to be the domain of tinfoil hat kooks, now spread by the President of the United States.

Many of those that attacked the Capitol were members of violent extremist groups, like the Oath Keepers, the 3 Percenters, and the Proud Boys. Over 75 of those arrested for entering the building were carrying weapons, including guns. They had been told by Trump to “fight like hell,” and they did. When the dust cleared the besieged members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, called for the rioters to be arrested and charged to the fullest extent of the law. After encouraging them on January 6th, on January 7th, Trump said, “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay.”

Thanks to vigilant work of community members, dubbed “sedition hunters,” and the diligence of the Department of Justice, over 1,500 rioters were arrested and charged with federal crimes and over a thousand plead guilty (with 64% receiving jail sentences). This included leaders of well-known extremists groups who were charged with sedition.  Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, received a 22-year prison sentence. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes received 18 years.  The January 6th attack was the most violent assault on our Capital since the War of 1812.

And Donald Trump freed all of these terrorists. Every single one. They were not hostages, as he called them. Hostages are bound in the tunnels of Gaza. They were convicted criminals. But criminals who committed their crimes for Trump, so he let them loose, back into society.

Much of my work over the past four years has been in response to January 6. This includes my academic work as well as my ongoing work on a project, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, to reduce political violence. One of the things I can say for certain is the prosecution and sentencing of the J6 rioters has served to greatly suppress anti-government violence. Proud Boy-wannabes and militia members who missed the bus to DC saw the long sentences of Tarrio and Rhodes and hundreds of others and cooled their jets about the “boogaloo” and dreams of civil war.

Trump just erased that powerful deterrent with the stroke of a pen.

Where Timothy McVeigh’s story ended with a lethal ejection, the January 6 terrorists have been made into folk heroes by Trump and the far right. He has routinely sung their praises as lovers of the country. “These people have been destroyed,” Trump, said shortly after returning to the Oval Office. ”What they’ve done to these people is outrageous.” They are now living martyrs, rock stars of the anti-government movement, and will use their celebrity to bring more into the rabbit hole of paranoid conspiracy theories of the “deep state” and into the rhetoric of violent retribution for the agents of justice who dared imprison them. Tarrio has already promised revenge on those that jailed him. His Proud Boys marched in Washington DC, while Trump was being sworn in Monday. Rhodes and other militia members are free to reinvigorate the violent anti-government patriot movement that sees bloody revolution and a “Day of Ropes’ as required to wrestle America from the “deep state.”

Donald Trump, with the support of stiff armed ally Elon Musk, has opened Pandora’s Box. The core of the J6 terrorists see the Oklahoma City Bombing as the model for accelerating mass chaos to collapse society. Their anti-DEI policy ends with bodies hanging from lampposts. And don’t expect a Defense Department headed by fellow nationalist Pete Hegseth to get in their way. Where Reno shut plots down, Hegseth will enable a reign of terror.

We have seen versions of this in other countries. January 6, 2021 was the rehearsal for the coup. Trump and his corporate-fascist “patriots” have played the long game. In other countries, it has been the military that has quashed the coup. (It won’t be Hegseth’s military here, perhaps the rank and file.) We are heading towards that showdown and I wish I wasn’t so certain of that fact. What we do know is that with these pardons, Donald Trump has normalized political violence and ensured the loyalty of militia groups who will violently fight to keep him power. Welcome to the new Civil War.

Deep Breaths: Now the Work Ramps Up

~ Randy Blazak ~ 4 Comments

January 20, 2025.

I’m trying to stay away from my lizard brain today, unlike the rage I surrendered to on Election Day. I’m trying to not focus on how Donald Trump used his first address as our 47th president to crap on Native Americans (Denali will not be renamed Mt. McKinley) and further marginalize trans Americans (although I did say a small prayer that Barron Trump is transgender). I’m not focusing on how the CBP One app, created so asylum seekers can enter this country legally, has already been shut down by Trump officials. I’m not going to talk about how Trump’s inauguration, surrounded by, not the red hat MAGA supporters but his Billionaire Bros, is the dawn of a new Dark Ages.

This is Martin Luther King Jr. Day so the focus is on the work. We are entering an age of disinformation that will require extra effort from us to do what we have done successfully in the past, organize. Trump’s ultra-wealthy handlers, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the rest, will work to divide us and deflate our hope. Trump will give more tax breaks to the gilded class while the people who voted for him continue to suffer with lack of adequate health care coverage. They may be the newest recruits to the much chided “woke left.”

The work will require radical honesty about how Democrats have failed working class people, including new immigrants and queer people. The work will require radical honesty about how the “mainstream media” is the corporate media. The work will require radical honesty about how Neo-liberal economic policies have torn apart the safety and security of unionized labor in this country. And the work will require that the opposition party put up candidates in 2026 that will fight, without capitulation, for the issues real Americans face, including health care for all.

Most importantly, this work is going to require us to get off our phones and organize. And some of that organizing is going to be uncomfortable. Farm owners, who rely on undocumented workers, should be at the table. So should law enforcement officers and other first responders, who are as much a part of the service economy as baristas and vegan restaurant servers. Evangelicals, who recognize Christ’s attention to the poor and marginalized, can also be reached out to as well. Instead of falling into our little gangs of angry Americans, it’s time to build a massive coalition to save America from the broligarchy that Trump welcomed into our nation’s Capitol. We are a people who, at our core, value diversity, equity, and inclusion of our neighbors. We can control the narrative not him.

To date, Americans have spent 10 trillion dollars on the War on Terror, that replaced the Taliban in Afghanistan with the Taliban and enriched a lot of companies doing business with the Pentagon. We can debate if that price tag is required to keep the nation safe from 9/11-type attacks, but I’m betting that $10 trillion could have made our nation safe in other ways, including free health care and affordable housing for all Americans. These are things that affect all of us, including the millions of Americans who voted for Trump. Before Americans are completely overwhelmed by the chaos of the pathological liar in the White House and drugged with disinformation, coming from Chinese apps, Musk, Meta, and elsewhere, let’s reach out with reason. We have one last window. There are 650 days until the mid-term elections. Breathe today and work tomorrow.

“It’s not my job to make you comfortable”: Teaching in the Era of Trump 2.0

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

January 6, 2024

As a student of the history of fascism and a teacher of that history, I’m well aware of the echoes of the past. When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, the first targets of the Third Reich were not Jewish shop owners, but college professors. Germany’s universities were purged of faculty that were Jewish or branded to be communist, socialist, or liberal. Albert Einstein, among other intellectuals, wisely fled his home country. The main work of the Nazi purge was not done by the SS, but by fascist students who were part of the Hitler Youth movement.

One the reasons Einstein and others, including the brilliant social theorists of the Frankfurt School, came to America is because of our value of academic freedom. Academic freedom creates a space for faculty and students to have the right to the free exchange of ideas. One core tenet states, “Academic freedom gives both students and faculty the right to express their views — in speech, writing, and through electronic communication, both on and off campus — without fear of sanction, unless the manner of expression substantially impairs the rights of others or, in the case of faculty members, those views demonstrate that they are professionally ignorant, incompetent, or dishonest with regard to their discipline or fields of expertise.” (Source: Inside Higher Ed)

I highlight this passage because it is clear that Donald Trump plans to go after universities in his second term, which is also laid out in Project 2025, authored by his former and current advisors. Trump has derided universities as engaging in “radical left indoctrination” and promised using federal levers to turn higher ed into centers of ideological loyalism. This includes making it harder for non-wealthy students to attend college, deporting student protestors, and firing accreditors. American universities are encouraging international students to return before Trump reinstates his Muslim travel ban and other draconian travel restrictions. His vow to reclaim universities from the “radical left” is a page torn from 1933.

Trump is not even sworn in and academics are already feeling the pressure as emboldened MAGA students try to out their liberal professors at colleges and on social media. I remember the last version of this in the 1980s when the group, Students for America, tried to publicly ostracize professors they deemed to be leftists. It was chilling. This time those students will have POTUS and the repurposed Department of Education on their side. Teachers and professors, especially those who are un-tenured, may censor their lessons out of fear of being dragged before institutional review boards or disciplinary hearings for making MAGA students feel uncomfortable.

My job as an educator is to make students feel uncomfortable so I am not looking forward to the Trump Reich. As a sociologist, my entire pedagogy is based on C. Wright Mills concept of the sociological imagination, popularized in his 1959 book of the same name. Mills, writing at a peak moment in the Cold War, wanted Americans to be focused, not just on their (micro) personal lives, but the larger (macro) social structures that affect their personal lives. Mills argued that that happens with two conditions. First people have to be aware of their values and second is some sort of threat to those values. Mills argued that the threat puts people in a “crisis” where they begin to see things in a more sociological way.

I’m here to present the threat.

Don’t get me wrong. College classes are intended to be safe spaces, free from harassment. The threat is presented as challenges based on the Mills model. For example if your values say that women should have autonomy over their bodies, I will present how that right is threatened by politicians (including Trump) who have actively limited access to legal abortion procedures. That news should put you in a state of crisis, where you start thinking about social systems that allowed this to happen.

In my classes, we talk about race, gender, God, class, sex, and a bunch of other “uncomfortable” topics and my goal is to never make students feel more comfortable. (We called my own college Sociology 101 course, taken in 1981, the “everything you know is wrong class,” and I’m better for it.) I’m here to push buttons, but I’m guessing educators like me are concerned that some MAGA snowflakes are not going to respond well to intellectual challenges. They will be encouraged by a president who has positioned himself as the enemy of truth and science and the core values of The Enlightenment that brought us here.

When Trump is sworn in on the 20th, there will be numerous battlefields across the country, including the places where immigrants work and live, where women and girls get health care, and where trans people simply exist. I fear the classroom will also become a battleground. But instead of falling into the us vs. them narrative the fosters more conflict, my work will be to bring those students in, valuing their different views, and engaging them in the magic of academic freedom. I am not afraid.

2024: WTF

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

December 31, 2024

To be honest, I don’t have the energy to summarize 2024. It was supposed to be the year we forever banished Donald Trump to the Old Farts’ Home for Billionaire Rapists. Mexico elected its first female president and we elected our first felon. So much for those White Guys for Harris Zoom calls and all those angry cat ladies. Instead of strengthening democracy, America decided to write the screenplay for the prequel to Idiocracy.

Writing about the hovering threat of fascism from the yam-faced con artist took up most of the space on this blog, as personal matters took a backseat to thinking a well-crafted analysis of Trump’s fragile masculinity could save the country. But I’m social scientist and political Bon Vivant, so I had to jump into the scrum and will continue to do so as long as Elon Musk allows it. The excitement of the Harris candidacy (yeah, for us 1964 babies!) and the belief that competency would triumph over buffoonery kept me moving forward. Now, it’s being a voice for the resistance.

The year started off great with Trump being ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million after a jury found him responsible for her sexual assault and ended on a sad note with the passing of my former political science professor, President Jimmy Carter. Between that was a whole bunch of shit, from Boeings losing doors midair to P. Diddy being arrested for the most heinous sexual exploitation. Oh, and a couple of Republicans tried to kill Trump. In shapes of things to come, North Carolina got obliterated by a hurricane (not a tornado), and America got all giddy because a hot guy killed a health insurance CEO.

It was another year of slow personal growth that often felt like two steps forward, and two steps backward. Andi and I are still separated and I have no idea what 2025 has in store, but I focus on building trust and supporting her journey. I tried a bit of dating but I really wanted to focus my energy on Cozy, our daughter. Cultivating our common love of all things Taylor Swift was without a doubt the absolute best part of 2024, which culminated with seeing one of the final shows on the Eras Tour in Canada earlier this month. It was a wonderful moment we will both talk about forever. Swift got plenty of space in this blog in 2024, and my piece from February, “What Taylor Swift Tells Us About the Fragility of Men: Welcome to the Backlash,” was the most read post of the year. Caring for my sick brother Ron was both moving and heartbreaking. Cozy and I told him about our trip to see Taylor on December 8 and he passed away two days later while I was in Washington DC. Cancer had the final word.

My other great joy of 2024 was seeing our federally funded violence prevention project bear fruit. Cure-PNW held trainings for non-profits, sponsored civility discussions in churches, and hosted conversations between police and activists that helped de-escalate political tensions in the Pacific Northwest. Portland didn’t erupt into mass chaos after election as predicted and that might have been affected by the spreading of credible messengers into the local community. The project also helped me de-escalate after the election as I wasn’t feeling too civil. 

Yeah, 2025 is going to be a major shit show for America (and the world). Trump will take America to some very dark places. You thought the lunacy of “They’re eating cats” was bad, just wait until MAGA thugs are dragging brown people out of their homes. But I will continue to write about it for whoever will read. Maybe the opposition will get off social media and hit the streets, making the second half of the 2020s a new era of social activism and engagement. I expect an explosion of good music that won’t come from a Spotify algorithm. This is not the time to be timid. It is time to rock.

Here are the 32 Watching the Wheel posts of 2024.


Lessons from Joan of Arc – Courage for the Coming Battle (January 6, 2024)


The Moral Arc: Did MLK Get This One Wrong? (January 15, 2024)


What Taylor Swift Tells Us About the Fragility of Men: Welcome to the Backlash (February 1, 2024)


On Turning 60 in an Ageist Culture (February 19, 2024)


Make America Classic Rock Again? The Political Danger of Nostalgia (March 5, 2024)


The End of Democracy and the New Dark Age (March 28, 2024)


Is “Civil War” a Preview of 2025? (April 22, 2024)


Supporting the Right of Palestinians Not to Be Murdered is Not Anti-Semitic, And We Must Confront the Rise in Anti-Semitism (April 27, 2024)


I Would Have Hated the Beatles in 1964, or How My Daughter Made Me a Taylor Swift Fan in 2024 (May 4, 2024)


We Defeated Fascism 80 Years Ago, We Must Defeat Trump Now. It’s Go Time! (May 27, 2024)


The Secret Life of Fourth Grade Girls (June 7, 2024)


June is the Cruelest Month (June 21, 2024)


I Remember America: It Was a Good 248 Years (July 4, 2024)


The Chickens Have Come to Roost: The Assassination of Donald Trump (July 16, 2024)


Will Republican Misogyny Drive White Women to Harris and Can Taylor Swift Help? (July 23, 2024)


The Mulatto Panic: MAGA’s Racial Confusion (August 7, 2024)


Watching Coach Walz and the Painfully Fragile Masculinity of MAGA (August 24, 2024)


Fascism on America’s Doorstep (and are your pets safe?) (September 14, 2024)


Guilty Jews, Black Nazis, and Pet-eating Immigrants: Donald Trump’s Not So New Brand of Racism (September 21, 2024)


Beta Trump: The Day the King Fell Off the Hill (October 12, 2024)


Will America Elect Hitler on Tuesday? (October 29, 2024)


America, I Quit (November 6, 2024)


When Hate Wins (November 9, 2024)


Coming Back from the Ledge of Election Day (November 21, 2024)


The end of the Eras Tour and how Taylor Swift stopped time for my daughter (December 8, 2024)


Remembering My Brother Who Lived in the Woods (December 14, 2024)


Dad’s Top Discs of 2024 (December 18, 2024)


The James Bond Project: #1 – Dr. No (1962) (December 27, 2024)


The James Bond Project: #1 – Dr. No (1962) (December 28, 2024)


The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963) (December 30, 2024)

2024: WTF (December 31, 2024)

The James Bond Project: #1 – Dr. No (1962)

~ Randy Blazak ~ 27 Comments

December 27, 2024

As a latchkey kid who grew up on the 4 O’Clock movie (with a father often away on sales trips), most of my young models of masculinity came through the family color TV. Those films offered me the standard trinity of white manhood: John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and James Bond. All three were good with their fists and spared few words for the ladies. John Wayne was the iconic “strong silent” man who solved problems with a gun. In the 2000s, I taught a summer class at Portland State University called, “Hollywood Elvis and Post-War Masculinity” that used Presley films to explore changes in parameters of male roles. But it was Bond that I most wrestled with as a feminist man. Was he a patriarchal archetype or a subversion of it?

After the 1996 film Swingers brought back lounge culture, I found myself fantasizing about the Sinatra swagger and the Bond confidence. I’d sit at the roulette wheel in casinos in Old Las Vegas, on Fremont Street, dressed in a vintage suit, surrounded by frat boys in khaki shorts and backwards baseball hats. Was I an agent of the backlash or mocking gender, the same way drag queens deconstruct femininity? And now, what is the relevance of Bond’s manly schtick in MAGA America, where sex offenders are running the show?

So I decided I need a winter binge to address the question. The James Bond Project is intended review every Bond film, from 1962 to the present, to glean insight into the gendered appeal of 007, genital warts and all. And here’s the matrix for our evaluation:

  1. Driver of Action – Team player or rugged individual?
  2. Role of Violence – Body count
  3. Vulnerability – Behind the mask
  4. Sexual Potency – Lady “killer”
  5. Connection – Autonomous into the sunset

Toxic Masculinity Scale  (1 to 10)

Dr. No (1962, directed by Terence Young)

The first Bond film is based on the sixth novel in Ian Fleming’s famous series on the British spy and is set against the backdrop of Kennedy’s Space Race. Producers cast Sean Connery, 31, after Carey Grant said he wasn’t interested in playing Bond more than once. Dr. No, released October 5, 1962 (less that two weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis), introduces all the series staples; “Bond, James Bond,” “Shaken, not stirred,” a license to kill, SPECTRE and the underground lair, creative ways to kill the heroes, and Bond hitting on Miss Moneypenny.

My first thought watching it was that it was nice to see so many black people in a movie from 1962. I’m used to any film made before 1968 being made by, for, and about white people. Dr. No is set in Jamaica, so the cast diversity makes sense. The Caribbean was a common Bond locale (and where I saw my first big screen inter-racial kiss – more on that later). Jamaica was granted its independence in 1962, but in the film it still feels like a British colony. No reggae yet, just limp calypso and CIA officers hanging around airports. But it gave the world its introduction to 007 James Bond, the suave spy with a license to kill.

Driver of Action – There is no doubt that Bond is his own man. His boss, M, tries to replace his Beretta handgun with a new model, which James (unsuccessfully) tries to sneak out of the office. Other than that and a scene where Bond and Honey Ryder (played by Bond “Girl” #1 Ursula Andress) pass out after drinking Dr. No’s drugged coffee, there is never a moment where Sean Connery’s Bond isn’t in complete control. There are car chases, jungle chases, and scenes where Bond outsmarts would-be assassins (including smashing a tarantula to an epic musical score). Even though, for part of the film, he has a black sidekick named Quarrel and female accomplice (Honey Ryder), Bond drives the story and camera lens.

Role of Violence – 007 takes out a handful of baddies, including a corrupt geology professor and some blokes who go over a cliff in a fiery crash. “I think they were on their way to a funeral,” he quips. Compared to the massive body count of your average John Wick movie, there is surprisingly little violence in Dr. No. I found myself wishing 007 had watched a few of my favorite Kung Fu self defense reels on Instagram to better defend himself from henchmen and CIA operatives. Dr. No doesn’t even try to kill Bond, although he does strap Honey Ryder down to be drowned by a rising tide. Spoiler alert: Bond kills Dr. No in a radioactive pool.

Vulnerability – There is no moment when James shows any weakness or gives us any backstory. Was there (ever) a Mrs. Bond? Does he have a panic attack if his martini is stirred? Does he ever suffer from erectile dysfunction when bedding double agents? This may be the feature that resonates with men so much. Bond is a cartoon character of a man with no internal monologue, just commanding action.

Sexual Potency – This isn’t a Doris Day movie. Bond gets plenty of play. At the start of the film he beds a woman he meets playing baccarat in a casino. Her name is Sylvia Trench, and we’re off to the races for how women are named in Bond films. Then he spends a night between the sheets with MI-6 secretary Miss Taro, who is (of course known to James) working for the bad guys. Surprising to no-one, he ends the film in the arms of blonde bombshell Ursula Andress, bobbing in a dingy in the Caribbean. In the scene with Miss Taro, unprompted, he grabs her and kisses her, reminding me of Trump’s comments in the Access Hollywood tape. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful… I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Connection – Bond has passing connections with Quarrel (played by John Kitzmiller) and American CIA agent Felix Leiter (played by Hawaii Five-O’s Jack Lord), but they’re just vehicles for Bond to complete his mission. Bond even seems briefly sad when Quarrel is burned alive by the bad guys. But James Bond is the model of the autonomous male. He is a self-contained unit who doesn’t “need” anyone. Sex is transactional, not romantic. Even the end scene with Honey Ryder is not a “and they lived happily ever after” moment. You get the feeling that Ryder, in her iconic white bikini, will be dropped off at the next beach as 007 jets off on his next mission.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 5/10

Summary – Watching a young Sean Connery chew up every frame he’s in is infinitely entertaining. Yeah, Ursula Andres on the beach (knife in hand) is a classic male gaze moment where even Bond says, “I’m just looking,” but the gaze is all on 007. There’s even a scene where a female concierge in a Kingston hotel stares at Bond’s ass. James Bond is the spectacle. All eyes are on him. It’s man’s world. Dr. No is 55 years before Patty Jenkins ground-breaking Wonder Woman movie. Action is man’s work, with bikini-clad damsels in distress.

Fortunately, there is no homophobia or overt misogyny in Dr. No. Women are beautiful and disposable but also strong, with agency. No bimbos in Bondland and toxicity is toned down in the Kennedy era. The film establishes the archetype of the autonomous “love ‘em, and leave ‘em” hero franchise to be mimicked by countless others, from Matt Helm to Austin Powers. At his core, Bond is always cool and always in control. Men want to be him and women want to be with him. But we all want to know, its that all there is?

Next: From Russia with Love (1963)

Dad’s Top Discs of 2024

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

December 18, 2024

This year has definitely had a musical theme. It was the year when Cozy and I became consumed with all things Taylor Swift. I dove into her back catalog and Cozy bonded with her 5th grade Swiftie crew, and begged me to buy every Taylor magazine on the newsstand (I didn’t). There were plenty of highlights, including April 19, when Taylor’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, dropped. Cozy and I listened to the stream (Well, streams. Turns out it was a surprise double album.) And then went to the record store to get a vinyl copy, quickly reviewing it on my YouTube channel. The peak was December 6, when we got to see Taylor herself at one of her final Eras Tour concerts in Vancouver, BC. We’re both still buzzing from that one.

Other than Tay Tay, I didn’t go to many concerts in 2024 as my social life was mostly homebound. I did see lots of jazz and funk shows in great Portland bars like the Goodfoot, the Alberta Street Pub, and the Keys Lounge. Two of my favorite concerts were seeing old friend Billy Bragg and old boss Kevn Kinney, both at the Revolution Hall (and I got to perform with Kevn). I have tickets to see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in May, so maybe there will be more live music in 2025, if we’re allowed out past the Trump curfews.

It was a really a year of Top 40 radio as Cozy and I kept Z100 on in the car, listening to Taylor, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan (and that damn Hozier song). My mom did the same thing when I was 10, burning the Hits of ’74 into my forever brain. But when a song came on the Cozy didn’t like, she’d change the station to KMHD, the jazz channel. Because she’s my kid.

There was so much great music to listen to in 2024, including some great old stuff. I got a lot better about posting videos on Vinyl Fetish, my YouTube channel, especially my running feature, 100 Albums that Matter. That got me diving into some old favorites for repeat listens. Working through Rolling Stones’ 500 Greatest Albums of all Time list also provided great listens to old and new favorites (and endless opportunities to explain to my students what life was like before Spotify).  

There was plenty of vinyl, mostly bought in second hand shops. My favorite re-issue was the newly remixed release of John Lennon’s 1973 album Mind Games, which I’ve always thought was poorly mastered. 

Deciding the ranking of my favorite albums was not easy. I played the new Ace Frehley album way too much (until he came out for Trump). The expansive Transa collection brought attention to the joy and pain of the trans community and gave us a glorious new Sade song. I could not stop playing new albums by the Cure, Father John Misty, and Nick Cave. It was a great year to be a Radiohead fan with a Thom Yorke solo album and two releases from The Smile (Wall of Eyes being the better). Waxahatchee’s Tigers Blood and Jack White’s No Name shocked me, they were so good and St. Vincent released the PJ Harvey album I’ve been waiting for.

But one album grabbed me out of the gate and would not let go: Country Carter by Beyoncé. I don’t know if it’s a country album or not (but I got a kick out of white people proclaiming it most certainly wasn’t). That debate paled in comparison to draw of the music itself, touched by Willie, Dolly, Beatle magic, and the brilliant Rhiannon Giddens (who has firmly planted the BLM flag in country music). “Texas Hold ‘Em” was classic Bay but also completely new, but my favorite track was “Bodyguard,” where Mrs. Carter also lays claim to 90’s alt rock. Every time I listen to it, I discover something new. It might end up being my favorite album of 2025 as well.

So here’s my 20 favorite albums of a year that went to shit. Let’s hope 2025 produces the angriest punk rock since Thatcher and Reagan were elected.

  1. Beyonce – Cowboy Carter
  2. Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
  3. Nick Cave – Wild God 
  4. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood
  5. Various Artists – Transa
  6. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
  7. Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Society
  8. Jack White – No Name
  9. John Lennon – Mind Games (The Ultimate Collection)
  10. The Smile – Wall of Eyes
  11. Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More
  12. Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
  13. Pylon Reenactment Society – Magnet Factory
  14. Dandy Warhols – Rockmaker 
  15. Paul Weller – 66
  16. Rosie Tucker – Utopia Now!
  17. St. Vincent – All Born Screaming
  18. Ace Frehley – 10,000 Volts
  19. Miranda Lambert – Postcards from Texas
  20. Gary Clark, Jr.  – JPEG Raw

Spotify playlist of songs from the Top 20 albums: CLICK HERE