HOW TO BECOME AN ALTER-NATIVE AMERICAN

Trump is as American as you can possibly get.  

In fact, he is the pure definition of what our country has always been about.

Since the days of the Pilgrims who came here armed with cannon, and gunpowder it’s all been about taking what you want in the name of your own personal God.  

From the Colonial period (1540) to the end of the War of 1812, European governments and colonists and later the U. S. Government and American settlers killed more than 30,000 Native Americans.  Conflicts were resolved by treaty often through sale or exchange of territory between the federal government and specific tribes.  The Indian Removal Act of 1830, authorized by the slave-owning (and whip punishing) Andrew Jackson, forced the relocation of the Native Americans east of the Mississippi River to the other side of the sparsely populated American frontier.

The policy of removal was eventually refined to forcing the Indian tribes to live on specifically designated and federally protected reservations.

And so was born the very first Art of the Deal.

And  let us not forget that stellar moment when, during a ceremony, while awarding medals to a group of  Native American Indians who helped decode Nazi messages, Trump referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”

And who does Trump admire most, besides the bloated version of himself? 

Why that would be bloody, bloody Mr. Jackson.

Jackson’s close associates all had stories of a blood-curdling oath and his summoning of the Almighty to lose His wrath upon some miscreant, which was typically followed by his vow to hang the villain or blow him to perdition.  In other words, he used his anger, along with his fearsome reputation as a tool to get what he wanted.

When Aaron Burr was on put on trial for treason, Jackson wanted to testify in his behalf but the defense team decided against placing him not he witness stand, fearing that his remarks would be too provocative.  

So here we are some 180 years later where we find that history is not so much history but a series of re-current events.

Because we Americans tend to romanticize our past and distort the true accomplishment of most of our superstar marquee  players (while erasing their outsized and often sadistic true nature) and because our children’s textbooks are all edited in the south, what we call patriotism today is really nothing more than the latest version of our national New Testament Bible.  

We the people, for the most part, invest our deepest faith in what we cannot see or experience.  We believe that there is a God because we “feel him” and that is enough to justify his presence.   

Disclaimer: As John Lennon famously said, “I’m not saying that we’re greater or better or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person as a thing or whatever it is.”  He also said that had he said television was more popular than Jesus, he might have got away with it.”

Look, being a man who deeply loves and believes in the promise and swag suite freedoms of America, I still can’t help but laugh at the fact that we called Native Americans “Indians” because Christopher Columbus mistakenly believed, at first, that he had reached the Indies.

We reduce our enemies into whoever we need them to be, minimize and stereotype them so we can commit genocide and make America Great Again.

So, kids, are you getting what I meant when I said that Trump is as American as you can get?

His entire family is nothing more than the Pirates of the Caribbean off-shore bank accounts.

He and his bottom feeding children continue to wantonly profit from his office, most recently striking a deal with China which will help him build yet another Trump Property.

He loots.  He pillages.  He lies.  He blames.  He makes up conspiracy theories without an ounce of evidence because he knows that his loyal Go Fox Yourself brethren do not require any more evidence than having to prove that Jesus is working on their behalf to help rid us of all those pesky Mexican children, Jews, African Americans, and liberals.   

Trump has all the ethics of Johnny Cochran whose “attack your accusers” defense helped another man of color get away with murder.

Trump IS America who time after time is consistently found innocent in the court of his public opinion.

But for the rest of us who have to tolerate his low life bullshit and the sound bytes of his pig in motion press secretary plus the treasonous actions of the GOP who are trying to discredit the Mueller Investigation because of the inconvenience of truth (as in “fuck democracy”), we have no choice but to raise our fists and voices as we march towards the polls in November with all the patriotic fervor of (insert name of Frank Capra movie here).

Because as Jefferson Smith himself or John Doe once said, the real America, that one that actually exists, flaws and all, is still up and running.

If you are keeping score, we have seen Harvey Weinstein go down. 

Today we saw Roseanne go down.

People like them and Bill O’Reilly are proof positive of who moral, blue wave America has in their sights.  

We may not be able to take down Orange Julius Caesar—yet.  But until we can, we will be taking out any surrogate who represents his smug, illiterate, fascist point of view.

And as for your tender nervous systems and twisted like a pretzel intestine, it is my heartfelt suggestion that you do what I’m doing.  

Become an Alter-native American.

To hell with the name The United States of America. That is another textbook quality myth handle.   

2018 my ass.  This is still the 1860s, blacks are still being abused, confederate flags are still flying and the Klan is still marching, burning crosses with all the merriment of a college bonfire.  

We are The States of America and nothing any of us do is going to unite us unless there is a war or yet another act of terrorism which would bring us together for at least a week.

Boston hates New York.  New York hates Boston.  And that’s just baseball.

So follow my lead.

Reject and ignore as best you can everything that is happening in Washington, InD.C.ent and focus instead on all the beautiful and positive aspects of life, both real and imagined.  Drink Miracle Grow on a regular basis, blossom, and bloom. 

Metaphorically.

Rip open your heart like a romance novel bodice and expose it to the staggering beauty of great art.  Better yet: create your own. Go to plays.  Sing “Hallelujah” at the top of your lungs in the aisle of CVS even while you are being escorted to your car by the security guard.

Cheer for your local professional sports franchise like you’re the parents in attendance at your kid’s little league game.  

Time travel in a museum.  

Don’t quit your day...dream.

Gather with other like-minded folks and spend more time talking to each other instead of Siri and Alexa your imaginary friend, Steve.

Dance like a whiskey drunk Agnes De Mille. 

Allow yourself to be seduced and swim in the deep end of the language of the writer gods.  At the moment I’m luxuriating in A Moveable Feast and I’m having a huge bromance with the young Hemingway.  I like living in the 1920s of Paris even if it’s for an hour.  My imaginary and most rakish beret appears on demand.  I just wish that my equally imaginary girlfriend would stop with the Gauloises and clean up our ten story walk up.

Binge on life and okay, a few good shows like “Love” on Netflix.  Or the first two seasons of “Divorce” and “Togetherness.”  And “The Americans.”

Take care of both you and your own. Raise them right.  Raise them to understand how blessed we are to live in this county.  Teach them to stand firm in their beliefs, but always be willing to listen to other points of view.

Be around people who challenge you like one of those teachers whose students show up twenty years later to serenade her so you can become the finest example of human being that you can be.   

If you believe in God, pray because we can all potentially benefit from all that optimism and goodwill.

Become the shining example ambassador of your own race and culture.   If others in your clan misbehave, school them severely until they get that they are bringing shame to their own.  

Be apparent and a parent.

Do not watch the first twenty minutes of any local newscast because you will want to hit yourself in the head repeatedly with a small George Foreman grill.  Do not listen to the weathercasters either, because they will make you as frantic as Butterfly McQueen in “Gone With The Wind.”

Do not isolate yourself or have anger has your live-live roommate because they do not shower or shower you with compliments.

If you are alone by circumstance, consider flirting with a second or tenth time around.   The pursuit of love, frustrating as it is, beats the secret belief that you are incapable of loving or being loved any more.

Become an alter-native American.

And guys, please stop with the blazers that fit you like a ventriloquist dummy, do not purchase those short pants that make you look like Ann Margaret in hip-hugging clam diggers and deeply rethink the idea that Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man or Justin Beiber are good role models for skin art.  And if suddenly the hottest trend becomes sporting the bushy Freda Kahlo unibrow, remember no excessively hirsute woman from Minsk has ever won the Miss Universe Pageant.

Did I just make you laugh?

Good.

Because only laughter, Led Zeppelin, the sound of your kids fighting like Ukrainian rebels in the background and a mute button can drown out the next dumb, self-congratulatory best words ever speech.