{"id":5820,"date":"2020-02-18T06:36:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T14:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=5820"},"modified":"2020-02-18T06:36:39","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T14:36:39","slug":"vonnegut-at-trump-at-the-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/vonnegut-at-trump-at-the-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"Vonnegut at Trump at the Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

I sat at the bar after a good morning on the construction job. I was drinking a local IPA and reading an essay written in 1972 by Kurt Vonnegut about the Republican National Convention in Miami, which he covered. It was written almost half a century ago but it might have just as well been written yesterday for how dead on it was and is<\/em> about American political life. Just switch out Trump for Nixon and Bernie for McGovern. Vonnegut described the American political party system as the Winners and Losers and the Winners always win. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are in the Winners’ party, but Republicans don’t bother trying to hide their contempt and hatred of the poor and the Losers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they need Losers to win. So they\nsomeone get the Losers to vote for the Winners because it is,\naccording to Vonnegut, and axiom of American voting that the Losers\nnever vote for Losers. It all makes perfect sense in our current\npolitical climate. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only thing different this time is\nthat the clowns are not Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman mocking the\nWinners but the late night talk show hosts mocking the Winners.\nVonnegut called that kind of mocking \u201csocial lubricant\u201d for the\nmachinery of the Winners to kick the shit out the Losers. They\nactually need it to win. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great Vonnegut stuff there at the bar\nin rural Oregon. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was silent as I read. TVs played \nbut the sound was off. A little background music from the 80s drifted\nin the ceiling. A few couples behind me ate greasy fried food. Talk\nwas muted. They were playing Keno. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An elderly man walked in and sat two\nstools away. He set down a pack of Marlboros and a fancy new i-Phone.\nHe ordered water and clam chowder. He was wearing a militaristic\nblue ball cap and a hoodie with lettering about fishing the Bering\nSea. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He punched up his phone and began\nlistening to a speech by Trump at an ear-splitting level. It just\nkept going and going, talking about Winners and Losers. It burrowed\ninto my brain. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bartender was nowhere around, but\nwhat was she going to do anyway? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought: Should I ask the man\npolitely to turn the sound down? These guys live for this kind of\nconfrontation, and martyrdom. It makes Losers feel like Winners. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How could anyone be so dense as to play\nsomething so loud at the bar? I don’t care if was Trump or Bernie or\na Star Wars<\/em> movie. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was glued to it. It was inches from\nhis face. Maybe he was going deaf, I don’t know. He was deaf to\nsomething else, that I know. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t feel like saying anything so I\ngot up and moved across the bar to a table by the window. I could\nstill hear the speech. I drank up my beer and left. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sat at the bar after a good morning on the construction job. I was drinking a local IPA and reading an essay written in 1972 by Kurt Vonnegut about the Republican National Convention in Miami, which he covered. It was written almost half a century ago but it might have just as well been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5823,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5820\/revisions\/5823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}