Oh, how delectable the food on Air Force One must be these
days!
President Trump, after all, has come to expect a certain
quality of meal over the course of his life. Perhaps the family members all
feast on well-done Trump Steaks doused with ketchup, then wash it all down with
some Trump spring
water. As Fox News buzzes away in the background, they all
laugh the night away, taking turns regaling the president with tales of his
preternatural wisdom and uncommon stamina. How lucky we all are to have bathed
in the same river of time as this great man!
As James Laver once noted, Britain's Edwardian age was
"probably the last period in history when the fortunate thought they
could give pleasure to others by displaying their good fortune before
them." But what of the new Trump lifestyle, which demonstrates to the
world, and this week to the president of China, the glorious buffet of riches
that awaits all Americans?
All Trump asks of us in exchange for this enticing representation
of the American dream is the low sum of $3
million every other weekend so he can fly the first family to his
Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Who cares if his Florida trips to date, six of
them counting the meeting with President Xi Jinping, could fund the annual
salaries of more than 400 elementary school teachers in America — without
those teachers, those students will never be able to do the math! Problem
solved!
The Trump version of the American dream probably is not
quite the one running through the head of an elderly black man sleeping in
a chair at the Milwaukee Greyhound station, warm inside on a cold morning. His
head is resting at an impossible angle propped up on his arm, while a
black hood is pulled down over his brow.
The bus station sits almost directly underneath one of the
interstate highways. It is as if the city swept it under a carpet to avoid
visitors from noticing it. The bus terminal shares a long, high-ceilinged
waiting room with Amtrak rail. The terminal, like the city itself, is all but
segregated: The crowds loading onto buses are almost exclusively black, while
the groups exiting the trains are virtually all white.
When America's poorest residents need to visit a sick loved
one or an out-of-town child, they are rarely afforded a personal,
taxpayer-funded flight; instead, they ride the bus. Less than $100 will get a
traveler as far as Cleveland, but the ride lasts 12 hours. Most riders on Wednesday
morning are first bound for Chicago, a trip that can be purchased
for $8-$10, depending on the time of day. The only actual security that
exists is a sign near the terminal that tells bus riders to report anything
they see that might be suspicious, as if intuition were a plausible substitute
for a metal detector.
Security is high at the "Winter
White House," however, where Trump hosts world leaders under the
careful watch of a mobile Secret Service detail. These expensive agents must be
there to monitor Trump's golf outings with visitors such as Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe; for that game Trump used a gold
driver that Abe gifted him after the election.
POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
Oh, to be present at the late night talks at Mar-a-Lago,
where the men retreat to the cigar room! Presumably, the Trump vodka runs free
while the locker room talk keeps everyone in stitches. "Shinzo, baby! I
noticed you're bailing out on your short putts! Not good! Not good!"
Yet his swanky Florida resort is undoubtedly where Trump
does all his deep thinking about how to fix depressed inner cities such as
Milwaukee's. Coincidentally, it was in the outer Milwaukee suburb of West Bend
last August where candidate Trump announced his plans to fix all that ailed
African Americans.
"To every voter in Milwaukee, to every voter living in
the inner city or every forgotten stretch of our society, I'm running to offer
you a much better future, a much better job," Trump
said at a rally in Washington County (black population: 1.2%).
The grandeur of Trump's recurring jet-fueled vacation
obscenity has yet to trickle down to the young woman in the Milwaukee bus
station trying to manage three children who all appear to be under age 3. Near
the unceasing low buzz of the vending machines, she bottle-feeds the youngest
child, while the other two girls, both wearing flower-print jackets, take turns
dropping their water bottles on the floor.
When boarding is called, the woman stands, baby in her arms,
while her two daughters dutifully line up like ducklings behind her. They are
off to see America, where everywhere must seem as far away as a golf resort for
billionaires.
Christian Schneider is a member of USA TODAY's
Board of Contributors and a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel.
__
De USA TODAY, 06/04/2017
No comments:
Post a Comment