The Grifter's Blind Spot

Every grifter such as Trump is the master of the spin. After the Democrats recently voted Republicans out of many offices, he said, “It was the shutdown that caused this!” Better to say that to save his ego when it really was a referendum on his leadership and how bad that leadership was for “table” considerations with not enough money because of inflation. People also saw his terrible strategy on tariffs, mass deportations, government random layoffs, tax cuts for the rich, perversion of the Justice Department, pardons for cronies, January 6 insurrectionists pardoned, and the lining of his own pockets. Grifters think people are stupid. Trump’s self-reflection was that he is a genius. People didn’t believe that he would be as bad as he turned out to be.

The truth of the matter is that 50% of American citizens have not attended college. That 50% of those who attended college should know one thing. If you have academic degrees, it should make you aware of what you don’t know. It should be a humbling experience as it is for me and many others. The more I learned, the more I learned what I didn’t know. I always include in my education credentials that my time working in a steel mill as a key part of my education. I certainly learned a lot while at Yale, Duke, and Duke Medical Center, but I believe that I learned more when I was taught about life from a black man who was my supervisor when I was shoveling coal underground onto belts to go to coke ovens. I learned a great deal from a janitor who was my boss when I was given a summer “scholarship” to be his assistant. Working on assembling lines in factories was a great teacher, but perhaps my greatest teacher was my father who had a 6^th grade education, something that when I was young, I found to be embarrassing.

You only learn the very important stuff when you engage life. We encounter the lessons learned of humility, grit, stubborn about stuff that helps others, and respect for the people around you, and that your major job is to make things better for others.

I recently posted a blog on Coach K of Duke’s lessons on leadership which is on a video that was attached.  When he was asked about what he was most proud of as a basketball coach at Duke and the Olympic team, he said that it was “sustained excellence.” I had a lot of that in the schools I attended. But he was asked what made him tick, what was the most important lessons he learned in his life? He was quick to say that it was the words of his mother. She was a cleaning lady with an eighth-grade education. They lived in an apartment in Chicago. She sat him down before he went to high school in inner city Chicago and told him to “make sure he got on the right bus.” He thought she was talking about the busses he needed to take to get to school. She said, “She was talking about the bus that you are getting on for the rest of your life, or you will get on someone else’s bus. Only let good people on your bus.” You aren’t successful because of your talent, talent makes you better when you are with good people, not people who are jealous” (and not humble and respectful of others).

When Mike came home from West Point where he was a student during a break, she said, “Mike, you think you are a hot ticket.” He said, “I am a hot ticket. I am your son.” His mother told him, “I have a master’s degree.” He said, “Mom, you never went to high school.” She said, “I am a domestic engineer. I chase dirt and I catch it all the time. Have pride in the dignity of your work.”

I wouldn’t be able to know where to start with the lessons I learned from my father. Sitting on our front porch one summer he said, “Never do anything that would dishonor your name.” When I watched him leave the house and walk down the sidewalk to return to work dragging one foot behind him after a year of working out with my weights, learning to write again and to speak again after a year’s recovery from a stroke, he didn’t have to say a thing. He simply turned and looked at me. I got the message loud and clear. Work is important.  It is dignity in action. You are responsible for your family whatever form that takes, biological, friends, and in my case, a school community as well. Never give up no matter how hard your life becomes. You can’t learn that at Yale and Duke.

Trump never learned those lessons from his father or his mentor lawyer Roy Cohn, or maybe he did learn lessons of deny and distract and trust no one. Always attack. Power is what matters. That created the grifters blind spot. He never learned that the more you learn, the more you learn how much you don’t know. That is the humble truth which is why I include it in my education credentials.