I cannot support Donald Trump for many reasons. Until he ran for President, his character flaws only annoyed my from time to time as I saw his bragging, cheating face on The Daily News or some other metropolitan publication, often posturing that he was some kind of “tough guy.” Proud of shaming his wife and family and glad for the free publicity, my view about him isn’t that he’s tough, except with those less powerful than he. I get annoyed with other obnoxious individuals, but they aren’t President. They don’t warrant my devoting substantial time to highlighting their flaws. Indeed, Trump doesn’t warrant me wasting my time either, but I believe it’s important that my friends see my litany of complaints, and if they trust my judgment, if they truly think about the travesty of his administration as this first year progresses, then perhaps some of my acquaintances who voted for Trump will reconsider their position. I will discuss the points raised below in future essays and in more detail, but I thought an overview of my reasons is a good place to start.

1. Trump isn’t tough, he is a bully. As a wealthy and powerful man he pushes little people around. He’s flaunted his extramarital affairs with (e.g., Marla Maples) and publicly shamed his wife, Ivana, in the process. Anyone who treats those he loves with such disdain cannot convince me he has the interests of the American people at heart. Certainly he won’t have their interests above his own selfish desires. He’s already demonstrated the truth of what I say. He cozies up to leaders perceived as tough and enemies to the United States while pushing around our allies and neighbors who pose no threat to us.

2. He has no clue how to run a government. On its own, many will see this as a positive trait, making him out to be a courageous outsider who can change things in Washington D.C. for the better, but he needs some background, some education, some experience at least with how a government works. He also need a work ethic, not regular excursions to his country club. How to write a bill and the process necessary for that bill to become law. Getting factions to compromise. At least hire someone who knows about government. Something.

3. Trump is a pathological liar, an exaggerator and bullshit artist of the first order. When people lie because they’re afraid of being caught (Nixon) or because they have been caught (Clinton) or because they are ashamed of their actions or fear what public knowledge will do to their relationships and careers (Jimmy Swaggart) I can at least understand their reasons for lying. President Trump lies when he doesn’t have to. He just makes things up, like having watched thousands of people in New Jersey cheering the death of the World Trade Center. I don’t understand how voters can believe his claims, promises, or excuses. Even though he’s in office, he keeps the bullshit flowing (inauguration size, best health care ever, etc.). When the leader of the world’s most important nation ignores actual facts and twists reality into something he’d like it to be instead, he is leading the entire world toward an abyss. After all, if the US can do it, why not other nations? The fascination with National Socialism – NAZIISM – spread for a generation, culminating in World War II. Many nations willingly joined Hitler and assisted him in his madness; many nations conquered by Hitler had substantial fifth columnists supporting his ideology. Imagine the same process in a nuclear world.

4. He has admitted to being a sexual predator. For all the excuses about such talk being common locker room banter, I know I’ve never heard guys talk with such aggressive arrogance about women. Not as an athlete, not as a coach. Not as a teen. Not as an adult. The number of women who have accused him is lengthy. So too are the instances when Trump is seen on video following through with his statements, such as his impromptu entrance to the teen Miss USA dressing room. Teenaged girls? Really. He’s the choice for president?

5. What responsible grown man doesn’t admit when he’s wrong? Failures in life are a rite of passage everyone undergoes. How we react to our setbacks determines our characters, personal growth, and often our future successes. Trump never admits to being wrong. Ever. He’s certainly been wrong – very publicly so – such as with Trump University or his “Birther” falsehoods. But settling out of court, agreeing to pay a fine without admitting guilt is a technicality not worthy of an innocent person. Someone who promoted conspiracy theories around Obama’s place of birth and created a university that bilked students out of their money is by his statements and actions already showing his guilt. He refuses even to admit the slightest mistake, and all I can say to that is “covfefe.”

6. Donald Trump has no ideological focus. Consider what this means: He believes in nothing, at least nothing beyond the superficial or selfish. He believes in winning, but when he wins, someone loses. Usually someone in the poorer or middle class. He believes in showing power over people, in being a strongman that can exert his will by the power of his money, his attorneys, and his bluster. Lyndon Johnson exerted his authority over others, too, but he believed in desegregation among other things. What does Trump believe in? A wall? Great, twenty four billion dollars for a security device that can be breached with a ladder and a rope. Not a lot of deep thought there.

7. When the leader of a country believes personal loyalty is more important than professional excellence when choosing his advisors and department heads, the threat of abuse of power increases. Rather than devotion to the Constitution, to laws, to ideologies, there is devotion to the leader. That’s when palace spokesmen are seen tripping over their own falsehoods when they try to explain what’s gong with his administration, ala Sean Spicer and Sara Huckabee. That’s when leaders challenge the credentials of honest judges, rule by dictat rather than procedure, and attempt to alter the truth by introducing falsehoods or preventing the honest testimony of those who have suffered beneath him. Trump’s war against the media is standard operating procedure for dictators. Next would be the formation of their own press corps – oh, wait, Fox News already wears that crown as they justify his every action and question nothing he says or does. Remember when he gave away the most highly classified secrets to the Russians in the Oval Office meeting? It was revealed that because he is president, once he opens his mouth he “officially” unclassified that material. So ignoring the obvious – that Trump went out of his way to share highly sensitive data with our main adversary for no purpose except to brag – Fox News reported with smiles thatTrump did not commit a crime. This is the high bar they set for a white president. We should support him because he didn’t technically break the law.

8. Trump supports conspiracy theories. I don’t trust conspiracy theorists because they usually only consider those facts that are outstanding to them. They often ignore the common sense matters that any police officer would recognize is an investigation-killer (or those that are obvious as positive investigative developments). Sure, some conspiracies do exist, but I’m pretty sure that Jackie didn’t arrange for Jack Kennedy’s murder as confided to me by one conspiracy theorist I’m acquainted with. For the president to have pursued the lunacy of “Birtherism” for five years and lied along the way about what he’d found disqualifies him as a viable presidential candidate, let alone having him actually in the office. Ignoring the positive economic promise of developing alternative energy sources to help combat climate change, Trump bases his decision to exit the voluntary Paris Climate Accords in part because the economy of some coal-based areas will be impacted. That’s rather like ignoring development in automobile research because we are concerned what might happen to the Conestoga Wagon industry.

9. Donald Trump lies as easily as other people breathe. Like a used-car salesman, Trump embellishes, cajoles, and outright lies in an effort to make people believe some fantasy claim. As if he is in some alternate reality, Trump claims that facts are lies and that lies are facts. The Orwellian observations about the totalitarianism of communism have somehow come full circle to now appear in the White House. He thinks he can change reality if he doesn’t like what he hears on the news. That’s more than troubling given his war against the media.

10. Because of what I’ve already listed, Donald Trump cannot be trusted as President. You can’t trust a bully nor can you trust someone who knows so little about the job. If he was someone that learns from his mistakes, it would be different, but how can you trust a guy to learn the job when he never admits to being wrong? I wouldn’t trust a leader who surrounds himself primarily with family and lackeys. Society as a whole doesn’t – and shouldn’t – trust sexual predators. Convicted offenders must register in their communities upon release from prison. Accusations are not proof, nor would they alone lead to an indictment, but Trump’s own admissions would be used in any attempt to prosecute him in this area if other evidence surfaces. And so the question must be asked: Why have so many of my friends and acquaintances voted for such a person for president? His thinking is so shallow that he believes the last person he speaks to. That’s not evidence for strong character, that’s being wishy-washy. And if Trump is in charge of the ship of state for too long, the United State will appear wishy-washy as well.

He sidles up to autocrats from The Philippines, China, and Russia while insulting the leaders of our allies from Germany, South Korea, Australia, and Mexico. This is not “fake news,” this is the reality that is the Trump Administration. Perhaps you thought last November that you were casting a vote for a strong personality who had some real principles. Maybe you thought that someone would finally stand up for you, the little guy. Possibly you believed his bluster about standing up to China’s unfair financial practices, quickly ending Isis’s reign of terror, and repairing America’s infrastructure.

What we’ve got so far is a health bill that steals from the poor to give to the rich, as much terrorism as ever, and not a peep about fixing America’s bridges, roads, and utilities. So maybe you had good reasons for voting for a buffoon like Donald Trump in November, but I hope it’s getting clearer that the person you thought you voted for isn’t occupying the White House.

The number and range of memories that the words The Sixties evoke must be vast, and I still feel the impact of that age on me. Some exited that era with hopeful ideals while others became disenchanted with unfulfilled promises of a future where people could accept each other’s differences and live harmoniously in a diverse society. But I use this as the title for my first blog entry because I am in my sixties, and I would like to leave a written archive for those who come after me. For those I may never meet and who may wonder at who this guy was who stood at the family’s crossroads between one continent and another.

A first generation citizen of the US, my being the child of immigrants made my youth somewhat unique. In a nation of immigrants, my experience as the child of world travelers isn’t so uncommon, but as the son of parents who lived under the persecution of Russian communists and German fascists, my youth as spent in the romantic and idealistic days of The Sixties was at the least decidedly contradictory. After all, my parents chose to live in America, freedom’s home, an enchanted place of unlimited possibilities for those willing to work for it. And The Sixties is a time remembered for protests against America’s establishment. Somehow I navigated those treacherous waters, getting drenched perhaps, but without drowning.

As a teenager, I would leave my home and enter the world of America. A lively, interesting place where kids like me were expected to participate in sports, engage in social activities sponsored by schools or neighborhoods, and generally become immersed in the process of becoming an adult. Upon returning home, I entered the world of agrarian Ukraine. A harsh place where commands were given but rarely explained, expectations leveled but not clearly rationalized. Do this, do that, yes sir, no ma’am. A lot of the time it wasn’t much fun, and I found it easy to understand the concept of “generation gap” as was so often discussed at the time on TV and in classrooms.

I didn’t understand why my parents would not accept a girlfriend who wasn’t also a Ukrainian. So I rarely brought anyone home for them to meet. I didn’t know why my classmates could attend a school dance while I had to remain home. Some of my friends had jobs while I, as the youngest of three brothers, was somehow babied and smothered into a sheltered existence. I’ll not dwell on the over-mothering, over-parenting I have found to be pretty common among east European families – at least those in my experience – except to say that I made a parallel long ago between this and the over-governing and “strong leader” regimes of that part of the world. Suffice it to say that the dichotomy between what I was taught at home and what I learned in the world outside my yard was far reaching.

Generation gap. Culture gap.

But I did have help. What saved me at the time were my friends. My neighborhood was a crucible of ethnic families. Poles, Ukrainians, Italians and a few others sprinkled in. It made for wonderful arguments, discussions, fist fights, and camaraderie. We learned we were different and we learned we were alike. Most let go of their racism, sadly some never did. The Romantic, transcendentalist attitudes of the The Sixties helped, but imagine what it’s like to hear different versions of the truth. I knew from the experience of my parents that the only difference between the communists and fascists was the number and types of letters in their monikers. Each regime destroyed those who disagreed with it. Each regime lied to remain in power. Each regime excused the atrocities of their allies and denounced those of their enemies. Yet, thousands of people were dying in Viet Nam in an effort to oppose communism. Was this not a just war?

Those years presented difficult choices for me because I had to make sense in my own mind about what was right and what was wrong. They couldn’t both be right, could they? If communism was an atrocious dictatorship, why would American free thinkers be so opposed to the war? When I spoke to someone who’d experienced Russia’s atrocities, I was convinced his position was the correct one. A week later, when speaking to a student activist opposed to American involvement in Viet Nam, I would be convinced of the correctness of his position. A hard place for me to be. How to make sense of it?

Obviously, my own position was untenable. It simply would not do. Somehow I needed to find the truth. Perhaps to find my truth. So I read. A lot. And I found others with whom to speak. Some who had been in-country in Nam. Others who’d survived World War II as my own parents did. Slave laborers who’d been ripped from their homes never to see their families again. Sure, I never had any grandparents or aunts and uncles, but I had my Mom and Dad. And I couldn’t deny the reality of dictatorship or of war. Nor could I deny the morality and humanity of the message being shouted in the streets of America at the time and in the music of the age.

It took me a few years, but I came to a determination. I would examine each dilemma for factuality and morality. I would base my decisions on truth and ethics, recognizing that issues are far too complex to think that only one perspective can be correct. My touchstone became the truth, and my guiding thought was that no one is always right and no one always wrong. And this has been my strength ever since. It’s allowed me to disagree with dignity whether dealing with strangers, friends, associates, enemies, or family members.

So now I’m in my sixties, and as I reflect on how I got here (and so damn fast, too!), I recognize that I brought some of those sixties with me. In my music and behavior, my  attitudes and appearance, I think I ultimately embraced much of what The Sixties were about. The kids in the streets weren’t wrong, they just didn’t see the whole picture. Nor were my parents wrong, they just did the best they could with the baggage they had. It’s also up to us to live in our times and try to see the whole picture. To try to make the best with whatever baggage we carry with us.

There’s a new gap in our society here in 2017, and not surprisingly, it also has to do with the truth. The same forces that lacerated the world 70 years ago have rebounded in a way few have foreseen. The misinformation that has inundated the western press has multiplied exponentially due to the informational gluttony spawned by the Internet and Social Media. That’s why I plan to devote the next few articles to the dangers I see present in American politics. I believe the current administration is flirting with danger in its approach to American policies abroad and domestic and with their romancing of Russia, the sponsor of disinformation in our media. Most importantly, this administration denies the truth.

We have a megalomaniac and narcissist in the White House. That’s new. We also have a liar in the White House. Welcome back to the The Sixties.