Binge read for insight

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Andrew Yang likes to say, “The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.” Watching the top ten Democratic Party candidates in their “debate” a couple of weeks ago, we see that running as the AntiTrump is a major part of their battle. Like most of the other candidates, Yang has a law degree, although like Trump, he has neither government nor military experience.

When we watched the “debate” – which I put in quotation marks because it is reality tell-a-vision at best, not a true debate – we knew we could vote for any of them although some were more appealing than others: more articulate, passionate, exciting, innovative and humorous, or duller, less prepared, or having a chip on their shoulder.

Nonetheless, any of those 10, among others, would be acceptable on a ticket for president or vice-president, or to serve in the cabinet or as an ambassador or remain in the Senate and fight Mitch McConnell.

Who’s the AntiTrump? Yang’s parents emigrated from Taiwan, Pete Buttigieg’s dad is from Malta, and Kamala Harris is the child of a Jamaican father and a mother from India. All those parents were professionals whom Trump’s policies may have allowed into the USA based on their credentials. Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, however, is descended from Mexican immigrants – Trump would have walled them off.

Lawyers, prosecutors, mayors senators, authors. Authors? One way to truly learn about these candidates is to read their books. (Remember Bernie Sanders’ answer when asked about how he became a millionaire? “I wrote a best-seller and I am not embarrassed.”) Our libraries have books by several of these folks, and my wife and I are working our way through them to learn how their upbringing and experiences qualify them to lead a country.

In The War on Normal People, Yang details how automation is strangling the working class, and outlines the case for Universal Basic Income – $1000 per month for every adult American.

Mayor Pete’s Shortest Way Home tells about his childhood in South Bend, Indiana, where he keeps returning after adventures at Harvard, Oxford and Afghanistan. He explains how he developed a sense of public service. At Harvard, which he attended on scholarship, he realized that none of his privileged classmates were signing up for the military. So he enlisted in the Navy because he wanted to know what that was like. During WWII, Korea and Vietnam, men of all classes and races served alongside one another, but today’s voluntary services offer rich people the option of avoiding that understanding.

United is Cory Booker’s campaign biography. He grew up in a middle class African-American home where both parents worked for IBM and were the source of Booker’s relentless optimism and sense of duty. When his city of Newark did nothing to improve conditions for the poor, he moved into a tent in the ghetto and went on a hunger strike until the do-nothing mayor was forced to act.

Later he moved into a tenement and served as mayor himself. He became a vegetarian, later a vegan, because industrial farming contributes to global warming. Haven’t finished that book yet.

Next on our reading list is Kamala Harris, whose The Truths We Hold: An American Journey is also available at local libraries, as are several titles by Elizabeth Warren.

We don’t know who these people are unless we read about their lives. Excellent online profiles, interviews and features delineate how they are campaigning and communicating with voters, but to learn how they got here, read their own words.

Unlike Trump’s The Art of the Deal, these books are self-penned. The ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal published a long piece about how unnerving it was to create that book for Trump; all of his characteristics as president were in full force that many years ago.

Do your research – will the real AntiTrump please stand up?