By Allen Schmertzler.
Mark Twain noted, “one must travel, to learn,” and “broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” So, with channeling the dry wit, literary flare and astute wisdom of Mark Twain’s “Innocents Abroad” I boarded my flight from Portland, Oregon to Barcelona, Spain on September 20, 2016.
Part of me was unhappy, unnerved, exhausted and dispirited from addictively following the daily Presidential election news cycle and looked forward to a brief respite from the craziness. I especially needed a vacation from the madman Donald Trump and the media’s obsession with him. His vitriol was tamping down my confidence in Democracy, vaporizing my artistic creative innocence and supporting my notion that the Gods must have already abandoned ship. “What a long and strange trip it has been” since Donald Trump began his escalator ride at Trump Tower toward the White House. I always expect my trips abroad to energize me with the freshness of new perspectives and mind-bending shifts that result from being submerged in another time zone and culture.
However, the timing of this trip was unusual. I have never left the country during the debate season of a presidential election, and I have never missed a presidential debate. It was clear that so much was at stake in this debate and would most likely steady the trajectory of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump to electoral victory.
With this awareness I met up with my Portland Food Adventures, #PFASpain2016 tour group at our Barcelona hotel. We were an intimate group of ten, all currently living in Portland, all enthusiastic to accept the culinary leadership of our Barcelona born Portland master Spanish chef, to begin eating our way through the Spanish regions of Catalonia and Basque. We were all new to each other. My one biggest secret concern was how the trip would go if there were Donald Trump supporters in the group. There was no way this hot bottom topic would not bubble to the surface and I worried about the corrosive potential of expensive and hours long dining as a “family” during such a serious, volatile and delicate political process.
Apparently, we all secretly shared in that exact concern. This was revealed when on our very first day together, Donald Trump’s name was uttered and all of us reacted with pained caged animal noises of disgust, followed with a volcanic release of seismic laughter as we shared a tribal “Aha” moment. I guess given the demographics of Portland, the odds were the “Clintonians” would out number the “Trumpsters.” But none of us expected a tour full of like-minded politically astute activists against Trump. Now we were off to a fantastic tour, but there remained a dark cloud of menace, a sense of foreboding and separation anxiety with the first debate looming.
There was an edgy comic quality to our group. We were all consumed with the gravity of Trump and this debate, and upon discovering that our travel bus had superior Wi-Fi coverage than our hotels, every time we boarded, electronic devices were opened and each of us began to frantically collect from our social network sources whatever information and late breaking revelations that could tilt the election one way or the other. We would then compare, discuss, and continue to bond with anti-Trump passion as our common soul.
Several in the group toyed with challenging their sleep patterns and state of vacation to wake up at 3 in the morning to watch the debate. None did so. But it was not until the post debate feedback reached us with positive news for Hillary, that the dark menacing storm cloud of collective doom evaporated and the temper for the remaining of our trip lightened.
Interestingly, as common as our Americans abroad hatred and fear of Donald Trump was, the locals we encountered all voiced similar sentiments. The madman across the water has generated a global digestive reflux of bile and acid folks wanted to go away. From across the water, Trump was off to a poor start to “make America great again.” Folks happily offered their loving appreciation for Barack Obama and their turned up lip and bug eyes disdain for Mr. Trump.
To quote Mark Twain again from his “Innocents Abroad,” “travel is fatal to prejudices, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” Perhaps Donald Trump ought to travel to get out of his little 1% corner of earth and travel in the manner of the 99%, to bring a more uplifting and positive message back to help make America continue to be great. Maybe he would learn that the forces of good and love are abounding in greater strength than the dark evil he peddles.
One can learn plenty from cultural institutions such as museums, cathedrals, and the architectural wonders from Gaudi or Gehry buildings shimmering in the light with deliciousness of melting and folding gelato cones, but from the people, the locals that inhabit the land, there is no better elixir to fill yourself with hope and appreciation. Donald could benefit from an “Innocents Abroad” experience. But I guess he would prefer attending a bullfight pretending in his little mind that he was the Matador Super Hombre lusting to pick his enemy the Toro into a bleeding demise. He would be saddened to discover, bull fighting is no more in this part of Spain. People can grow and change with reflection, for the better, Donald. Can you?
I returned on October 4th, and although I promised myself to prolong my freshness for a few more days, I could not turn away and so nervously tuned into the Vice Presidential Debate. It was horrible. It was horrible for the two candidates. It was horrible for the moderator, Elaine Quijano. It was horrible for the country and our politics.
Although not surprised but very distraught over the newly released video from Trump’s 2005 appearance with Billy Bush, I had to wonder why this took so long to become public and if this would finally end the circus ride of the madman, and how would it play into debate number two. Folks across the water must be scratching their heads.
To borrow from Roger Cohen’s quote from Marx in his New York Times editorial on the day I left the country for Spain, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” As this election cycle has remained mostly below the belt going from p—s banter to p—y grabbing we have witnessed a major political party’s nominee for President take us from tragedy to farce. It feels good to be home with my validated view of the madman across the water, but I hurt thinking of the so many who have to relive their pain from being sexual assault survivors because of the words, the behavior and the attitude of the Madman-for-President.
