Written by: William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief The carnage has begun. No, not the “carnage” that our malignantly narcissistic President declared in his Inauguration Day campaign bloviation (“16 minutes of hooey and horse hockey about corrupt politicians betraying the people, and American carnage, and patriotism healing our division, though the division is mainly about Himself,” as Garrison Keillor said). It’s the carnage that is beginning to affect public transportation. Call it the “Drumpf Effect.” Basically, it’s an excuse for mass-transit-loathing politicians, most of whom are—like it or not—Republicans, to join forces and self-righteously engage in bad behavior. It’s a form of crowd psychology, also known as mob psychology. German philosopher, sociologist and composer Theodor Adorno, writing about the rise of the Third Reich, described crowd psychology as “the bond linking the masses to the leader. When the leaders become conscious of mass psychology and take it into their own hands, it ceases to exist in a certain sense. ... Just as little as people believe in the depth of their hearts that the Jews are the devil, do they completely believe in their leader. They do not really identify themselves with him but act on this identification, perform their own enthusiasm, and thus participate in their leader's performance. ... It is probably the suspicion of this fictitiousness of their own ‘group psychology’ that makes fascist crowds so merciless and unapproachable. If they would stop to reason for a second, the whole performance would go to pieces, and they would be left to panic.” Now, I’m not suggesting that Republican efforts to kill transit projects should be compared to German citizens of the 1930s enabling the Gestapo to arrest Jews and send them off to mass genocide in concentration camps because Hitler and his sociopathic henchmen said it was OK. However, it’s still mob psychology. The first sickening signs of the Drumpf Effect on rail transit surfaced in California, where high-speed-rail-loathing Republican House Rail Subcommittee Chair Jeff Denham has managed to persuade Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to defer an FTA FFGA (Full Funding Grant Agreement) for Caltrain’s unrelated-to-HSR Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project. That project is now at risk, for no good reason. The next penny-stupid, pound-idiotic mob-psychology-induced GOP initiative to murder a mass transit project has surfaced in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., where Republican politicians are trying to kill an extension of the Metro Transit LRT. As told by CBS Minnesota: “ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in Minnesota said Monday they would try to shift federal funding away from a planned light rail route between Minneapolis and its southwestern suburbs and spend it instead on general road and bridge repair. “GOP legislators have long sought to block planning and funding for light rail projects, saying they put metro-area priorities above rural Minnesota. The legislation would move $900 million in federal money away from the roughly $2 billion Southwest Light Rail Transit project. “Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton’s appointed Metropolitan Council received much of the blame for issues surrounding the project, and council officials pushed back against Republican lawmakers’ claims that the group ignored the Legislature and the public when seeking to move the project forward. “‘We have an unelected body that is not accountable to any other elected official, save one,’ said Republican Rep. Linda Runbeck, of Circle Pines, calling the light rail ‘a project that has failed on so many counts to be developed in a thorough, neutral, public way.’ “Metropolitan Council chair Adam Duininck refuted those claims, pointing to about 180 meetings that have been held since 2008 to gather public feedback on the project. ‘It is unfortunate that a lot of the information used is incorrect,’ he said. “A press release from the Metropolitan Council said the Legislature appropriated project development funds in 2009, 2011 and 2013. “As of Monday afternoon, five Republican bills were set to be heard in committee concerning either the Metropolitan Council or transit services. “Republicans also see the resolution as an opportunity to sock away funds for a transportation package later this session—a top priority that has eluded lawmakers for years. “Sen. David Osmek said he hopes President Donald Trump’s administration would approve the transfer, citing the government’s desire to shift toward block grant funding. “But Duininck said the chance of the funds being moved to grants for roads and bridges is slim because the awarded money is a part of a federal program meant to specifically fund rail projects. If the Legislature goes forward with the resolution, he said he fears the state will lose the money altogether. “Still, Osmek, the Mound Republican, said cancellation of the funds, without reallocation to roads and bridges, would still be considered a victory.” Like I said, mob psychology. APTA, are you paying attention to what’s going on? What transit project will be next to suffer? I’ll leave you with two Garrison Keillor quotes from his editorials on Trump in the Washington Post: Feb. 7: “The Constitution does not allow 13-year-olds to become President, and after last week we can see why. The Boy President proudly holding his latest executive order up for the cameras, to show that he knows right-side-up from upside-down. Bringing his Supreme Court nominee onstage. (‘So was that a surprise? Was it?’) Cutting short a call with the prime minister of Australia. His homage to Frederick Douglass (‘someone who’s done an amazing job’) for Black History Month. Twittering about the ‘so-called judge’ who stopped the Muslim travel ban. Pictured in full smirk at the National Prayer Breakfast, preening, bloviating (‘In towns all across our land, it’s plain to see what we easily forget—so easily we forget this—that the quality of our lives is not defined by our material success, but by our spiritual success’) on a scale of bloviation equal to Warren G. Harding and the great gasbags of the 19th century. You think, Let the man be president but please don’t put him in charge of the Weather Service or Amtrak or the TSA. Feb. 1, Trump citing his version of the Bible: “The Lord is my shepherd. Okay? Totally. Big league. He is a tremendous shepherd. The best. No comparison. I know more than most people about herding sheep. And that’s why I won the election in a landslide, and it’s why my company is doing very, very well. Because He said, ‘I’m with you, Donald. You will never want. Blessed are the dealmakers, for theirs is the kingdom. Big time. Blessed are they who scorn, for they shall be comfortable. Blessed is machismo, for it wins again and again. Blessed are they who are persecuted by the dishonest press, for they shall continue down the paths of righteousness, and that’s what is going on here. We are bringing righteousness to Washington for the first time and making incredible progress. I’ve done more in the past month than most presidents do in a year. Washington was void, without form, and I issued an executive order, “Let there be light,” and did I get credit for it? No, the dishonest press said, ‘It hurts our eyes.’ So I divided the light from the darkness. Day and night. Night and day. I did all this in two nights and a day. Under deadline, under budget. Next week we’re going to do the firmament, the waters, the dry land, start naming beasts, all the rest of it. I tell you, I have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death. The shadow of death. I have to say that. Terrible. Because of the dishonest Medianites, or, as I call them, the media, including a lot of you here in this room, writing stories about chaos. Where’s the chaos? We’ve got light and darkness, day and night. There is no chaos. I know what’s true, and the level of dishonesty is unbelievable. The story about the rich man in hell and the beggar Lazarus in heaven—fake news. Totally fake. Rich man wouldn’t give him the crumbs off his table? Not true. Never happened. ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ He never said it. Same with, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven.’ Garbage. Total garbage.” Many in our industry, and the people it serves, are going to suffer from the intended consequences of the Drumpf Effect—transit agencies, suppliers, contractors, engineering consultants, and the transit-riding public. God help us. God help us all. . . . Continue reading...
