Because I was in New York during Donald Trump’s ascendancy to his father’s “empire”, I read about him in the tabs. He wasn’t wholesome but I didn’t care one way or another. He was just another rich guy with an attitude. I do know that he was playing catchup, wanting to be accepted by the monied elite. He never quite made it. One reason was his crudity, another was his habit of grabbing women, whether they were somebody’s wife or not.

Trump’s first wife was Czech. When a woman marries a man from a different culture, she does not always possess the insights that help her make a good choice. She doesn’t have any cultural references to apply. Anyway,Trump very publicly cheated on her with wife no. 2, Marla Maples. He and Marla were married about 7 years. She really loved him and wanted him to be an attentive husband. The beauty part is she was found on the beach at 4 a.m. being intimate with his bodyguard, whom he then fired. They divorced a year later.

My friend, Asako married a stagehand from the The New York City Metropolitan Opera, where she works doing everything – an extra, the on-stage, non-singing attendant to the princess, a wardrobe mistress – she does it all. Anyway her husband was Italian born, and when I met him he looked me up and down and I instantly recognized him as a womanizer and a sleaze. She divorced him some years later. Asako didn’t have the ability to see what I saw because her culture was so different.

And Melania is also foreign born. Trump likes foreigners precisely because they can’t see through him and also because foreign-born women are more inclined to be compliant. I have heard that Melania is having an affair with the man in charge of security at Trump Tower. Maybe that’s just rumor. I think it’s totally understandable. I also think she stays because of an agreement that she gets a lot of money if she doesn’t leave until he is out of office. If it was me, I’d be history, money or not.

Parenthetically, as a first generation American with Greek-born parents, I bridge the gap – compliant but feisty. At the same time, I grew up not being totally accepted in either culture. Too Greek for Americans, too American for Greeks. My closest friends in Florida are all foreign born. Cairo, Paris, Germany, and me, the only member of our little lunch group who is American born. Incidentally, our lunches are hilarious.

Back to Trump: The current news looks bad for him. A chief advisor, unnamed, had an Op-Ed in the New York Times where he said that the adults in the room who work with Trump in the White House work diligently to thwart his more insane directives. Early on, I said our only hope as a country was if the military said no, when Trump ordered them to drop the bomb. Apparently, something of the sort is going on in his administration. I am grateful to them, but it is the Senate and the House who must act, and they are, so far, compliant. Totally partisan a..holes.

xx, Teal