The Donald Trump Interviews…

Mark Slouka Speaks Out

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen

Mark is 66 and lives in New York. He is a writer and author of several novels.

KB: Why do you dislike or even hate Trump?

Let me put it this way: When Leslie and I were raising our kids, we tried to give them values that would make them decent human beings – values most parents would agree with. Basic things like, ‘Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cheat. When you fuck up – own it. Try to help those who are weaker than you. Stand by your friends. If you’re successful, show some humility. Do the right thing because your self-respect demands it, not because somebody else might approve. Stuff like that.

What I’m saying is that, as a father, I can’t imagine a greater personal failure than raising a son like Donald Trump. There’s no honor to this man. He lies, he whines, he cheats, he promises worlds and delivers nothing. He stiffs the people who work for him, he throws those loyal to him under the bus, he ridicules and humiliates anybody who disagrees with him. He’s the guy – we’ve all met him – who cheats on every point because he can’t win a fair match, then screams that you’re trying to cheat him.

I mean, what can you say about a man whose whole life is one big grudge, who’s always punching down, then hiding behind his money and his lawyers, who never earned his own way (his father was giving him 300k/year from birth). A man who ridicules war heroes after paying to get a deferment from the draft? A man without a shred of grace, or empathy, or honor? Unless those words don’t mean anything anymore, you’d call him the truest kind of loser.

The mystery is why behavior that most Americans would be ashamed to see in their kids (or in themselves) is acceptable to them in a President.

But even if all this was excusable (it’s not), how can we consider putting the nuclear codes in the hands of a man sliding into dementia? I mean, just listen to his ‘speeches.’ Americans are paying 8 bucks a gallon for gas? Really? Where? Migrants are ‘sacking’ American cities? Which ones? Biden beat Barack Obama? What? He confuses Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and thinks the woman he raped is his ex-wife. Now throw in his prediction that his loss in November would mean a ‘bloodbath’ for America. It’s time to wake up – this ain’t good.

KB: How do you view his supporters?

You can’t generalize about 74 million people – the number of votes Trump got in the last election – but I’m guessing that most are people who really want to fix some things in America and believe his promises – remember when he promised to “fix health care on Day One” back in 2015? Or when he said that we’d win so much we’d get tired of winning? Basically, they’ve been conned by an expert – a reality TV star who’ll do anything, say anything, to get what he wants. There’s no shame in this – everybody’s been conned at one time or another. The shame is in continuing to be conned, or, worse, in letting his hate color your world so much that you’ll excuse anything just to stick it to whoever he’s told you to stick it to.

I guess to these people we could add those who find him entertaining, those who think he’ll “clean things up,” and those who, like Susan Sarandon in 2015, hope he’ll bring everything crashing down so we can begin over. I don’t know what to say to those who find this clown entertaining. Will he ‘clean things up?’ Sure, right into his pocket, like he always has. As for those who hope he’ll bring everything down, they might want to book a flight to Haiti to see what a failed state looks like. I don’t think they’d like it.

KB: Why is America better off without Trump?

Simple. Because in eight short years he’s managed to divide us – friends, families, communities – like we haven’t been divided since the Civil War. Because he’ll keep doing just that for as long as he can – it’s what he does. Because if you listen to him rant about American carnage and corruption, you realize that he’s not interested in fixing anything. He’s just interested in getting back at his enemies (anybody who doesn’t bow down to him), enriching himself, and praising murderous bastards like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and the broken countries they command. Because, given a second chance, he’ll mold himself in their image and America will begin its long descent.

KB: Why should Trump never be President again?

To what I just said I could add that he’s talked publicly about wanting to suspend the Constitution, that he encouraged an insurrection (and tried to steal an election), and that he’s publicly encouraged Russia to do what it wants with our allies – the same allies who had our backs after 9/11. Think about it: He wouldn’t even have to pull us out of NATO – he could just signal that America would do nothing in order to trigger a global disaster. A disaster that the con man from Queens wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with.

KB: Why should people vote for Joe Biden?

The real question should be: Why the hell wouldn’t they vote for Joe Biden? Seriously, I’m so done with the whole, “I hate them both” routine. Really? Why?

Is Biden the perfect candidate? No, but show me the president who was – even Abraham Lincoln grew into his greatness. Is he old and getting older? Yep – get over it. Does he have a stutter? Sure, so what? Do I agree with every one of his policies? No, but I’d never expected to. The Presidency isn’t about perfection – it’s about competence and integrity.

What Biden’s accomplished – despite having an entire political party dedicated to undermining him even when it means hurting itself – is nothing short of a miracle. He pushed through an infrastructure law – something Trump promised and never delivered – that’s generated 20,000 jobs a month since January 2021. Last fall, employment in construction set a record going back to 1939 for Christ’s sake. Biden tamed inflation so effectively that economists are still scratching their heads trying to figure out how he managed such a soft landing. He pulled together our allies to resist Russia in Ukraine – until Trump’s stooges in Congress pulled the plug. He’s worked on lowering medication prices and saving people from crushing college debt. I could go on. Is everything perfect? Hell, no, but the man shows up to work.

Again, I could argue with this policy or that one (I’m troubled, for example, by how long it’s taken him to respond to the crisis in Gaza), but the bottom line is there’s no comparison between the two men. Biden has given his life to public service – he actually gives a shit about people – and he’s smart enough to appoint advisers who won’t hesitate to tell him what he needs to hear. Trump is an opportunist sliding into dementia whose only goal is more – more power, more money – who surrounds himself with lackeys who are loyal to him, not the country.

One more thing. Though he’s showing his age, make no mistake: Biden is one tough bastard. He survived the death of his wife and child in a car crash. He survived the death of his son, Beau, to cancer. Trump has never survived anything besides his own imagined persecution.

KB: Why are you a Democrat and how do you view the Republican Party?

I’m a Democrat because in Queens, New York, where I grew up, the Democratic party was seen as the party of the people while the Republicans were seen as the party of the country club rich.

Today, I continue to be a Democrat (despite my disagreements with some of its members and policies) because the Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party it was – a party I could disagree with while still knowing that at bottom it cared about our country and its future. That it respected our democratic values. That it respected the Constitution.

That party doesn’t exist anymore. Today’s Republican Party (with some extraordinary exceptions like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger), is a party of liars and contortionists (Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Elise Stefanik, J.D. Vance – the parade goes on) willing to say anything, to publicly humiliate themselves, in order to please their leader. In other words, a cult resembling the various Communist regimes of the last century.

Don’t believe me? Consider the fact that Steve Bannon, who loves Trump (and whose fraud conviction Trump pardoned before he left office), is a huge fan of Vladimir Lenin. Now consider that Lenin himself once said that “We have to use any ruse, dodge, trick, cunning, unlawful method, concealment and veiling of the truth,” to achieve our purpose.

Sound familiar? That’s Trump’s Republican Party. That’s why I’m a Democrat.

KB: 500 writers signed an open letter to stop Donald Trump in 2016. You were the one who started the whole thing. Why did you do it? Would you do it again this year to stop him?

I was working in the yard in the early summer of 2016 trying not to think about Trump when I thought of getting together a petition. So, I wrote up a statement and then my friend Andrew Altschul and my wife, Leslie, and daughter, Maya, helped pull it all together. Pretty much every writer Andrew and I knew (and didn’t know) in America signed on. A lot of newspapers, both here and abroad, covered it. Obviously, it didn’t do any good, but if my grandkids ever ask me if I ever did anything to try to stop this man, I’ll at least have something to show. Would I do it again? Hell, yes.

Click Here to Order Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime By “Bad” Brad Berkwitt