Ericka's 'Verse

Sounds spooky, right?  It isn’t.  Rather it is a reminder that not everything you see and hear can be taken at face value.  In fact, the opposite is routinely true.  It is the negative space that matters.
My first introduction to negative space was at the Exploratorium in San Francisco when I was a kid.  They had several exhibits demonstrating the power of negative space and how, if you aren’t looking critically, you be easily fooled.  My next foray into negative space came, interestingly enough, with pumpkin carving for Halloween.  There is an interesting art of shaving out the skin or cutting the pumpkin entirely such that it highlights the dark, uncut area of the pumpkin to form an image.  It is fascinating in its simplicity and its ability to evoke an odd sense of awe that the artist was able to envision such an image in that manner, in the negative space.

Recognizing negative space for what it is applies to life in general.  One’s ability to see it lends all kinds of useful information which, on the surface can appear meaningless, but when fully delved into and digested yields important information others may not recognize.  It gives one an advantage.

Now, negative space isn’t something that will stand up in court, for instance.  Only concrete facts will do that.  But it will put you on a trail to concrete facts.  Take the whole “Deep Throat” episode, for instance.  A man referred to as, “Deep Throat” put two investigative reporters on a trail to Nixon’s ultimate political demise with one simple phrase: “Follow the money.”  That is the negative space.  The thing no one was paying attention to because Nixon was playing a shell game.

All con artists have a way of diverting attention.  In Trump’s case, it is doing one outrageous thing after the next, then lying about it as if it never happened (we have you on tape, sir.  You do realize that?) and going on to the next scandal so quickly that the previous one is relegated to obscurity.

What I find troubling about this whole Russia business is the negative space.  What is the one thing Trump didn’t want?  He did not want an investigation into this whole business with not only Russian hacking, but also their interference in our *supposedly* democratic election.  On the face of it, the reason is simple: Trump is a thin-skinned bully who absolutely cannot tolerate even the implication that maybe he didn’t win the election of his own accord.  That seems logical and reasonable.

On the face of it.

Then, after all the doubling and tripling down by Trump, his surrogates and his nominees, I was reminded of a Shakespearean quote, “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”  “The DNC couldn’t avoid being hacked and the RNC was never hacked!”  “This is made up, it’s fake news, it’s garbage!”  “This is a disgrace!”  To a CNN reporter, “You’re fake news!”  Not to mention all of the unhinged Twitter storms from the president-elect.

That got Walt and I to musing, “What is it exactly that he doesn’t want anyone to know?”  That’s your negative space.  He is obfuscating this whole business for a reason.  We, John Q. Public, have known since October of last year that the Russians hacked the DNC.  That means, from a pragmatic standpoint, that it stands to reason they also hacked the RNC and very likely they hacked a fair few top officials on both sides.  While most logical people in power would be shitting themselves over this, hence the bipartisan agreement that it needs to be investigated, Trump’s response, in concordance with his typical M.O., is to insist that nothing happened and that the rumors of his malfeasance are entirely baseless.

Perhaps that is true, on the face of it.

BuzzFeed did Trump a huge favor by circulating what most reporters have sat on for months because they were unable to corroborate the story: A tidbit about Trump hiring Russian hookers for golden showers.  The favor they did was to give Trump a viable position from which he could deny every horrible story printed about him and once again point to the media as collaborators in lying about him.  Now everything is a lie.

On the face of it.

Except it likely isn’t.  A man of his standing does not garner the public ire of so many by being a nice guy.  I can see people being upset with him over failed business deals.  But multiple accusations from former contractors of never being paid for their work and losing their businesses as a result?  Multiple accusations of rape?  Even bragging about how he can sexually assault a woman by virtue of his societal position and get away with it?

On the face of it, he has grounds to deny.  But look at the negative space.  There is something truly wrong here on many levels.  With regard to Russia, my money is on the highly probable possibility that Putin and his agents have Trump’s balls in a vice, and they will likely squeeze if he does not do as they ask.  That puts all of us, not just the U.S. but the entire world, at risk.

On the face of it, Trump and his minions can deny all they want.  But those of us who see the negative space know there is a trail to follow, and follow it we will.