KYOTO, Japan – A laundromat is the very last place at which an American in the Orient expects a political discussion. Then again, the subject was Donald Trump.
I didn’t bring him up. A well-read elderly lady did.
Oriental travelers must launder their T-shirts and shorts. There I was one night doing that in Kyoto’s Okazaki neighborhood, where my son and I had come to visit an old friend.
The woman was there alone when I entered, and I was glad she was. I wasn’t sure how many yen I needed for a machine. Reluctantly I approached her.
“Sumimasen,” I struggled. (That’s all-purpose Japanese a foreigner uses for, “I’m clueless.”)
Counting yen coins in my hand, she showed me what I needed. “Arigato,” I bowed.
As machines churned, the two of us set about reading – me a book, her the local newspaper, the Kyoto Shimbun.
Moments later she came over, paper in hand. She briskly plopped it before me. On Page 1 was a color shot of Trump.
As if pointing out a stain on a garment, she plunged two fingers at the photo.
Many words rattled out from her, but only one I could make out: “Criminal.”
She was beaming.
“Criminal.”
Two days earlier that would have been an epithet about our former president. On this day it was a descriptor. A Manhattan jury made it so.
I have no idea why she assumed I would react positively to what she clearly celebrated. I quickly made clear that I was on the side of the jury.
She had a lot to say, let me tell you. I just can’t tell you what.
The only familiar word that emerged was “Putin” although from her it was “Pooshin.” From her gestures, a leash was involved. Either Trump is Putin’s pet dog, or his pet muskrat, or his pet chinchilla. Something furry.
Just her opinion.
As the clothes spun, I thought of this woman – in her 80s? 90s? – and how well-informed she is. I cringed at the thought of the low-information sages back in the states who believe every word Trump and right-wing propagandists want them to.
Criminal. That’s a descriptor that under most circumstances and in most countries would end a political campaign.
It’s a condition that would prohibit one from, say, being in the Orient, even to launder his shorts.
It’s a designation that would bar a person from just about any government job – except president.
If low-info voters have no problem with this, be assured high-info voters overseas do.
The Japan Times reported how international leaders have been vocal with their concerns about a second Trump presidency – concerns about how Vladimir Putin is counting on a weakened NATO and that Trump might undermine a host of international agreements. Most seriously, they worry about a defenseless Ukraine should Trump be back in office.
Trump has made inflammatory and wildly exaggerated claims about NATO countries not carrying their weight for their joint defense.
Wrong. NATO announced recently that a record number of member countries have hit military spending targets.
It’s revealing to see who’s rooting for Trump – dictators like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, India’s Narendra Modi and, of course, Putin – while most of the free world is hoping against hope for Joe Biden’s re-election.
Meanwhile, the world watches the U.S. legal system to see if we back up our claims that the law applies to everyone.
From as far away as Dubai comes this tweet from a political science professor, saluting a court system in America “that does not differentiate between a minister, a guard, a president and a subordinate” in bringing a former president to justice. That system, says the tweet, is “one of the few sources of American supremacy.”
My laundry room acquaintance couldn’t say it better.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.