As I write this, I've just digested the news that Donald Trump has made a $25 million settlement for the Trump University swindle, without admitting any fault for the problem. On the same night, his VP was at "Hamilton" and a cast member stuck up a challenging conversation with Pence. To distract people from Trump's paying off on a settlement, Trump accused the cast member of harassing the VP elect. Again, we're seeing business as usual from Trump - when you have to pay for your sins, distract others from the confession, and certainly don't admit any fault or responsibility.
No one ever expects Trump to ever expose his tax returns to public scrutiny. If they were public, they would expose the many intricate layers of international deals with people who are less than honorable. Couple this with not divesting Trump's holdings into a blind trust and disconnecting the family from the family business, we have great potentials for conflicts of interest which I have no trust that Trump will handle honorably.
Everyone I speak to in my bubble of friends is horrified about what this presidency means. To me, I expect to see a lot of scandals, with a president trying to scuttle freedoms enumerated in the 1st amendment and upheld by over 200 years of legal precedent. His election has unleashed conservatives who want to shred the social safety net. The Speaker of the House is now floating proposals to scuttle Medicare, and replace it with a voucher program. We have never had a decent marketplace solution to healthcare issues in this country, and the Speaker only will make things worse. He wants to subsidize the wrong side of the Supply/Demand curves with his voucher based proposal, and this will only raise prices. If he were to subsidize supply, he'd reduce prices - but politicians never have a clue on how to make markets work to solve problems and not make them worse.
I see a major attack on Gay Rights coming, and the GLBT communities have much to fear. It's amazing how many people are killed around the world because they do not fit the molds of traditionalist sexual identities and/or practices. With a VP such as Pence, Trump has signaled that he doesn't give a damn about social rights or safety to marginalized groups. He is a bully, and only respects bullies - and despises anyone who could be a victim. Hopefully, more gay people will join groups such as the "Pink Pistols", and signal that they will not allow themselves to be pushed around.
But it is not just the Gays who are at risk. I go to a Muslim doctor for treatment. He has always treated me with respect, and we have always had the chance to talk a little about social affairs on my visits. He has been a valuable member of my community for generations. Why should he be called on to register with the government because of his religion - as posed by Trump before and after his election? How does one choose who is good and bad from any religion? Should Christians get a free pass? We see religious terrorism from some people from our religious right, and no one demands that Christians register with the government. And what about the Jews? They should always remember the yellow stars sewed on to their clothes. They must always remember the numbers tattooed on their arms during the Nazi years. They must start standing up to say NO - this should never happen to any group, not even our professed opponents, ever again!
What about the rhetoric of rebuilding our military? We're the only nation in the world that can fight a war in two theaters of operation at the same time. We spend as much on our military as the next 5 nations in the world combined. The biggest problem with our military is that it is too big! Much of our spending takes place because we have grown addicted to the jobs that building unneeded equipment brings to communities across the nation. It is an inefficient way of keeping people employed, as once bullets are shot and bombs are dropped, we have nothing to show for this spending. No new bridges are built. No roads are constructed. No houses are erected. No children are educated. No sick are healed. I could go on and on about the things we don't have because we have chosen to fight "forever wars" instead of preparing ourselves for a future of prosperity we could
have earned.
We do have problems. For example, we have alienated people in both rural and urban areas. They are not well educated, and live where good jobs are not available to them. In rural areas, the mills have closed down, and the people can't move to places where plentiful jobs are. In urban areas, the high paying jobs require educations that people can't afford to get. And when people fail to achieve to a reasonable potential, they often fall into despair and escape into drugs and alcohol. No amount of moral and legal punishment can help these people. Only opportunity can help them. Sadly, structural unemployment is becoming a greater problem every day, and the elites have at best neglected the worse off in our society. And at worst, they have warehoused these people in a prison industrial complex geared to keep them out of sight and out of mind.
There is a tendency for those who are alienated to follow authoritarian leaders when they don't feel like they are getting their fair share from the system. They look towards a messianic figure to deliver them from the injustices they perceive are being inflicted on them without delving deeper into their problems. For example, many people voted for Trump because he promised to eliminate environmental regulations which made the coal mines unprofitable. Sadly, he can't make people use coal who don't want to buy it. As such, the people are going to get screwed again, because the false messiah made promises which could not be kept. If these people saved their money when times were good, they could have left their one horse towns at the first sign of decline. The unions could have negotiated phased shutdowns of plants, with safety nets in place to help people transition to skills currently in demand - and provided relocation assistance so these retrained workers could go to where the new jobs were. Instead, the former workers blame the wrong "others" for their problems, and keep sowing the seeds for future disappointments.
The election of Trump was a signal by the masses that they wanted change. They did not care much about the nature of the change - they wanted to riot using ballot boxes as weapons. Trump can not and will not deliver the changes the people want. He has too many conflicts of interest for him to even govern honorably. All he can and will do is push this country towards an authoritarian government - if we don't resist it. Resistance can be peaceful - mobs of people can block movement of traffic in a city. Mobs of people can protest at key locations and get the press needed to show that the government lacks critical public support. But mostly, they can slow things to a halt until a new and more honest leader can come through the ranks, and truly push for healthy change. Until then, I pray that the decent people in the GOP will reach across the aisle to the Democrats and use the legislative branch of government to check and balance the power of this Sociopath who will be in charge of the executive branch of government.
The conservatives won this election. Now they have a duty to govern responsibly. Only time will tell if they handle their responsibilities honorably in spite of having a dishonorable man in charge of the executive branch of government....
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