By: Dan Hardman
dhardman31@gmail.com
By the time you read this Donald Trump will be President of the United States. I have no hope that by the time he leaves office he’ll act like it, to wit: “…I have a running war with the media…” News flash! The media isn’t his only target. I cannot, in good conscience, support President Twitter and do not wish him success. His pre-election rhetoric, his cabinet choices, and the crumbling resolve of both the House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader speak to the very real threat our new dear leader poses to American democracy and progress.
America spent some $4 trillion dollars on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the vast majority of which landed in private corporate accounts. Many of those companies had close ties to the Bush Administration, notoriously close, like Haliburton’s Dick Cheney, aka US Vice-President Dick Cheney. With Trump’s appointment of COE’s and billionaires to cabinet posts come telegraphed winds of war. In case you missed it, the new war front is, well, our front doors.
Hue and cry arose over House Republican’s midnight vote to disembowel the Office of Congressional Ethics. The public’s visceral reaction, which flooded both the Capitol switchboard and social media, was the shot heard round the world. Once Trump’s cabinet is confirmed, as most like Wall Street attorney and Security & Exchange Commission Chairman nominee Jay Clayton, who represented Goldman Sachs and for whom his wife is a wealth management advisor, are expected to be, it’s all hands on deck. The system will have effectively been re-rigged.
And in case you missed this, Trump’s complaints about a rigged system were actually complaints about a system that at least tried to place the proletariat ahead of the 1 percent, something the 1 percent just won’t have. Recall Trump’s now-infamous ditching of the press corps where he went to a swanky New York restaurant and promised the 1 percenters there that their tax cuts were on the way. By electing him, the so-called “forgotten Americans” just ensured our boom & bust cycles will continue. Democratic presidents have routinely had to fix Republican messes. Obama, carrying the monkey of Republican obstruction on his back, created 11.3 million jobs, 10 million more than Bush who blasted holes almost every sector. Bill Clinton created over 22.9 million jobs following G. H. W. Bush’s recession.
Hillary Clinton’s failures notwithstanding, the argument that Democrats failed to connect with middle class workers is simply false. Democrats have been the driving force on lifting social prohibitions, providing near-universal health care, and reducing middle class taxes among other things. Trump’s inauguration ushers in a new era – The Lazarus era – where “There, but for the grace of God, go I” takes on eerie new meaning.
Let anyone serious about making America a more perfect union find their place on the front lines; progressivism is under attack! Trump, eager to trade our advancements for his own enrichment, readily signs off on congressional destruction already underway. The war just came to us.
