One more of these, on the eve of the inauguration.
I’m not sure of how the next 4 years will go, with Trump as President.
TBH, I don’t think as of now that anyone can be.
But, I do want to say a few things.
1) In general, I dislike politics and most political people these days.
It’s all ego, it seems. Nobody seems concerned anymore with facts and on the ground, obvious realities. I do realize that this has always been the case, of course, at least somewhat, but I don’t remember it ever being this bad in my lifetime.
Case in point: all of those ostensibly conservative people and websites- and there are a lot of them- who are proclaiming that Trump is some kind of second coming of Reagan, who apparently embodied working class values.
There… is so much that is wrong with this, and so much that is, I am sorry to say, DUMB with it, that I almost can’t summarize how brutally incorrect this idea is.
I’ve tried before, but here’s a refresher, since it seems that we need one:
Trump’s past is that he is a billionaire, who was born into a very rich family, who made his own fortunes in the Fed-fueled easy money experiments of the 80’s and 90’s, and on his appearances in reality TV shows about monied businesspeople, like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and “The Apprentice”.
Reagan was a Hollywood actor and lifelong socialist who joined the Republicans when it was convenient for him personally to do so, and who promptly amnestied every illegal alien and shipped virtually our entire manufacturing base overseas as soon as he took office.
Neither one of these people is or was an embodiment of “working class values”, and it’s still baffling to see intelligent people even claim such.
Reading conservative (meaning, GOP oriented) blogs these days is very telling. You can see plainly how these suckers just keep losing and losing, over and over again. They’re pathetic; they refuse to look reality in the eye. They’re weak.
The left has not been as weak as they are. The left really does demand actual results, as opposed to simple lip service. They expect their leaders to actually deliver. The GOP worshipers don’t; they are too gullible, or too scared, to do so.
The professional “right wing” seems infested lightweights and weaklings.
The left, as well, seems to have gone off the deep end, but in their own special way. There is no discussion, and I mean none that I can see, about any of the very valid reasons why so many people are ardently against them.
There’s been a lot of talk from the leftist intelligentsia about “soul-searching” after Trump’s victory, which to them apparently means pointing the finger at others for their own mistakes. Especially, they like to blame Hollywood for Trump’s victory. Hollywood, it seems, drove the country to vote for Trump as a counter-reaction against them- as if celebrities putting posts on Instagram about their support for Hillary led the common man to vote for Trump, instead, for some reason.
Nowhere on the intellectual left is there any discussion about, say, black-on-white crime as a motivator for people to reject liberalism. Nor is there any meaningful discussion about the systematic and severe job and school-related discrimination faced by poor whites, and most especially by poor white men. No, there cannot be any discussion of that, because that would affect the intelligentsia directly, since so many of them have cushy, tenured jobs in universities and such.
So, they point the finger at others. At Hollywood, for example. I mean, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio’s fault that Hillary lost! Isn’t it obvious?
Not to me, it isn’t. People do still listen to these guys, though, because of their past history of victories. But not because of respect for their ideas, I think. We’ll see if people keep listening to them if / when Trump makes any changes to the system.
2) Like everyone else, I’ve no idea how Trump will do in office. But, there is a good chance that he will flounder and flail in the same way that Obama did.
The country really does seem too divided at this point to be governed effectively. Simply put, the nation is too diverse. There might be no way for any President to get all of the groups in here to see eye to eye on anything.
And especially, I believe that Trump may not be able to reconnect the white working class with everyone else.
I still believe that there is a good chance that 9/11 sunk that particular ship. Once the oligarchs directly attacked the mainland of the US with micronukes or whatever it was that they used to bring the twin towers down, it was probably over for them here.
To appease the white working class now, and to really get them on board again, would require Herculean, and maybe impossible, acts of contrition on the part of the oligarchs.
To eject every illegal in the country, and to make Black America pay publicly for their epidemic of violent crime, would be a good and promising start. But it would only be a start.
I can’t imagine that anything Trump has to offer at this point would be anywhere near sufficient, or even respectable.
Keep in mind that the US today has by far the greatest wealth inequality ever seen in history. Here, the divide between the oligarchs and the white working classes in particular has been growing ever since the Fed was established over a hundred years ago. It may take that long, or perhaps longer, if it is to truly heal.
If such a thing is even possible.
I will not be holding my breath.
3) I don’t envy Trump. Not even a little.
His job will be hard, to say the least, if not even impossible to do well.
The US has been pushing it’s problems aside now since from… who knows, really. But it’s been a long, long time.
The debt needs to be brought down. It cannot continue to grow into infinity.
People need jobs- tens of millions of them, and they need them yesterday.
Obama’s wars need to end, everything else notwithstanding. They are costing trillions of dollars a year and thus are far too expensive to maintain.
And- the government (like the schools) must cop to reality and admit the truth that the races are not “equal” in intelligence level or mental competence. They don’t have a choice about this, IMHO. Everyone from the ages of 23 – 55 with an internet connection knows the truth, by now, regardless of what they say in public. The secret is out, and this is one genie that will never be able to get back into the bottle. It’s over, guys. It really and truly is over.
And I won’t even get into stuff like immigration or whatever.
All of this being the case, I don’t envy The Donald.
His “drain the swamp” stuff, whatever it is, is most likely not going to cut it.
4) Apparently, Trump’s first act as President will be to be sworn in on 2 bibles. Why? PR stunts like this aren’t what’s needed. Trump and his team should be focusing on more important stuff, not clickbait generating nonsense like that.
Besides, Christianity is a dead religion, and most especially amongst Trump’s own base. The White churches are empty. Nobody cares.
Leaving aside my own prejudices, it would be better sign, IMHO, if Trump was to ditch the bible entirely. Now THAT would be different. That would mean that he wasn’t a typical amoral GOP stooge like Reagan, the Bushes and Nixon.
I mean, did he HAVE to choose Lincoln’s bible, of all things? The Bible of Mr. GOP himself? I thought that Trump was supposed to be some sort of renegade in his party. Someone different. Apparently, I was wrong.
But… this is only a detail. And I really should hold my tongue until he has had a chance to prove himself, as I said yesterday.
So, I’ll end this one here.
Trump, if you’re reading this, good luck.