Trump Is the Symptom, Not the Disease
Here’s a note to the commenters who say that I seem to write an awful lot of “anti-Trump rants” lately.
Yes, a lot of my recent pieces have been “anti-Trump,” but it’s important to point out that they’re really about the entire phenomenon. While, of course, Trump himself is at the center, there’s so much more to this whole regrettable period of U.S. history; it comes along with components that enabled it to happen in the first place, and others consequences that follow from it, together making the whole “Trump thing” much more terrifying for the U.S.–and the world population–than the mere presidency itself.
True, if it weren’t for Trump’s masterful demagoguery, adeptly scapegoating minorities for the woes of the common American, this whole deal wouldn’t have been possible. It’s hard to understand people who say that Trump is stupid, or who don’t give him adequate credit for what he’s accomplished. But it’s important to keep in mind that wouldn’t have happened without a U.S. electorate that had been badly beaten down over several decades by the failed economic policies, begun under Reagan, of deep tax cuts for the rich, the decline of organized labor, a failed educational system that left tens of millions of incredibly unenlightened people in its wake, and the coincidental election of a centrist black president whose appearance encouraged a huge amount of seething but unexpressed racism, slowly simmering in a pressure cooker within this under educated population. And along with the president came a vice president whose ideologies are far more offensive to basic humanitarian principles than Trump’s himself.
So here we are, looking at an emotionally and mentally unstable president who appears to be on his way out. But what are we left with when Trump packs his bags? What about all the hatred, the ignorance, the tendency towards violence, the Christian extremism, Mike Pence, Neil Gorsuch, and the shame and distrust that Trump has brought the U.S. on the world stage? As much as we wish it were possible, he can’t put that in his suitcase and take it away to Mar-a-Lago. We ‘ll still have a country with 50+ million angry, lower-middle class white Americans who have been led into a small, isolated compound where all that hatred and ignorance continues to fester and feed on itself as they watch–even through the mind-twisting lens of Fox News–the Trump presidency get nowhere and grow more irrational and erratic by the day.
What We Must Do
Cult45 (as the remaining Trump supporters are sometimes called) needs to have the realization that they have been badly cheated and lied to–and made to feel that they’re under attack from people like you and me. This could be right around the corner, as the evidence mounts re: collusion, conflicts of interest and other forms of profiting from the presidency. Of course, the true extremists will see the legal process unfolding against their leader as a coup against a duly elected president, and God knows what sort of mob violence will ensue in isolated places. (It will be a good time to be in Santa Barbara, I can tell you that.) But all that will be over quickly.
At that point, these people need to be listened to and led by someone who won’t further fleece them with wild promises that are underlaid by policies that continue to cheat them of their healthcare and other important elements of their quality of life. They need to be educated, reunited with their fellow man, and re-invited to feel part of the human race.
It’s not going to be a piece of cake, and it’s not going to happen overnight. Nonetheless, we must get this done–with love and a sense of profound duty in our hearts.
Craig,
It’s said of the left, that like the Bourbons, they forget nothing and learn nothing !
It’s true that Donald J Trump isn’t an experienced politician. His style has been a shock to the American political establishment and media who always thought they were in charge. The levelof hatred and irrational opposition to his assuming office has been as hysterical as it’s been unrelenting.
It’s as if removing the new president, will cure the problems America is facing.
The problem for the US is the same as most developed economies, except the US being larger has suffered more.
The old leftist policies and economic doctrines failed. They failed because they never understood the forces unleashed by Reagan economic revolution.
Reagan didn’t invent the new economic dynamics, he just exploited the changes to destroy the old communist and state capitalist order that was already in an advanced state of decay.
Unfortunately, once Reagan left office the long term effects of a new world economic dynamic that would be mainly detrimental to the US, went unrecognized by US leadership.
The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations all failed to grasp the real issues bedeviling the US economy and society.
The failure has been equally great among the right as well as the left.
The right seem unable to construct cohesive forward thinking policies, while the left (like yourself) have retreated into a sort of weird 19th and 20th century moralistic idealism. The left are hoping for a President with a magic wand who can make their failed dreams come true, while the US right seems to be paralyzed and just want to ignore the problems.
Enter Donald Trump. Trump has no political ideology, in a way he’s the most ‘American’ of the modern President in that he truly represents a certain type of frontier American.
Not a Walt Disney idealized frontiersman, but a more historically accurate frontiersman in the mold of Samuel Brannan.
( Samuel Brannan was a ’48er ! he started the great California Gold Rush with his cry in the streets and his newspaper headline in San Francisco yelling, “Gold! Gold on the American River!”
Brannan didn’t dig for gold himself, he had bought the only supply store between San Francisco and the gold fields, and had bought up all the picks, shovels, and pans on the West coast as well as ordering ship loads more.
He paid $0.20 each for the pans, selling them to hopeful prospectors for $15.00. In a few weeks he was rich, and over the next two year became the California Gold Rush’s first millionaire).
President Trump is a shock to the US political establishment since he refuses to ignore reality.
It’s a reality many American’s hate to accept.
The vast wealth of America allowed generations of American’s to wallpaper over historical reality and create a Walt Disney, Readers Digest image of American society.
President Trump is the first President to recognize those halcyon days are have passed. His impressive speech in Poland was ignored by the US media, but brought him new respect in Europe and Asia.
America has been the get loser from the internet revolution, and certainly the greatest loser from globalization.
The US has been locked in a trade war, (and losing) for 30 years. The worst irony is the US has been financing its own defeat !
Sadder still, is this situation isn’t felt by all American’s. Those that have benefited from the silicon valley revolution, globalization and transformation to a service economy, have been sheltered from the storm, cocooned in affluent communities like Santa Barbara where they can sneer at the old economy rich, and poor trapped in the older America.
Craig, you are quite right when you say Trump is a symptom, not the cause. He may not have have the right solutions, but at least he recognizes the problem.
On the other hand, the US left not only possess no solutions, but refuse to accept reality. Instead you prefer continue living an illusion, focusing all your hatred on a President who very election is forcing you to accept reality.
There will be no exciting civil war, no cathartic redemption, no removal of the President. your time would be better spent ending the hysteria and starting to getting it together, for the sake of your nation before it’s too late.
The choice is yours, you can spend the next four years throwing a tantrum and making an inexperienced President even more ineffective with endless distractions, or try to make the best of this opportunity to rebuild American reality for all Americans.
Because, like Ancient Rome, while you squabble and fight endless internecine warfare, the barbarians are at your gate !
Brannan was