As shown here, a Fox News poll shows that most Americans oppose what Trump and Musk are doing.
If you add in things like the annexation of Greenland and Canada, the numbers look even worse. A recent survey shows that 53% didn’t support acquiring Greenland, 29% thought it was a good idea but didn’t think it could realistically happen, and just 11% said the Trump administration should do everything it can to make it a reality.
Almost all Americans respect and admire Canada and the generally kind, intelligent, and respectful people who make their homes there. Accordingly, we are appalled at our country’s decision to attack one of our oldest and finest friends.
In addition, as shown at left, there is a certain fraction of us who have it even worse, and are losing our livelihoods due to our president’s rash insanity. We all need to feel a particular sympathy for them.
If I were a Canadian, I’d rather vacation in Ukraine or South Sudan or the Gaza Strip than the United States.
Why has the U.S. fallen to its lowest happiness ranking ever? Well, most Americans harbor at least one, often many, deep concerns about their country’s ongoing capacity to support a strong quality of life.
Some of us are worried about ourselves, e.g., inflation and high-paying jobs, where others are kept awake at night by issues facing huge masses of our population, for example: women, LBGTQs, the poorly educated, those without healthcare, people of color, and young people whose lives will be heavily impacted by climate change and other sorts of eco-catastrophe.
Above all, most Americans are horrified at what Trump and Musk are doing to the U.S. government, and the concept that our democracy may become a relic of the past.
Those of us who love America are profoundly saddened to watch this happen. As someone said recently, “This is like being tied to a chair being forced to watch a toddler play with a loaded gun.”
Answer to the question posed at left:
A plurality of American voters elected a man with terrible values, and now our nation is realizing that the toothpaste can’t go back into the tube.
Worse, while the president’s power is theoretically limited by the Constitution, those limits are vague and extremely difficult to enforce by Congress and the Judiciary.
The Founding Fathers clearly never dreamed that the electorate would choose a criminal sociopath as the country’s (and world’s) most powerful person.
My wife and I have friends in Oklahoma.
Interestingly, they’re progressives, and they’re well aware of how rare they are.
Wisely, they keep their political views to themselves.
On an almost daily basis, readers send me news articles like the one at left that raise the question: why are Trump supporters so much more likely than progressives to be involved in criminal activities, and, as an example, sex crimes that involve children? Is this somehow a requirement to be a part of MAGA?
I can only make a guess, and here it is. Supporting Trump, especially at this point, requires a significant moral deficiency. In particular, it requires that you have little if any regard for the well-being of other people.
Imagine for a moment that you don’t care about the environment, education, rule of law, or human rights. Why should you be expected to care about the rights of little girls or boys to remain safe from sexual predation?
There is no question that the world needs a bumper crop of peace-makers, rather than a few more billionaires demanding tax cuts at the expense of the common man. But how could this possibly come about?
In particular, who are the world’s great peace-makers, and how did they come into being? How did people like the Buddha or Jesus or Gandhi mysteriously appear?
And why does it seem so unlikely that anyone like them could come along today? In a world in which Donald Trump is the most powerful person on the planet, how probable is it that the next incarnation of Gandhi will come along and lead us to world peace?
It’s funny, my wife and I were just talking about this.
It’s only a matter of time before a DOGE guy wants to enter a private business or residence and it is met with an armed fellow who explains, “If you don’t have a warrant, and if you take one more step forward, I’m going to put a hole in your chest the size of a grapefruit.”
What has happened to the economy over the past half century? Well, here are a number of things that are provable:
Almost all new wealth has wound up in the hands of the top 1%, which has driven the demand for all good things like real estate and quality higher education. This means higher prices, given that the supply is relatively fixed.
The wealthiest Americans now have an ironclad grasp on Congress; our laws are made and passed entirely at the behest of rich donors.
Anyone who believes that wealthy people would use their riches to hire more employees or pay them more than necessary is a fool.
Jobs have been lost to automation and offshoring.
In addition, there several damaging aspects of corporate greed that has grown exponentially. In particular, it’s:
Put pressure on employees’ salaries and bonuses.
Translated into dishonesty, making harder to behave honorably in the workplace.
Crushed millions of of small, “mom and pop” operations.
At the same we have the dumbing down of the population, making us increasingly incapable of competing on world stage, and understanding that we’ve elected a sociopathic conman to lead us.
The weird thing about Trump is that about half of voters agree with Robert DeNiro (though we might not express ourselves quite like he does), while the other half believe the president was sent by God to make America great again.
One either sees this or one doesn’t; there is no middle ground.
