Thursday, October 26, 2017

What we learned

What we've learned with Trump's presidency is frightening. We have a president who's a narcissistic, spolled, whiny man-child whose sole interests are personal attention and adoration, and now we're seeing has memory problems. He keeps changing his mind because he can't remember what he previously said.

We have a president who wants to establish an authoritarian presidency simply because he thinks it's his right. He's shown he's the laziest president in post WWII history with no interest to learn or be involved in governing this country.

We have a president who has played golf ~30% of his days in office, and played golf on weekend leaving the country and people of Puerto Rico devasted after the hurricane. He has verbally attacked people on Twitter in the face of the facts of his lies, all for his ego and self-image.

We have an administration staffed with wealthy (American) oligarchs who will undo decades of regulations and laws making America a good country and helping Americans. From worker rights and safety, to environmental protection, to healthcare, to jobs, to financial protections, to human and civil liberties, all being destroyed by them with no remorse, often with smiles.

We have a republican party that isn't hiding is sole goal is to enrich corporations and wealthy people, many donors to their campaign. They'll bleed the American people and drive the country into deeper debt to achieve their goal draining America and Americans of our resources.

We have a republican party which refuses to doing anything to address the obvious corruption and criminal activities by Trump, his family, and his administration. They refuse to address the effect the Russians had on the 2016 election and refuse to protect future elections from further hacking by Russians.

We have a democratic party which after facing a humilitating loss is fighting change by the old guard who created the problems and won't resign to open the party and leadership to the next generation. They're dying politically and refuse to their meds to revive themselves.

We have a democratic party in turmoil to accept they too are the party dominated by old, white people. Obama challenged them and proved them wrong. And now they have to get their political head out of their ass and get out the vote for next two elections with a real message, not slogans or promises, but results.

We have a media that is being gobbled up and corporations owned by wealthy conservatives and private equity firms, which could leave the vast majority of our media owned by elite repubicans. And the GOP is helping them by dismantling rules restricting ownership.

We are becoming more an oligarchic corporate government and economy. Even the most social conscious companies (eg. Google and Facebook) support republicans as much as democrats, because they know owning Congress regardles of the majority wins for them.

And worst of all we are becoming a country where the voting rights of minorities are being restricted to guarantee white republicans will always have a majority, even in states they're a minority. We will lose the basic foundation of our democracy if they succeed.

Let understand what's at stake here. The democrats are no angels. They're corrupt too, only less than republicans, and eqaully beholding to their wealthy and corporate donors, but for now they're the only hope of change.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

And So it Goes

Come January 21st, after all-night partying when the revelers go home, the new President will wake up to the reality it's no longer a political campaign or the free-for-all of the president-elect days, but being the leader of the United States.

It will start, or we hope, with the first official President's Daily Briefing (PDB), informing him of events, situations and circumstances of the world. Everything is on the President's plate to know, understand and decide.

Or so we can hope the seriousness of the office, job and work will sober the new president into reality, but in reality, many Americans aren't holding their breath he'll learn and change. He hasn't shown any signs to date.

And so the next four years will be a challenge, not for him, he thinks he's over prepared, over experienced, and over talented, but for us. The country will change considerably and very significantly with the Republican-controlled Congress and the Republican President.

There is no doubt in anyone mind it will be a contentuous presidency, even with republicans doing everything they want on their wish list, and not because of the democrats in Congress, who don't seem to have any good ideas of a strategy or tactical plan to fight republicans.

It will be contentuous because of the American people, many angry the president's opponent won the popular vote by 2.9 million voters, only losing the Electoral College by 3 large states by 100,000 votest combined.

It will be contentuous because the majority of the American people don't like or approve of the president (to be), the majority don't trust him, and the majority think he's unfit and unqualified to be president.

So we'll learn who's right, but you can bet, as some have already noted, his honeymoon was over before he was inaugurated because of his antagonistic view and relationship with the media and his propensity for alienating people with his remarks, often tweets.

We'll learn what we believe is true, but will have to live with him for 4 years. We will have, though, a way to show him our view of him in 2018 should we get out and vote the democrats in control of at least the Senate and maybe the House of Representatives too.

The Congressional republicans know this, but too many want change now and not after the 2018 elections. But if they change they'll see the voters expressing their buyers remorse of the President through the mid-term Congressional elections.

That's the conumdrum for the republicans, do now for their base, angering the opposition, or do after 2018 to be re-elected first, before changing everything but angering their base. The bets are on the former, they're betting the House and Senate they can do what they want and still be re-elected.

But that's a bet the president doesn't blow up their reputation and encourage more democratic voters to come out and reject them. That's the historical norm, the party in power loses seats in the House and the Senate in mid-term elections.

The question is how much. That's the unknown now and will be until November 2018. Makes for an interesting next two years, happy for the minority of repubicans (by voter registration) and angering for the majority of democrats.

And so it goes. As Bette Davis said, "Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride."