The Elephant in the Room

 Both liberal and conservative news media will cover anything Trump like it was another hurricane approaching New Orleans.  Our obsession with Donald John Trump has obfuscated the other elephant in the room, the fertile plain where he went to play.  Since he left office, we have been inundated with books about the scary behind-the-scenes activities within the Trump administration and his family.  This one ninnyhammer has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and left us and any free-range pachyderms dizzy with his antics.  He has become the blinding light that has hidden reality from view.

The situation that allowed Trump to rise to prominence is the real culprit here, not the man who took advantage of the circumstance.  While it is said that politics makes for strange bedfellows, no one was expecting a septuagenarian satyromaniac with a short fuse.  Donald Trump represents the epitome of the urban elite, yet he somehow appealed to rural America by declaring himself an outsider.  

The folks with calloused hands and blue collars, desperate for acknowledgment of their plight, tuned into his rhetoric that promised relief and change.  Somehow the godless heathens inside the beltway, immigrants, welfare recipients, and Muslims became the target for their ire at the direction of their new ringmaster.  Trump became a nationalist leader who showed up during an economy that, while fine for Wall Street, was not being realized on Main Street.  Trump blamed foreigners for their ills and promised to restore them to greatness.

Wall Street vs Main Street

During Trump’s reign as the anointed one, we saw a failure of normal constitutional checks that would have kept him coloring between the lines.  Our judiciary and congress adhered strictly to partisan allegiances and Trump's appointees in key executive-branch positions either became sycophants or got fired.  Trump became the first president to truly embrace social media and began his rule-by-tweet agenda.  He could spread misinformation at the speed of a Kardashian selfie, whoever they are.  A 2018 MIT study found that fake or misleading tweets were 70% more likely to be repeated than truthful information.  

A Kardashian (?) taking a selfie, don't ask me who.

Trump was the master of absurd falsehoods and could utter such nonsense on a 40-second walk to a waiting helicopter and then tweet something contrary during his lift off from the White House lawn.  It would all be subject to interpretation by the “official pundits” who get the totality of their information from their cellphones.  George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth was now in the hands of the plebian hoards and its’ doublethink was now subject to exponential rounds of distortion.  The acceptance of two or more contradictory beliefs as truth defied all analysis or explanation.  How do you debate what isn’t clear in the first place?

George Orwell's 1984-Doublespeak

All of this is to say that America was ready willing and able to fall for the ramblings of an accomplished snake oil salesman with an oversized ego whose magic elixir cured all ills.  When warts remained after they bought into the snake oil cure, they also accepted his explanations and excuses.  This was far easier to believe than that they had made a mistake in their choice of messiahs.  

Trump with his magic elixir

Racial unrest and the substantial gap between the haves and have-nots were all part of the landscape long before Trump rode down his golden escalator.  Distrust with the government was also embedded in the American psyche for decades.  Not since the Nixon presidency of 1968 had the GOP risen to power using an appeal to whites’ racial grievances.  Nixon’s so-called Southern Strategy could have been a blueprint for Trump, but I don’t think he is clever enough to have devised such a course without the help of Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller.  Of course, the anti-civil rights agenda would now be updated and wrapped in a blanket of xenophobia, anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim rhetoric to create a revised boogeyman.

Nixon in 1968 promoting his Southern Strategy in Georgia

Trump was able to appeal to both the Wall Street crowd as a pro-business tax-cut champion and to the folks in the fly-over states as a bigot who could rally the likes of Nazis, racists, right-wing conspiracy groups, and others from America’s fringe.  Much of our Southeast and Midwest are core red-state bastions of many of these hate groups.  This same geographic area is also known for its religiosity and political attitudes in closer values than would be predicted by chance.  A quick look at almost any political map shows the extent of the significant disparity of acreage assigned to GOP strongholds which in turn influences the Senate where land has more value than population.  The current state count in the red/blue struggle might be indicated in each state’s choice for governor.  That is where we see 23 states with Democrats residing in their respective statehouse and 27 governor mansions with Republican occupants.

The Results of 2020 Presidential Race

What is the future of the GOP?  Can it survive with a diminishing white base?  Can it reinvent itself to widen its appeal?  So far, the strategy seems to be to use gerrymandering and voting restrictions to maintain dominance even with reduced numbers.  A 2021 poll showed that Republicans and right-leaning independents represent 40% of the total population.  On the Democratic side with left-leaning independents, the total is 49%.  The remaining 11% are independents with no claimed bias.

The GOP now stands for Geriatric Old Pachyderms.   They include any of various nonruminant mammals that have hooves or nails resembling hooves and unusually thick skin.  Pachyderm in Greek means literally "having thick skin," with the inference of being dull, stupid, callous, or insensitive.  These animals digest only half of what they take in for food and leave behind large uniform piles of nutrient-rich dung.  This is believed to be the basis for "trickle-down" economics.

Trickle-Down Economics Explained

In place today, we have a president trying to clean up the mess left behind by the untidy previous occupant.  A literal dung heap.  Biden inherited a war exit strategy that had a deadline but no plan, a pandemic running rampant with a potential vaccine solution that had no plan for distribution, and an immigration problem that was being addressed with an unfinished wall and, again, no plan.  Even with ideas for solutions, the rebellious nature of the still powerful GOP intent on blocking all means of progress in the name of party loyalty means that any advances will be hard-fought.

The days of bipartisan compromise have ended, and we enter the current era of rule by executive order or budget reconciliation end runs.  This parliamentary procedure is however good only for areas that involve spending, revenue, and the federal debt limit with only one bill per year for each subject.  That’s a total of three possible such bills per year with the reality being more like one.  With a 50-50 split in the Senate, at least one minority party (GOP) member would have to cross over.  So far for this president, only the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 has passed.

We have now replaced a Donald for a Joe, but not much of the political landscape has changed.  Progress will be glacial.  Spending will advance our indebtedness, and the shrinking middle class will continue to suffer the pangs of high taxes while many of the wealthy reap the benefits of the Trump-led tax cuts.  This group of self-serving elites still get to enrich themselves while the burden is borne by the working class and those same red-state rural folks.

Despite promises by Trump to drain the swamp, Washington still rivals the Florida Everglades for its alligators and snakes.  How 70 million people voted for Trump in 2020, and why a small group of fanatical supporters still want to count the votes from that election, can only be explained by the fact that their problems still exist and they are desperate for answers, even the wrong answer.  

The Swamp is Still Full

The elephant has not left the building.