FDR used the phrase, “a date which will live in infamy,” to describe the December 7, 1941, devastating attack by the Empire of Japan on US naval and air forces at Pearl Harbor at the start of World War II. Now we have a president who will live in infamy, but only if there are still accurate historical records. This assumes those records haven’t been destroyed or altered to present this current history in a more favorable light.
We have seen a plethora of irresponsible presidential directives that bend or break laws, violate the Constitution, or which are morally reprehensible, being advanced by our new leader. He has already abandoned his promise to fight inflation, now saying it is too complicated and that it was never going to be his priority.
He began his purge of government employees in keeping with the Project 2025 playbook that he claimed ignorance of during his campaign. Now he plans to eliminate IRS auditor positions, eliminate bank examiners at FDIC, and leave FAA air traffic controller positions vacant, all on the pretext of saving taxpayers money when the true beneficiaries are the billionaire class. If your goal is to dodge taxes, make risky get-rich-quick banking moves, and fly safely in your private jet, this might work out for you. Average Joe/Joanne, not so much.
He has enacted tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, the results of which have not been felt. Next up on his agenda will be his tax cuts, 50% of which will go to America’s wealthiest individuals at the expense of the nation’s poorest. This is not because the not-so-wealthy aren’t getting a modest tax break, but because this will all need to be worked into the budget. If you suggested that we could cut the defense budget, the sound you should hear is the wrong answer-buzzer. No, Medicare and Medicaid would be on the chopping block.
No matter how you spin this cut to the nation’s healthcare system, there is no way that it doesn’t gobsmack, astound, or flabbergast some of Trump’s poorest supporters. You don’t close down rural hospitals and avoid the repercussions. When people begin having a harder time accessing life-saving medications, chronic condition treatments, and acute illness care, those minuscule tax cuts won’t offset the losses of financial security and the burdens of more medical debt.
Who wants to be the congressman or congresswoman who needs to explain why such things happened on their watch? When the wealthiest presidential administration of all time, led by a sociopathic billionaire president, weighs the advantages of a tax benefit for them versus taking care of the economically disadvantaged populations, how do you think they will act? Will they take one for the team?
-insert canned laughter here-
[Fact: Medicare physicians have had their adjusted-for-inflation pay cut by 29% since 2001]
Banning books from libraries because you don’t like the contents. Removing public references to documents that may contain certain words you don’t like, such as equality, diversity, and inclusion. Rewriting history to eliminate the achievements of individuals who may have also contributed to advancements in equality or issues you now find distasteful. These are the acts of tyrannical leaders throughout history.
Efforts are currently underway to make our government better and more efficient with a Fox News host to head the military, a former heroin addict in charge of healthcare, and a backer of the January 6th insurrection in charge of the FBI. It looks like DEI now stands for Deranged, Egotistical, and Ignorant.
That the United States of America has now joined the infamous group of countries with tyrannical leaders who have abandoned the principles of freedom, is a sign of our democratic frailty. It exposes the risks inherent in an open and free society. Free speech means all speech, not just the ideology of the current leader. The fact that these values were part of our founding principles and our original purpose, and are now being abandoned, is maddening.
We might just sit back and say this will all be over in four years, he can’t legally run again. What makes anyone think that something as insignificant as the US Constitution would stand in the way of the new Fuhrer? My crystal ball is a bit cloudy and the flux capacitor in my DeLorean refuses to take me to January 20, 2030.
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