If the evening news, local newspaper, Internet feeds, and
Facebook friends are any indication, people seem fascinated with our current
political scene. Liberal sources present
our new president as a buffoon and conservatives tout his accomplishments. To say that most of these pronouncements are
a tad overzealous in their rhetoric would be a gross understatement.
Very little of what I have heard and read give much of an
indication of our future beyond either doom and gloom or a Great America with
newly minted manufacturing, construction, and mining jobs.
While the president is busy signing executive
orders, Congress, and the old-guard power brokers in Washington, seems to be
watching from the sidelines.
We are in
the “honeymoon period” common to any new presidency.
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| Three Ring Circus |
This three ring circus is being directed by a new Ringmaster
who is issuing his proclamations with typical hyperbole to enhance expectations
of what you are about to see.
Words like
the “biggest”, “most spectacular”, and “amazing” are among his descriptive
adjectives.
What we seem to forget is
that there are two other rings in our three-ring circus, known as our
Legislative and Judicial branches.
Without the support of these other branches, pronouncements from the
Ringmaster are mostly hot air.
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| Our New Ringmaster |
This is not to say that executive orders are without
consequence.
We have already seen the
disruptive effect one such order on travel restrictions with regard to certain countries has had
on many people.
It will however be
necessary for Congress to fund and for the Legislative branch to possibly
uphold as legal, some of these actions for them to have long-term acceptance.
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| Our Republican Cabinet Gets In Line |
The elephant act is now center stage. I of course refer to the animal depiction of
the Republican Party. While not a true
Republican in the strictest sense, President Trump was elected under the guise
of a conservative Republican. He
embraces many of their ideals but is not respectful of their
establishment. This makes him attractive
to his followers and a caution (sometimes a nightmare) to his fellow party
members.
It remains to be seen but, if our founding fathers were
right, the separation of powers will keep the missteps of Mr. Trump down to a
manageable few. As President Obama
learned after his honeymoon period, where he also enjoyed a majority in
Congress, you can’t get much accomplished on your own.
Republicans
Where does all of this leave the Republican Party?
They need to take a hard look at how they
lost control.
They were divided by the
hard right that became the Tea Party.
This hijacking of the Republican ideology by extremists was
predictable.
You can’t argue or reason with
religious fanatics who hold their truths to be self-evident and which come from
a higher power.
You can only outnumber
them, hold your ground, and move on.
Let
the Tea Party be its own entity to survive on its own.
Don’t let it corrupt your own ideals.
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| Tea Party, aka Mad Hatters |
Be honest with yourselves. A Great Wall at the Mexican-US
border is political, not practical. We
won’t be safer. Such a wall won’t stop
illegal immigration or drug traffickers any better than the Great Wall of China
stopped the Mongol hoards. If a partial
fence, drones, air patrols, land patrols, electronic sensors, and cameras haven’t
stopped our border problems, a 30’ wall won’t work either. This wouldn’t be the first time a politician
didn’t keep a campaign promise. I think
it’s happened once or twice before.
If you insist on a wall, why not make it a six-lane elevated
expressway from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California.
Provide free gas to incentivize people to
take this inconvenient route and make the speed limit at least 70mph.
Any illegal immigrant that can make it across six lanes
of high-speed traffic deserves a chance.
You could call it Project Frogger.
This makes as much sense as a border wall.
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| Frogger Wall |
If you have the funds to build a 20 plus billion-dollar wall
and spend tens of billions to maintain that wall, you might as well build
something useful. I can think of a few
bridges in need of repair, highways that need maintenance and updates, utility
grids in need of modernizing, and water maintenance projects that are needed to help
farmers and city dwellers alike.
Jobs for the Rust Belt won’t appear because of imposed higher tariffs. Mining jobs for the coal industry won’t
materialize by ignoring climate change and lifting environmental restrictions. Modern jobs require modern job skills. Robotics has had a greater impact on these
jobs than the shipment of jobs overseas.
Use education to better equip the upcoming generation for these new jobs.
Provide cross training of the under employed
work force into construction jobs and related functions that will reuse their existing skill set.
Create construction jobs with infrastructure projects.
Facilitate relocation, when necessary, to
allow workers to get where the jobs happen to exist.
You could create a federally owned
corporation, similar to the TVA of 1933, which would manage and oversee these
congressionally mandated projects.
The
corporation could contract much of the work but would have autonomy to “git 'er
done,” to use a phrase familiar to your constituency.
Promote education and don’t look at it as a profit center
for private industry. Go back to
teaching the three R’s. You know we need
it if we still call it Readin’, Ritin’, and Rithmatic. Nevertheless, include practical training to facilitate
the matching of skill sets with the local job market. You can also provide life skills so graduates
know how to read a rental contract, fill out a tax form, manage a credit card,
pay bills safely online, complete a job application, dress for an interview, and
cook a healthy meal.
Realize that your “Republican” president is starting office
with a record low unemployment rate and a Dow at 20,000. Look at Obama’s starting numbers eight years
ago. Divide the improvement by eight to
find the annual improvement he achieved.
Take this result and calculate where we should be in 2019. If you aren’t there, prepare to lose the next
presidential election. If you drop the ball with the Affordable Care Act and people end up uninsured, plan to start losing Congressional and state held posts.
Democrats
I almost don’t know what to tell Democrats. I would start by saying to look back at what
you have been doing and, don’t do that anymore.
At this writing, there are only five states with a Democratic governor
and a Democratic state legislature. The
Republicans have 25 states with both a governor and control of the state
legislature.
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| Democrats Don't Have Much of a Presence Between the Coasts |
While I hold with many liberal ideals, the Democratic Party
has lost touch with the working class.
This was your stronghold. While improvements in the minimum wage and trans-gender bathrooms may be important, actual good-paying jobs are what the voters want. Unemployment rates are important to politicians, not the unemployed. As much
as I could gain favor with an obstructionist’s recommendation to my Democratic
friends, I would advise otherwise. Come up with a plan to revitalize cities and towns with closed mills and factories. Read
my recommendations to the Republican Party above and, if anything comes up for
a vote that promotes these ideals, support them. You can skip the Frogger Project, but all of
the other ideas are valid.
Hold by your ideals but don’t let them blind you to the
needs of middle class working America.
Find some middle common ground.
Fight for women’s rights and racial equality. Fight for Social Security and Health Care
reform. Fight for education. Fight for responsible immigration laws. Fight for environmental ideals. Climate change is real. Let people know what you stand for and what
you have done to benefit them. Up to now,
you haven’t gotten your message across. Ignore
the Rust and Coal Belts at your peril. Cultural issues have their place but if Joe or Jane Factory-worker is unemployed or under employed, you won't get their vote. If
the Republicans don’t improve employment figures, or improve the economy, or improve
the environment, or improve education, or improve health care, and don't protect Social
Security and Medicare, let people know. Shout it from the rooftops.
You didn’t lose the White House by much but, despite all of
your thoughtful analysis, this country is now being led by a real estate
professional. If he didn’t self-destruct
during his campaign with all his highly publicized antics, you can rest assured he will be a
force to be reckoned with in 2020. You need a fresh candidate without Hillary’s
baggage. You need someone who can identify with and talk to working class America, not just the poor. Start looking now. Groom that person and perhaps a few
alternates. You need to reevaluate your
platform priorities and provide Middle America with a viable alternative to Mr.
T.
The Big Top
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| The Greatest Show on Earth--Making America Great Again |
Well, as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus
(Greatest Show on Earth) is set to close its Big Top after 146 years, we can
only hope that the three-ring circus that is our government doesn’t suffer a
similar fate. They (Ringling) blamed
changing public tastes and battles with animal rights groups as reasons for
their demise. In May of 2017 their clown
car will have unloaded for the last time.
Our political clown car (Congress) continues to roll
on.
Our new Ringmaster is a master of
the media.
He knows how to get the attention of the working middle class. He knows how to excite an
audience.
His Greatest Show on Earth has
opened for its first performance year.
Let’s hope his aerial tightrope act maintains its balance and doesn’t
bring us crashing to the sawdust floor.
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| How Much of America Views our Leadership |
After recently watching our president perform for the news media he
despises, I was reminded of a scene from a classic film noir movie, Nightmare
Alley.
In that movie, Tyrone Power gets
a new job in a carnival. He talks to Zeena, part of a mentalist act.
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| Joan Blondell and Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley 1947 |
Scene from
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Setting: Carnival
Mademoiselle Zeena (Joan Blondell):
You like this racket, don't you?
Stanton (Tyrone
Power):
Oh, lady, I was made for it.
I had all kinds of jobs
before this one came along...
but none of 'em
were anything but jobs.
But this gets me.
I like it. All of it.
The crowds, the noise,
the idea of keeping on the move.
You see those yokels out there,
it gives you sort of a superior feeling...
as if you were in the know
and they were on the outside looking in.
Kinda hard to explain, but I like it.
