Meet Your Commander-in-Chief

Most Americans know that Donald Trump “dodged the draft” and managed to find a neighborhood doctor willing to diagnose him with bone spurs. He avoided obligatory military service during the Vietnam War era. With that in mind, I think all of us should find his July 2017 outburst at a Pentagon meeting deplorable.

Ма́ршал Росси́йской Федера́ции TRUMP
Reporting for duty

It seems that Pentagon military leaders, ones who actually put on the uniform to serve and fight for our country, were worried that the new president lacked foundation and background pertinent to our nation’s key defense alliances. They decided that a meeting that could provide him with such a background would be beneficial for all concerned. The meeting would fill the “gaping holes” in Trump’s understanding of America’s post-war history and provide him with information that would help him in his role as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. History and geography were not among Trump’s strong suits. His strong suit appears to be dark blue.

Tillerson and Trump

In addition to military generals, Rex Tillerson (former Sec. of State) and Gary Cohn (former National Economic Council director) were present at the Pentagon briefing. Also present was then-Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, one of the most knowledgeable military advisors on Trump’s staff.  Mattis had served in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. In all, General Mattis has 44 more years of military experience and 29 more military service awards than does Donald J. Trump.

Trump's military background  (left) versus the background of just one general in the room.
Trump holds the Order of  Lenin medal with the Make Russia Great Again cluster.

What they didn’t know at the time was that the new president had the attention span of a gnat on Adderall measurable in nanoseconds. Complex geopolitical strategy does not lend itself to eyedropper feedings. They began the briefing, Trump got bored and angry, and eventually, he interrupted the meeting with his own views.  Among his misguided ideas were:

• We should rent our military out to our host countries like South Korea since we are defending them.
• NATO was not our friend since some countries hadn’t paid their fair share.
• The Iranian nuclear deal was bad.
• Our war in Afghanistan had gone on too long, and the generals were responsible.
• When we “win” a war, we should get to keep all the oil.

It was at this point that Trump called Afghanistan a “loser war” and called his military leaders: “You’re all losers. You don’t know how to win anymore. I want to win. We don’t win anymore.” He went on to say, “I wouldn’t go to war with you people, you’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

Tillerson later stood with a small group after the meeting and called the president, “a fucking moron.”  Word of this eventually got out and he was fired eight months later.  I wholly disagree with Rex Tillerson’s assessment.  Since he used an outdated term I will stick with that as a basis of my disagreement.  Under the old psychiatric classification system, a moron had an IQ of 51-70, and this is inconsistent with my personal observations of our subject.  Upon further investigation of the old classification system, we find that an idiot checked in at an IQ of 0-25, and an imbecile topped out in the 26-50 range.  I find that Trump vacillates between categories and lives somewhere between idiocy and imbecilic with occasional flashes of relative moronic brilliance.  All of these terms are no longer acceptable giving way to the term “intellectual disability.”

We should be careful in our classification however, as moderate mental subnormality may prevent him from being held responsible for his actions.  The only other reason to press for a better-defined classification of Trump’s intellectual disability would have been to prevent him from reproducing.  We all know that horse left that barn years ago; at least five times by most counts.

The takeaway here might be that, while we need a Commander-in-Chief to lead our military, perhaps we should require presidential candidates to at least pass a test that acknowledges a basic high school level of history and geography.  Morality is another matter and in this regard, the ballot box is our friend.  Perhaps this analysis partially explains why they can’t keep size 5 and 6 MAGA hats in stock.

Footnote:  I was surprised to find that the Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision of 1927, which upheld the right of the states to enforce compulsory eugenic sterilization of the intellectually disabled, had not been overturned.  The case is tragic and provides an insight into the damage that can be wrought by narrow-minded individuals with the power of government to back them.

Patriotism; Let’s Get Something Straight

The vast majority of Americans are patriots.  This includes Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.  It includes White, Black, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Christian Americans.  Patriotism is not the exclusive domain of any one party or group.  I would easily state that 99% of all Americans are patriots.  No, that is not the result of some scientific study; I just pulled that number out of my ass since that’s where we seem to get our statistics these days.

From Wikipedia: Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to a homeland and alliance with other citizens who share the same sentiment.  This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political, or historical aspects.

It is a common occurrence these days that someone tries to make a point by claiming that he or she is a patriot and anyone with a differing opinion is some sort of traitor to our country.  Wrapping yourself in the American flag to make your opinion more valid is a sign of weakness.  I don’t know Colin Kaepernick, but I won’t question his patriotism for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality.  I will question his judgment for the method he chose, but I won’t use this one act to question his loyalty to this country.

I, as a matter of choice, have an American flag mounted on my house.  I served four years in the U.S. Navy and still get goosebumps when I hear our national anthem.  None of this makes me more patriotic than any of my neighbors, many of whom were born in other countries.  I love my country but still, feel free to question its direction.  I find this questioning of national direction especially important at times like these.  National leaders who side with despots traditionally identified as our enemies should always be questioned as to their motivation.  Our moral compass should guide us along our path, not some blind allegiance viewed through red, white, and blue colored glasses.  Our patriotism should recognize the patriotic feelings of other nations and at least be tolerant or considerate of other views.

Today, an extreme form of nationalism, polluted with ethnic prejudice, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious bigotry, has been given solace by a supportive or otherwise motivated leadership.  An often hidden minority has found a new bravado in the infamous quote, “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” in response to the violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Whatever our president may have meant by that statement, it was read by many as support for some of the “very fine” neo-Nazis.

Patriotism should not be defined by unwavering support for any single value plucked from our constitution.  Our patriotism should include support for the general values expressed in the sentiments of our origin documents, and that support should be tempered with an attitude of civility as we evolve as a more tolerant nation.  We should remember that fourteen of the twenty-one prominent Founding Fathers were slaveholders at some point in time.  Also among our Founding Fathers, while the majority would normally be identified as “Christians,” a large group advocated the Enlightenment religion of nature and reason known as Deism, or they were at least influenced by that rejection of the miracles and supernaturalism associated with traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Slaveholders amongst our Founding Fathers

This statue of Justitia is displayed outside the Court of
Last Appeal, in Hong Kong.
She is a depiction of Roman art common since the 8th of January, 13 BC 

Patriotism and loyalty to our country is not that simple.  Blind nationalism should not be confused with patriotism.  Many totalitarian and authoritarian regimes from world history were founded in blind nationalism.  Adolph Hitler used blind nationalism to promote his Nazi regime.  True patriots should always want what is best for their country and questioning the direction of our leaders when our national ideals are being violated, is not unpatriotic; justice should be blind, patriotism should not.

Capitalism and The Demise of The Working Class

I am reminded of a song favorite from Tennessee Ernie Ford titled Sixteen Tons. The lyrics tell the tale of a coal miner who loads a record amount of number nine coal and finds himself deeper in debt.

“You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

 Another day older and deeper in debt

 Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

 I owe my soul to the company store”

The company store reference was to the employer-provided store where the “captive audience” of workers shopped exclusively out of necessity. Workers were often paid in a company-issued script that was only good at such a store. The company also provided housing and charged rent. Before the advent of unions, such exploitation of workers being paid wages below subsistence levels could keep employees in perpetual debt. Today things are slightly different.

Tennessee Ernie Ford

The company towns and company stores mentioned above were prevalent in the 1880s and lasted until the mid-1930s.  After WW2, the U.S. enjoyed a great period of economic growth that lasted from about 1945 through the early 60s. This was the period of my youth. It was a great time for the middle-class as America established itself as the world’s richest country. Our GNP more than doubled during this period. There was a baby boom, a housing boom, and affordable mortgages were available for returning servicemen. With the advent of television, the Nelson family moved from radio to the tiny screen.

Ozzie, Harriet, David, and Ricky (Eric)

Ozzie and Harriet Nelson had two children, David and Ricky. This was a typical middle-class family of four. Ozzie went to his white-collar job with a briefcase and Harriet was a homemaker who looked after the boys. Ozzie’s job was a mystery and it didn’t play a role in the television version. In the 1952 film, Here Come the Nelsons, Ozzie was in women’s underwear. Perhaps that occupation would have been too delicate for the strict television censors of the day. We visited the Nelsons once a week from 1952 until 1966.

In 1960, the median income was $5,700, which was a 4% increase over the previous year. The minimum wage in 1960 was $1.00 hr. Fifty years later, in 2011, the minimum wage was $7.25 hr. Adjusted for inflation, the 1960 hourly wage would be worth $6.65 hr. in 2011 dollars. So, in half a century the hourly minimum wage increased by only $ 0.60. That works out to a 9% raise in fifty years. As with all statistics, you can find specific figures elsewhere that differ from these, but all of the charts, tables, and analyses that I visited painted the same grim picture where low and middle-income people are not much better off than they were even ten years ago.  In the chart below published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) that claims to have been in business since 1914 advising Congress, the picture for all but the top 10% of our nation has been bleak.

Wage Trends Adjusted for Inflation; Vertical grey bars are recessions

One part of the CRS report stated that while more individuals in the job market had bachelor's or advanced degrees, that alone was not enough to raise overall wages. In the above chart, I only included the overall statistics but, as most of us will acknowledge, the picture for women and minorities is worse than the average shown.

While wages, purchasing power, and full employment are key factors when examining the fate of middle-class America, upward mobility or the chance thereof is also of extreme importance. There will always be a middle-class since someone will always be in the median strata of the income market but it is the lack of any chance to better your position that cripples motivation. The middle-class will not just die-out and join the poor but they will end up as financial zombies trudging along just trying to make ends meet.

Working Class Zombies Walking to Dead-End Jobs

It has become harder to get a really meaningful education as evidenced by the recent scandals of celebrities bribing university staff to gain admittance to top-ranked schools. Anyone who can through grades, athletic ability, or other means get into a highly rated school, will likely face crippling debt for a major portion of their greatest earning years.

What role does capitalism play in all of this you might ask?  Well, we are a capitalistic society and have been since our inception. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. If, as conceptualized in our constitution, we were a society where education and hard work were all that was required to become a success and have the ability to better our station in life, America would truly be the utopia envisioned by our founding fathers. This assumes a level playing field where everyone plays by the same set of rules. Even Stevie Wonder can see that this is not the case. There are at least two rulebooks in play here. One set of rules was written by the wealthy for the wealthy and one was written by the wealthy for everyone else.

I will use Donald Trump as an example. No, he is not the one to blame for all of this; he is just typical of the problem. I just started watching a Netflix series titled “Trump: An American Dream,” covering much of the life of our president. It provides a glimpse into the rarified atmosphere that is The Donald. I’ve gotten through the first episode of this 4-part series and found it to be balanced with both supporters and detractors. I mention it here only in that it typifies the entitled attitude of the wealthy. Donald Trump plays by the rule book written for him and by him.

Netflix:  Trump, An American Dream

We see in this first episode much of the 1977 development of The Grand Hyatt Hotel and how Trump, and we will assume many of the wealthy, take their share of the pie out of your share of the pie. He was able to get the City of New York (read taxpayers) to finance a major portion of the project with a 40-year tax exemption. As of 2016, this tax break had cost the city $360 million while the gross operating profits were amounting to $30 million a year; all of this on a property that cost only $120 million to build. Therefore, the New York taxpayers are paying their taxes to run the city that provides the wherewithal for Mr. Trump to make an obscene profit. We won’t go into the fact that Trump used political pressure and an unsigned option agreement with the city to push the development through.

Rendering of New Hyatt Regency with $400 million tax break

By 2016, Trump had used tax breaks, grants, and incentives to benefit 15 buildings in Manhattan to save him $885 million. Taxpayers are subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. This is not an indictment of Donald Trump but merely an example of the corrupt system that is the core of our problem; an unlevel playing field for the rich. Capitalism runs amok.

Capitalism is not inherently bad or evil but the greedy captains of industry and government make it so. More is never enough. Social programs, general education, infrastructure, healthcare, and the like are but inconvenient drains on their potential profits. This corrupt group of individuals will try to convince the general public that rising stock prices and better unemployment figures mean that their lot in life is rosy.

The “working class” is defined as a social group who work for hourly wages, generally doing manual or industrial work. Many in this group in years past were included in the middle-class. The working class is in need of refinement through education and job training. Proper assessment of their current skills and abilities would help guide the necessary curriculum for the required training. Due to the rapid advances in technology and the fast demise of many jobs in the retail environment, job training and a shift in education priorities will be essential if this group is to survive.

Our world is rapidly changing. Ozzie and Harriet, David and Ricky are all dead now. Their TV show lasted 14 years and, as of 2017, held the title for the longest-running live-action sitcom. In 1960, the average family size was 3.29 persons and a single wage earner provided all the income. In 2019, the average family is 2.6 people and two of those are likely to be employed. The Nelson family owned a single-family home while the typical family today can barely afford the rent. The shift in power from labor to business has been a boon for business but might be sounding the death knell for the American worker. As technology and automation reduce the numbers of unskilled jobs, small towns and small businesses seem likely to follow the Nelsons into oblivion.

I can’t say that Democrats are the answer to this situation since they have shared leadership in probably half of the period discussed above. How successful any politician can be in this atmosphere of unbridled capitalism remains to be seen. We need drastic changes in our tax systems to provide some equity in the burden. This is not redistribution in wealth but a leveling of the playing field. We need full access to both higher education that is structured on community needs and job training for a workforce out of touch with the current economy. We need to address our crumbling infrastructure, which will provide at least some stopgap employment for unskilled and semi-skilled labor. We, as a long-term goal, need universal healthcare. Universal healthcare should be phased in so as to not immediately displace the competing healthcare plans that have been negotiated by contracts.  Any politician, regardless of party, who works with these goals in mind, has my vote.

How Secure Are We?

This is a more important question than it would seem.  After all, we spend more money on our military than the next seven major countries combined.  Does spending more money make us more secure?  Under normal circumstances, I would say yes, but we don’t live in a time of normal circumstance.

Our national security is not just a spending issue.  It is a complex problem where any one of many components could provide a breakdown of serious or even catastrophic proportions.  You can have the biggest “Dirty Harry” gun on the block and still shoot yourself in the foot.  Our national security is provided by the sum total of our military equipment, our military training, our military leadership, our intelligence capability, and the guidance given by our political leaders who must decide where, when, and how.  Right now, I trust the first three, with the usual caveats, but the last two are highly suspect.

Our intelligence capability is a riddle wrapped in a mystery.  In addition to the usual alphabet soup of three-letter agencies like the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, BIR, et al., we have our State Department, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security, etc., totaling at least 17 bureaus and agencies, that we know of, who are responsible for our intelligence gathering and analysis.  These entities gobble up over 67 billion of our tax dollars.  While I don’t doubt the capabilities of this group of intelligence gatherers, I do reserve judgment for their ability to both coordinate all of these efforts for the common good and the utility of this information when it either is ignored or bears a message some may not want to hear.  Two recent major examples of this breakdown were 9-11 and Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

This brings us to the real fly in the national security ointment, the guidance of our political leaders who must decide where, when, and how to use what they know for our nation’s protection.  Twenty-six of our 45 presidents have served in some capacity in the military, but only ten served in the last century and none yet in the new millennium.  Military service should not be a prerequisite for becoming the Commander-in-Chief of all of our armed forces, but that person should be willing to at least listen to our intelligence services and our military commanders and weigh the advice coming from those with solid professional backgrounds.

Regrettably, our current Commander-in-Chief, has no military experience, doesn’t trust or believe our intelligence services, doesn’t listen to his own military advisors, but does apparently listen to advice from foreign leaders including our enemies, and readily takes advice from television talk show hosts on a variety of topics.  This is not only a dangerous situation but also a recipe for disaster.

Our congressional leaders are not much better when it comes to their pliability if faced with possible career-ending decisions.  None of them seems willing or able to stand up to this president, even when they know he is dangerously wrong.  It would seem that most would readily sacrifice the security of our nation for another term in office.  The patriotic cacophony heard from the right-wing fringe, represented somewhere within the 35-45% of the Trump base, inspires fear in those whose political futures have been hitched to the Trump star (meteorite?).  Consider in the mix the Military-Industrial Complex, whose mission is to profit from international discord, and you have another card yanked from the precarious tower that represents the codependency of the many pieces of our national security puzzle.

For those whose sense of national security and pride is defined by the size of the American flag in their front yard and how many Pabst Blue Ribbon beers they drank at the Fourth of July picnic, I would say, your naiveté is putting us all in danger.  The Republicans of my youth believed in our institutions and respected our military.  This president, and his followers by extension, have placed this nation in grave danger.  You can’t say you are a patriotic American and support our military but also support a president who trusts neither his military advisors nor his intelligence services.

Donald Trump claims to be the smartest person in any room but hides his grades and has threatened his schools with lawsuits if they reveal any information.  His bone spurs kept him out of the military but never hampered his golf game.  He said that he would hire the best people to assuage our fears of his lack of experience but has fired anyone who offered an opinion that differs from his own preconceived notions.  With Donald Trump as our president, our national security will be hampered and compromised to a degree that places us all at risk.

We need to remember in November.  Whomever we select to be our president in 2020, they need to be intelligent enough to listen to advice.  There is nothing more dangerous than a person who doesn’t know what they don’t know.

The New-New Testament; The Bible According to Trump

The Book of Nemesis

The Trumpmandments

In the beginning and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, the U.S. Mint said, Let there be money: and there was money. And then, as day was divided into night, it came to pass that there was a great greed; and it was good. So sayeth Gordon Gekko, the fictional god of Wall Street.

Man took the money and greed and said, Let there be power, and there was power. Then money, greed, and power became the Holy Trinity and it was worshipped by those who follow the true path of corruption.  It would come to be called the Great Holy Trifecta. Using the great gift of greed in man, many would prosper and gather great wealth and with great wealth came great power to rule others and make the rules that all must follow.

Centuries after the creation of money, a new savior was born in New York City and His birth was foretold by a great light in the east.   This beacon was atop of the tower on the Empire State Building having been recently replaced after its removal in 1933 by King Kong. This savior would be born to parents who had acquired great sums of money through greed and abuse of power. The family was the embodiment of the Great Holy Trifecta of money, greed, and power. And thus, the Great Donald was born and he was rich.  No wise men visited as we all know The Donald is a genius and in need of no further enlightenment.

The new blonde savior would build tall towers to His glory and they would be named Trump Towers. He would place them in states and countries far and wide, in honor of his Holy Name. It came to pass one day that the new savior would seek to rule the country of His birth and He would convince enough people in three key states to win the presidency in 2016 YOT, the Year of Our Trump. It would be a miracle that, of the 250 million who voted, 107,000 people in three states would decide this election.


The Book of Trumperonomy

And it came to pass that Trump was now all-powerful and he would ascend to the penthouse in his tower to use his superior brain to develop a new set of commandments to replace the pesky ones that Moses brought down from Mount Horeb. As the savior, Trump pondered in his penthouse the vision of the new commandments as they appeared to him in a series of  Tweets and several Fox News broadcasts.  By executive order, He repealed the outdated Moses commandments.  And thus, the New Ten Commandments were born and would be forever called The Trumpmandments. To wit:



The Trumpmandments

1. I am Lord Trump, and thou shalt not have any strange presidents before me; who aren’t named Putin.
2. Thou shalt not slander the name of Trump or you should be prepared for a Tweet-Storm the likes of which the world has never seen.
3. Remember to keep holy Golf Day; which may be any day with a “Y” in the name.  All such rounds should be played on a Trump-owned course of course.
4. Honor thy father and mother, but only if they have money and keep you in their will.
5. Thou shalt not kill without profit.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery; unless of course, she is smoking hot and you have a great prenup.
7. Thou shalt not steal unless nobody is looking, you aren’t caught, and/or you happen to have a good law firm on retainer.
8. Thou shalt not tell a lie or bear false witness against your neighbor; just joking on that one; we all know Truth is not Truth and you can’t believe your lying eyes and ears.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife; see Trumpmandment #7 for exceptions.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods; just take what you want and have a good lawyer; you might want to avoid any named Rudy.

Devil's Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania

There was an evil in all of Christendom that went by many names.  He is Satan, Beelzebub, and Lucifer, and he came to visit the earth during the Time of Trump and he wisely said, “My work here is done.”

That Was The Year That Was

Here we are again.  We’ve survived another trip around our sun and it‘s time to reflect on the events of 2019 and prognosticate about our future.  If we can be honest with ourselves in this post-truth period of national division, looking in either direction can be disheartening.  We have seen an erosion of our democracy to a level few thought possible just a few short decades ago. 

That Was The Year That Was**

Who could have conceived that we would have a president who was caught stealing from the charity he set up for fire fighter’s widows and veterans, and his supporters would just yawn and look the other way?  Yes, Donald J. Trump has been stealing from this charity since 1989 when he wrote a $7 check to pay for Don Jr.’s Boy Scout initiation fee. 

Think about that minor infraction for just a second and you will get a deeper appreciation of the absolute contempt we should all be feeling.  Here he is, the future president of the United States, with his son embarking on his adventure in scouting where their mission is to “prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Scout Law.”  From the values stated in that Scout Oath we read, “to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”  Yes, Don Jr. got a good life-lesson in morality when his father paid for his entry into this revered organization with money stolen from a charity he operated.  Such moral bankruptcy deserves more than just a yawn of disinterest and an eye roll.

This 20^th year of the new millennium has seen a shift from the New Information Age to the Age of Disinformation.  We have come to a place where political lies are not just innocent whoppers or mere exaggerations of the truth designed to spin a conversation in a particular direction; we have entered a new period where lies and whole cloth fabrications are extolled repeatedly in ALL CAPS in nationally televised tweets and shouted from podiums to hordes of adoring fans.  These lies are designed to further a corrupt intent.  The scale of dishonesty is gargantuan and we must now wade through the quagmire of untruths in order to arrive at any comprehension of current events.  Yes, Rudy Giuliani’s quote from 2018 bears repeating, “Truth isn’t truth.”

Truth Isn't Truth, Rudy Guiliani
 

However, dis-information, negative ads, and shameless hypocrisy are not the only signs of our democratic demise, a complete tectonic shift in the political foundation of the Republican Party may also be considered a harbinger of the forthcoming apocalypse.  Who would have thought that the recent ‘tea party’ revolution of conservatism would be corrupted so easily by a blonde charlatan?  One of the pillars of that conservatism was fiscal responsibility, which seems to be  “Gone With the Wind” much as Rhett Butler walked away from Scarlett and into the embrace of the morning Georgia fog.  Our continuing prosperity has been propped up by a sharp upturn in our national debt; we have borrowed against our future.

Fake Fact

Speaking of financial health, our economy would appear to be going gangbusters.  The Dow is suffering nosebleed in the stratosphere of all-time highs.  Corporate taxes as a percentage of all tax revenue are down to a low of 3.5%.  For reference, they were around 9% in 2010.  The lowering of corporate taxes and the lowering of personal income taxes, particularly for the wealthy, has meant a shortfall that has pushed our national debt to above $23 trillion or even more by some observations.  Now the holders of our national purse strings are sounding the alarm of foreboding shortfalls with a proclaimed need to scale back Medicare ($800B) and Medicaid ($200B), a lowering of Social Security benefits, cutting federal pensions (not for Congress of course), and other belt-tightening with cuts to social programs.  You can’t let Amazon pay $0 in corporate taxes and not have to make up the loss somewhere.  A strong military, a regular Republican talking point, our infrastructure of highways, waterways, electrical grid, etc., are maintained through taxation.  This tax burden has been slowly shifted away from corporations and the wealthy and on to the middle class in various, subtle, and ominous ways.

Meanwhile, the democracy-threatening trend toward an American oligarchy continues.  It has been with us since before the era-of-Trump, but it has gone into Hyperdrive since his inauguration.  America was heretofore a shining example of representative democracy but it has now become a nation controlled by the political and financial influence of the uber-rich and hyper-wealthy.  Trump didn’t start this trend but he is surely not going to do anything to stop it.  In fact, the recent tax cuts, which mostly benefitted large corporations and those wealthy donors, will exacerbate the problem.  Campaign finance reform wasn’t on any docket in 2019 and I will go out on a limb and predict that you won’t see any movement in 2020.

Stanley King

On the religious front, there was a recent crack in the evangelical façade when a single article in an evangelical publication called out Trump’s lack of morality and basically indicated that the benefits to that community were outweighed by the immoral behavior of their unlikely benefactor.  Yes, their womanizing thrice-married and morally bankrupt savior was called out.  It will be interesting to see if others will realize that Donald J. Trump, is not the answer to “what would Jesus do?”

What Would Trump Do?

Toward the end of 2019, emails surfaced that would indicate that Stephen Miller, a top advisor to President Trump, is a white nationalist.  Twenty-five Jewish members of Congress sent a letter to President Donald Trump calling on White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller to be dismissed after the release of a series of emails in which Miller allegedly shared white supremacist views.  The White House has been dismissive of such previous claims, stating that this would be impossible since Mr. Miller is Jewish.  They must be confusing white supremacists with white nationalists.  While most of us would identify as nationalists, i.e., expressing a love of country, adding the adjective “white” in front of that label would indicate someone who believes the white race to be inherently superior to other races and would include those who would advocate racial segregation.

While white supremacists can also be white nationalists, most in the former category would exclude Jews.  A quick review of the topics listed in the many Miller emails posted at the Southern Poverty Law Center would indicate strong feelings and support of much if not all of the objectives expressed by white nationalists.  President Trump’s past predilections along these lines, his father’s racist associations and actions, Trump’s ties to Breitbart, and his ties to Steve Bannon, would all seem to be sympathetic to a white nationalist agenda.

This, boys and girls, brings us to Impeachment.  The president has been impeached.  He was impeached for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.  He was only found at fault for those two narrow articles.  The House ran out of time or perhaps there could have been more.  In late December more emails surfaced that gave further credence to the abuse of power charges as they provided a direct timeline 90 minutes after the phone call where the DOD was notified to suspend further Ukrainian support and to keep it a secret on a need-to-know basis.  It would seem that impeachment is difficult, as it should be.  The framers of our constitution were intentionally vague, as they perhaps believed that cool heads would prevail and figure out a just method to proceed.  Boy, were they shortsighted. 

I feel that the America that I knew in the middle of the last century is just a curiosity of a bygone era.  Morality has gone the way of the hula-hoop, Slinky, Play-dough, Lincoln logs, erector sets, Gilbert chemistry sets, cap pistols, plastic model airplanes, water-rockets, Viewmaster 3D viewers, Mr. Potato Head, balsa-wood airplanes, Tinker Toys, transistor radios, rubber army men, Legos, and American Flyer trains.  I don’t long for black and white television and being restricted to an outdated set of Encyclopedia Britannica for research.  I do long for the days of civility, cooperation, negotiation, and compromise in our political leaders.

Tinker Toys

Our nation’s shift to the right comes at a time when world politics seems to be at a crossroads.  In the United Kingdom, Trump’s fellow New Yorker and brother from another mother, Boris Johnson (born Upper East Side, New York, June 19, 1964), has taken their Conservative Party down the road of isolation with a move to leave the European Union.  (Trump was born June 14, 1946, in Queens, NY.)  I guess we could start a rumor that Boris Johnson is Trump’s illegitimate son.  Boris looks a bit like Trump and he has been described as an “unprecedented blend of comedian, conman, faux subversive, showman, and populist media confection.”  With the exception of “comedian,” I’ve heard most of those terms used to describe The Donald.

Boris (left)                            Trump (right)

Early in 2020, I predict that the impeachment charges will be forwarded to the Senate for trial.  This trial will be an un-funny joke where the president will be exonerated of all charges.  I further believe that more information will come forward during the year that will add more weight to the crimes already committed, but none of this will matter.  If stealing money from a charity for widows of firefighters and veterans doesn’t raise an eyebrow among his supporters, his requesting assistance from a foreign power to help with his reelection and ignoring congressional subpoenas is but a minor distraction.

I further predict with relative certainty, that the GOP will purge more voter rolls, make gerrymandering more of an art, and keep the function of counting votes a mystery wrapped in a riddle based on 19^th century technology.  This upcoming election will be as assailable and vague as the GOP needs it to be in order to assure a win for their party.  The Democrats, on the other hand, will be sitting on both hands.  They have not yet come up with a strong candidate who can challenge this morally vulnerable “leader of the free world.”

Barring a major downturn in the economy, or a Jeffrey Epstein videotape showing Trump in a minor role, I fear the 2020 election will provide us with four more years of Trump Unchained and even Quentin Tarantino couldn’t imagine this script.

**  The title, That Was The Year That Was, gives a tip of the hat to Tom Lehrer who wrote and sang the political satire album of that same name in 1965.  It is available on Spotify and Amazon Music and its lyrics are apropos today.

TWTYTW

That Was the Year That Was (1965) is a live album recorded at the hungry i in San Francisco, containing performances by Tom Lehrer of satiric topical songs he originally wrote for the NBC television series That Was The Week That Was, known informally as TW3 (1964–65). All of the songs related to items then in the news.^[2] The album peaked at #18 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums on January 8, 1966, and was on the chart for 51 weeks.

It's The Economy, Stupid

I just love it when my Republican friends sign their work.  Yes, Stupid*, it is about the economy.  The problem with this typical 4-word slogan is that it oversimplifies a complex issue.  It’s like looking at the gas gauge and telling everyone that the car is ready for your long driving vacation.  We have enough gas, so let’s jump in the car and “Get your motor runnin,' Head out on the highway, Lookin' for adventure, And whatever comes our way.”  You may be Born to Be Wild but that’s the kind of logic that gets you to the "Florida-Georgia Line" only to have one of your four bald tires blow.  That’s the type of thinking that puts you in the middle of a long stretch of “dark desert highway” crossing Death Valley headed for the Hotel California when your failure to change the oil for the last 50,000 miles causes your engine to seize.

Destination, Hotel California

Yes, the economy is important but you can’t just look at the Dow Jones Industrial average and declare, “All is well.”  You can point to the low unemployment numbers all you want, but when people are working two jobs and still qualify for food stamps, things aren’t rosy for everyone.  When farmers can’t sell their crops because someone got into a tariff war with a major trading partner and farmers now must rely on government charity (our tax dollars), the economy may not be in the wonderful shape indicated by stock market numbers.

Donald Trump took an economy left to him by his predecessor that was doing well and managed, or mismanaged depending on your point of view, and borrowed against our children’s future to lower taxes.  For the lower 90% of us, it was a temporary break.  For big business and the wealthy, it was a permanent windfall.  Yes, by running up the national debt to above $120 trillion**, the economy appears to be doing well.

**Note: the published National Debt is $23 trillion;
this chart uses additional factors.

I am reminded of a neighbor friend of mine.  He had a nice house and had recently done some major remodeling.  He put in a pool and added a new room to the back of the house.  He then installed a new driveway next to his house that allowed him a way to park his large new boat in the side yard.  We were invited over for a holiday party those many years ago and we saw that the inside of the house had also benefitted from his apparent new-found wealth.  The room addition now sported a giant flat-screen television.  This was back when such displays cost as much as $10,000 to $15,000.  They had a new kitchen and new tile floors.  As he owned his own business, I assumed that things were going very well.  His economy was very good by all appearances.

It wasn’t but a few years after this holiday party that the "For Sale" sign went up.  When asked, he admitted that he had been caught up in the sub-prime mortgage debacle.  The housing bubble had burst.  Much like the bald tires on our vacation car, my neighbor’s fun ride was at an end.  His mortgage was underwater, the economy had taken a nose-dive, and those mortgage payments had become unmanageable.  He had taken the cash out of his over-valued home spent it perhaps unwisely and ended up being forced to move in with his mother-in-law.

This is an over-simplification of our economy.  I doubt that any of us will be moving back with the in-laws.  I don't think England would take us back and they have their own problems.  The U.S. economy is due for a recession in either 2020 or 2021 depending on which group of economists you believe.  While president Trump will take credit for our current good economic news, I’ll give good odds that you will never hear him take any blame when the downturn eventually comes.  If he has learned to delegate anything, blame has to top the list.

Trump took an economy on the rise and didn’t screw it up.  He did, however, accomplish this partially on the backs of future generations.  Politicians regularly take credit for the highs of our cyclic economy and cast aspersions on others during the lows.  This current presidency is not ALL about the economy.  Trump is managing our national financial vehicle as he has his many business ventures.  He puts the pedal to the metal and has no concern for those bald tires or regular oil changes.  He will take credit for an economy that ends up in the winner’s circle but will deflect and point fingers elsewhere when the crews are called in to haul away the wreck.  The national debt tin-can has been kicked down the road for someone else to deal with.

Are you really better off?

We may never know if Trump is a successful businessman or just an adept conman.  Given his predilection to brag about nearly every accomplishment, I find it of some concern that he has managed to keep his financial health such a secret.  He has certainly done a better job keeping his personal finances more secret than our national security secrets.  Is he in financial debt to some Russian oligarch or Saudi prince, perhaps both?  His unilateral deference to all things Russian or Saudi gives rise to speculation.  We would be right to suspect that there are financial ties and concerns of which we should be wary.  Trump’s perpetual-audit excuse is beginning to wear thin when it comes to his tax returns.

James Carville’s, “It’s the economy, stupid,” will be heard loud and clear this 2020 presidential election.  I can only hope that voters will take a long hard look at that economy.  While your taxes may have gone down a bit, are you really better off than you were four years ago?  Since the sub-prime mortgage-related crash of 2008, the overwhelming majority of new jobs earn less than $50,000 a year and many don’t pay much above minimum wage.  Many average Americans  could be considered “working poor.”

Bocce ball court, a true level playing field

The poverty threshold for a family of four is $25,000.  If that family wants to own a car, watch cable TV, have decent healthcare, send their two children through college, own a home, take vacations, etc., they must earn considerably more.  A minimum wage job at $7.25 hr brings in $15,000; but only if you never get sick, never take a vacation, and work 52 weeks a year.  I think most Democrats and true and honest Republicans don’t believe in a redistribution of wealth but would fully endorse a level playing field.  If leveling that playing field brings a bit of temporary pain to the wealthy, it may be unavoidable.  The playing field is not level if a good education is relegated to the wealthy with connections.  The playing field is not level if not all Americans are afforded some level of quality healthcare as a birthright.  The playing field is not level if corporations can make obscene profit margins while paying wages that require full-time employees to go on public assistance in order to get proper nutrition and adequate shelter.

The Gilded Age, Mark Twain, and Charles Dudley Warner
Telling a tale of graft, materialism, and corruption in public life.

Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” in 1873, referring to the Reconstruction period after 1860.  The reference was of a glittery surface and an underbelly of corruption, greed, unrestrained capitalism, and conspicuous consumption.  Welcome to the second Gilded Age, Gilded Age 2.0 if you will, where the working poor ride buses or walk to work and can barely afford basic necessities, the middle class is dwindling and treading water financially, and the top 1% enjoys the fruits of the labors of others to whom they refuse to pay a living wage.  Donald Trump, after signing his massive tax cut told his wealthy friends at a gathering at Mar-a-Lago, “You all just got a lot richer.”

Alva Vanderbilt, 1883

Tenement life in 1883

We have always been a class society.  The middle-class flies coach, the upper-class flies first class, and the uber-rich cruise in private jets.  In the recent past, however, mobility between classes was at least possible and the American Dream of homeownership was more than just a dream.  Remember to vote for the American Dream in 2020, to avoid the American Nightmare in 2021.


* Note:  Apologies to my Republican friends, I wasn't calling you "stupid."  But if you think this president is above the law, has done nothing against our Constitution, has meaningfully cooperated with the House investigations as is his duty under the Constitution, has helped our environment so that it may be enjoyed by future generations, and has been fiscally conservative, you may want to re-think your choice of grape-flavored beverages.