Trump's Actions vs. Trump's Talk

I am going to keep a running record of Trump's actions here. So far there is little that coincides with his populist talk.

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In his inaugural address he said the "anti-police attitudes stop here" --- of course, it hasn't been "anti-police" but rather criticism of policing. So Trump wants an obedient and uncritical attitude toward police which turns into a police state.

Filled his cabinet with billionaires and others who want to end regulation of foods and drugs, abandon public education, and limit women's health protections.

Signed an order to suspend Obama's reduction of FHA payments which would have saved the average FHA household $500 this year.

Signed an executive order that begins the process of taking down the Affordable Care Act which may eventually take away health care from 30 million people. [By the way, the reason why simply revoking the ACA is so troubling is that the Republicans will never be able to replace it with anything because they don't have the votes to do anything constructive. They can easily throw out the ACA because they have a horde of ultra right-wing nuts who will vote against it. But the same right-wing nuts will not vote for anything positive.]

Went to the CIA his first full day in office where he proceeded to deny that he's ever had a problem with them, then got off on "false reporting" of the people count on inauguration day, and finally assailed the media (again). Trump's war against the media is one key thing that all dictators do; they take down the media. Next it will be the universities and science in particular.

1/23: Trump reinstated a Reagan-era ban on funding international health organizations that mention abortion as options to women's health issues.

1/24: Today he gave the green light to both the Keystone and the Dakota Access pipelines. So much for the environment! But probably the scariest thing that Trump has done in his first few days is attempt to gag Federal employees. Yes, no one can talk to outside agencies (like the free press) about what the government is doing. If you can't stop the press, you can try to hide everything from them and that means hiding everything from the people of our country. When government is no longer transparent a lot of bad stuff can happen.

1/25: Having put a freeze on Federal hiring, he wants to mount a huge investigation of voter fraud (because of his obsession about losing to Hillary by almost 3 million votes) and he wants to go ahead with the infamous wall (granting that was a campaign promise). These, of course, will cost taxpayers millions of dollars and, since the ultra rich like him are not really taxpayers, you know who is actually paying his bills.

1/27: Well Trump continued his governance-by-executive-order today by terminating immigration by refugees from seven different Muslim majority countries (except, of course, those countries with which he does business). So much for "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" It was HUGE while it lasted. Meanwhile, it seems to me that his ban violates the Constitution by making an executive order that mentions a religion. It even suggests that preferential treatment might be given to Christians. 

1/30: Trump fired the acting attorney general who had announced she would not defend his immigration ban for fear of it's violation of the Constitution. He quickly replaced her with an older white male acting AG who said he would defend Trump's action. What is happening here (though it will take a while) is that Trump is going to corrupt the entire government. In these first few weeks, there is resistance because many Federal employees and officials are carry-overs from Obama's administration. But once Trump has weeded these people out, there will be no internal resistance. What we are looking at is the process of creating a government that can do anything it wishes and is impenetrable to resistance. 

2/6: Thus far, I see very little that Trump has done to improve the lives of the people who voted for him. He loves to take credit for the current job growth and unemployment statistics but all that happened under Obama's administration. Let's wait and see what Trumps stats look like. He also loves to have us think that he has personally brought jobs back into the US but, in fact, all of these decisions were made well before the election and the numbers involved are hardly significant. Meanwhile, he and his GOP Congress has stripped financial restraints and begun to take apart the EPA, including allowing mining companies to dump wastes into local rivers. Is that really going to help those people?

Liberals and Elites

For a long time now Republicans have used the term ‘liberal’ as a swear word. Liberals, they say, have caused everything bad in the country. I suppose that “making America great again” sort of means getting rid of liberals and everything they stand for. It takes gumption to stand up and say that you are a liberal.

But our recent election and the various analyses of this catastrophe have produced a new swear word to replace ‘liberal’. Now, we are elites. It is as though the Republicans now want to identify with the Third Estate and the whole French Revolution. They see themselves as the great leaders who will carry the poor and down trodden to victory over the elite First Estate. How absurd is that! Look at Trump’s cabinet choices; this is not the poor and down trodden taking over Washington. This is Trump’s billionaire buddies taking over Washington. As a friend of mine says, “Democrats in office try to help the people; Republicans in office try to help themselves.”

But who are the elites and why should they shut up? They are the well educated, the professionals, the scientists, etc. And the Republicans’ disregard for facts and reasoned discussion is why they think the elites should shut up. 

After Meryl Streep’s criticism of Trump on TV the other night, Megan McCain tweeted, in effect, that elites better learn to shut up or they would lose the next election as well. But that is really the last thing they should do. If this is really a war on reason and truth, we must not give in.

2016

OK this past year was not all bad. We made several nice trips to our condo in Mammoth Lakes and to Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez. We consumed a lot of really great wine and some great food. In March, we went to Phoenix to spend a week watching spring practice, and that was fun. This summer, we took a Viking river cruise on the Danube and that proved to be a lot of fun and very interesting. Then we flew to Ireland and spent two weeks in our favorite places. Five times in Ireland! Why don’t they just give us passports! We also spent a week going from Boston to Chicago and seeing my Chicago relatives was wonderful. and, finally, our Christmas week in the Seattle area was great. I should mention, too, that we bought both a new dishwasher and a new refrigerator and think they are both incredible. 

So what made 2016 seem so bad? Well, the presidential election of course. The whole period of advertisements and debates was terrible. We wondered how the political process could become so debased in a country that is supposedly the world leader. We shared the general optimism that Clinton would be elected right up to the evening of election day when it became brutally obvious that she was going to lose. Of course, we were then traumatized by the fact that she won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes and, also, that Russia seems to have had a major role in turning the process toward Trump. But alas Trump will become president of the United States this month and his selections of cabinet members foretell a disastrous destruction of our national government, something Republicans have been wanting to do for years.

So I cry for my country. It is not the country I thought it was or hoped it might be.