We are nearly four and a half months away from being a mere three years removed from the emergence of the ultimate political chaos candidate announcing his intent to seek the nation’s highest office. As a political novice who had previously never been elected to anything, he managed to turn convention on its head by masterfully using his media background to belittle, humiliate and dismiss all other GOP primary opponents on his way to his party’s nomination. Credit where credit is due, *President Donald J. Trump demonstrated a keen superiority at campaigning. He was in fact so good at it that he readily pivots back to it when the duties of his office fail to net him enough of the praise he so craves. His target marketing use of blatant demagoguery and over-the-top unpredictable rhetoric not confined by any real boundaries directly appealed to the basest emotions of those who became and remain his core supporters. It is true, he could still shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose the support of any of them. As a candidate throughout 2016, chaos was his stock in trade. As President now barely into his second year in office, chaos defines his leadership.
In 2018 we find ourselves in a time where spokespersons for a head of state provide “alternative facts” to shore up inconsistencies with empirical, visual or auditory evidence. A complicit media organization serves as an administration messaging conduit that provides no check on the practice of promoting those “alternative facts” and broadcasts the unvarnished product to an audience of significant numbers that are all too willing to swallow anything told to them without question. As disturbing as this has been, over the past year a growing number of GOP members of Congress have, for whatever reason, given their tacit approval to this *President and his agenda. At the very least, this group of now Trump-friendly Republicans is turning a blind eye to the normalization of government by chaos. Nearly three dozen of their fellow GOP members have gotten their fill of it and/or have seen the writing on the wall and will not be seeking reelection. For all those who suffered sitting through last week’s State of the Union address, it took some extreme mental flexibility ranging from polite ignorance to contortion of factual data in order to take the one speaking from a teleprompt-loaded speech seriously. When fact checked, to say the *President overinflated his success is a genuine understatement. After a year in office it is painfully apparent that the nation is being ran by a novice who is delivering results that reflect it. Mr. Trump, who has always been the one in charge of all his business endeavors, has never before January 20th last year had to deal with leading a bureaucracy of multiple departments and agencies with clearly defined missions. Competency has never been a priority in his Cabinet appointments and neither has staffing the government. If anyone had any doubt before, rest assured that the *45th President exemplifies the definition of authoritarian leadership. His highest priority has been loyalty, absolute loyalty to him. It may be nice for him to like the persons he appoints to subordinate positions, but Mr. Trump obviously never learned that true loyalty is not something he can demand. He has never figured out that it works better if loyalty is earned, but his insecurity dictates that he stack the deck in his favor.
I am going to state for the record that I have a personal appreciation for free market capitalism as an economic system the same as I have for the automobile as a form of personal transportation. That said, I believe that advocating for reasonable limits on the free market does not make one any more anti-capitalist than advocating for reasonable speed limits on city streets and school zones make one anti-automobile. I will even take that further to say I have no problems with reasonable regulations when and where they are indicated. It has been my experience that when rules and regulations are ignored or suspended as a matter of catering to an individual interest, usually financial, the behaviors or practices they were intended to limit or prohibit reemerge unchecked such that they eventually require more draconian measures to subdue. The jury may still be out on it, but a year ago when *President Trump implemented his policy of abolishing two regulations for every one created by the bureaucracy, I had and still harbor doubts and reservations regarding a directive seemingly so arbitrary. We have yet to see and evaluate its full results but given what I have seen, I am not optimistic.
As chaotic and backward as domestic policy may be in the *Trump era, I’ve yet to mention foreign policy/foreign relations. To his credit, he has yet to enact any drastic changes from the foreign policy of his predecessor but his bombastic rhetoric has become the new normal. As mentioned above, one of loyal Cabinet appointments (“effing moron” comment notwithstanding) was a petroleum CEO with no background in diplomacy. In a year’s time, Rex Tillerson has made a shambles of the State Department. Tillerson has been described as a disaster even by those who supported his appointment. Whoever follows *President Trump’s Secretary of State is going to be tasked with cleaning up a huge mess.
Not all that long ago we had members of Congress who put critical thinking ahead of partisanship and had the courage to speak up and challenge those in leadership when their public statements and proclamations did not square with the facts. Tulsa-born Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stated it best:
What must happen to return the United States of America back to that simple axiom by the late Senator Moynihan? Government by chaos over time will have undesired consequences. Although many have slowly internalized it as the new normal over the past year, I realize not everyone is buying into “alternative facts,” claims of “fake news,” allegations of internal conflicts with “Deep State” bureaucrats and incompetent leadership of Cabinet posts and government agencies. A demand for accountability for the neglect and mismanagement by this *President is growing by the day. The most definitive way to achieve this is at the ballot box on November 6th. In the meantime we must accept that as horrible as it may be, this new normal can be reversed. Enough registered voters must make their disapproval known at the polls.
“I am going to state for the record that I have a personal appreciation for free market capitalism as an economic system the same as I have for the automobile as a form of personal transportation.”
In 1972, world population was 3.9 billion. Today it is 7.6 billion. 70% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day, with 24% of that number subsisting on $1 or less per day. And this is despite the fact that world food production tripled in the past 30 years… rather than feeding people more adequately, we are simply feeding more people inadequately.
Meanwhile the richest 20% of the population continues to get richer, controlling 80% of the world’s manufacturing capacity and using 60 % of it’s energy. In 1960, the wealthiest nations of the world had 30 times the per capita income of the poorest nations – by 1995, that ratio had increased from 30:1 to 82:1.
Under the present ‘free trade’ economic system, growth primarily takes place in the nations that are already rich… while the ‘third world’ gets raped & ransacked for it’s natural resources and the growing populations there continue to starve.
As for personal transportation and the automobile – do you have any idea how much of the world’s natural resources – in the form of metals, glass, plastic, rubber, energy & fuel are used up in making one? Do you have any real idea what the continuing use of fossil fuels are doing to the environment?
Trump and his ignorant minions are about to make the world environmental situation much worse, but that is only likely to be a temporary situation – as you point out – until the electorate regains its senses and votes the bastards out. But that WILL NOT change the dire ecological situation we find ourselves in – because we have already gone far beyond the ‘tipping point’ of the upcoming climate changes, due to our ever-increasing (and unsustainable) industrial degradation to this planet.
So ‘appreciate’ this colonial economic system and self-destructive out-of-control “progress” while you can, cousin… because it’s not going to last very much longer.