Smash, Grab, and Don't Look Back: A Looting on Pennsylvania Avenue

“Nobody can know the full consequences of their actions, and history is full of small acts that changed the world in surprising ways.” Rebecca Solnit

You’re going to hear this a lot over the next year or two from Trump and his handlers and enablers: The tax reform we passed in 2017 is the single greatest piece of legislation in American history! It returns more money to the middle class than any tax cut ever has, and it insures that small businesses and family farmers will not lose everything they’ve built when they die.

And blah, blah, blah, and many other lies, too. If there is any good economic news to be had -- not to fear, it won’t be news of real jobs being created, industries returning to the Ohio River valley, or wage growth, it will likely be the rising stock market, fueled by corporate purchases of their own stock (with the money they are not paying in taxes) -- the GOP will say that the tax cuts are the reason. And if the economy runs off the rails, the talking points are already written: Obama’s fault, naturally, the black guy who wasn’t even a real American left the country in a mess. (In any case, Obama’s two terms are being erased, goodbye ACA, the Iran Nuclear arrangement, the Paris Climate Accord, rules to protect the environment, regulate the banks, etc.)

Trump will undoubtedly begin comparing himself to FDR and LBJ, claim that his tax cuts are as great an achievement as the major parts of the New Deal, and way better than the Civil Rights Act, and that it was all done to help the little guy.

No mention will be made that the GOP-controlled House and Senate rammed these bills through the legislative process like thieves during a blackout: backroom, closed door meetings, favors exchanged, promises made, no public hearings, shoddy analysis, lines of corporate bagmen lined up in the halls for their share of the spoils, flat out lies in the press. The GOP wins because it cheats -- it cheats to get elected through gerrymandering and voter suppression, and it cheats when it controls the levers of power.

Has fucking the American people over ever been so easy?

When the Democrats controlled both houses during the first Obama term the Republicans contorted themselves to block, delay, derail, and undermine Obama’s legislative agenda -- tepid as it was -- even though Obama had what Donald J. Trump will never have, a legitimate mandate from the electorate. All’s fair in love and politics. Shoe now on the other foot and as these disgraceful bills moved I heard nary a peep from the Democrats about the corrupt process.

Oh yeah, for a year or two the propaganda is going to come thick and heavy, laced with deadly, mind-numbing, truth-obfuscating BS. The attacks on Social Security and Medicare will come, the huge burden of these “entitlement” programs (paid for by worker contributions, so technically not entitlement programs at all) will be blamed for bankrupting the nation, ruining our credit standing in the world, our competitiveness, the deficit! Only one possible solution -- strict austerity for the slovenly poor and wage earning class. Cut, cut, cut. The war machine, energy extractors, lords of finance, and the wealthy in general will be exempt from the austerity blues, of course, walked around the velvet rope and right into the VIP section, bitching about the profligate ways of the unwashed masses as they go. Gilded, baby, gilded everything.

The people knew this was coming. Destruction is all Trump and his mafia can do. They cannot build, erect, create, or imagine anything but violence and destruction. They are pirates loose in port, drunk, crazed, rabid, horny, and mean; they’ve got the keys to the armory, the courts, and the treasury, no one to answer to, nothing to slow their roll. In the time it takes to pour a flagon of rum half the town will be in flames.

History says Trump and the GOP will overreach, go too far, grab too much, and the pendulum will swing back toward the safe center, where capitalism, militarism, and imperialism reign. We can change the hands on the levers, a good, necessary step, but until enough Americans realize that we must change the game if we are going to have any chance of surviving climate change and every ill this man-made threat brings in its wake, just changing the party in charge won’t get it done.

A society is reasonably just if its people don’t have to die for access to health care, decent housing, meaningful jobs at living wages, courts that act independently of politics and ideology, education, food, assistance when disaster strikes, and a fair opportunity to address their legitimate grievances.  

Get ready, people, hard times are coming.