The Fearsome Foursome: Leonid, Saddam, Muammar, and Donald

“Money, like vodka, does strange things to a man.” Anton Chekhov

Another fine week in Trump Land which more and more resembles a banana republic where the government steals from the people and the wealthy build taller walls and deeper bunkers. An unarmed citizen like me hardly knows where to begin. On February 5, less than a week after Trump boasted about all the dough his fellow oligarchs were making from the rising stock market, the NYSE took a 1,175 point tumble; three days later, the market took another big hit. Take note: Trump’s casino businesses always went belly up, and the stock market is the largest casino of all.

On February 6 on Good Morning America, the talking heads got to jabbering about the stock market, and determined, after pallaver that might have been written by the US Chamber of Commerce, that Monday’s sharp fall was just one of those periodic corrections, nothing at all to panic about. Besides, they said, the economy is robust, jobs are being added by the thousands, and wages are rising. No relevant statistical data was offered; just take their word for it, and if your personal circumstances don’t mirror their sunny pronouncements, well, it’s your fault because this is America, where every citizen has the same opportunity to make big money.

Trump was reportedly upset with congressional Democrats for not clapping at all the fantastic news he spewed during his droning State of the Union address, going so far as calling the Democrats un-American. Pretty clear that Trump never watched any of Barack Obama’s State of the Union speeches, during which Republicans sat stone-faced, or smirking like Paul Ryan, no matter what Obama said. If Obama had professed his love for the GOP and his admiration for Mitch McConnell, he still would have been met with dead silence. Forget the obvious absurdity for a moment and realize that Trump, like all insecure wannabe dictators, equates loyalty to him with patriotism. This is dangerous.

And then the media reported that Trump had demanded the Pentagon stage a massive military parade in the streets of Washington D.C., for no reason other than to stroke Trump’s frail ego. When I read this news I immediately imagined Trump -- who, let’s remember, dodged the draft -- decked out in military finery, complete with sword and scabbard, his chest festooned with medals and gold braid, saluting as tanks, artillery pieces and troops pass his reviewing stand, just like Leonid Brezhnev, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi once did, and Little Rocket man (Kim Jong-un) in North Korea does in our time. Perfect way to solidify our standing as a bonafide banana republic. The cost can be added to the obscene increase that Senate Republicans and Democrats want to gift the Pentagon. Tax cuts and a huge increase in military spending, like the Reagan years all over again. It’s not difficult to predict what the outcome of this irresponsible spending orgy will be. Groundhog Day in Washington D.C.

One of the most laughable boasts Trump made during his State of the Union speech was that the US is now deadly serious about winning the 16-year-long-undeclared war in Afghanistan. According to Trump, no more fooling around, it’s time to remove the gloves and knock the living hell out of the Taliban because the Taliban is killing people left, right, up, down and sideways; we will win because our warriors are strong, our cause just, our God more righteous, and, most of all, because Donald J. Trump is so-friggin’-awesome that he will triumph where George W. Bush and Barack Obama before him choked on failure.

Sure, and climate change is a hoax, coal burns clean, the surest way to give the middle class a boost is to cut taxes for the wealthy, the only cure for welfare dependency is work (jobs and transportation and child care being affordable and plentiful), Paul Ryan worships Social Security, Jeff Sessions respects the Constitution, and five days from now the sky will glow and all the pigs in America will take glorious flight. Trump is making America great again. We’re back, baby, hear us roar. USA! USA! USA!

Roaming Like a Three-Legged Buffalo

“We are in the hands of greedy businessmen and weak politicians. Such people will see to it that poverty grows every day.” Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World

This week I will roam between topics, like a three-legged buffalo in search of the herd that has left him for lost. I couldn’t bear to watch the State of the Union speech, and, from what I’ve read, and the few clips I’ve seen, I didn’t miss much; it was long and dreary, filled with insipid political platitudes, and Trump looked idiotic while he clapped for himself. The Republicans in the chamber cheered and applauded like fawning morons, but that’s hardly a surprise; Trump remains useful to the GOP and the party’s donor base. The finance, energy and defense sectors still find it useful to back Trump since he’s basically handing them their wish list. We all should know by now that the modern State of the Union address is a piece of political theater that usually bears little resemblance to reality. It has been a long time since an American president told the truth in a State of the Union speech, as long ago as Gerald Ford in the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation, when sugar-coating the real deal wasn’t an option.

I’m reading a book titled Jumping at Shadows by Sasha Abramsky which details how an epidemic of Fear has taken hold in America. Not a new idea by any means. Hunter S. Thompson put out Kingdom of Fear back in 2002 or so, after the nation lost its sanity over the 9/11 attacks and we began trading our civil liberties for a false sense of security. I’ve written about the many political uses of fear on this page, but Jumping at Shadows probes much deeper into the phenomenon. Immigrants, radical Muslims, insect-borne diseases, extreme weather, mass shootings, train wrecks, and on and on. Right after I began reading Jumping at Shadows I happened to catch a few minutes of ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. On the one hand Muir’s breathless delivery was hilarious, and on the other it supported Abramsky’s argument that the television news media is our primary source of fear. Every story Muir introduced was of danger, tragedy or mayhem, a steady drumbeat of things for people to worry about, right up to the end of the broadcast when Muir reported a feel good story.  And of course, Donald J. Trump stoked our fears in his overly long, dull speech, equating immigrants from south of our border to savage MS-13 gang members. Trump likes to paint with the broadest brush he can get his tiny hands on; he’s obviously clueless that MS-13’s origins were a result of US policy in Central America in the 1980’s and 90’s, or that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native born.  

From time to time I turn to the work of Anton Chekhov for solace. I was reading the short story, “Gooseberries” and came across this passage, which, though written about Russia in the 19th century, reminded me of contemporary America: “Just look at this life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, impossible poverty all around us, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lies…” The staggering income and wealth inequality present in the US in 2018 has turned millions of Americans into virtual serfs, with insecure low-wage employment, no access to healthcare, limited educational opportunities, heavy debts. American oligarchs, like Russian aristocrats, want to own and control everything so they can squeeze the people for profits. As I’ve written more times than I care to remember, capitalism not only puts the biosphere in peril, it also grinds human beings down, causing all manner of social ills, anxiety, depression, homelessness and hunger, and at the same time rendering anything that can’t be commodified and sold irrelevant. This is crystal clear where Donald J. Trump is concerned: the only thing Trump has ever loved is money, and I don’t think the Donald can fathom why everyone doesn’t feel the same. Funny thing though, for all his purported wealth, Trump appears to be a very unhappy man, miserable even, hated by millions the world over. It must gall Trump to no end that he will never be as popular as his African-American predecessor.

On the flap created by the release of the Nunes memo, all I can say is that it’s amusing to see the hypocrisy of Republicans and Democrats, who consistently vote to expand the surveillance powers of the national security state, and have no problem allowing intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens, but become outraged when their own malfeasance or conflicts of interest are uncovered by one of those agencies. Another sign of the corruption in our government.