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!

Something Dark and Sinister This Way Comes

“If we cannot respond with swift compassion, this is the beginning of our decline and fall.” I.F. Stone

My wife and I talk about life in TrumpLand, and the strange, vertiginous feeling that although little in our own lives has changed since Trump assumed power, there is something dark and sinister hovering in the background. We know a shock is coming, just not what it will be or when it will hit. It’s like waiting for an earthquake, the Big One.   

It’s difficult to ignore the daily outrages perpetrated by Trump -- his idiotic and juvenile tweets and incoherent statements about serious issues he clearly knows nothing about that send the corporate media into a frenzy -- but it’s far more important to look past Trump at what the people around him are doing, like Scott Pruitt at the EPA, Jeff Sessions at the Justice Department, and Ryan Zinke at the Interior Department. Real damage is in the offing. Long term damage that will be difficult to reverse, damage to the air we breathe, the water we drink, to voting rights, mass incarceration, and on down the line.

I’m astonished, as I have been since it became law, at the GOP’s hatred of the Affordable Care Act, and not because I think the ACA is wonderful, I don’t, but because the Republicans  know that the framework for the ACA was a product of a conservative think tank, and that the law maintained the profit-making position of the private insurance industry. If a Republican president had been the one to sign the ACA into law do you think the GOP would be clamoring for its repeal? The actions of the detestable Paul “Wonder Boy” Ryan in the House, and the callous machinations of Mitch “Turtle” McConnell in the Senate merely expose the pathology of the GOP. All the sound and fury coming from Washington has little to do with health insurance, next to nothing with health care, and everything to do with delivering a gigantic tax cut to people who already have more money than they know what to do with. It’s immoral, obscene, cruel, heartless, and stupid. In short, it’s America, right here, right now.

The only sensible, sane, and moral system of medical care in a complex society is Single Payer. Start with the premise that access to health care is a basic human right, realize that every last human being will, at some time, become sick or injured or disabled and require medical care. Not insurance coverage -- medical care. Give up the perverted fantasy that medical care must be a capitalist enterprise. As anyone with medical insurance who goes for treatment and then receives a bill knows, insurance is one thing and actual care another. Too many people with medical insurance still find themselves saddled with enormous bills, with co-pays, with procedures or drugs that either aren’t covered at all or only partially covered. Insurance companies add zero value to medical care; they are blood-sucking parasites who make money by denying care.

I’m re-reading Moby Dick. It seems appropriate for the times; America is the Pequod.

The Deranged Matador

“For more than an hour, Trump resembled a man on electronic detention, going cautiously through the motions, careful not to violate the terms of his invitation: no freelancing or potshots, no vulgarisms or mad gesticulations. For the most part, his big speech, in both substance and tone, could have been given by Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton. It was pure political boilerplate." Jeffrey St. Claire

I remain skeptical about the hysteria surrounding Russian influence of the November election, a very sacred process according to our Imbecile-in-Chief, because hacking the DNC seems a weird route to take to tip an election. If it can be proven that Russian operatives corrupted voting machines and flipped votes from Clinton to Trump, that’s a different story.

My second observation about this entire controversy is the sheer hypocrisy of US ruling elites. How many foreign elections has the US meddled in over the last half century? It’s never an issue when we do it, but when the tables turn we get all sanctimonious and reverent about democracy. The fact is, like ruling elites anywhere in the world, “democracy” in America is tolerated as long as it doesn’t interfere with business interests, including the business of war, and private property.  

Third, the Russian angle diverts attention from a simple fact: Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign based on nothing more than not being a petulant man-child by the name of Trump. The fact that millions of Americans are sick and tired of the neoliberal economic policies favored by the Democratic Party since the early 1970’s, turbo-charged under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, never penetrated Hillary Clinton’s thick arrogance. Utterly tone deaf and out of touch, Clinton believed she could coast to the White House by pledging more of the same.  

There has been no reckoning in the Democratic Party, no reflection on what really went south in November or why Republicans rule, not only the White House and Congress, but a majority of state governments. Like someone lost in the woods, Democrats need to find a clearing and reorient themselves to the sun, and what that means is they need to turn left -- away from Clinton and Obama -- and return to being a party of working people.

Not to worry, they won’t, Democrats are far too obdurate and tied to corporate and Wall Street money.

Trump is a buffoon and a joke and an embarrassment, but as I’ve written many times, he is a logical product of neoliberalism, of corporate media and a culture awash in infotainment and fantasy, of corrupt politicians and purchased elections. William Greider, a writer I have long admired, wrote recently in the Nation that Trump is not the worst president we’ve ever seen, and though this may be true, Trump is the worst president in my lifetime and the shit he’s hawking will impact the lives of my children, and that bothers me.

I assume from Trump’s recent allegation that Barack Obama ordered the electronic eavesdropping of Trump Tower last fall (a ridiculous claim) that there may be something to the whispers and hints of contacts between Trump campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government. The timing of the allegation struck me as a classic attempt to divert the media’s attention from the very real possibility that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath. The move was so typical of Trump, and reminded me of a deranged matador waving a cape to draw the bull’s attention. Does Trump sense that a noose is tightening around his neck?

Let us hope.