What is really going on in the vast regions between Trump’s ears.
That’s a question of the hour.
Let’s go back to where it all started. The campaign. People continue to fault the media for the election of Donald Trump. They continue to blame Hillary Clinton. But in my eyes, it was the perfect storm. The media covered Donald Trump because the Republican lineup had become so mediocre that even the Republican supporters were ignoring the election cycle. Donald Trump became the star. A gas lighter extraordinaire, and showman to boot, he knew what he had to say and when and where to say it. He gave the people what they wanted about jobs, the economy, the immigrants, the ….in the white house.
Yes racism was a big part of this election. Did the media play into that? In a sense they did. They reported the words spoken by Donald Trump, as if shocked that they could come out of the mouth of a candidate running for office. And the supporters were jubilant. To the racists, and those who firmly believe they aren’t now nor ever were racist, but were and still are, finally, FINALLY, they had a candidate for the White House whose words spoke to them. They were represented. They finally heard what they were waiting to hear about the Obama White House, about Hillary Clinton. They waited for eight LONG years. They asked and Donald Trump delivered.
Donald Trump was the winner in the perfect storm of the 2016 presidential election, where idol worship became key. He latched onto the political climate, as if a rainmaker in a parched landscape. Breitbart helped with stories so outlandish the Onion would have declined to print them. In fact this climate has made the Onion’s sarcastic prose troublesome because some people believe the stories. Putin’s people played into it with stories people are now embarrassed to have to admit they believed. They went on sites and posted untruths about Hillary Clinton, that is, down right lies, that are still being spread. And they pushed a Bernie Sanders card because they knew he wouldn’t win.
Some loved Donald, some loved Bernie. It became weird idol worship. They were old men but they knew how to deliver. They knew the worlds to say. The media played into that. Every day it was Bernie. Keep interviewing Bernie. Bernie, why do you think Clinton makes a bad candidate? Bernie, do you think Hillary makes a good candidate? Don’t get me wrong, Hillary Clinton wasn’t perfect, nobody is, but the climb she was forced to take, through this political climate was one few have ever had to endure. From the constant lies about her and Kaine. With Kaine it usually something to do with abortion to get the hearts beating of the evangelicals and catholics. To something as simple as having Trump standing, staring, shifting, behind Clinton during the debates. What serious candidate does that? We went into the last days of the campaign with the email scandal, the Russians delivering it to the Trump campaign with impeccable timing. And we had Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein carving out part of the pie because they and their followers, had ideals bigger than the win. Yes, idol worship was big in this campaign. One or the other, Trump or Bernie, was going to save us. In either case the drop to reality was long and hard.
Whether Trump’s supporters want to accept it or not, most of us became the losers in this post election. Those with health care needs who chanted with the Republican leaders, denouncing Obamacare, lost their ACA care. And were shocked to realize, in the process, that the party they trusted, had lied to them (Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing), and that same party would like nothing better than to take the ACA away. The vulnerability of that moment will never be grasped by the Republican Party, but it must be vocalized by the Democrats.
The Republican voters who were sure their jobs would be saved, watched their jobs leave as if the words about saving jobs were something the supporters had…dreamed..thought they heard? It’s there in the videos. A person could turn down the volume if it helps but the reality is still there. Trump was loud and clear about saving jobs and the Republican leaders stood with him. And then the jobs were going, going, gone.
And slowly but surely, yes surely, the snake of tyranny inches closer. Putin’s people did interfere in the election and they continue to and now it is becoming more and more evident that the Trump campaign was talking to the Russians. It has become part of the day to day framework of the administration. Who’s out today? Who’s talking to Mueller? Who’s a good guy one day, and somebody who just worked on the sidelines of the campaign the next?
I could offer links here but why? It’s in the news, literally everyday. The latest mind bending story was about the Russians (our friends according to Trump) have been aiding North Korea, our enemy, with oil.
A more immediate concern it the here and now. We are on the doorstep of 2018 and we have an administration in the White House who has acted like a Kamikaze pilot over the government structure. Literally bombing out the state department, making a mockery of the EPA, putting worm holes into the educational system, ignoring vital posts that need to be filled. Even going so far as to just, very simply firing the council on HIV/AIDS by letter sent via FedEx. No smooth transition to make this very important council run smoothly. And seriously, Trump serves the country and should be spending less time on the gulf course. He acts like he’s semi-retired. He’s the president for God’s sakes.
Finally this article about Donald Trump’s health, lays out a very clear and real concern. How functional is Donald Trump really? And who’s running the show if he isn’t? He has yet to have a proper medical physical. A quack telling the public Trump is great does not qualify.
Considering the fact that Trump has placed inept and self serving people, equal to him, in his cabinet, gives me no assurance. The New York Times interview itself, and Esquire article are terrifying. What do we really have in the White House? A con game with an aging don?
How would the quiet Miss Marple put this predicament? ‘Well, yes, you see, just as terrifying is the fact that Trump remains in a world of hidden truths. We have yet to see his taxes. His past business dealings are merely opaque. All of these things are troubling. So very, very troubling.’
What is also troubling are those, who have put their entire faith in one man. What will happen when Donald Trump is ousted for any number of things listed above, and the man they elected is gone? Will the Republicans finally see the writing on the wall? Or are they trying desperately to make this train wreck of an administration, work until the Democrats are in? So that the ‘other’ party can do the dirty work?
And those left to serve, will have been part of the Russia mess. Pence, as pious as he appears to be, knew much more about the Russian interference than he lead us to believe. And Paul Ryan may very well be included in that, and, when push comes to shove, he is not the man the Trump supporters elected. Neither Pence or Paul Ryan are very well liked in their own districts. We will have people at the helm of this country who do not have the emotional backing of a majority of this nation. That’s important. It will be lackluster governing at best.