Forecasting Trump’s Future

 

Like many Americans, I was dismayed and saddened to see so many American voters support a Presidential candidate who openly insulted other Americans, who mocked people with disabilities, who threatened to oppress an entire religion, who has screwed people over in business for his entire career, who insulted a Gold Star family and their dead veteran son, who bragged about fondling and kissing women against their will, and lied to his supporters 91% of the time. My conservative friends have defended their vote, claiming that Trump, a member of the .00000000001%, is a “Man of the People” and will bring back the values that “made America Great.”

I have refrained (mostly) from condemning these people, despite their making a choice that I believe is wrong for our country. I do not believe people who voted for Trump are stupid, or necessarily racist, but the avid support of his candidacy by the KKK and other White Supremacists should give us all pause. Trump’s failure to get a mandate from voters will restrict his ability to carry out his program. Considering most voters did not vote for him (or Hillary), he will have a hard time claiming that most Americans support the extremist policies he voiced during the campaign.

Donald Trump is not yet President, so I will not be criticizing him for his actions until he takes office. I will wait and see if he is able to accomplish ANY of the things he has promised his supporters. Even so, Trump made a number of quite clear promises during the campaign. These ten objectives seemed to be at the top of his to-do list: 1) Repeal ACA, 2) Build the Wall, 3) Deport “Illegal” Immigrants, 4) Ban Muslims from the country, 5) Give Massive Tax Breaks, 6) Bring back industry to the US, 7) Rebuild the Military, 8) End the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, 9) End Climate Change Actions and 10) “Drain the Swamp.” Since we do not yet have evidence of HOW he will accomplish ANY of these things, we are left to speculate on how things will turn out.

In case you didn’t know, like Carnac the magnificent, I have the ability to predict the future. I am therefore sharing my prognostications on our immediate political future. They are all my personal opinions, although my beliefs on the subject are shaped by the many statements made by Trump, himself. Given those statements, I have little confidence that ANY of these policies will actually be accomplished and, at some point, Trump may face considerable unrest when his extremist supporters turn on him for failing to get them a job, good health care or an inexpensive education. Let’s take a look at each of these 10 goals and see if they are achievable or not.

      1)      Repeal the ACA   Trump is certainly not alone in calling for an end to the health policy they call “Obamacare.” Republicans have done pretty much NOTHING for the last 8 years except pathetically pass laws repealing the ACA, despite there being no chance of doing so as long as Obama was President. Despite their obsessive hatred of a plan that was actually created by Republicans, they have been unable to craft ANY alternative, despite having 8 years to do so. My guess is they will not be able to do it in the next 50 days, either. Right off the bat, the new Republican administration will vote to repeal the health care plan on their first day but will be unable to explain why turning over ALL decisions about health care to private insurance companies will provide us all good health care. The 20 million Americans who will lose their care, will probably not be happy. Also, Republicans are going to be sorely disappointed when their Trumpcare premiums go up 40-50% next year. And, of course, since the ACA will no longer exist, its main features (no limits to benefits, no pre-existing conditions, free preventive care, and keeping young people on their parent’s plan) will disappear. 

      My Prediction:  I predict health care prices will INCREASE dramatically and services will be greatly reduced, once we put insurance company death panels in charge of determining who gets care.

2)      Build the Wall    This was one phrase Trump used at pretty much every one of his rallies. His gullible supporters obviously know nothing about the geography of the border and would most likely rebel at paying the anticipated $25 Billion cost, after we learn there is no way to make Mexico “pay for the wall.” Experts and government officials have all agreed that making it impenetrable would be virtually impossible, as is completely securing the entire 1,954-mile border. Most of the border is forbidding, remote and arid, and any massive construction project would be very difficult to pull off. And historically, we have found one thing that can be said about walls – they don’t work. The great Wall of China, the Maginot Line, and the Berlin Wall were totally unable to stop unwanted crossings.

 My prediction: Trump will symbolically construct an impressive wall in some short visible segments of the border and the cost will be paid by us taxpayers.

 

3)      Deport “Illegal” Immigrants    Trump’s conservative followers seem to believe that all immigrants are rapists, criminals and terrorists (probably because their candidate said so repeatedly). Despite evidence showing that immigrants are MORE law-abiding than other Americans, Trump has convinced many Americans that the promise made on our Statue of Liberty no longer exists. The US, according to them, no longer welcomes the oppressed, the hungry and the desperate refugees fleeing the wars that we are conducting in their homeland. The President-elect has already walked this one back, saying that he would only “start” deporting criminal immigrants –a small subset of what he calls “illegal” immigrants. It’s hard to see how he will explain this meager response to his supporters, who will be expecting to live in a country with no foreign people. 

My prediction: Trump will deport a few thousand “criminal” immigrants but will be unable to massively deport the 15-20 million people he would like to get rid of. Hopefully, his followers will be OK with his failure to carry out one of his main promises.

      4)      Ban Muslims from the country    Trump has said he will ban ALL immigration from any country that has terrorists in it until we can figure out “what is going on…” As you might guess, my trust that he will be able to determine what is “going on” is pretty low. Much of Trump’s support has come from religious groups, but they seem to have a hard time reconciling his characterization of ALL Muslims as terrorists with the Bible’s exhortations to “Love Thy Neighbor.” There are around 1.6 billion Muslims in the World – about 25% of the earth’s population. Over 2 ½ million Muslims currently live in the US. Most of the refugees seeking to enter the country are coming from the three countries we have been bombing almost constantly for 25 years, but it does not seem likely that Trump will recognize this fact. 

     My prediction: Trump will continue our engagement in perpetual warfare in the Middle East, creating MORE terrorists, and increasing pressure on the US to accept more of the victims of our bombing. 

       5)      Give Massive Tax Breaks   Republicans HATE the National debt. I know, because they have been telling me for decades. They remind me that President Obama raised the debt substantially and this is why they voted for Trump. Well, I hate to tell you, but so far, Donald Trump’s ability to decrease our debt is a fantasy. In fact, estimates are that his stated programs, tax breaks and corporate subsidies will cost us TRILLIONS of dollars in the next few years – ALL of it falling on taxpayers to pay for. We already learned from Ronald Reagan and George Bush that giving more money to rich people does NOTHING for the average American except make them poorer. We have heard the delusional claim that giving tax breaks to business will spur the economy and create more jobs. After 40 years of doing so, the EXACT OPPOSITE has happened. Still, Trump continues to make the claim that his “business-oriented” policies will bring a new era of economic prosperity to America. And, of course, Trump may also have problems raising even a minimum of tax money, given that he wants to lay off all the tax collectors and eliminate most of the taxes. Since the President is considered “smart” for not paying taxes, why should any American do so? 

      My prediction:  Instead of decreasing debt, Trump will INCREASE it more than any other American President, and the economic inequality that is strangling our nation will greatly increase.

      6)      Bring back industry to the US      I consider this pretty much a pipe dream. Other than weaponry (and the auto industry saved by President Obama), America no longer has a manufacturing capability. We have allowed corporations to turn their backs on the workers who generated considerable wealth for them and move to countries where they can pay workers a slave wage. Textiles are no longer made on the east coast. US steel production is at all but a standstill. The idea that trump can convince any significant number of corporations to return to the US, re-invest in new plant technology and pay a living wage is totally delusional. 

      My prediction: The corporate flight to Third World countries will accelerate and even low-level service jobs will disappear here and pop up in Vietnam and Pakistan.

 

7)      Rebuild the Military      Trump has consistently painted our nation’s military forces as dangerously ill-equipped, understaffed, under-resourced, and led by people that do not know what they are doing. He paints a dire picture of the world’s biggest superpower limping along with a puny military, and no ships, planes or weapons to back up our Imperialism. According to Trump, the world only respects military might and nobody will do what we tell them to unless we have the capability of wiping their nation off of the face of the Earth. Of all of his promises, this one seems the most possible, but our country is almost bankrupt now from supporting our bloated military budget, which grows exponentially every year with no end in sight. Our current military expenditures of around $711 Billion  are greater than the REST OF THE WORLD combined. 

My prediction: Trump will ask for “YUGE” increases in military spending and the Republicans who run Congress will give it to him. While this might make defense contractors wealthier, this money does NOTHING to make America great – it just makes us a rich bully.

8)      End the Iranian Nuclear Agreement    This one blows my mind. Everybody, both right and left, were concerned about the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon. To end such a possibility, President Obama achieved an agreement with Iran that GUARANTEES they cannot build a weapon for at least 10 years. Iran had to destroy most of its centrifuges, fill in its main reactor with concrete, allow inspectors to go anywhere they needed to, and ship all of their nuclear material out of the country. Sounds good, right? Not according to my conservative friends, who assured me the agreement GUARANTEES Iran will have a nuclear weapon. They, of course, have no proof whatsoever, that such an outlandish claim is true, but that does not stop them from believing such an unbelievable idea. Trump seems convinced that he can just tear up an agreement made by the US and the P5+1 countries (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany) and the European Union. 

My prediction: Trump will be totally unable to renege on the agreement, even though the Republicans in Congress will vote for massive sanctions on Iran – in violation of the agreement. The International community will fail to support ending an agreement that has already accomplished much what Trump says he wants to do.

      9)      End Climate Change Actions     At this point, the only people who deny man-made climate change are misinformed conservatives who believe we are entering a new ice age. Despite record-breaking temperatures every month, rising sea levels, more violent storms, prolonged droughts and disappearing glaciers, conservatives continue to protect their fossil-fuel industry idols, defending their rapacious practices, denying that they do anything to harm the environment and calling for massive burning of dirty fossil fuels. Republicans in Congress have pretty much already destroyed any government support for a movement towards clean energy, all while arguing vociferously for more subsidies of Big Oil. 

       My prediction: Trump will not be able to revive the “Clean Coal” industry (a fossil-fuel fantasy) and those coal miners in West Virginia will be sorely disappointed. Republican America will be ridiculed by the global community for ignoring the biggest crisis facing humanity.

 

      10)   Drain the Swamp    It became painfully obvious during the recent Presidential campaign that Donald Trump knew NOTHING about governance. NOTHING about legislating. NOTHING about compromise. Don’t worry, we were told by Republicans. “Donald will surround himself with “good people,” who will know the right thing to do.” Their candidate railed against “special interests” in every rally. He berated the lobbyists, policy wonks and Wall Street manipulators who put undue pressure on public officials. He criticized Hillary Clinton as a corrupt “pay for play” politician who demanded campaign donations in exchange for support. How surprised we were to see that, as soon as it was time to start finding those “good people,” Trump turned to those who he was criticizing. He placed many Wall Street lobbyists on his transition team. He appointed a White Supremacist as his right hand man. He appointed a Senator with racist baggage as his Attorney General.

Worse, he refused to separate himself from his business interests and it is this decision that will ultimately defeat him. Maybe nobody mentioned the “conflict of interest” thing to him when he was pondering his decision to run for President. Maybe he just thought people loved him so much, they would overlook his complex web of business relationships with the very foreign countries he will be dealing with. The fact is, his decision to let his family run the business while he serves as President is completely untenable. It will NOT WORK. His family is NOT a blind trust. He knows exactly what he owns and where, so he cannot insulate himself from the everyday decision-making. It is likely that EVERY move he makes in the foreign policy arena will be questioned. By letting his children sit in his face-to-face meetings with foreign officials, how can we be sure they are not acting in a “pay for play” situation? The ONLY way Trump can avoid endless accusations of corruption is to totally divest himself of his fortune. He must liquidate his assets, sell off the ones he owns and completely separate himself from the former Trump financial empire. I see the chances of that happening as zero to none. 

My prediction: The Trump administration will have more corruption charges than any past administration and many of them will result in criminal prosecutions.

I have to say that I hope NONE of these predictions come true. I DO want my nation to succeed, although America, as we once knew it, is DEAD. Once we became a one-party oligarchy, those quaint ideas about Democracy and personal liberty disappeared and it does not seem likely they will return. At any rate, I will probably visit these predictions a year from now and see how things have worked out. Maybe I will be surprised, and will find myself living in a country that respects all of its citizens, provides jobs for everyone, offers health care for all and maintains a social safety net, but I am not holding my breath. Like most Americans, I will be watching our next President’s actions with great interest and will be anxious to see whether his goals were anything more than empty campaign promises……….