The State of our (Dis)Union

I was as shocked as anyone when the results of the last Presidential elections were announced last fall. How could America, a nation that used to stand for advancing democracy, defending the weak, and promoting the general welfare elect such a vile, vain, and venomous man as its leader? Gradually, we learned that this epic upset was only possible by misinforming the American public on a mass scale. Although investigators have denied that our long-time enemy Russia, hacked any individual voting machines, they overlook the obvious point: Vladimir Putin did not need to do anything so crude to make sure Hillary Clinton did not get elected. All he had to do was turn the entire Russian propaganda apparatus to swamping our media with “fake news” stories sliming President Obama and Hillary, while praising the eventual winner with lavish compliments. An army of Russian bots spread out through social media, claiming to be Americans who loved the GOP and its heroic nomination of a SAVIOR of our nation.

     Just after the election, I made a number of predictions about the likelihood that our new oligarch would accomplish any of his many promises during the campaign. My conservative friends, assured me that his eection the best thing that could happen to America, and agreed with our leader that we would soon be “tired” of “winning” so much. “Give him a chance!” they whined, and so I have.

     Now, six months into the new administration, it seems a good time to take a look at what he has wrought on our nation. Frankly, it does not look good. We seem poised on the brink of a national cataclysm, one that is likely to tear our country apart and could even result in a Civil War. Already, we are the last generation to see Democracy in our government. The autocratic, one-party oligarchy that is now trying to control every aspect of our lives, bears no resemblance whatsoever to American Democracy. My conservative friends, who posted endless political misinformation every day for 8 years, are now strangely silent.

     Initially, the Oligarch behaved exactly as you would have expected. Having no experience in democratic institutions, it seems clear El Presidente believed the entire government was there to serve as his flunkies. Obviously, the concept of a three-part government and checks and balances are foreign concepts to him. For the first several months, he did NOTHING but issue Presidential directives, one after another, trying to undue EVERY advancement made by President Obama. He genuinely seemed puzzled that Congress did not immediately jump to his commands and do everything he told them to. Despite his repeated claim to be the most successful President EVER, he has accomplished exactly NO major legislative accomplishments in his first six months. There is no border wall. He has not prevented Muslims from entering the country. He has not yet been successful in destroying our nation’s health care system. The only thing Republicans can claim as a ”success” is getting a Supreme Court Justice appointed, but that was only done by STEALING the seat from President Obama.

Nothing illustrates the moral bankruptcy of the President and his GOP supporters as their obsessive attempts to “Repeal and Replace Obamacare” with something “wonderful.” Intelligent people knew all along this was a fantasy. Hoping to get Republican buy-in for the health care overhaul, President Obama chose a GOP plan to base the ACA on. In order to defeat single-payer proposals, Republicans had long argued that such a system was the only “free market” solution to health care. As soon as the first African-American President adopted the system, the GOP suddenly HATED the idea and they have spent the last 7 years trying to discredit it. This is why, of course, they have been unable to come up with ANY alternative. The Massachusetts-model ACA was the ONLY way to keep private health insurance companies in business, and by sliming it incessantly, the GOP has made single-payer look a LOT more appealing.

     Ironically, the GOP oligarch has carried out every action he criticized the past administration on - usually far surpassing President Obama. The number of days playing golf, for instance. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard Republicans ridicule the Democrats for “ramming through” the Affordable Care Act with no GOP support. Factcheckers have pointed out that the Democratic attempts to pass the ACA were considerably different from this current effort, mainly by making full use of the committee process. In the lead-up to the ACA, Democrats held hundreds of hours of debates and allowed hundreds (actually over a thousand) of amendments to the legislation, many of them by Republicans. There were 44 hearings and public events about the plan in the Senate alone. Despite this, the GOP decided not to cast a single vote for it – just because it had originally been proposed by Barack Obama. Since they had spent so much time sliming him already, the Republicans decided to label the ACA as “Obamacare” to make sure their supporters knew who to hate.

Compare this with the current efforts. A small group of white men in a closed room have been making decisions that will affect 1/6 of the American economy with NO public participation, whatsoever. No hearings. No debate. No amendments. In fact, they essentially have carried out martial law in Congress – cutting the opposition party out of the process entirely and forcing their membership to vote on a bill they have never even seen. And to think they ridiculed Democrats for saying Congress members had to vote for the ACA bill to see what was in it!

     Fortunately, the GOPs total failure to govern is now obvious to just about everyone. Despite having total one-party control over all aspects of our former Democracy, they STILL cannot agree on how much to hurt the average American. I hate to see what they come up with next……..

The Emperor Has No Clothes!