“…and we have the massive mouth in the White House of your beautiful country and europe in ´lets play the 1930’s again… …” –David John
Having, myself, experienced the five stages of grief post Trump’s election, I find myself returning to where I started: denial. The latest manifestation has been, having seen Trump act a little more “presidential”, maybe this will all go like a typical Republican presidency, that which I have gotten through before. I have to take pause before becoming an alarmist.
But from what I have seen lately, David John is right: we are facing something that, in its frenzied nature, may turn out to be every bit as traumatic as what happened in the 30’s. And it’s not just Trump. It is, rather, the feedback loop he is playing a part in. Note, for instance, the rush to deregulation going on in Capitol Hill, much of which could end up creating irreparable damage such as allowing coal miners to dump coal waste in rivers and streams. We have Paul Ryan (Trump’s new lapdog (rubbing his little rat paws in hopes of privatizing Social Security and Medicare (basically give stockbrokers control of our retirement money to risk on the market (which Trump said he wouldn’t do. But he also said he wouldn’t backtrack on policies implemented by Obama on transgender people. And we see how that went.
Everyone acted as if “well, what harm could he do?” And we can take some consolation in seeing those who supported him (either directly or indirectly through indifference or the pop cynicism of not supporting Hillary (get their just deserts for failing to read the small print. The so-called alienated white middle class male is really going to get it up the ass when they realize that Trump’s (that is in the context of the Republican platform (solution to bringing manufacturing jobs back to America has always been the typical Republican one: sucking the dick of the rich a little harder in the hope they’ll give us more of what we want. This will basically find expression in tax cuts and deregulation which pretty much amounts to reducing America to the same labor and environmental standards as most third world shitholes.
As for the 52% of the Millennials that, in their pseudo-enlightened pop cynicism, failed to vote for Hillary: I recently saw something that suggested that Trump is about to intensify enforcement of pot laws. And as I recall, he said that pot was not a gateway drug. In other words, during the campaign, he took a casual attitude towards it. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Trump (as well as many so-called “state’s rights” and “small government” repugs (go after Colorado within the next couple of years.
For myself, the consolation will come from letting the many republicans I encounter (and have listened to (actually see the fascist potential of the republican platform they embrace. We can only hope that we all come to our senses, set aside the misdirects, and recognize the problem for what it really is: the fact that a handful of people are feasting at the table and expecting the rest of us to fight for the crumbs. And hopefully we’ll do it before it’s too late.