After the election, I heard people saying that we should give Trump a chance (including from some people who commented in this blog). I have several answers to that.
First, we already know quite a bit about Trump. That he will say anything and contradict himself moments later. That he is all about revenge. That he knows nothing about government. That the main qualification for being in his administration is to never challenge him or disagree with him. We know about Trump University. We know he lied about being against the Iraq war. We totally know his bigotry and narcissism.
It is obvious that Trump could quite easily be worse than Dubya (who fumbled the response to Hurricane Katrina, ignored warnings about 9/11, lied us into a disastrous war, etc.). He also seems worse than Nixon (who was obsessed with revenge, and ultimately resigned in disgrace). I don’t think waiting is an option.
We need to get our priorities straight. Playing the blame game (the Dems should have nominated Sanders, etc.) is also not a good option.
Second, even if you decided to wait, you didn’t have to wait very long. The people already picked to be the major movers and shakers of the Trump administration look bad. Steve Bannon? Rudi Giuliani? Seriously?
Plus Paul Ryan is already lying about how Obamacare destroyed Medicare, so it has to be replaced as well. So Medicare is in danger.
But violence and insults will not help. Again, we need to figure out our priorities and do something about them. We managed to elect Trump and we are stuck with him. Our response will determine how this turns out.
14 Comments
Find reason to impeach him. Then we have Pence who claims to be Religious while he “bears false witness”
Pence is probably worse than Trump. Trump has a possibility of swinging in different directions, but Pence is solid and steadfast in his 15th century beliefs.
No chances. No honeymoon.
He’s had 18 months to define who & what he is, and I think he has done a spectacular job of doing that.
I’m afraid from where I live, things will need to go disastrously bad before people in my state (KY) will accept anything different. With a cabinet madeup of Priebus, Bannon, Gingrich, Giuliani, Christie, Sessions, Paulin, Bolton, & Corker it will probably get pretty ugly. Change will only come when we have a better educated and more open minded society and not let the “minority” have the final say just because they speak louder and carry a big stick.
Impeachment, whether possible or not, carries too many down sides – pence being only one. It would be a great way to unify republicans and likely alienate those otherwise sane peoole who voted for trump out of desperation.
Trump must be held accountable and not be offered the opportunity to get off the hook – that would just turn him into an extreme right savior / martyr.
Our best hope lies in standing strong on orinciple and looking for ways to find common cause with enough sane / rational / reasonable republicans to prevent the worst disasters.
We have to find a way to hold him fully and publivly accountable – something he has spent a lifetime avoiding in the private sector.
Squeaky – but who is he, really? Temperamentally, we know he’s bombastic and shoots from the hip, at least publicly (remind you of any President in recent history?). Otherwise, he’s been on both sides of practically every issue, sometimes within hours or days depending on the wind! Since the election he’s seemed to calm down a bit, maybe even feeling shell shocked and a bit humbled (if that’s possible) with reality setting in and seeing some of what he’s in for, how much more the job really entails, maybe deep inside even starting to question whether he’s really up to the enormous responsibility he fell ass backwards into. Maybe, who can really know what goes on under that orange hoodie?
Either way, he will now be under an enormous microscope 24/7, not only at the time and place of his choosing anymore. How he handles the scrutiny and how it affects his judgment and policy decisions will be telling once the “honeymoon” is over. He’s already getting flak from both sides about Bannon and the general disarray and uncertainty of the transition process. For someone promising to drain the swamp and surround himself with all the very best, we’re already seeing a lot of swamp people being considered for cabinet and advisory positions.
But I had to laugh when Ben Carson declined an offer for a cabinet post (HHS), his close confidant Armstrong Williams saying “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.” Hey, didn’t this guy wanna be The Man not so long ago? Now THAT’S a hoot! If only someone else (whose name I won’t mention) would’ve thought of that!
Bernie Sanders was interviewed earlier this week by Charlie Rose to give an election post-mortem from his point of view, and what the Democratic Party needs to do to get back to its roots and really reach the 98% they ostensibly speak for. Worth a watch sometime when you have 20 minutes to spare. https://charlierose.com/videos/29458
Finally, I’ve found it a little disturbing, if not expected, to see so many advocates for secession on this blog since Nov 9. How would that work? W-US/C-US/NE-US? Please folks, calm down. By now we should all realize this is not going to happen, nor should it IMHO. Running away generally doesn’t solve anything long term. Besides, this was tried by some states down south a while ago and we know how that turned out. I would only echo the recent blog post by dear old Helen, who has seen a few elections and tough times over the years, I imagine, and admonishes us that when you get knocked down “you get up again, wipe the orange stain from your clothes and then…” https://margaretandhelen.com/
What we have here is not only a failure of Democrats to better communicate and demonstrate, in both actions and words, not just pontificate or sling mud like the orange ape. But even more so, this whole chapter of our recent history is the result of a monumental failure of our public education system, and that is a failure about which both parties and all of us should be extremely alarmed.
That’s my post election rant and I’m stickin’ with it!
Peace and gravy.
Private industry and insurance companies and the government had how may decades to evolve a system of health care that would give everyone in the country affordable access and not result in rates going up every year… and failed miserably.
Is Obamacare perfect? No. Is it better, on balance and including everyone and taking coverage of preexisting conditions into consideration? Absolutely.
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Separately, and I’d love to be able to verify this, we’ve all heard stories about how, yes, Canada has single-payer but Canadians sometimes come to the U.S. to get care that is not available quickly enough in Canada. The rest of the story, that I’d love to be able to fact-check myself, is that, because Canada just doesn’t HAVE, say, a Mayo Clinic, the Canadian health care system PAYS FOR the care Canadians come to the U.S. to receive.
Seems like a serious commitment to public health, one Ryan and friends could take a lesson from. Thoughts, anyone?
Good thing is that democrats will suddenly start finding that they are champions of civil liberties, anti-war, against too much power with president like they used to when Bush was president. May God have mercy on people around the world as Trump has access to Obama drones.
Trump won, at least I got my democrats allies back (temporarily till next democrat president)
Redjon – my understanding is that some elective procedures, like cosmetic surgery or non-critical joint replacement and perhaps others, may sometimes require a longer waiting period than average or that someone is willing to wait, whereas the US has more, and more renowned, specialists (where the big money is in US healthcare) that draw Canadian patients. Not an expert on the Canadian healthcare system though, so can only generalize and don’t know if the Canadian system pays those expenses, but I would doubt it. Conversely, far cheaper Rx drugs in Canada often draw customers from the US (yeah we’re #1…in drug prices!), either by those close enough to the border to drive across or, in some cases, even medical “tourists”, who buy enough in quantity to make the travel expenses worthwhile.
Ryan and friends take a lesson from Canada? Especially where the “free market” (ie. everything $$) is concerned? Haha that’s a good one!
redjon, I do remember a comment made by the ice princess from up north saying how her and paternal family use to sneak into Canada to get/steal healthcare.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/sarah-palin/7409555/Sarah-Palins-family-sought-health-care-in-Canada.html
Her dad was quoted saying he would have preferred using US healthcare but that none was available. My response to this is that Americans would “normally” like to pay for the doctor but without Obamacare I guess they will be forced to return to the age old method of stiffing the hospitals with emergency room care which is neither cheap nor effective care. But don’t worry Republiecans, us taxpayers will gladly pick up the tab as usual.
Dave – I’d be about the last person to defend Caribou Barbie, but given her family’s remote location it’s no great surprise we wouldn’t have our best and brightest medical facilities nearby and they were fortunately close enough to the border to access a Canadian facility. That said, instead of a backhanded criticism of Canada, she should be thanking her lucky stars they don’t have a US style healthcare system or her father’s children would probably have been sent home from the ER with a couple aspirin and a Band Aid after waiting in triage for 12 hours, along with a steep bill waiting in their mailbox upon returning to the igloo. That is if the clinic hadn’t already been shuttered for lack of adequate funding.
Because in Canada, and the civilized world generally, healthcare is considered a basic human right within the social compact, while in the US it’s considered a privilege if you’re fortunate enough to afford it. By attaching “socialism” to any market the government is involved in, Republican have been successful in demonizing single-payer healthcare. What they like to call socialized medicine should more rightly be called civilized medicine.
“Give Trump a Chance?” The nation will be gambling on that chance. I also thought the purpose of a campaign was to reduce the risk of the gamble on a candidate through discussion of the issues, developing or evaluating the candidates’ character and past. This campaign: Not. All this mess from just about a fifth of the US population, and less than a third of voting adults.
I think Trump should be given a chance on some things. An infrastructure bank is something his admin is throwing around and it is a good idea. They derided it but it will put people to work and improve the country’s capabilities http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-16/trump-team-explores-infrastructure-bank-that-campaign-derided
Jump ahead to minute 9 to get a brief but interesting analysis of 6 of Drumpf’s proposals. The speaker is from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a group worth listening to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04f31dy