Editor’s note: This commentary is by David Russell, of Perkinsville, who is retired renewable energy and securities consultant and whose writing appears in venues including the The Hill and Huffington Post.
[I]t may not be immediately clear to most but it seems evident that we are not headed for an autocracy along the lines of fascism or a Nazi style as many fear. The reason? Americans, even conservative Americans, simply will not follow the leader and the strengths of a system of checks and balances is beginning to take hold. British and Irish bookmakers are already setting odds of President Donald Trump’s impeachment (11 to 10 he resigns or is impeached). With all of the red meat that President Trump has thrown at his base, his approval ratings remain at what will be the high point of the mid 40 percent. They will undoubtedly go down from here as more and more opposition within and without his party emerges.
President Trump’s base loves him because “he is shaking things up” and delivering on his promises. Even at this early date it has become clear that all the executive orders that are coming through are poorly thought out and designed for effect. While serious politicians scramble to keep up with each egregious overreach, debate the absence of clarity or simply recoil at the lack of understanding or concern for the constitutional ramifications of each pronouncement, Trump rumbles on with the next and the next after that. Of course they are married with a mixture of fake news, attacks on the media, and interludes of family business promotion.
This process is a deliberate form of misdirection, allowing the Trump lovers to watch the latest and best shiny new object while the real business of government is in process. Trump’s Cabinet choices are a clear indication of his political direction (witness the complete reversal of his foreign policy stances). The congressional agenda points to what is really about to transpire. The first indicator was the president’s refusal to sign the executive order lowering the interest rate for homeowners applying for federal home loan acceptance. The current moves within the Republican ranks are to disembowel the Consumer Finance Protection Agency, undo the Dodd Frank controls over banking activities, set about a tax reform package that enhances the rich but provides nominal help to his middle class supporters, repeals the health care system leaving virtually everyone with the prospect of rapidly rising health care insurance.
That’s the obvious stuff. The more insidious is what is happening at the EPA, departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Interior or State where gag orders have been issued. Equally so are the economic moves that are being made guaranteed to drive up inflation either by overstimulating credit or protectionist tariff-driven price increases. Given the Cabinet choices, it is only a matter of time before the conservative agenda digs in to dismantle three generations of protections or policies intended to serve the public interest.
Given the Cabinet choices, it is only a matter of time before the conservative agenda digs in to dismantle three generations of protections or policies intended to serve the public interest.
Some of the moves are even laughable. Trump announces the need for lower drug costs and his Republican cohorts chortle as they mouth the words “ain’t going to happen.” He assures the public he will push for term limits and Sen. Mitch McConnell states that subject is simply not on the agenda. We are invited to White House spectacles with one private industry “victory” after another announcing domesticated manufacturing jobs only to find out that these are plans in the works for years or that the new jobs are not for the “undereducated” supporters of Donald Trump.
If you sift through all the detritus spewing from the administration it becomes abundantly clear that our president is one of the greatest hucksters since Napoleon Hill assured us in 1937 that If you simply “visualize what you want out of life, those things and more will be delivered to you. Especially if those things involve money.” Trump’s skill at misdirection has become increasingly obvious to the media and the political community and there is less inclination to take the bait. His “fake news” allegations are being attacked as disingenuous and undemocratic and the best news of all is that the moderate and left side of the populous has finally awakened and realized that there is danger in inaction. It is no small thing that the liberal political community has started to use the tactics of the Tea Party to pressure Republicans on the disenfranchisements and giveaways that are under way.
What will become increasingly clear is that the Trump base will erode as it becomes clearer to that group that there is no relief for the economic anxiety that drove them to support him. Likewise, their common perception of the failures of both political parties to represent the middle class will not be changed by his election. He has not and will not “drain the swamp.” He will not make America great again in the way they thought he would. Trump supporters will realize over the course of the next two years and certainly before the next congressional election that “shaking things up” just hasn’t worked for them.
If the Democrats are smart, and there is little evidence among its current leadership to indicate that they are, they will seek and enfranchise a whole new generation of candidates, pledged to campaign finance reform, supported by small donations and beholden only the good of all of the citizens of the nation. If the popular revolt can be sustained and the message increasingly brought forth that the “king has not clothes” the country can get back on track to promoting the success that a thriving middle class and fair income distribution has assured in the past.