Hollywood’s cinematic world of make believe has released some far out stories. But if an imaginative writer would have submitted a script based on the Trump presidency’s record of incompetence and corruption, it surely would have been rejected. But that was then. We have now come to accept the preposterous as “normal.”
Trump said that he would gladly shut down the government and accept responsibility for it. The first part was believable. But for one who has never accepted responsibility for anything to accept responsibility for shutting down the government over Christmas? Of course not. It’s now the “fault of the Democrats.” Naturally, the sycophantic Senator McConnell echoes this tired refrain.
The House and the Senate had cobbled together a temporary deal that Trump had agreed to. But when right wing talk show entertainers Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter got hold of this, they went ballistic, insisting that if Trump went through with this, he would be the one thing he can’t tolerate, “a loser,” and “weak.”
Trump reneged. He would rather be called a liar — he sees this as proof of how smart he is to be able to get away with it — than a loser.
Right wing talk show fanatics carried the day. This is no longer your father’s Main Street Republican Party. It is Trump’s Republican Party of enablers. Or, as the Reverend Al Sharpton is wont to say, Rush Limbaugh is the boss of the Republican Party.
Now the politicians get to go home for the holidays and Trump goes to Florida to play golf with his fat cat donors. Some federal workers are on furlough and others get to work without pay.
Trump wants his $5 billion for “the wall.” The Democrats don’t want, and don’t need, to give it to him.
But wait — there is a possible, and likely, solution, thanks to the marvelous flexibility of the English language. Democrats are willing to fund border security based on technology and more personnel. Trump seems to be backing off that medieval type concrete wall, moving toward a “slatted steel fence,” or maybe just a “slatted fence.” How about a three strand barbed wire fence, with two of them down?
No matter the final deal, Trump will claim victory. That’s OK, nobody can control that. He claims great victory for having knocked off Democratic senators in Missouri and Indiana. Memories are short. Had it not been for totally outlandish and insulting comments about women and rape by their Republican opponents in 2012, Democrats McCaskill and Donnelly would never have won Missouri and Indiana in the first place. Trump sees Republican victories in those blood red states in 2018 as his own great victory. But I digress.
The incompetence, malfeasance and corruption of the Trump Administration are so rampant that much of it is ignored or accepted as “normal.” Cabinet members have left under scandal and corruption. These include H&HS Secretary Tom Price, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and VA Secretary, David Shulkin. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is soon on his way out, and good riddance. Trump’s cabinet Secretaries of Education, Treasury, Commerce, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development have all been seen as engaged in various abuses of power.
Former UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, served the president and the nation as well as she could, given Trump’s nationalistic views. She got out while the getting was good, her reputation intact.
The latest flap, giving some of Trump’s enablers pause, is over resignation of Defense Secretary Mattis and his historic blistering letter outlining differences with his boss. These differences were long evident, beginning with his advice to Trump not to renege on the Iran deal.
Is withdrawing troops from Syria — and Afghanistan — the wrong thing to do? That deserves rational debate. But to do it at the behest of Turkey’s president, without consultation with allies and our own personnel is surely ill-advised. This dilemma once again affirms the unlearned lesson that getting into war is a lot easier than getting out of it.
Add to all this Trump’s constant denials about Russian financial connections, and the proposal for a Trump Tower in Moscow. The citizens of Russia had suffered terribly during invasion from the West in World War II. Any Russian leader is understandably nervous about NATO moving closer to its borders.
Legitimate concerns of Russian leaders and people can be taken into account without destroying our relationships with leaders of Germany, France, the UK and the rest of Western Europe. Post-presidential Moscow real estate development should not be a quid pro quo for giving Putin what he wants, namely, friction between the U.S. and Western Europe.
Trump’s enablers tend to discount his malfeasance because of Trump’s “tremendous accomplishments.” His signature “accomplishment” is the tax bill that awards a gigantic windfall to our nation’s wealthiest people, those who need it the least. Not only is this tax bill unfair to working people, it violates every basic principle of sound macroeconomic policy.
This bill was sold on the basis that it would repatriate huge sums from abroad, stimulating investment in plant and equipment, generating wage increases and even reducing the public debt. It has done nothing of the sort. Repatriated funds have been used for stock buybacks and executive bonuses rather than wage increases. Investment in plant and equipment is not increasing — it is showing signs of softening. And as anyone paying attention predicted, the public debt is increasing, generating Republican “remedies” of cutting Social Security and Medicare.
Oh yes, there was that temporary sugar high that contributed to rising financial markets. Good luck with that. Markets are heading for the worst week since the Great Recession and the worst December since 1931.
Trump claimed credit for record financial markets aided by that sugar high. He now sees tanking markets as the fault of his own Fed appointee, Jerome Powell.
It’s a wild script that would have been rejected by Hollywood. But it’s today’s reality.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.
