By Chuck Legge
For The Cordova Times
Okay, if you are still in the Trump corner, I want you to do me a favor. Put on your MAGA hat, step in front of a mirror and take a good long look. Do you recognize that person? Let’s take a closer look.
Remember back in 2008? The world was unraveling. The stock market had crashed, millions of people were losing their homes and the economy was shedding jobs like it had mange. Something had to be done, and it had to be done quickly. Then President Bush and a willing legislature wrote a $152 billion check, meant to prop up mortgages and deliver tax rebates. And it worked, sort of. This recovery act also pumped money into the “too big to fail” financial institutions that had brought about this crisis in the first place, and were, in fact, failing. Investment giants like Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers closed their doors. Companies like General Motors were faltering and threatening to turn the great recession into a global depression. It soon became clear that something more had to be done.
Enter that presidential interloper from Kenya, or Indonesia or Kansas. It was someplace exotic. With his approval congress produced the $832 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, dwarfing the miserly $152 billion of the previous administration. And it worked. Take that, Republicans. Step aside and let a Democrat show you how to spend money.
The problem was that the U.S. government now owned a large chunk of the economy. The so-called free enterprise system was now in the hands of government bureaucracies. Speaking as one who has to deal with these bureaucracies, let me tell you, they are anything but free or enterprising. In the ensuing years those private sector entities were able to get back on their feet and are no longer beholden to the government that bailed them out. In other words, they paid it off.
At the time, though, everyday Americans were uneasy with this scenario. GM was tagged with the nickname Government Motors. Investment banks like JP Morgan Chase and AIG were propped up with billions of our tax dollars. Subsequently, their officers were given outrageous bonuses by shareholders. Bonuses paid for by every damn one of us who pay our taxes. Does that kinda make you mad? It does me, and this was what gave birth to the Tea Party.
I’m not here suggesting that every Trumpophile is a Tea Partier or vice versa. What I am saying is the two have a lot in common. For example, both have an abiding distrust of government and fear of unchecked power. They are repulsed by the hypocrisy and cynicism of politics and mourn the loss of a cohesive American identity. I’ll bet you can see where I’m going here.
For some time now you have been warning us of a system run amok and the erosion of fundamental principles that make America that “shining city on a hill.” It pains me to say this, but you uber-conservatives may have been prophetic. Those of us with a more progressive turn of mind should have paid closer attention. I offer the following:
- Separating children from parents and putting them in government run “camps.”
- Loyalty demands.
- Installing family members in positions of power.
- Persecuting political enemies.
- Profiting from political office.
- Taking the side of hostile foreign powers while discrediting U.S. intelligence gathering.
- Calling the war dead losers and suckers.
- Telling white supremacists to “stand by.”
The list could fill several pages, but you get the point. The latest outrage is the publication of what are allegedly Trump’s tax returns. In 2016 he paid $750. I didn’t misplace a couple of decimal points, that was the total. I don’t know about you, but I paid more than that and I don’t even have my own private jet. In addition, he apparently is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. And those debts are coming due in the next two years. That gives his creditors a lot of leverage over our President. His usual retort of fake news could be substantiated, if he would just release his returns. Don’t hold your breath!
So, do you still support this man? Apparently, the rank-and-file Trump supporter doesn’t want the nation to slip back into the nightmare of capable government and global admiration. After all, that kind of agenda takes a lot of work, which leaves precious little time for TV and golf. Of course, the TV and golf are strictly presidential. Those of you who still support Trump are too busy dealing with chaos for such banal leisure-time activities. It must be extremely taxing to have to perform the cognitive gymnastics necessary to justify this presidency.
So, back to my original request. If you still plan on voting for Trump, I want you to take a good long look in the mirror. Do you recognize the reflection? You should. That’s the person you have been warning us about for over a decade.
