Bill Moyers: Donald Trump is turning American Democracy into a Demolitian Derby, via Alternet
Affordable health care? Smash it. Fair pay for working people? Crush it. And on and on.
editing by Earl of Cruise 
Bill Moyers
We’re
a week into the Trump administration and it’s pretty obvious what he’s
up to. First, Donald Trump is running a demolition derby: He wants to
demolish everything he doesn’t like, and he doesn’t like a lot,
especially when it comes to government.
Like one of those
demolition drivers on a speedway, he keeps ramming his vehicle against
all the others, especially government policies and programs and agencies
that protect people who don’t have his wealth, power or privilege.
Affordable health care for working people? Smash it. Consumer protection
against predatory banks and lenders? Run over it. Rules and regulations
that rein in rapacious actors in the market? Knock ‘em down. Fair pay
for working people? Crush it. And on and on.
We had it once, unleashed banks causing the the crash in 1988, and then the Sub-Prime Crisis, which grew into the Financial Crisis, fueled by the Dice (Rating) Agencies betting against the Euro, by seaking out and hitting on the weakest members of the commom European Currency ... With tax payers money, in Europe the banks had to bailed out.
We had it once, unleashed banks causing the the crash in 1988, and then the Sub-Prime Crisis, which grew into the Financial Crisis, fueled by the Dice (Rating) Agencies betting against the Euro, by seaking out and hitting on the weakest members of the commom European Currency ... With tax payers money, in Europe the banks had to bailed out.
Earl of Cruise
Trump came to
Washington to tear the government down for parts, and as far as we can
tell, he doesn’t seem to have anything at all in mind to replace it
except turning back the clock to when business took what it wanted and
left behind desperate workers, dirty water and polluted air.
In
this demolition derby, Trump seems to have the wholehearted support of
the Republican Party, which loathes government as much as it worships
the market as god. Remember Thomas Frank’s book, The Wrecking Crew?
Published in 2008, it remains one of the best political books of the
past quarter-century. Frank took the measure of an unholy alliance: the
century-old business crusade against government, the conservative
ideology that looks on government as evil (except when it’s enriching
its allies), and the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Karl Rove —
the one that had just produced eight years of crony capitalism and
private plunder.
The Wrecking Crew — and what an apt title it was —
showed how federal agencies were doomed to failure by the incompetence
and hostility of the Bush gang appointed to run them, the same model
Trump is using now. Frank tracked how wholesale deregulation — on a
scale Trump already is trying to reproduce — led to devastating results
for everyday people, including the mortgage meltdown and the financial
crash. Reading the book is like reading today’s news, as kleptomaniacs
spread across Washington to funnel billions of dollars into the pockets
of lobbyists and corporations.
In Wisconsin and Nebraska 80% of Obama Care users, did vote for the nouveau rich, gold lover Donald Trump ...
In Wisconsin and Nebraska 80% of Obama Care users, did vote for the nouveau rich, gold lover Donald Trump ...
Earl of Cruise
That may include the pockets of Donald Trump’s own family. As Jonathan Chait wrote after the election
in New York magazine, “[Trump’s] children have taken roles on the
transition team. Ivanka attended official discussions with heads of
state of Japan and Argentina. [As president-elect, Trump himself] met with Indian business partners to discuss business and lobbied a British politician
to oppose offshore wind farms because one will block the view at one of
his Scottish golf courses.” Only a couple of days ago it was reported
that the Trump organization would more than triple the number of Trump hotels in America. And why not? Its chief marketer works out of the Oval Office.
Jonathan
Chait went on to say: “Trump’s brazen use of his office for personal
enrichment signals something even more worrisome than four or more years of kleptocratic government. It reveals how willing the new administration is to obliterate governing norms and how little stands in his way.”
And oh yes, something else: David Sirota at International Business Times has just published a new report
showing that the Trump administration appears to be quietly killing the
federal government’s major ethics rule designed to prevent White House
officials from enriching their former clients. Experts say a review of
government documents shows that regulators appear to have abruptly
stopped enforcing the rule, even though it remains the law of the land.
We were warned. Donald Trump himself told The New York Times, “The law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Shades of Richard Nixon, who said, “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.” And who also announced, “I am not a crook.”
I
know plutocracy is not a commonly used word in America. But it’s a word
that increasingly fits what’s happening here. Plutocracy means
government by the wealthy, a ruling class of the rich and their
retainers. If you don’t see plutocracy spreading across America, you
haven’t been paying attention. Both parties have nurtured, tolerated and
bowed to it. Now we’re reaching the pinnacle, as Trump’s own Cabinet is
rich (no pun intended) in millionaires and billionaires. He is stacking
the agencies and boards of government with the wealthy and friends of
wealth so that the whole of the federal enterprise can be directed to
rewarding those with deep pockets, the ones who provide the bags and
bags of money that are dumped into our political process today.Which
leads us to the second design now apparent in Trump’s strategy of
deliberate chaos. He may have run a populist campaign, but now it
appears he aims to substitute plutocracy for democracy.
Yes, both
Democrats and Republicans have been guilty of groveling to the wealthy
who fund them; it’s a staggering bipartisan scandal that threatens the
country and was no small part of Trump’s success last November, even as
ordinary people opened their windows and shouted, “We’re as mad as hell
and we’re not going to take it anymore.” So now we have in power a man
who represents the very worst of the plutocrats — one who knows the
price of everything but the value of nothing. I shudder to think where
this nightmare will end. Even if you voted for Donald Trump for a reason
that truly is from your heart, I cannot believe you voted for this.
Tell
me if I’m wrong. Tell me whose side are you really on? The people of
America or the cynics and predators at the very top who would climb atop
the ruins of the republic for a better view of the sunset?
May I respectfully correct the earl: President Trump isn't smashing a democracy. The United States is a representative Republic, not a democracy. A large majority of US Citizens put Trump in office after decades of Democratic Party Great Society handouts and corruption. The people are also fed up with Status Quo and cut-throat Republican attitudes. A Democrat farts in the White House, a Republican replaces him and refuses to spend the money or time to air out the house, which is filled with noxious fumes.
ReplyDeleteMay his honor recall his German History and realize that the United States today is very much like the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Congress like the Viennese Parliament in 1913. Mostly a bunch of selfish interests trying to get their own way legally through a moribund bureaucracy headed by a dead in the head leader of which every president from LBJ to present (except Reagan) have been. Obama is a hereditary Muslim if not one by person profession and since Jimmy Carter the Democratic Party has does done everything wrong with a situation started by British and Dutch Oil Interests as well as enflamed by European anti-Semitism and the whole Palestinian issue since Herr Hitler.
Being that I am politically independent and not Jewish or Zionist, perhaps as in the USA, German and Europe need to know the difference between a Democracy and a Representative Republic. Sadly, the West is increasing educated but not really educated and like Ancient Israel and Judah seems bent on being overthrown by their own arrogance and Liberalism by a 21st Century Muslim Assyria-Babylon.
Sorry, I have a degree in History and I believe Hegel was largely correct about people and governments concerning history. Therefore, Santayana's conclusion concerning those who do not study the pass is inevitable.
I was actually looking something on the S.S. Bremen, but this kept showing up. My Czech grandparents used to cross the Western Ocean on ships of Norddeutscher Lloyd.
Your most gracious tolerance is appreciated in regards to correcting you. I thank you for your blog.
Marek Douglas Budka
Lincoln, Nebraska USA
I wish I could edit this, but I don't know German well and my keyboard is acting up.
ReplyDeleteMark Budka, at first the article is published here and has got some editing by mw. The article itself is written by Bill Moyers: Donald Trump is turning American Democracy into a Demolitian Derby, via Alternet, you can see it. But I am with him in his thoughts. I Europe we able distinguishing between facts, alternative facts and pure lies ... the most are. And you may be surprised but we are much more informed here in old Europe about the USA than you may think, and far more then you in the US about the world outside. And if the USA is not a democracy ... then why fighting wars about with others? The USA today is looking more an oligarchy of the 1% superrich ... oh and a representative republic is a democracy too. For your interest I did study politics and history.
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