Thoughts on Trump's first month

My reaction to Trump’s first month in office

 [In the past I have been criticized by friends and family for not providing my sources for all the statements I make in my blog.  What I have written here should be considered more of a brain dump than a research paper and I don’t have time to go through and hyperlink to sources.  If anyone is curious where I get my crazy ideas, I am happy to provide sources and back up my claims with facts upon request.]

Also, there is this discussion about whether or not we should give “Trump a chance” now that he is President.  Of course, he has a chance, he is in the White House, but that does not mean we should not speak out when we disagree with what he does.  I was in the street protesting against actions taken by both our previous presidents and expect I will be with this president as well. 

People also say the press is not being fair to him.  The job of the press should be to challenge the government.  That is what keeps them honest.  The Iraq war was an example when the press failed in their job in this regard.  So Trump should not complain.  It is ironic he says it is all fake news (CNN, BBS, NBC, New York Times, etc) while he embraces Fox News and Breitbart.  The other day Trump got into trouble for making claims about crime in Sweden caused by immigrants, as his source he sighted a sensationalistic story he watched on Fox News.  We know the media gets stories wrong, we know media is biased on both sides, but Trumps obsession with the news all being “fake” if it makes him look bad is just ridiculous.  He needs to grow up.

During the campaign I disagreed with nearly everything Trump promised to do so naturally I find myself in disagreement with what he is doing, since, to his credit, he is doing what he promised. However, it is not just what he is doing, but how he is going about doing it.  His lack of diplomacy is disturbing, his disregard for advice from professionals is worrying, and his lack of concern for what is factual is frightening. 

I was very upset with the Republicans in congress who made it their stated goal to block everything Obama tried to do when he was elected.  Hundreds of appointments never got confirmed, every piece of legislation was filibustered requiring a super majority to pass anything, they even shut the government down.  The talking points were that Obama was pushing a radical socialist agenda.  The truth is, Obama was a very moderate President.  He was far from liberal – he deported more people than any president, he presided over the biggest increase in domestic oil production in US history, he took single payer health care off the table before beginning to compromise with the Republicans, he authorized more drone strikes than any US president, he promoted free trade agreements, etc.   

Now the Democrats are in a tough place.  If they obstruct Trump, they will look like hypocrites, after complaining about Republican obstructionism.  But what Trump wants to do is so far to the right of the political mainstream that the energized liberal leaning base of the Democratic party is demanding the Democrats do just that – obstruct!  This is a major flaw in the way the two party system is working out in our country.  Especially with gerrymandering, which is allowing congress to get increasingly polarized.  A Mitt Romney or Lindsey Graham administration would be far less worrying and probably would have less Democratic opposition.

Of course as we can see, politicians leading from the center have failed to do enough to reign in corporate power and to help the working class.  A moderate Republican or Clinton presidency would have likely continued the status quo.  It is difficult to see a way out of our political dilemma.  Of course my hope is that reaction to Trump will pull the political pendulum back to the left. 

 I wrote most of this a couple weeks ago and of course everyday there is more to comment on.  I would like to be solution oriented, rather than just complaining, but it is important to be aware of what our government is doing and to analyze the effects of their actions so we can be informed voters.  As far as solutions, I think we need to organize, this could be one of the great outcomes of this election.  It was people in the street that helped force civil rights laws to be passed, to force the end of the Vietnam war, etc.  Also we need to take positive actions in our local communities.  If you want to help create jobs, buy local, and if you don’t care where you create jobs, at least buy fair trade.  Vote with your dollar.  Work towards making your community welcoming to immigrants, use less fossil fuels if you are worried about climate change, etc, etc.  It is time for the grassroots to grow what we want from the ground up because positive change is not likely to trickle down to us from the top any time soon. 

So thoughts on a few specific actions of Trump in these first few weeks:

Oil Pipelines/Fossil fool production:  Well, what can I say.  This is the issue I will take to the streets for.  (I marched on the White House to protest the Keystone XL pipeline while Obama was Pres.) Ramping up oil infrastructure when scientists warn us we must keep 80% of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate disruption is a crime against humanity and a crime against nature.  Plus, renewables are at the point of being cost competitive, are better for job creation, can decentralize and democratize energy production, and are cleaner throughout their life cycle than fossil fuels.  The argument we must ramp up coal mining to give coal miners jobs is just short sighted.  Teach coal miners to do other things.  There is a couple from Silicon Valley who have moved to coal country and using their own money have trained coal miners to code and create websites.  These ex-miners are landing tons of jobs with companies starved for tech help.  Just one example that could be replicated, if only our leader was inspired to do so.  When Trump signed an executive order to allow the Keystone XL pipeline he claimed it would create 28,000 construction jobs.  The State Department actually says it will only create 3,900 jobs for one year and only 35 permanent jobs

Lack of diplomacy:  Trump’s tweets about how Obama was too nice to Iran but Trump will not be.  This type of talk is exactly what can help hardliners in countries like Iran get elected.  Ayatollah Khomeini was just telling Iran that Donald is now showing Iran the true face of America.  By being a bully he is opening the door to leaders who will talk tough and stand up to America the Bully. This makes the world more dangerous.  While Trump says he is going to rid the world of terrorism and make us all safer, his style, his mouth, his tweets, his policies are all much more likely to make us less safe.  I can’t understand how anyone thinks otherwise, although I know some do. 

Heath Care:  Well this is one of the most classic Trump moments.  This weekend Trump was speaking to the nation’s governors.  He actually said:

"Now, I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated."

This is so classic.  Yes, Trump, we all knew it was so complicated, why do you think it took so long to get this passed by the Democrats. Trump has been promising a ‘better plan that will cover everyone and be less expensive’.  We can spend pages dissecting the reasons this cannot happen with any of Trumps ideas.  Basically the only way to do this is a single payer system, which in this country will even struggle to keep health care costs down because hospitals charge so much, drug companies charge so much, doctors get paid so much, etc.  Trump’s plan has been compared to all three current Republican plans in congress and his actually does worst than all three at reducing cost and expanding care. 

Job creation:

This is really what people elected him for.  I am not sure how serious he is about this.  I am sure he would like to create jobs and he boasts about the thousands here and the thousands there that he says he saved from moving to Mexico.  But job creation needs to happen in the millions.  If he is serious about creating jobs why not invest in renewable energy?  If he is serious about creating jobs why increase military spending while slashing the budget elsewhere.  Dollar for dollar, military spending is the worst possible place to spend the government’s money as far as job creation is concerned.  His attack on NAFTA and other trade deals will have winners and losers.  Many jobs could be lost.  For instance Mexico is the biggest foreign purchaser of US dairy products and without NAFTA it could be that dairy from places like New Zealand would be cheaper for Mexico to buy, costing US dairy farms billions of dollars.  I was against NAFTA but repealing it now is not necessarily beneficial to our economy.  And our country has been adding jobs under Obama (and decreasing illegal immigration) so he does not really need to do much to claim job growth.  But what kinds of jobs are we talking about.  The struggle of the working class comes more from low wages and underemployment (part time work) than unemployment.  By the people Trump has chosen to lead the economy and department of labor I have little hope he is going to create living wage jobs for people. 

His nominees: 

Trump has complained that he can’t get his cabinet confirmed.  He is the one who chose controversial people for every cabinet post, of course the confirmation for these people will not be smooth.  Also many of them had not filled out their conflict of interest documents and other items needed for vetting on time.  And some are pulling out due to conflicts of interest, others have turned down the position. 

  I have blogged about them before.  Putting an enemy of public education in charge of the Department of Education, a Wall Street banker who enriched himself while earning the nickname the ‘Foreclosure King” as Treasury Secretary, a fast food CEO charged with labor and safety violations in charge of the Department of Labor, someone with a history of suing the EPA in charge of the EPA, someone who once said he would get rid of the Department of Energy in charge of the Department of Energy, and someone who has fought against civil rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, gay rights, in charge of the Department of Justice – well I suppose this is Trump’s prerogative and elections have consequences.  Not much we can do but speak out against them, hope they surprise us, and if they don’t, say I told you so, and hope people are paying attention and vote differently next time! 

Sure seems like Trump’s goal is to dismantle the very parts of the government that are meant to protect the people from the corporate quest for making as much money as possible.  If I give Trump the benefit of the doubt I would think that perhaps these people who seem critical of the very departments they are in charge of, will be the right people to find ways to scale back the bureaucracies that have built up over time.  Of course I would trust them to do this more if I believed they believe in the mission of their departments. 

“Immigration Ban” – I watched a conservative blogger talk about how great this was and how Trump executed it perfectly and how it was such a common sense thing and how Obama made the list of countries so why are liberals all whining about it and the liberals are just still upset they lost the election and that is the only reason they are in the street protesting.   This demonstrates how we can live in two different realities, because I see it all just the opposite.  Obama made the list and probably increased the vetting process for these countries.  Nothing wrong with that and that is not what Trump did.  If Trump had said he is halting issuing NEW visas until his admin can review the vetting process I would not complain.  But the way he did this, overnight stopping anyone from coming who is not a citizen, was just stupid.  Green card holders could not return home after visiting family or going on a business trip.  People who had visas issued after years of vetting, could not be reunited with their families.  Something like 100,000 visas were revoked.  And all this in the name of making us safer.  Ironically it was more likely to make us less safe.  The bad publicity this gave us was the perfect recruiting tool for ISIS.  It also showed a total lack of understanding of the terrorist threat.  The vast majority of terrorist attacks here at home have been from US citizens who have been radicalized via the internet – not affected by this ban.  Look at the backlash from US corporations who have said this will hurt the economy and make it less likely for tech companies to start businesses here in the US or US diplomats, past bipartisan cabinet officials, and State Department officials who have said this makes us less safe.  This was amateur time in the White House.  And to justify it Trump and his team continue to make up lies.  (ie: Bowling Green Massacre)  And Trump says the media is covering up and failing to report terrorist attacks to downplay the threat!  What?  His list of underreported events included attacks overseas that did not even kill anyone to San Bernardino, which was clearly heavily reported on.  Alternate reality.  His list was also exclusively attacks by Muslims on non-Muslims.  Clearly a list created to stoke fear of a particular group of people. 

Supreme Court:  again, this is one of those consequences from the election.  Trump made public a list of conservative judges vetted by the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society – and he was elected and now chose someone from that list.  Gorsuch, while not the worst on the list, is certainly (if he sticks to his past record) going to swing the court in favor of corporate rights over human rights.  We are just gonna have to suck this up.  I strongly believe we would be better off if Presidents would nominate Judges from the center of the ideological spectrum, rather than the fringes.  Obama tried to do this a year ago by nominating Garland and the Republicans played politics with that appointment and won.  This is a consequence of the election that will last decades.  Shame on the Democrats for not making it a bigger issue during the campaign. 

Voter Fraud:  More alternative facts from the team Trump on this one.  3 – 5 million illegal voters in the last election with no proof of a single one.  Trump came up with a list of voter rolls that have people who should not be registered, like people registered in two states. (turns out half his family were registered twice – classic).  Again – if he had said he wants to improve the voter rolls, great, claiming that there is widespread voter fraud – not true.  Just this weekend a Trump surrogate was repeating the false claim that voters were bussed across state lines to vote twice.  Of course widespread voter fraud has been a claim made by republicans for ages and has been used to pass stricter voting laws like voter ID laws.   So I would expect that when Trump comes out with his report on the topic that he will recommend making it more difficult for people to vote, because we know this affects poor voters more than wealthy voters.  Everyone from Federal Judges to Republican politicians have called these voter ID laws out for what they are – clearly intended to suppress the vote with no evidence of a problem they are trying to solve.  In fact in Texas the voter ID laws were ruled unconstitutional by federal judges.  Texas appealed and not Jeff Sessions is dropping the fed’s case so even though they won, looks like the law may be allowed to stand, no surprise considering Sessions’ record on the issue. 

Deregulation:    Trump says he will get rid of 80% of regulations because ‘none of them do any good’.  That is just crazy talk.  I am sure there are lots that are poorly written or obsolete.  I could get behind an honest look at reducing regulation.  Maybe start by cutting them by 20%.  Trump wants to allow corporations, which by definition have no moral compass because they are mandated to maximize profit, to be able to make as much money as possible.  That is Trump’s world view.   This increases income inequality and is exactly the system people thought they were voting against.   

   The regulations he is attacking first – regulations on the fossil fuel industry (because they have such a hard time making a profit) and the banking industry.  He plans to repeal Dodd Frank, which was meant to prevent the risky behavior banks take that caused the Great Recession of 2008 and the Great Depression.  When banks take risks, they maximize profit for their CEOs and then when the banks fail, the taxpayers bail them out while the working class gets screwed.  While Dodd Frank could be tweaked to help smaller banks it is a common sense and important regulation.  Repealing it clearly increases the risk our economy could fail again. 

   I cannot see how anyone thinks the far right end of the spectrum has anything to offer the working class.  They govern for the corporate class, the 1%.  Deregulation is the goal so corporations and the people running them, can make as much profit as possible while not having to suffer under ‘burdensome’ rules intended to protect the environment or workers.

  Funny thing is, many of these regulations actually create more jobs.  Let’s say you require coal plants to install new air scrubbers or to take extra precautions with their coal ash disposal.  These steps cost the company more money because they need to hire more people to do the extra work.  That could mean less profit for the corporation or higher electricity prices, but we should pay more for dirty energy and if we really want to create jobs we need more money being spent and less going into the Swiss bank accounts of the CEOs.