Fixing America
Dictators and Oligarchs Won’t Do It
Too many Americans voted for the dictator for the rest of us to think nothing was wrong with our country before Trump.
At least since Nixon the anti-tax movement has been gaining momentum, increasing taxes on wage-earners in order to fund tax breaks for investment bankers, corporations and the 1% of richest Americans.
The role of global capital, run by oligarchs moving jobs out of America has left too many Americans less well off. The Democrats have moved so far to the right they have become almost Republicans-light, becoming complicit in both reducing the benefits of work and reducing the tax share of the rich. Abandonment of working and rural voters has also left many Americans behind and less well off.
Luckily after only 130 days into his presidency many voters now know they made a mistake thinking Trump would fix anything. I hope Americans have learned that dictators and oligarchs are dangerous with power. I hope Americans realize that we need to do our political work by democratic means. I hope Democrats have learned that they must defend the American people if they want us on their side!
The greatest danger to America does not come from immigrants nor from hostile nations, nor even from terrorists. The greatest danger to America is the loss of an effective Democratic message that can stand up to the Trump movement and strike against their boogeymen and false targets.
Going back at least to the Reagan era, the extreme Right has sought to define cherished American values and our government as “the problem.” Everybody on the Right wants smaller, less capable, government. This project is a cover for the true goal, to reduce/eliminate taxes and regulation.
In this 40 year project, especially under Trump, the extreme Right has co-opted and re-defined the words and symbols that had always stood for the values embedded in our Constitution and held by a majority of our people. Now under Trump all the institutions, agencies and laws (including the Constitution itself) are under attack. In a very Orwellian way words don’t mean what they used to mean.
Democrats can’t even talk about America’s highest aspirations and greatest achievements - the Trump movement, powered by wealthy, influential extremists from the Right, has and does rail against traditional American values as somehow being bad for ordinary Americans. But what these extremists are really fighting for is to enrich themselves at the expense of reducing the standard of living for all other Americans.
Those who oppose Trump, and the extremist-led Project 25 destruction of our institutions, must recover control of our language. We must re-articulate traditional core, majority American values for the current generation.
We must show clearly how an effective government is the tool of the people.
An effective government is our defense against loss of hard won freedoms that many generations of Americans have died to defend.
Our government institutions, founding documents and agencies are the defenders of rights and humanitarian support for our people.
An effective government by the people, for the people is the American people’s defense against seizure of our country by robber barons.
The danger is people-- American messed up minds and definitely BODIES. No democratic message will fix this. Today in the NYTimes is an article about a female going nuts about her health using an expensive OURA rings which TRACKS every blood marker. Guess what? She is 22 years old. Then a typical Times article about alcohol making us think that drinking wine to complement a meal is almost like swallowing lye. Then a ban on paying for soda with food stamps which is good but only if the soda is industrial strength not the calorie free since drinking an appropriate beverage with a meal -- NOT WATER-- can reduce food quantity. Re3member, we eat for pleasure. TASTE.