At least Trump’s first presidency was relatively unremarkable. There was usually an experienced adult available to curb his excesses, someone to ‘socialise’ his decisions, and keep him within what were always elastic guidelines. America seems to have always needed a modicum of decency in its presidents, or if not decency, the ability to feel shame and the fear of being shamed. Trump has neither, but he was prepared to listen, probably because he was new to ‘the game’ of politics. He wasn’t sure of what he could get away with. Mike Pence, for all his slavish devotion to Trump, and his mealy-mouthed religiosity, believed in the fundamentals of democracy. When Trump finally challenged him, on January 6, 2020 Pence did the adult thing, and held Trump off. Imagine if Trump had indeed stolen that election - there would have been an insurrection from the other side, because not even MAGA wanted a civil war, and stealing an election is really criminal, and insulting to all voters, not to mention the fact that it upends hundreds of years of democracy. Why is his second term different?Trump spent the intervening years searching for a band of degenerate fascists, many of whom were without a shred of pride, decency or a conscience, so that he could elevate them to cabinet. Obviously he wanted no more adults in the room, and it is clear from watching television footage of cabinet meetings that their qualifications were not just blind loyalty, but an obsequious and sycophantic mindset. Behind a veil of secrecy he had a band of so-called ‘policy wonks’, feverishly working on ways to essentially dismantle the state of the union, to destroy America’s reputation internationally, and to allow the poor and the less privileged to suffer. This has already happened. Across all programs, from soup kitchens in Sudan, to AIDS sufferers in Africa, to the closure of rural hospitals in the U.S. and the demonisation of vaccines, his policy advisors seemingly set out a plan to degrade the working class, to allow the return of infectious diseases, to limit food aid, and to close the Education Department. The balancing of the budget then required that the cuts made in services to the public should be re-directed to tax cuts for the obscenely rich. This seems to be feeding into a future whereby he thinks that the rich, including himself, will live in a gated country, keeping out the poor and the non-white, and somehow get the poor whites to take on the jobs that Mexican and South American migrants now do. That would be jobs like childcare, harvesting fresh food, running banks and scientific institutes, universities and all the other important jobs they do. These policy advisors do need to get out more. They seem to live in the late 1940s, where all the power resided in white elite society, and non-white people were seen and not heard. Of course he doesn’t like wind turbines, so he removed funding for them. It is hard to watch, but all these thousand cuts have placed America on a slow boat to oblivion. He has closed research institutes, he has purposely sabotaged renewable energy projects, he has wasted valuable time reducing fossil fuel use, and he has left leadership in these areas to China. He reminds me of a teenager being given the car-keys, with no idea of any of the vehicle’s functions other than the accelerator. No brakes? Not for this little white duck. No indicators? No. Certainly no reverse gear! Although the legacy media tries to present an objective, even handed approach to its reporting, all it does is to embolden Trump, and his followers. The media bend over backwards trying to “sanewash” the use of the excavator Trump is using on civilisation, and its advances over the last eighty years. It is not a spade he is using. He really is undermining society worldwide, and his particular blindspot is the harm he is doing, and the difficulty in reversing his adolescent harm. Like conservationists say, there is no ‘Planet B’. There is also no way authoritarian governments hand back their power without the use of force. There is no way that America’s bastardised form of Christianity and its evangelical followers will allow women to re-assert control over their own bodies. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube - but we can limit the harm. If we do not want another Great Depression we need Trump removed; If we do not want societal collapse, we need to remove Trump; If we do not want another World War, we need to remove Trump. Americans are the only solution to this urgent problem. They have to remove Trump, or the rest of us will surely decline, as his nation turns back the clock. Some of the harm he is doing is existential, and it is hard to believe that the rest of the world was so naive as to allow America to wield the power it does, with such an unsophistocated set of guardrails. They must stop him somehow, and if it can’t be done in this year’s mid-terms, then a serious insurrection looks to be on the cards. Americans’ patriotism must bow to common sense and a pragmatic desire for a world which is livable, and not ruled by an egotistical toddler with no sense of consequences. Exhaustion with Trump? More like existential terror! You're currently a free subscriber to Ask Bucko’s Substack. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
|
Wednesday, 11 February 2026
Suffering from Trump Exhaustion Syndrome?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Mindfulness For Neurodivergent Minds
The Mindfully Divergent Program ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
-
Dear Reader, To read this week's post, click here: https://teachingtenets.wordpress.com/2025/07/02/aphorism-24-take-care-of-your-teach...
-
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: AOM 2025 PDW ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
No comments:
Post a Comment