CHAOS Re-visited

It occurs to me that the mainstream Media outlets have been guilty, not of being the “enemy of the People”, so much as being the purveyors of euphemisms for dangerous times, dangerous people, and dangerous actions in high places.  It is appalling how long it takes for ducks to quack on mainstream Media.  It is upsetting to me when journalists, often the best of the best, look for phrases they can use to hide the true meaning of behaviors and actions engaged in by politicians.

Now that Donald J. Trump has been around, pretending to be President for a year and about 8 months, we need to call upon the Media, and mostly upon the captured Legislature and Judiciary, to come alive to their responsibility to defend the Constitution and to speak out clearly when things are not going well. 

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I term the failure of the Press or Media to call them as we see them!  or to use another metaphor from literature: to yell bloody murder when the emperor has no clothes!  For instance, when Ted Cruz was running to be nominated by the GOP to the office of President, little was said about his religious ‘dominion’ ideology and how that would affect his presidency.  This Blog did not shy from discussing it twice in some depth without hiding behind euphemisms (see posts for 10/13/13 and 4/12/16). 

But more to the point of this day’s blog post, I am disturbed by the fact that it has taken this long for the mainstream media to talk deeply about CHAOS in the White House and in this Trump Administration.  I discussed this before Trump was even nominated by the GOP, and the message was clear.  I spoke out about exactly what would happen if a man like Trump got elected as our next President.  We would not only face CHAOS in many different ways, we would also be losing our democracy to fascism: something everyone shied away from at the time.

So here now is that Blog resurrected, to be read in the context of today’s chaotic situation, where the “fake” president is bearing down on the de-construction he has promised over and over again.  Read it and be filled as I am with the remorse it presages:  the remorse of “I sure didn’t see that coming!”

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2016

VOTING for CHAOS?

“We’re going to make America great again,” according to Donald Trump.
First, we’ll build a wall to keep Mexicans out.  You know those wetback illegals who come across our borders and commit rapes and other crimes – they’re causing a crime wave.  We’re going to keep them out, and Trump will also get the Mexican government to pay for the wall.  We’ll protect jobs and our citizens, and America will be great again!

Second, we’re going to deport all 11,000,000 illegal aliens who are already here.  No, it doesn’t matter that some families will be split up or that many of the children in those families were born here.  They aren’t citizens of the U.S. and they don’t belong here.  We’ll kick them all out and America will be great again!

Third, we’ll put people in the Executive Branch who know what they are doing because the people who are there now don’t have a clue, says Trump. Trump claims to know how to run a business, so he will be able to make this government work for you by hiring the best people he can find.  So he starts by choosing Chris Christie to stand behind him at every possible moment and Sarah Palin as worthy of an Executive position in his administration.  Look for some more failed governors to make the list, and remember the Donald’s words: “You won’t believe how great it will be” - - government will work like it should, and America will be great again.

Fourth, we’re going to put law-breakers - like young mothers who have abortions – in private for-profit jails because we aren’t going to allow law-breaking to go unpunished, and we are going to run the prisons like businesses so they can profit from increased incarceration of people of color. 

And here are several additional important things we are going to do to make America great again: 

• Encourage people to fight back against those holding different ideas, especially the “liberal press,” women, minorities, government welfare abusers, gays, and ‘foreigners.’
•  Treat protesters like vermin and forcibly reject them; they’re nothing but free-loading hippies anyway – why don’t they just get a job! 
• Bomb enclaves of terrorists and not worry about damage and death to innocents; kill them all with atom bombs 
• Encourage the rich and their businesses to pay as little in taxes as they can arrange under current laws; use the tax system to pay as little in taxes as possible.  Be the first presidential candidate not to share tax documents. 
• Oppose the establishment in every way possible – forget about the fact that they have some experience in legislating and politicking that might be useful – government is rotten and wants to take everything we have especially our guns and our money 
• Attack groups – like Muslims, women, illegal-status immigrants and individuals when necessary-- when those attacks help your cause with other groups, without any regrets 
• Cut the taxes of the rich but oppose the raising of the minimum wage for workers 
• Never reveal anything concrete to be done; act only when it looks good for you 
• Obliterate with words and deeds every SoB that crosses Trump or doesn’t agree with him, or the Donald simply doesn’t like

It’s time to rip this phony, self-aggrandizing businessman apart.  He epitomizes the medicine man of days gone by who offered remedies that cured nothing because they never contained healing substances in the first place.  Donald Trump is a liar and a faker, and a menace to America, not the one who can or will make America great! 

Someone whom I respect a great deal, Senator Elizabeth Warren, had a few choice things to say about the BIG-MOUTH EMPTY-MINDED TRUMP in a recent speech at the annual gala for the liberal nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy, as reported by Mother Jones:

"Let's face it: Donald Trump cares about exactly one thing—Donald Trump," said the senator from Massachusetts, according to her prepared remarks. "It's time for some accountability because these statements disqualify Donald Trump from ever becoming president. The free ride is over." 

During her first tweet-storm after he secured the nomination, she said he had "built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia." During her speech Tuesday (5/24), she began by reflecting on the human toll from the foreclosure crisis and then tied it to an NBC report this week that quoted Trump, shortly before the housing market crash, saying he was "excited" for the bubble to burst since he'd make money off the misfortune it caused. 

"Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown," Warren said, "because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap."

She also zeroed in on a topic that has been growing because of frustration for Democrats (as well as for some Republicans): Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, as major presidential candidates have long done. "Maybe he's just a lousy businessman who doesn't want you to find out that he's worth a lot less money than he claims," Warren speculated. Echoing a video from her 2012 Senate campaign, Warren emphasized that "Donald Trump didn't get rich on his own." He inherited a fortune from his father, she said, and "his businesses rely on the roads and bridges the rest of us paid for. His businesses rely on workers the rest of us paid to educate and on police forces and firefighters who protect all of us and the rest of us pay to support."

Warren quoted a recent statement from Trump attacking the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, passed by Democrats to try to rein in Wall Street, for imposing too many restrictions on bankers. Trump pledged to roll back the law should he win the White House. "Donald Trump is worried about helping poor little Wall Street?" Warren said. "Let me find the world's smallest violin to play a sad, sad song.
Can Donald Trump even name three things that Dodd-Frank does? Seriously, someone ask him."

The common belief is that people with a business background are apt to be effective managers in governments.  However, it is my contention that business men or women are actually at a disadvantage in government.  They are used to operating a business by Executive order, expecting underlings to carry out their every wish.  If managers or workers don’t perform their duties as ordered, they can be fired.  In business, that usually works without a problem (given the facts of lower union membership and loss of collective bargaining rights in some states).  In a government - especially federal government – firing anybody is not an easy process. 

More important, perhaps, is the tendency of departments, offices, commissions, agencies of all kinds to have their own loyalties, their own rules, their own norms and standards, and their own milieu.  Often there is a perceived need to ‘protect’ or ‘enhance’ their unit, which leads to resistance and delay in implementing orders from POTUS.  It is the nature of the beast and is not necessarily confined to public agencies.  A business background (rather than experience with politics) can often be a disadvantage in such a situation that is loaded with political and other-than-business-like operational issues, like having to represent others fairly.

Of course, there is that labor union thing that the Donald does not take to with great enjoyment.  He doesn’t like bargaining with underlings.  Unfortunately for the Donald (and other big businessmen who have worked in the White House or in the federal bureaucracy) powerful unions exist, in addition to Civil Service rules and laws which also lay down a good number of job protections for all to obey.  One large union is the National Federation of Federal Employees considered "a key player in backing collective bargaining and appeal rights of [federal] employees." As of 2007, NFFE represented about 100,000 federal workers (Wikipedia). 

But other unions exist on the federal level meaning that different unions represent workers in different departments.  The American Federation of Government, the International Association of Machinists,  the National Treasury Employees Union  and the National Association of Government Employees (a division of the Service Employees International Union) also represent federal employees.

Trump’s modus operandi is related to his particular business background.  In some circles it would be described as a ‘cutthroat’ approach, where allies are used and enemies are abused and often obliterated.  In real estate and development, it is important to operate in such a manner – to rise to the top of the heap – because the one who grabs power gets the deals, controls circumstances and produces profit.  The latter operating principles are not necessarily the most helpful in the implementation of non-profit programs, policies and guidelines.  Nor are they helpful in terms of relationships to other countries and peoples – often described as ‘diplomacy’ which for a developer, is useful only so long as the person being ‘wooed’ is not aware of the sham and is not resistant to ‘charm.’  Otherwise, they are written off as undesirables and are abandoned by the wayside.

Trump’s background in the real estate business, and his political campaign so far, provide us with clues as to what it will be like to have him in the Oval Office.  Moreover, the experience of him so far provides clues as to what he will be doing (or NOT doing) for YOU, the voter-citizen.

Trump says that CHAOS will happen under a Clinton administration, but that is a stretch when Clinton has political savvy, legislative experience, diplomacy and executive functioning in her background while Trump has only the dictatorial model of business administration in his.  Where will that chaos show itself under Trump?

1)  Conflict with either a majority or larger plurality of Democrats in the Senate.  Trump will alienate and abuse this group if they don’t act as he directs. If any moderate non-Trump-supporter Republicans remain in the Senate, they may give him some trouble as well.  If the Speaker of the House remains a non-supporter of Trump, expect some delay on most Trump proposals in that House.

RESULTS for YOU: continued deadlock and delay in any major legislation that affects your life, among these items: minimum wage, public transportation, infrastructure, public education, health care coverage including Medicare & Medicaid.  

All of this is going to catch up with your daily life, and you will have losses and increased costs that you did not expect, mostly resulting from inattention to your needs.  However, there will be some actions and changes that become law, and thus make it into your supposedly isolated life. 

One example:  Trump wants all states to be able to pass gun carry laws that apply to all public places.  How safe will your children be in school once the Donald signs legislation for a countrywide carry bill?  Whether teachers carry or children carry or both, your children will be in danger of being shot in their classrooms and school environs. 

Example #2:  watch out for Trump trying to please Evangelicals by signing legislation that allows religious objections to health care provisions – birth control specifically – you won’t be covered in many cases.  Or, if you are a member of the LGBT community, watch out for new laws that allow discrimination against you by using religious exemptions. That particular ploy could become rather routine, so watch out for religion becoming a pawn in the attempt to curb certain actions that are now legal (like abortion) but won’t last for longer than 50 days in a new Trump administration.

Example 3: Do you like the stability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?  Well forget it.  No matter what you have heard, none of these systems is in serious funding trouble now, but the chaotic approach of Republicans will reduce each of them to a state of total vulnerability by means of SS personal accounts, Medicare vouchers and contraction of benefits when Medicaid is administered by states that can’t afford current administrative support levels.  Add to that the repeal of Obamacare and you are in the worst bind ever in terms of health care coverage.  You won’t be able to afford anything but the very basic coverage replete with co-pays, limits to overall coverage, no coverage for your young adult children, and lots of minimums and maximums that will have you in limbo financially before you know it. 

2)  A vote for Trump for President means even more Chaos in our lives.  How about war?  Don’t care much for it? But those in the appropriate age group will for certain end up in the Middle East or Asia and Africa fighting people that Donald Trump decides need a lesson in American greatness and might.  Given what he has said already about Muslims, eliminating radical Islamist groups, threatening to use atomic weapons, and standing up to China and Iran and Syria and the Caliphate, we will be at war within a year of Trump assuming control. Many will not only be asked to volunteer to risk their young lives, but I believe a draft will be restored to show that America means business because it is so great.  Then recall that war spreads its chaos at home as well as overseas.  Prices rise, shortages occur, families lose members, over-spending becomes a necessity and as a nation we become more vulnerable to the hate and disgust of other nations.  Given the belligerent attitude of Donald Trump, the chaos of War is inevitable.

3)  Another inevitable proposition: Donald Trump, if elected President, will savor the moment(s) he gets to nominate a Supreme Court Justice! He has already indicated that he will be looking for someone opposed to abortion, in favor of protecting our borders, and pro-business.  Need we say more? His first appointment will restore the conservative majority on the Court and from that base will emanate the chaos of decision after decision that will undo civil rights, long-term voter and consumer protections, equal justice for rich and poor alike, and the separation between church and state. Trump’s first appointment would come right after his inauguration (assuming that President Obama’s nomination is never considered), and then we would experience a series of decisions unseen in the history of the Court.

4)   Let us be sure to mention the chaos that will be created when this man of the Big Deal makes decisions based first on what he considers convenient, next on what is provocative, and finally on what is powerful.  In other words, Trump changes his mind on policy, principles and actions based on what is right for his image and status at the moment.  He can change from pro-life back again to pro-choice, back again to pro-life; or from punishing mothers who have abortions to punishing only doctors who perform them, back to punishing mothers again.  And, just to remind you one more time -- one more chaotic action based on a false premise of religious freedom: Abortion will be made illegal, and many people will suffer because of that, not just doctors.

5)      But finally, let us not forget the CHAOS that inevitably results from the misuse of power by those who hold government offices, especially the Presidency.  Recall, if you will, the enormous chaos caused by Nixon’s use of staff, his Attorney General, White House lawyers, his Watergate “plumbers,” surveillance by government agents, and the accusations of use of the FBI to embarrass and perhaps charge enemies with crimes.  Nixon misused the powers of his office to protect himself and to damage his enemies.  This is what we shall face if a pathological liar, a narcissist, a man who prefers to obliterate and destroy enemies, and a media-hater who favors muzzling of the press when they seek accountability from him.  If Trump gets elected this year, look out for the all-encompassing CHAOS just waiting to devour us.  

Again, the Donald can say one thing one day and something else the next day, and still think he’s being consistent and not chaotic.  Creating chaos by changing one’s policies from day-to-day simply to always be able to conclude a deal, is not how you run a government.  Certain steady principles are needed in the public sector simply because people’s lives are affected, and so is governmental functioning; no one can depend upon or determine how they stand when CHAOS reigns. 

Chaos is not an effective strategy or operational paradigm.  Chaos costs money, chaos affects lives adversely and chaos takes stability and tears it to shreds.

WE MUST SPREAD the WORD:  DO NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP!   Why vote to fill your life with the chaos of a right-wing government built on the all-too-prevalent dictatorial management style of corporate America?  It will not be to our benefit or honor, as a just and generous People who constitute and revere this freedom-loving Nation, to have it ravaged by the likes of one man placed in an office for which he is eminently unqualified. 

Remind everyone you know that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts (men like Trump) absolutely" (with apologies to Lord Acton).