Noted economist, Berkeley and former Harvard professor, Labor Secretary under President Clinton and member of by the Ford and Carter administration Robert Bernard Reich is a true progressive without any doubt. As Labor Secretary he presided over one of the greatest job booms during any single American presidency ultimately netting over 25 Million jobs.
When he speaks, as he did in this Facebook post on Thursday, progressive as well as not-yet-ready to roll over dirty fucking hippie liberals, should listen up.
Tomorrow, Donald Trump becomes president. This is a sickening event in the history of the United States, a tragedy for America and the world, and a victory for hatefulness, racism, misogyny, and authoritarianism.
Tomorrow we say farewell to the first African-American President —a man of decency, integrity, and dignity — and turn the national reigns over to a thin-skinned, vindictive, impulsive, sociopath. Trump is a conman and bully who is ignorant about democracy and disdainful of its basic institutions. He lies constantly. He has cheated his customers, investors, and contractors. His countless tweets and stream-of-consciousness statements at his rallies reveal a nasty, greedy, mendacious, bigoted human being, with a level of egotism and narcissism rare even among politicians and celebrities.
Trump fueled his campaign with the sense of dispossession and anxiety found among millions of voters—most of them white – many of whom voted for him because they thought he would carry their resentments and fury to the nation’s capital, and make our political economic system work for them instead of the privileged few. Some say Trump rose on racism. But racism has been with us since the founding of the nation. Trump rose on downward mobility and economic fears, which allowed him to exploit racism and as well as fears of foreigners and Mexican immigrants, Islamophobia, and the rest of his hateful arsenal.
I have to say I don’t think he’s wrong. This is going to be one big bowl of suck sauce.
It’s the end of an era. The end of the elegant Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. A erudite man of impeccable class, manners, depth, understanding, compassion, strength, iron will and boundless faith in a capacity of America to endure and improve.
Donald John Trump is none of those.
In the words of former W Bush staffer David Frum, he’s the “worse human ever” to be President, worse than “all the slave holding Presidents.”
George W. Bush’s former speechwriter and Senior Editor of the Atlantic took to Twitter on Friday morning to express his concern over Donald Trump’s impending administration. Just hours ahead of Friday’s inauguration ceremonies, Frum called Trump the “the worst human being ever to enter the presidency.”
He added, “and I include all the slaveholders.” In a follow up tweet, the former Bush staffer wrote, “Andrew Jackson was at least physically brave.” Frum served the Bush administration from 2000 to 2002 as a speechwriter for the president.
Again, I have to concur.
On top of the allegations of his collusion with Russian Intelligence during the election and the improper interference by he FBI — and that as of today the NSA reveals that they intercepted communications between three members of Trump campaign staff and Russia — Don Trump truly is a terrible human being. A small, petty, vindictive, ignorant, bigoted shitheel of a man. He is morally and ethically unfit to be President.
By 12:01 on Inauguration Day he’ll already be in knowing violation of the Constitution Emoluments clause because of his continued ownership of his DC Hotel and any revenues he receives from Foreign sources, even if he does choose to donate that money to the treasury. [As if he’s really going to make that donation, let alone reveal his tax returns so those donation can be verified.]
Today is a terrible day. Not only because it will see the end of the Presidency of such grace, but also because he will be replace by one of complete gracelessness.
Still I am encouraged, and I remain hopeful.
I believe that Trump is so truly awful that the main thing he will do is unite and super-charge the force aligned against all that he stands for. He is threatening to gut the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities — which has helped generate such staples as the Sundance Film Festival --- efforts which have for decades promoted access to the arts not just by and force the monied class, but also for the disadvantaged and those in need.
He doesn’t understand that there are limits and dangers to a nation driven entirely by the motive of personal profit. That there are huge gaps in private funding of philanthropy. That America is more than the size of our collective paychecks. That even though it can be a powerful motivator at times, that Greed is not, always good. Even his few good ideas, like rebuilding our infrastructure, is merely a bait and switch scam.
His election puts the last centuries gains in women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, religious rights, civil rights at grave and serious risk, many of us who were at least half way conscious during this election know this. He is a direct threat to the liberty and life of far more in this nation and abroad, than the minority of Americans who placed him in office.
I do now, at last, understand the fervency of the Tea Party movement that hounded, harassed and impeded the efforts of Barack Obama. They did so based on invalid and untrue delusions and deceptions. That Obama was secretly born in Kenya, that he was an Arab, or a Muslim, or a Communist, a Socialist and in some way anti-American. Or simply that he was a Liberal, which he was not.
The difference is that when we say that Donald Trump is petty, tyrannical, authoritarian, clueless punk and also quite possibly a traitor and a crook that’s not imaginary, it’s merely a description of exactly how he's behaved during and since the election. That’s how he’s reacted to John Lewis, Meryl Streep, Kazir Khan and his family, Judge Curiel, Alicia Machado, the dozen women who accused him of sexual assault, the intelligence community, Mexicans, Muslims, black people who he discriminated against in his father’s buildings, illegal immigrants he employed to build Trump Tower, refurbished his DC hotel, worked at his modeling agency and every American he doesn’t believe is American enough for him. There is every indication that that is exactly the kind of President he will be despite his clearly fake, insincere and insufficient peans to “bringing us all together.”
The Tea Party crowd wanted to Impeach Obama of things like “Death Panels” that weren’t even real, our opposition to Trump is based on cold, hard facts and reality.
He’s already confirmed and sunk far below our worst expectations. And frankly his cabinet is even worse as so many of them are totally unqualified and completely unfit for the jobs they are being asked to perform. I believe we’re about to witness a giant version of the CBS show “Undercover Boss” which features the CEO, CFO and various “masters of their own universe” working at front line positions inside their own company and time after timer after time they can’t do the job.
It’s actually rare that their arrogant incompetence doesn’t get them fired before the episode is over. Yet they continue to think it’s all about them.
"I guess my feeling is that he’s right," Zell said when asked by Bloomberg's Betty Liu how he felt about Perkins' stance. "The 1 percent are being pummeled because it’s politically convenient to do so."
Zell then said the problem is that all non-rich are just jealous that they don't have the same work ethic that the country's wealthiest do.
"The problem is that the world and this country should not talk about envy of the 1 percent. It should talk about emulating the 1 percent," he said. "The 1 percent work harder. The 1 percent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society.
As I have previous said in response to Zell.
Suppose there were a way to test this theory? Suppose we had the opportunity to see exactly how well the 1 Percenters do when confronted with the level of work day-to-day that the non-rich have to deal with? Perhaps we could put the experience on Camera, and broadcast it to the world in Primetime? Certainly, if Mr. Zell is correct, since the average member of the 1% earns approximately 1000 times what everyone else earns, we should be able to see that they are clearly are accustomed to working 1000 Times as Hard, so if they had to spend a day or a week doing what the "little people" do - it should be a Snap. It should be a walk in the park. A Breeze. They should be able to catch up on their sleep in the process.
[But it’s not.]
..
It's simply not the case that the 1% have suddenly started working 200 Times harder than everyone else. It's far more likely and logical that the brow sweat and toil from the average worker is increasingly filling the pockets of the rich, rather than it enriching their own lives.
This isn't "Envy" these are facts.
The reality is that the Most Hard Working People in America are actually those earning the least, with the longest hours, and the weakest benefits - maybe instead of simply picking out a few here and there to reward, various CEO's should take a cue from companies like In-N-Out Burger or Costco who pay their employees far more than their competitors because they know they deserve it rather than make excuses while trying to ring out every once of profit by keeping wages and benefits at the very rock bottom as we've seen from WalMart and more recently AOL..
Donald Trump has filled his cabinet with these people. These clueless incompetent 1 percenters. A Labor Secretary who doesn’t believe in the labor of people. An energy secretary that doesn’t know that the DOE not only manages our 7,000 nuclear warheads, it also leads our effort of block nuclear proliferation around the world.
And hence, because of his and his cabinet’s deplorableness, we are driven to remain vigilant. Driven to act. To speak out. To protest and to lobby. To push against the awful tide of bile he would rain down on America. To block and blunt his agenda of hate and fear at every turn and in every nook and corner.
I remain hopeful.
I continue to hope that the thousands of groups who have of formed under Indivisibles Guide will make a difference. That elected Democrats will continue to fight back, as they have shown during the confirmation hearings of his incoming cabinet of neo-deplorables. Democratic institutions which have grown weak, will be renewed. I have faith that America remains great, far greater than the awfulness of this man and his sallow agenda. I continue to hope we, the people, will save this nation from Trump.
There are ways to fight him.
I remain hopeful that America will not only survive the administration of Donald J. Trump...
We will fight back, and we will thrive.
My work here — like that of so many others — is voluntary. If you appreciate this article any and all support you can offer to make more and better diaries in the future would be deeply and sincerely appreciated. Thanks.