So here we are, with DJ Trump our President Elect. At no point I thought he would make it to the White House, and clearly I was wrong. I was wrong from the moment I watched him call Mexican “rapists” from the elevator in Trump Tower to the night of Election Day. But after thinking about it, it’s not much that I was wrong about the man. No, I think I was wrong about the situation of the people of America.
Long before November 8th, I understood that Hillary had a serious issue of popularity. I was a supporter of Bernie Sanders, but switching my support to Hillary was a given to me. My reasons? Well, the alternative looked just impossible, and Hillary looked well qualified for the job and infinitely smarter than the other contenders. Sure, I thought she would be too cozy with Wall Street. Maybe she would be too hawkish too, but at no point I looked at her thinking she’s batshit crazy, or ignorant, or a con. Because of that, I missed the signals that were yet sent by many around me, at my work place, or at the restaurant or in my social media circle.
I remember on the day Trump was nominated as the Republican candidate at the Convention, a friend posted on Facebook the image of Ace Ventura with one javelin planted in each thigh. It was a way to state that he wasleft with terrible Presidential candidates. I laughed but I did not really understand because whatever anyone could blame Clinton for, the guy on the right looked 100 times worse. I should have paid more attention to this mistrust of her because right or wrong the discussions about Clinton and how horrible she is did not lack. They came up again and again and again, particularly from white folks and not just from Conservatives.
Yet, ten days after the election, I still have difficulties wrapping my mind around the fact that Americans have picked the cartoonish con man over the experienced woman. But, I may have begun to see something that I neglected or that I tended to brush aside: A lot of white folks feel disenfranchised.
The call for a rupture in the political system is the same on the left and the right. We had Bernie, and unfortunately they had Donald. The thing that is horrifying is that the issues with the ever shrinking middleclass and the loss of perspectives in life by a growing section of our society is seen as a zero-sum game on many who drifted to the right. They see the Democrat’s focus on helping the weakest members in our society as being about minorities only: the black, the gay, the immigrant, the Muslim… This is how “Black Lives Matters” sounds to many like “Only Black Lives Matters”. In other words, we have failed reaching out to a big share of the population: the disenfranchised Whites. By not talking with them we did let the Rush Limbaughs of the world speak to them and all we did is call them crazy or racist.
We need to fix that because things can turn very bad very quickly. Today, my views of a Trump presidency are pretty dark. I don’t think he will be a dictator a la Hitler. Sure he holds racists views, but is he the kind of guy to setup gas chambers? No, I really don’t think so. Although there is a chance that part of his motivation is about bringing whites back to the front of the bus, I still think that he mostly looks for himself: his interest, his money and his huge ego.
But he has no idea what he stepped in. His lack of preparedness, his intellectual laziness and his ego means he will fail us big time. To be honest, history shows that he failed every project he undertook. Well, in fact Trump has been successful at one thing: convincing people that he is a successful man. Time after time after time, he got people to trust him with their money and he ended up running away with it. This time, he had 60+ million people to entrust him with their nation and it will hurt pretty hard.
How will it hurt?
Maybe the least important pain will come from his temperament. What we’ve seen for the past year and a half is what we will have for the next four years. He will poison the airwaves and the social media with his rants and bursts. You have to have the thickest of the skins to be President because not everyone will admire you and kiss your feet. He’s not in charge yet that he’s already started complaining about the Hamilton musical because they reminded his VP that America is diverse. Now, imagine when he’ll be in the White House with real conflicts at all levels. If you thought that the disgusting campaign is over, you’re in for a big disappointment.
One notch up in the pain scale will come from scandals that will surround this administration. The Obama administration was amazing by the absence of scandals. This is over. Trump may be impeached at some point but before that happens he will end up in a lot of legal and political fights that will consume most of his time and make the rounds of the news days in and days out. It is possible that his sex addiction is toned down given that he is 70 now. So, there will probably be no sex scandals. But on the moeny side, it’s a different topic. We should never forget that he did not release his tax returns and if he’s hiding them, it must be for the same reasons that he’s not letting anyone but his family to run his businesses. I’m sure that he has more skeletons in his closets in the Trump Tower than there are in the Catacombs of Paris. Everyone points at conflicts of interests although he is not yet in the White House. There is no way he was not advised to put it all in a blind trust. Yet, he’s taking a chance with it. So, I’d bet that Trumps businesses are so ugly that he has no choices but risk being sued for conflicts of interest. Now that he is the President Elect, you can bet that political enemies are digging to bring those skeletons out to light. He will attempt to use his new found powers to put a lid on all the stories that may pop out and doing so break more laws. Clinton, Bush and even Nixon scandals will soon sound like bedtime stories for toddlers.
Another notch up in the pain will be about foreign affairs. There are many people around the world that are very smart and who already know how to play him. Just think Putin who may have already legal material against him. That’s the way he functions. Trump may put this nation into useless conflicts and possibly wars the way Bush did. I would be scared to be in the military right now, particularly knowing that decisions the president will make will not be thought strategically but only tactically or even impulsively, and that if/when things turn south, he will blame the soldiers on the field for the failures.
Finally, the biggest pain will be about the economy. We have a conservative federal government now. You’ve seen Kansas? Trickle-down economics hurt because it helps suck the wealth out of the middle class. Tax money does not feed the fire in a stove in the White House. Tax money ends up in road projects, in schools, in the police and the army, or also in science and technology projects that boost start-ups. In the end, the money from tax is injected into Main Street. We know by now that cutting tax on the wealthy only help CEOs and big shareholders to put the generated wealth in Wall Street so to buy the same amount of stocks with more money. Sure they’re happy as it inflates the value of the stocks they own, but the underlying economy can only grow if that money goes into the hand of consumers. Without consumers, the demand leg of the economy drags behind and the nation lumps. That’s what happened in Kansas and that’s where we’re headed: A dragging economy. But this is not the end of the story. They also plan on cutting services. It is not much different than increasing taxes on the middle class and it will have ripple effects. Take Obamacare as an example. There are 22million consumers (7% of US population) on the exchanges. Remove 7% of the population from the market place and you have a heavily depressed market. First, the insurance companies will have the choice between going belly up and recouping their losses on the rest of the population. So, everyone will see an increase in insurance premium and a decrease in services. We’ll be going back to the death spiral of cost increase causing a decrease in consumer pool causing a bigger increase of cost. Is that it? Obviously not, the insured are also consumers of medical services. The whole medical industry also will also see a drop in consumers. The medical industry is a rather leveraged one. Medical facilities are expensive. They are not bought cash. Even the Medical Doctor is not trained without borrowed money. A brutal end to Obamacare can cause a disruption in the whole healthcare industry that can have ripple effects all the way to the student loan industry: the other big bubble.
I have no doubt that the Trump presidency will be painful. Yet, I know that he will fight. He will fight hard and with no shame to save his ego and his ego only. This is what Steve Bannon is there for: Trump needs a chief of propaganda for his survival and he knows it already.