Rolling Stone just published “Trump’s Presidency Is Shaping Up to Be an American Tragedy“.
Want more bad news? Trump has appointed more big money donors to his administration than any president in history. The presidency has been bought. Trump made a big deal complaining that Hillary Clinton met with donors to the Clinton Foundation, but Trump just gave a cabinet post to the largest donor to his (fake) foundation.
I have to admit that I’ve been pretty depressed the last few days over what is about to happen to our government. However, the thing that is depressing me the most is a report that the American people are falling for this con man, hook, line and sinker.
Trump announces that he is saving over a thousand jobs in Ohio. Never mind the fact that he totally exaggerated the number, and that they bribed the company (Carrier) with millions of dollars of corporate welfare. Or that now plenty of other companies can threaten to send jobs to other countries in order to cash in. Heck, even Sarah Palin attacked Trump’s ploy as being “crony capitalism”. Not to mention real conservatives, including the Wall Street Journal. So you might think this ploy would flop.
The depressing thing is that it worked. According to a new poll “Trump’s Carrier deal is wildly popular”. Sixty percent of Americans say their opinion of Trump went up because of the deal. Yes, that includes a bunch of Democrats.
As Electoral Vote points out, this is governance by photo op. Trump posts a photo of him shaking hands with some CEO with a big headline about him saving jobs, and we fall for it.
So what’s next? Convincing people that it is a good thing to cancel Obamacare? Or after that, canceling Medicare and Social Security? Or that warmer climate is a good thing? Or that making us more dependent on oil make sense? Will we fall for those things too?
We are being played for fools. Unfortunately, we are acting like fools.
10 Comments
The American public is so brainwashed that I can’t see there is any turning back. “Pizzagate” and all the other false stories. APnews is spending its time debunking the false stories but the Proletariat want to believe in these things. The ‘Po white trash want to have an excuse to go out and shoot blacks and muslims.
It is now all right for the police to break in the wrong house, have a gun pointed at them and murder a 63 year old man protecting his house. The police were exonerated for this.
In the last ten years so many stories have come out be the Holocaust survivers passed down to people who put them in print. So similar to what is happening now.
The moral fabric of the country is gone with the conservatives supporting the amoral. That makes perfect sense.
what do you mean by “Convincing people that it is a good thing to cancel Obamacare?”. Many of us were against it anyways, regardless if Trump existed or not. Even Bill Clinton recently called it most stupid thing (or something to that effect)
I can see it is too late then. 🙁
My Grandparents died in Aushwitz and my mother survived and came to the States. She remembered many things from her childhood growing up in Prague and Budapest. I remember her discussing the impact of the blatant propaganda by the Nazis. No matter what the facts were, a majority of the population believed every word they heard or read. She gave examples of how members of the military, uneducated farmers and some corporate executives were quickly elevated to positions of authority if they pledged an oath of allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi Party. They were filled with hate, anger, resentment and an attitude that they had been passed over. Sounds familiar? Wish we could learn from our past mistakes and bring true and positive change.
Iron Knee, I hope there is wifi in Trump’s concentration camps for muslims, so I can read this blog and criticize Obamacare from there. (irony?)
hassan you have the right to criticise ACA. It was a compromise. To me it is so simple. Baby born, gets health care card with social security number. Once the parents file a tax return health care premiums are based on income just like Medicare does. Until the child is 26. Anyone who has income so low a return is not filed gets free health care. The rich help the poor, duh. and private care insurance stays available for those who want it.
Or to paraphrase a recent Borowitz Report: Trump saves hundreds of Carrier jobs by threatening company with huge bribes.
Trump is in for a hard lesson in global macroeconomics if he thinks he can grow the economy (AND the military), let alone reduce the national debt, with threats of international tariffs and massive tax cuts for the rich.
But with the latest revelations from the CIA that Russia meddled in the election with its hacking of the DNC and Podesta’s emails, publicized compliments of Wikileaks (anyone notice? their silence since the election is deafening!), it’ll be interesting to see how Republicans in Congress will react to the forthcoming policies and behavior coming from the Trump White House that may appear to appease or even favor Putin, Inc. On the one hand, they could try to cover up or flat out deny any national conflicts of interest that may ostensibly arise, blaming the media for anything fishy they may uncover (shoot the messenger) to maintain party unity and power over patriotism (which they excel at feigning). OTOH, if the ruse becomes too obvious and begins to negatively affect the brand or national security, they could decide to cut their losses, play dumb and let Trump hoist himself on his own petard in order to salvage what little moral fiber they have left and hope it plays out to their ultimate advantage. It’s unlikely they’ll passively allow Trump to take the party, let alone the country, down with him if and when it comes to that. We’ll soon see, but the whole Russian/Wikileaks fiasco may well be this admin’s international Watergate. Our democracy, under siege from within for years, now appears to be from abroad as well.
Hassan – we’re all aware of the shortcomings of Obamacare (I’ve recoiled at the premium hikes the last couple years myself), but Repos will have a hard time simply repealing it without pissing off a major segment of their own base, millions of whom have been able to finally acquire at least some semblance of coverage with graded subsidies and despite pre-existing conditions. Unless I missed something, I’ve yet to see them put anything in detail on the table to replace it. To date their healthcare plan basically appears to be “don’t get sick but if you do, die quick”.
Ebdoug – right on! Until single payer is the law of the land and market pricing becomes more transparent, with sensible regulations that prohibit excessive profiteering and favors outcomes over fee-for-service, healthcare will continue to be a drain on the larger economy, our global competitiveness, and a crippling drag on the middle and lower classes.
There is another scam about health care people don’t seem to recognize. “come back in a year” (so I(the Dr.) can depend on your insurance money to buy my fancy toys)I had an accident in May. Led to tests that found things wrong with me I didn’t know I had. One was an enlarged Thyroid. I see an ENT: “You don’t have cancer in your thyroid, but every year I want you to have an ultrasound, then come see me a week later.” “What?” I doubt it.
I have asthma. I can get an inhalator for albuterol $100 (probably much more than that now) or pay $50 for a nebulizer that lasts for life, no insurance for the albuterol in the nebulizer which now costs me three cents a day out of pocket to treat my asthma. Doctors don’t mention that.
Or $1500 medicine to taper off the steroids I was on causing basal cell. Instead when I have an asthma attack I take Prednisone $4.80 for twenty pills which last longer than the attack.
I dropped Medicare D as I don’t approve of not knowing the cost of meds. I have a baby “D” in case I get in trouble.
Besides paying for the insurance for the baby “D” plan, I’ve paid out $60 out of pocket for meds with no insurance reimbursement for the year 2016. Not playing their games. Luckily I have a solid medical background.
Unfortunately with all the tests, insurance paid $4000 which was a small amount more than I paid for the insurance. With knowledge and realizing we are being scammed by doctors we could keep down the costs of medical care.
Many more stories I could relate. My favorite was seeing a urologist and waiting for him to tell me to “come back in a year” only to be told “You don’t have to come back in a year, I have enough money.”
Agree about obamacare. That blows. The healthcare plan before we had was a yugely better. Forget that it covered you despite having pre-existing conditions, covered your kids etc. I read on all the websites that its terrible and these websites have to be accurate.So lets get rid of ocare. Hey some of us may lose healthcare coverage and we may not be able to get healthcare again once its repealed if we have pre-existing conditions. But I hear Ocare is terrible so it has to go.Completelely. Repeal!