New Leadership

Someone, Steve Benen on The MaddowBlog, wrote an article about how Trump’s ignorance on health care could have real consequences. And, how we might use it as yet another example about Trump we might laugh at.

When I read the article, I thought, “surely you jest. His ignorance on health care is accompanied by his ignorance about dozens of vital policy issues of national and global significance.”

Yes, it is sadly true that we laugh at Trump a lot. Our bank of comedians have been having a field day over the past 6-9 months. But even they, in between telling jokes about the Drumpf, are throwing up out of sight of the cameras. Laughing at him is all we can do at the moment, aside from “Resist”, which hopefully many are in fact doing.

He is so ignorant on so many subjects that all I can think about is mushroom clouds appearing over the horizon. He and his colleagues are bent on killing people with their health care bill. But he may well kill even more should he decide that he really prefers war to discussion. In North Korea, in Syria, in almost anything that affects Russia, he poses a threat to humankind.  Make no mistake, Trump is potentially a murderous tyrant, and he is amply supported by the likes of Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, et al.  I realize they don’t think of themselves that way. They just want to “get the government off the backs of the American people”.  By that, they really mean that they want to stop using tax dollars for almost anything short of war. They want to return most of the tax dollars currently paid in by their rich owners and get the rest of the war machine paid for by the middle and lower classes.

Trump seems not to know that the so-called health care bill is in fact a giant ATM machine intended to give the 1% much of their money back.  But he really seems not to know anything. He can’t/won’t read, remember?  People who brief him have to speak at the level third graders might understand.  So he is a problem across the board—on almost any subject of importance.

But that is what keeps us focused on our ignorant President. He is such a convenient target of scorn and humor. And we prattle on about impeaching him, as though that would solve all of our problems. We have Nixon on our minds. But who is standing behind Trump? Mike Pence. And Mike would not ease our concerns; in fact he might exacerbate them.  He is, if anything, to the right of Attilla the Hun.  And then there is Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan. The lineup ready to move Stage Front is large and terrifying.

But it is not just who might replace the Drumpf that is the issue. The central problem is that we no longer have anyone responsible left in the Halls of Congress who will stand up for the people. Republicans seem no longer to care about the American people, about the Constitution, about our Nation as a whole. They just do not care.  And that is our problem.

How we arrived at such a tragic juncture is a subject of much debate, beginning with the tragi-comedy that goes by the name of the Democratic Party. Whenever I see Nancy Pelosi in print, I am drawn to this thought—“the sky is falling. Send me $5.” Nancy seriously needs to move off the stage. And we railed a lot about that national conspiracy of money that did in Hillary during the election. But, to be fair, Hillary did herself in. She ran a terrible campaign and then blamed it on Trump and Comey. Yes, they did their part, but she was the mistress of her own fate. Hillary also needs to move off the stage.

Then we need to decide whether there is a serious political party left. Bernie shredded the middle and left of the party. I will ignore The Greenies. They had an effect surely, but they have as much right to the stage as anyone else.

We need responsible leadership, vaguely in the middle of the political spectrum, folks who can speak to both the left and to the right (ignoring Ryan of course, because he apparently only speaks to God).

But I still do not seen anyone that speaks to that role. Elizabeth Warren . . . Kirsten Gillibrand, maybe. It is surely way past time an intelligent woman takes that center stage, even if Hillary was not that woman. But we seem to have become a nation of small-minded people, more interested in money than ideas. That needs to change, or we are doomed as a nation. We are now slipping down the hill towards second world status.  Is there anyone out there who cares enough to arrest our decline? I hope, but am no longer optimistic.

Think people, think. If the men of America are failing us, now is the time for our Women to move into the spotlight and assume their rightful place.