The Trump Traveling Shitshow: A Progress Report

For the past couple of years, I, along with a quite a few other people, have been writing about the mess that ultra-conservatives are making of the United States.
Normally, as a Canadian, I wouldn't give two shits about what goes on down there, but the reality of the situation is that they are Canada’s largest trading partner. 70% of our trade is with the US.
We have a trade agreement with them. We have the ability to come and go more or less as we please with them. And over the years, we (meaning me and a few other people I know) have had a good deal of respect for them.
They have had their ups and downs on the world stage, mostly because of the voracious appetite of their Military Industrial Complex which is one of the cornerstones of their economy.
Yeah sure, a bunch of people make a lot of money selling weapons and aircraft and other shit to countries all over the place. But that’s capitalism, right?
Sure, they have the largest and most wide spread military presence of any country in the world. But I always felt a weird sort of comfort in that.
And sure, they have elected their share of dud politicians. But who are we Canadians to talk? We do it all the time.
And you know, I can deal with all of that. Because while it may cost more to live in a country without things like universal heath care and free post-secondary education, or whatever, America is still seen by a great many people who live there and an even larger number who don’t but would love to, as the Land of Opportunity.
Having said all that, and having had a long history of paying attention to America, I cannot for the life of me figure out how they managed to end up with the government they have just elected.

Trump Is A Genuine Prick

Donald Trump has, at least to most intelligent people, been a prick for pretty much his entire adult life. He has a chronic disease called narcissistic disorder, which means he is incapable of having a single thought that does not eventually find its way back to him…what is good for him and fuck everybody else.
Donald Trump was probably the first person to be given the designation of “Famous for Being Famous”, many years before that same moniker was awarded to Paris Hilton.
Donald Trump will tell you that he is God’s gift to women, business, entertainment and most recently politics. Of course, he will, because to Donald Trump, there is no more sterling example of a bight, shiny human being than he is.

So What Has Actually Happened?

Two words…almost nothing
Health Care: Dead in the water. They will be working on that forever and will most likely end up right back at Obamacare. And if they do manage to ram through their half-baked idea of an Obamacare replacement it will make decent health care unaffordable for millions including just about all the people who voted for Trump. That’s irony.
Safer Country: The crime rate in the US is at the lowest level in its history. Most of this decline happened under Obama. All Trump really wants to do is privatize the prison system so he can invest in it and get kickbacks from it.
Jobs: LOL.The job market is shrinking due in great part to automation. The world itself is in this same particular bind because automation is universal and what really needs to happen is a fundamental rethink of the entire concept of work. Trump, because of his narcissistic disorder is incapable of thinking about anything that would actually benefit the people he was elected to serve. He can’t help it.
So what’s really happening with Trump’s administration is nothing.
And nothing is happening because the American people have elected a president (for reasons I have yet to figure out) who is playing way out of his league.
As a result, the totally anachronistic Republican-ruled Congress and senate are having a field day, passing all kinds of laws that are essentially propelling the United States back into the dark ages.
And why are they doing this?

It's All About The Benjamins

Well, just follow the money. The lobbyists for big oil, big natural gas, big coal, big guns, big military equipment, big pharma, big technology, big automotive, big you name it, are buying favorable legislation like you and I would go into a butcher shop and buy steaks.
The American system is set up so that you no longer enter politics to serve your constituents. You enter politics to peddle your influence to whatever lobby group is interested in paying you to look favorably on the legislation they want passed.
Special interests combined with pitifully easy-to-corrupt lawmakers have created a country that that is destroying itself through the unbridled pollution these special interest industries all create in what is quickly becoming restriction-free America.
There are approximately 150 cites and towns in America, (exemplified by Flint Michigan), where the drinking water is poisoned though contamination of water tables by industrial waste dumping and fracking, and water infrastructure that has not been improved for close to a century.
Cleaning up this massive infrastructure challenge, that will eventually shorten the lives of millions of people, should be a top priority item for any US administration, but it is being completely ignored.
Countries all around the world have signed on to the Paris Accord and are making a huge commitment to reduce greenhouse gases and hopefully save the planet or at least extend its life. It is the largest unified movement in the history of the modern world.
But where is America on this key issue? They have very publicly withdrawn their support. For no reason that makes any sense other than to support the special interests that are making all their politicians rich at the expense of everybody else.

Hubris And Ineptitude

One of the biggest reasons that this administration has been so ineffective, beside the chronic ineptitude of its leader and all the allegedly “really smart” people Trump has appointed to cabinet posts, is that it has been almost completely distracted by one potential scandal after another. This week it’s major investigation, on two fronts, into Russian hacking to influence the election outcome.
So not only do you have a President who very much appears to have no clue about anything, except working his ass off to undo all the progressive heath care, social safety net, environmental and economic measures that the Obama administration had put in place, you also have a major league scandal, a totally corrupt congressional and Senate majority a major foreign power, (Vladimir Putin and his minions) interfering with the election process that put Trump in the White House.

Jeez Louise

I have been paying attention to America for quite a while now and I have honestly never seen this much chaos concentrated in one place since the Vietnam war.
But through it all, I remain not so much mystified, but disappointed in the gullibility of the American people who have hitched their wagon to this Traveling Shit Show that is the Trump administration and the Republican-dominated congress and senate, and who are either too dumb, too ignorant or too insane or too embarrassed to wake up and smell the coffee.
Sometimes you have to hit people over the head with a brick before they realize a brick can hurt.
I believe that brick will be the the new health care program that is being rammed though Congress at the moment.
This will impact the American public and a lot of American businesses in a way that should wake them up, when they realize that the cost of their coverage has gone through the roof, which the quality of their coverage has shrunk to a startling degree.
This will be compounded by a pronounced lack of job growth, growing environmental damage through fracking and water pollution from waste dumping and a marked rise in the crime rate from the economic stresses that all this insanity will add to people’s lives.
Hopefully, in the upcoming mid-term elections the people will show their anger by electing a Democratic majority that can undo a great deal of this damage and get on with the business of cleaning up America and making it part of the world community again.
But there are no guarantees in this life. Only hoping for the best and planning for the worst.
This is life in the Trump Traveling Shitshow and folks, it ain’t pretty.

Jim Murray is an op/ed blogger on beBee.com.
He is a highly experienced communications strategist, writer, art director and broadcast producer. He works primarily with small to medium sized business to help develop their brands and improve their communication.
He is also a partner at Bullet Proof where he works with Business Analyst and Project Manager, Charlene Norman.
Phone: 289 687-3475   •   Email: onandup3@gmail.com  •   Skype: jimbobmur61
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