During the course of Donald Trump’s campaign, his slogan was to
“Make America great again”. Now this
campaign slogan was long on generality and real short on specifics, so let’s
look at the promises Donald Trump made as part of his plan to “Make America Great
Again”.
The Great Mexican Wall
To keep Mexican from streaming over the border to pillage and
plunder low wage jobs with no benefits and questionable working conditions in
this country, Donald wants to build a wall. A wall spanning the length of the
US/Mexican border. A border about twenty miles short of 2,000 miles. Now the
last time anyone tried to build a wall this long it took a few centuries and
the slave labor of millions of Chinese. Now Donald realized, if dimly, that it
was technically and logistically impossible to build a wall the whole length of
the US/Mexican border and amended the plan to a wall only 1,000 miles long,
thanks to “natural barriers”. But, that is equally infeasible, even if he could
force Mexico to pay for it. As to how this would “Make America Great Again”,
well, it wouldn’t. It would only bankrupt the US, after all, it wouldn’t do to
raise taxes on himself and his oligarch buddies to pay for this boondoggle, so
Grammie and Gramps would be eating cheap dog food because Social Security and
Medicare are gutted in a vain effort to pay for the Great Wall of Mexico. And
the rest of us, well, we’d be reduced to serfdom. So, now Donald’s Great Wall
of Mexico is reduced to about 200 miles of chain-link fence and razor wire.
That’ll “Make America Great Again”.
Repealing the Affordable
Care Act
How would stripping nearly 20 million people of their health
insurance “Make America Great Again”? The short answer is that it wouldn’t. All
it would do is throw these people off insurance. They would, once again be
dependent on emergency departments for their primary care. Now to put that in
perspective, an uncomplicated
emergency department visit costs around $600 to $1000 depending on where you
live. A visit to a doctor’s office costs about $60 to $100. You do the math.
But these folks won’t be having an uncomplicated visit to the ED. They will
arrive sicker be admitted with longer, more complicated hospital stays, higher
mortality and morbidity, and much higher costs than if they’d been able to get
access to affordable healthcare. You know like the ACA has tried, imperfectly
to provide. Oh, and don’t forget, if you have a pre-existing condition, well
you’re not gonna get coverage at any price. The net result is that insurance
premiums, copays and deductibles will spiral out of control, forcing even MORE
people into the ranks of the uninsured. And since the brunt of these costs are
borne by not-for-profit hospitals, many will likely be forced to close their
doors as they can no longer absorb the costs, rendering safe healthcare an even
more limited commodity. This means that only the wealthy can afford medical can
without being pauperized. So, will repealing the Affordable Care Act “Make
America Great Again”? In a word, no.
Creating a Registry for
Muslims
So, some of the more rabid Islamophobes in Donald’s inner circle
want to create a “registry” for Muslim Americans. Now, as history has shown us,
this leads to a very slippery slope indeed. You start with a “registry”, but
then a requirement for pinning a yellow crescent and star on one’s clothing is
enacted. But wait, it’ll be easier to segregate Muslims into ghettos where they
can be closely monitored. Internment camps will be even better as Muslims can
be entirely isolated from the rest of the population. What would the final
solution be? Would this “Make America Great Again”? No, history shows nothing
but grief and horror to be the result.
Trying to Cure “the Gay”
How will criminalizing the LGBT community “Make America Great
Again”? It won’t. I mean except to show what great homophobes folks like Mike
Pence…yes, Trump’s VP…are and how they are firmly convinced that “conversion”
therapy is real, and works. Especially with the liberal application of
electrical shocks to the brains of those afflicted with “the gay”. Will this
“Make America Great Again”? No. The only ones that need fixing are the
homophobes and closet queens in the GOP and their religious right wing-nut base
through lots and lots of psychotherapy. That means YOU Mike Pence.
Repealing Dodd-Frank
Repealing Dodd-Frank will NOT “Make America Great Again”.
Dodd-Frank is the only thing standing between working Americans and another
nuclear melt-down of the American and, potentially, the world economy is Dodd-Frank.
A bill signed into law in 2010 after the 2008 recession. A recession caused by
the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act and its replacement by the
Graham-Leach-Bliley act in 1999. These barriers had existed since the 1930’s
and had provided an unprecedented security and stability the American and world
financial markets. But with their removal, the stage was set for the meltdown
of the US housing market. Bill Clinton’s willful participation in the passage
of Graham-Leach Bliley into law, the transformation of the Democratic party
into GOP Lite was complete. So, if you think repealing Dodd-Frank will “Make
America Great Again”, think again. It will result in the wealthiest Americas
laughing all the way to the bank while everyone who works for a living is left
holding the bag, penniless and in soup lines. Trump’s economic populism ended
on November 8th.
The Resurgence of White Nationalism
and Racism
This weekend, the “Alt-right” held a conference in Washington. Now
we need to perfectly clear, “Alt-right” is simply a polite euphemism…a “rebranding”
…if you will, of white nationalism, racism and neo-Nazism. These racists and
anti-Semites have found a hero in Donald Trump. Trump’s history has been one of
racism and his rhetoric, from the beginning of his campaign, has been racist.
First attacking Mexicans, and Hispanics in general, then moving on to other
minorities and Muslims. Between November 8
th and November 14
th,
the Southern Poverty Law Center “has reported that there were four hundred and
thirty-seven incidents of intimidation… targeting blacks and other people of
color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women.”
(Okeowo, 2016). And then we
have Trump appointing Breitbart CEO, racist, anti-Semite and misogynist, Steve
Bannon, as his “strategist”, Jeff Sessions is his pick for AG, Mike Flynn for
DHS and Mike Pompeo for DCIA, all meeting the approval of David Duke, former
imperial wizard of the KKK. And this week-end, we saw the spectacle of
white-supremacists screaming “Hail Trump” with a stiff right arm in the stereotypical
Nazi salute. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum felt compelled to issue a
statement on this white nationalist conference, stating that “The Holocaust did
not begin with killing; it began with words” and for “all American citizens,
our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of
government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech”
("DW-US Holocaust
Museum," 2016). Yet we hear no disavowal of this movement by Trump,
and only limp-wristed, Milquetoast denouncements by his surrogates. The silence
from the GOP leadership in the House and Senate is equally deafening, their
silence being equated with assent. This will not “Make America Great Again”.
Conclusion
I could go on, for hundreds of pages. But if you haven’t gotten
the point by now that Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” is as empty
as the hard vacuum of interstellar space, you’re not going to. And that is because
you prefer to remain willfully ignorant. Trump will not “Make America Great
Again”. He will, instead, turn America into a pariah state, loot the treasury
for the benefit of himself and his sycophants, and grind everyone who works for
a living into serfdom.
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