Op-Ed: America, what have you done? It was nice knowing you when you were real

Image: — © Digital Journal

Trump just claimed victory, ushering in a “golden age” for America according to him. You might just be able to join enough dots to remember his last Golden Age and how well that turned out.

There’s a difference this time, though. Republicans have the Senate and just possibly the House, although they don’t have that yet. That means that Project 2025 is at least a possibility.

This fizzy little fun-loving manifesto includes gutting Social Security, Medicare, and education. These three are long-time Republican whipping boys, and the new legislature looks hostile to them.

What seems to be a wholesale massacre of law enforcement and security agencies is also part of this agenda. You can imagine the huge dislocation of government functions and general chaos that’s likely to cause. It’s a sort of ideological frenzy of putting rhetoric into practice.  Everyone’s more “conservative” than everyone else.

The one thing that’s not getting mentioned is the real economy as it applies to Americans. Exactly what’s to be done about debt, a surreal housing market, the credit market, and everything else isn’t clear.

This is a flight to fantasy, not practical government. The sheer senility of these outdated policies from the 1930s and before makes them impractical at best and national suicide at worst. You can’t talk your way through creditors, as Donald Trump well knows. Still less can you talk your way through a planet full of major corporate and national creditors.

It’s also been a long flight to naivete. A guy who famously couldn’t pass a background check to work at McDonalds will just wave a magic cap and everything will be fine? The poor will be rich? The homeless will be housed? The sick will be healed? Crime will end?

No.

You didn’t just elect candidates, either. You’ve also just elected a large number of largely people who didn’t bother to stand for election, quite possibly people you’ve never heard of. The backers of politicians are not charities. They’re in it for their own gain, and that’s what usually happens.

The Democrats didn’t connect with the other side at all. A weak message was a weak message. If not for an unfortunate debate, Biden probably would have beaten Trump.

That’s not Harris’ fault. The fault is fundamental with the liberal side of politics. The insular “Left” (left of what, Walmart?) has never had the market reach to contact the other side. It’s also never really had the inclination. There was no real point of contact.

Who wants to talk to rednecks, religious nuts, and fascists? Guess. This is a variation of Rupert Murdoch’s idea that the American conservatives were an underexploited market, so he created that market. He was right, and he’s right again this time.

If you can’t or won’t communicate with people, why do you expect them to vote for you?

People are very tired of telling you that, and you don’t listen.

Foreign policy is going to be the usual Trump train wreck. Last time he was a meandering series of insults to all of America’s allies. Europe and other Western nations will have to support Ukraine and have been preparing to do so for a while. Trump can’t really help Russia, which is now too far gone to recover from its war and internal fragmentation, but he can throw spanners in the works.

China will simply allow Trump to talk himself to death at his own expense. Like it or not, China and the US are glued at the hip in trade. Tariffs are paid by the importer, not the exporter, so that’s more cost to American pockets for everything coming from China.

From there on it’s just a choice of possible internal and external disasters. Iran? Israel? Both? State secesssions? Tax cuts to reduce revenue so America has to borrow? Race wars? Water? Food? Energy? Cost of living?

You can’t expect democracy to work in a country that no longer understands it or how it works. When the Soviet Union fell, the rich criminals moved in and stole all the public assets,

If this is the “Russification of America”, it’s not going to be pretty – Or brief. It took 20 years to turn the place into less of a mess. It’s just that America is so much bigger and messier.

This really is so sad. ‘Bye, America.

___________________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.