Trump’s White House Budget Director Mike Mulvaney summed it up best: “Elections have consequences at every agency.”
He is absolutely spot on. There’s an old saying anyone involved in politics knows — “when you are in, you’re in; when you are out, you’re out.”
The magical number is holding the majority; anything else is participation. Even with a filibuster the Senate is held in control by the majority party.
Polls don’t elect the Congress or the President; or pass legislation. Only those voters that actually bother to show up in November count.
Supposed “good will” by the majority party doesn’t mean any more than giving you a butt to kiss. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Many other minorities really don’t care if DACA and other “unworthy” immigrants of the moment are thrown out; they’ll wait for the higher wages if the work pool tightens enough. This is not rocket science. No vote, no real power.
Belatedly in the recent Virginia and Alabama races a lot of “minority” voters finally showed up; that did not show up in 2016. A start, but nothing changes unless Congress flips in 2018.
Republicans have made good use of their “Emperor in New Clothes” to get whatever they want, irrespective of the actual future consequences.
Just last week Speaker of the House Paul Ryan tweeted and crowed proudly (then deleted it upon reflection) that a secretary saw her takehome pay go up $1.50 a week because of the new tax law! Huh?
However, he got $500,000 in Koch contributions days after the House passed the tax bill. If he decides not to run the money will be his anyway to do with as he wishes. Harvest Time.
Trump and his GOP lackeys are betting that you’ll ignore their demand to control the bodies of women, their killing those without health care, visceral xenophobic hatred of immigrants (who built this country from day one), and their profligate spending and debt creation — if the economy gets better.
There is a good chance they’re right. Many have heard the same phrase innumerable times: “it’s just business.”
Trump didn’t create the better economy. Ten years of many trillions in printed cash, added debt, and especially Federal Reserve prolonging abnormally low interest rate bailouts to Wall Street, Corporate America, and the banksters did. The recent market tantrum over a possible extra ¼ point rate hike shows that.
But don’t blame The Donald. His entire history was well documented long before 2016 as the torch bearer for P.T. Barnum’s “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
Read “The Art of The Deal” — he told us the way he thinks and works. Just like Adolf Hitler told us what he believed in, in “Mein Kampf.” Both are autocrats who were and are thoroughly consistent with their writings. No mystery.
Trump, like most businessmen, will tell you whatever he needs to tell you, to get to go where he needs you to go.
Trump said Democrats that didn’t clap for him at the State of the Union address are “treasonous” and “un-American.” He questions our patriotism if we don’t become his willing collaborators and perpetrators like the Republicans in Congress in setting Americans against each other in the GOP version of the “Hunger Games.”
Now Trump wants a military parade so he can be just like North Korea, his beloved Putin Russia, China (whose positive trade winnings have only grown under Trump), and a host of other modern day dictators.
Perhaps he will ask that the loyalty pledge of the military and civil servants be changed as it was in Nazi Germany in 1934 (a year after Hitler took power) — loyalty to Der Fuhrer personally, not the Constitution of the Country.
Trump wants to run America like King George III did prior to 1776.
Perhaps Trump should appoint his next Big Mactm as a Senator; like Caligula proposed appointing his horse as a Consul of Rome (although that still remains unverified).
My family line survived near extinction by the Nazis and the Stalinist Russians. America gave us a chance to start again.
We will survive Trump. But we will not supplicate to him or his party of collaborators. We know from history where that can lead.
• Anselm Staack, is registered non-affiliated, is a CPA and an attorney who has been an Alaska resident for over 43 years. He was the Treasury Comptroller for Alaska under Gov. Jay Hammond and worked directly on the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. He resides in Juneau.
