I was in a hotel this morning, waiting for Charlie to finish up some business stuff on the laptop, and I happened to click the TV tuner onto “The American President”, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. It’s a 24 year-old movie that I’ve seen before, but it struck me how relevant it is today.
In the movie, Senator Bob Rumson (played by Richard Dreyfuss) is running for President and is doing his best to make the American people afraid of everything and each other and to blame everyone but himself for society’s ills. His opponent, the actual President, is up to his ears doing the hard work of juggling fifty balls in the air at the same time. He eventually stands up to Rumson with a fiery speech that concludes the movie in a positive way that makes it appear that Democracy is actually going to survive the demagogue Rumson.
Interestingly, we currently have a President who, as a campaigner, tried to scare the Hell out of everyone, acted like managing the Country was child’s play (“only I can solve these problems”), and badmouthed the current and previous Administrations (Democratic and Republican alike) for being inept. The cocky know-it-all sounded just like Senator Rumson.
Unfortunately, that blowhard candidate (Trump) actually won the Presidency and has subsequently proven that he cannot successfully juggle one ball in the air, while continuing to act like a campaigner by blaming everyone in sight, including his own appointees, for the Administration’s policy failures.
Three years into the Trump Presidency and we Americans are still awaiting a new and improved North American Trade deal, a border wall paid for by Mexico, a new and improved Pacific Rim trade agreement, a new and better product than Obamacare, the promised withdrawal of our armed forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, and an economy which benefits the common working man.
Instead, our citizens have seen a rise in the wealth gap between blue collar workers and the richest 1 percent of Americans, a pronounced increase in mass murders by individuals using military-grade assault weapons, a massive increase in military spending, monies stolen from other government programs to build ineffective border walls that Mexico was going to pay for, and pronounced vitriol, hate speech, and partisanship which have rendered our government incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful.
Our current President has pretty much exhausted an array of tricks, obstructions, conniving, and skullduggery designed to render our Democratic form of government non-functional. Not to mention burdening current and future taxpayers with trillions of dollars of debt, and igniting dangerous brinkmanship games with China, Iran, and North Korea.
And, he has made it a matter of personal pride and Administration policy to belittle and ignore the biggest existential threat to mankind… global warming… against the advice of the world’s scientists. In Trump’s mind, this is what leadership is all about.
This is what “Make America Great Again” means?
Welcome to Senator Bob Rumson’s world.
Update: Congress this past week started an Impeachment investigation into some of the most recent Trump shenanigans.
Based upon the account of a “whistleblower” in the Administration, awhile back the President put significant pressure on the newly-elected Ukrainian President to dig up embarrassing “dirt” on Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, even going so far as to offer the assistance of Trump’s personal attorney/attack dog Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s Attorney William Barr, who has done some political dirty work for the President. The “favor” the President was requesting was apparently the quid pro quo for $400 million in military aid that Congress had previously approved for the Ukraine.
It is apparent that our President has no respect for the Constitution, the office that he holds, and the “rule of law” that governs our Nation. As has been apparent for the past three years, he feels that he is above the law and can do anything that he damn well pleases. His actions remind one of a Mafia don, not the elected leader of the world’s greatest democracy.
Using the offices of the President of the United States and taxpayer money to thwart political opposition is a new low for Donald Trump, even though he publicly acknowledged that he had no problem with the Russian government helping him win the Presidency in 2016.
A win is a win, no matter how one accomplishes it…right?
The ruthless narcissist has no shame.