5 days Ago
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” That quote is from the writings of H.L.
Mencken, reporter for the Baltimore Sun newspaper during the first 48 years of the 20th Century. It could well be from today’s op-ed pages. In the course of this first week after the election, there is accumulating evidence that we common folk are not only getting it hard, but hard and fast.
As more and more cabinet and government appointments come pouring out of Mar-a-Lago, voters - pro and con - are beginning to realize that Trump wasn’t kidding about transforming our democracy into a dictatorship. After 248 years of government of, by, and for the people, it’s set to become Donald Trump’s own personal fiefdom. He is free to act like a Mafia don, but one exempt from legal constraint, thanks to a compliant Supreme Court.
How will that translate into benefit for his devoted followers? Consider the two subjects on which his campaign was based: immigration and the economy. Well, not the economy; the economy is doing just fine, but specifically the higher prices we pay for groceries and rent, along with higher interest rates on mortgages. While illegal immigration has been brought down dramatically, the talk is still about rooting out the more than 10 million who are working here - and - paying taxes - while unauthorized.
Kick them out and it will cripple the economy, fueling even higher prices as goods become scarce. Or consider Trump’s repeated threat to raise tariffs. He can’t seem to understand that foreign countries don’t pay the tariff.
It is not an expense for the exporter, but for the American companies that make the purchase. The extra cost is then passed on to the consumer. Again, prices rise.
If the cost of living is truly what motivated his supporters, they are going to be disappointed. Other early signs are even more discouraging. This week’s announcement that former Rep.
Matt Gaetz is Trump’s choice for attorney general is somewhere between outrageous and ludicrous. Gaetz resigned his Congressional seat last week to cancel release of a House Ethics Committee’s report that is said to accuse him of sex trafficking and drug use: not your traditional qualifications for the job. To ensure that Gaetz serves his wishes, Trump has named his two defense lawyers to department positions: Todd Blanche will become deputy attorney, second in command; Emil Dove will take the third spot as principal associate Attorney General.
Almost as staggering is the choice of Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. Apparently, his service as an infantryman in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay qualifies him to manage the largest and most potent military force in the world. The clincher must have been his 10 years as host of the weekend version of “Fox and Friends.
” Let’s not overlook the choice of anti-vaccine promoter Robert Kennedy, Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Nor should we ignore North Dakota Gov.
Doug Burgum, a zealous champion of the oil industry, picked as Secretary of the Interior. South Dakota was not neglected. its Governor, Kristi Noem, is to be Secretary of Homeland Security, a huge bureaucracy with a key role to play in deporting undocumented immigrants.
The mastermind in anti-immigrant policy will, once again, be the xenophobic, white nationalist, Stephen Miller. If you have followed this week’s news, you have seen the growing list of unlikely selections, such as Elise Stefanik, a United Nations critic, who will be our ambassador to that institution; or Tulsi Gabbard, who parrots Russian disinformation, taking control of National Intelligence. And so it goes, from one eccentric choice to another.
One wonders, who will pop out of the clown car next? But wait! There’s more! Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will team up to dismantle government agencies. Speaking at the America First Policy Institute meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Ramaswamy claimed that “Elon Musk and I are in a position to start the mass deportations of millions of unelected federal bureaucrats out of the D.C.
bureaucracy. It’s going to be a lot of fun.” It’s not clear how and by what authority Elon and Vivek can do this, but they have the one qualification that counts with Trump: an obscene amount of money and a willingness to flatter a man they had previously opposed.
Elon Musk will have a number of self-interest conflicts, but who’s counting? Or caring? To ensure that selections for his cabinet and administrative positions move smoothly and quickly, Trump has decreed that background checks are no longer required. He has also demanded that the Senate not stay in continual session, but take recesses during which he can fill vacancies by fiat. The Senate’s designated leader for the next session is South Dakota senator John Thune (Who knew the Dakotas were such a fertile source for leadership?).
One of the requirements for the job was consenting to recess appointments. It is now clear that the highest offices in the land require neither knowledge nor relevant experience. All you need is slavish loyalty to a single ruler, not the Constitution.
We have misunderstood what the American Revolution was all about. It has taken us almost a quarter of a century to realize that all that language about representative democracy was code for “just find a new king.” One is tempted to give Mencken, a ferocious critic of the way U.
S. democracy works, the last word. “As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Don Wooten Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!.
