What Now?

November 13, 2016 by joachim

My mind is in knots. A man who never got past adolescence, a spoiled brat, who enriched himself throughout his life by fraudulent transactions, who has insulted minorities, physically abused women, a man who has no experience in public office, has been elected president.

This is a cosmic joke. He doesn’t read, but follows his guts in making decisions. His guts tell him that Global Warming is a hoax made up my the Chinese government. He is set to repeal Frank/Dodd, the law passed by bipartisan action regulating corporations to prevent abuse that was ubiquitous in the past. He is set to deport millions of undocumented immigrants wit the stroke of a pen. He is set to make deals with Syria and Russia that will condemn hundreds of thousands to misery and death.

Which country is this I have chosen for my second home? It is a country known sentimentally as a melting pot, but now the contents of the pot has been divided into brown and white — but we should really talk about two pots, one that calls the shots and the other one that has no rights.

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7 Responses to What Now?

1. jean-claude says:

   November 14, 2016 at 2:04 am

   The shadow (the other side) has spoken, would have said Carl Jung. Unleashing the unconscious always has potential for upheaval.

   Reply
2. Geoff says:

   November 14, 2016 at 3:21 am

   Now that Trump is our President-Elect, whay keeps me up at night isn’t his ideology, temperament, or past positions, but the people he is choosing to surround himself with — i.e., how he’s building his bubble. I felt a similar unease when Obama chose his advisors in 2008, and on key issues I was disappointed.

   Trump is more experienced and less malleable than Obama was then, and that may prove to be an asset. He’s more of a pragmatist, more into results than policies, and as a result may — at least at first — be inclined to do what he thinks will work rather than follow conventional wisdom. This will tend to magnify his missteps but will also complicate his relationship with GOP insiders, who have prefabricated policies about all sorts of things. I am hoping Trump will formulate, prioritize and execute his agenda items over the objections of those insiders. At least hat is what he promised to do, is it not?

   I guess I am saying please don’t panic or despair, because it will only serve to make you miserable and won’t get you to where you want to go. Obama disappointed many of us. Maybe Trump will surprise us.

   I am actually encouraged by the fact that the key players of the national security establishment have come out against him. Let’s see how long he can go before caving in to those empire builders who keep tarnishing America’s image by slaughtering innocents and bogging us down in fruitless conflicts. After all, Hillary has been in bed with them forever.

   Reply
   1. joachim says:

      November 14, 2016 at 8:21 pm

      I’m not sure what you mean with Trump being more experienced. In what? In defrauding people? In tax evasions? In taking investors for a ride? In stiffing contractors who did their work in good faith? In running a fake educational institution? In lying through his teeth? In blowing his own horn at highest decibels? In alienating every single minority group? Experienced in every aspect of swindle for his own benefit?

      I grant you that Obama entered his presidency without that experience, and, I’m glad to say, he still has not learned these traits.

      Reply
3. Geoff says:

   November 15, 2016 at 1:41 am

   I never said I admired Trump’s character but there’s no doubt he can swing deals. Had Obama come to office with more of that skill he would have maneuvered in Congress much better than he did, most critically in his first two years when he had a Dem majority to do the heavy lifting.

   All these things you say are true. Nixon was also quite the con artist but his domestic legacy wasn’t all that horrible. Trump will receive a lot of terrible advice from his advisors, the way things look, and he will start out with a GOP majority that will be anxious to make him look good. But if his gut tells him he should not listen to the career pols and ideologues, he might end up doing some useful things.

   I actually see potential for common ground with many of his supporters, the ones who aren’t shitheads, and I assure you, most are not uneducated racist gun-toting xenophobes. What do you have to offer them? I’ll be writing about that soon. We have an opportunity to change the system now. How it changes depends a lot on how we communicate with those we have been badmouthing.

   Now that Trump’s a done deal, what’s your position? Oppose everything he wants to do just because he’s a white collar criminal? What path do you see to go forward? Impeachment ASAP? Let me know when you are through mourning so we can strategize.

   Reply
   1. joachim says:

      November 15, 2016 at 2:20 am

      My comment addressed one thing only, which was your characterization of Trump as being more experienced than Obama was as he became president. I agree with everything else you said, and say. And I’m sure not all of the people who voted for him are shitheads, but the ones that aren’t have a lack of imagination for the evil the shitheads when let loose can do, along with the people Trump is putting in his cabinet as we speak.

      And regarding your question, I would be for impeaching him on day one, but who is going to impeach him? He gets away with murder, as his famous quote about walking on Fifth Ave. and shooting someone implies. With Congress all in Republican control, there is no way to impeach him, no matter what he does, except if it endangers the very existence of the Republican party.
      If he does something positive for the country’s infrastructure, I’d say let’s celebrate. At the same time, dark in my mind is the memory of the way Hitler got Germany out of the economic slump, by building the Autobahn, and used it to prop up his images as the savior of the country. The good that he does buys him credit for nefarious things he plans to do: undo global warming treaty, ban abortion, build a fucking wall, etc. etc. the list is endless.
      I’d be happy to keep the conversation going and yes, strategize.

      Reply
4. Ellen says:

   November 15, 2016 at 3:11 pm

   He is our elected leader so I will try to give him a chance. Before he destroys Obama Care ,can we all get a prescription for tranquilizers. I think that will make the next four years more pat-able.

   Ellen

   Reply
5. joachim says:

   November 28, 2016 at 2:07 am

   I cannot let this stand, sorry Ellen. We should not give him a chance to destroy our environment, to build walls, to deport undocumented immigrants, to deny women abortions, to destroy the America we know, to keep people out because of their religion, to abandon all efforts to curb Global Warming. We should work tirelessly to keep this bulldozer in check.

   Reply