Elections
determine power, not truth.
First
things first: Donald Pussygrabber Trump will become president in
January. Between now and then the media will be full of frightening
news stories and alarming analysis of what lies ahead -some of them
will even be mostly true. But more won't be and most will overlook
some basic principles that will moderate Trump's rush to ruin. A lot
of his crap was just said to get attention, to
get elected. What he does in office could be quite different.
Not better, just different. Remember when hopey-changey Obama met
the bankers and bondsmen? Winning
the election isn't the same as governing.
Politicians'
first job is to get re-elected. Thankfully most of the Republicans
in Congress understand this. So there will be fiscal and legislative
brakes on much of what Trump thinks he can do. Full
repeal of the Affordable Care Act would result in at
least 18 million Americans losing health care coverage.
Republican lawmakers from states that have expanded Medicaid coverage
will not vote to take that politically popular program away. Ditto
Medicare and Social Security cannibalization, although there
will be attempts to 'modernize' Medicare and “restore
health care freedom to patients and doctors” while turning
Medicaid into a block grant program for politicians to loot at the
state level.
But
Trump's range of options for executive action are sufficient to scare
the sane. He remains a
dangerous man, indifferent to facts, unbalanced, inexperienced and
deeply
racist.
60 million Americans have
acted
stupidly, siding
with xenophobia, racism and nationalism, hoping to end equal rights
for those they do not know or understand, urging a return to an
imagined America unencumbered by treaties and no longer threatened by
climate change.
He
can, and most likely will, take some actions
on immigration – but if he becomes too extreme (say
by
deporting 2 or 3 million people)
the US
economy will suffer. He can stop the current round of trade
agreements – if the rich corporations will let him. Undoing NAFTA
and NATO would take longer and be more complex – and again step on
important industrial and Wall Street toes. And his transition team
is full is of
corporate
lobbyists.
He
will do the most harm – with the joyful support of the Republican
Congress – in the energy/global warming area. (They are
inseparable topics.) Trump will encourage
oil and gas extraction, along with their
pipelines. He will talk a good game about coal, but coal is not
competitive with cheap oil and gas. He
will repeal all of Obama's EPA regulations aimed at slowing our rush
to hell on earth, repudiate
the Paris Accord and welsh on the nation's commitment provide
funds to help poor countries deal with their coming climate based
disasters while withdrawing
from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
(the organization behind the IPCC reports) and stopping all US
funding
for UN global warming programs.
Even
if he were do abstain from all the other godawful things he has
promised, denying global warming/climate change will secure his place
in history as the worst leader in American history.
Elsewhere:
