Month: October 2019

 

In Tailspin the author, Steven Brill, writes that “Americans have been divided into two groups:  The vast majority who count on government to provide for the common good, and the minority who don’t need the government for anything and even view the government as something they often need to be protected from.”  He continues, we “…depend on the common goods a government is supposed to provide.  That is the purpose of government, and a country whose government fails to fulfill that responsibility …is on its way to becoming a failed state.”

The minority (wealthy) has convinced the majority (everyone else) that they don’t need government and that a true patriot is totally self-reliant.  This has created anti-government militias and a reduction in the funding of federal programs like public education, labor protection, environmental protection, and national research and development.  It created a belief that government needed to  be disrupted and weakened and this has resulted in the election of the most destructive president in history.  Right-wing media has been touting anti-government sentiments for years convincing those who need to be protected by the government to, ironically, destroy it and then they have been obfuscating the truth as the destruction occurs on a daily basis.  Is the state failing or has it already failed?  What can we do?

 

“The main reason Trump won wasn’t economic anxiety.  It wasn’t sexism.  It wasn’t racism.  It was anti-elitism” (Burlington County Times 10/13/2019 reprint of Washington Post article by Joel Stein titled “Impeachment is an Elitist Trap”).

According to Wikipedia.org, elitism is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite — a select group of people with an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience — are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others.  The term elitism may be used to describe a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people.

Corporations and the wealthy have taken over the U.S. government and economy causing both to work in their favor (because they feel they deserve it) at the expense of us lowly workers.  Trump supporters are correct in their perception that the elites are causing our economic problems.  However, they chose the wrong person to fight it.  Trump comes off as an anti-elitist because of his limited vocabulary, lack of decorum and inexperience, but he isn’t working for us because he is an elitist wannabe!  He lacks the class,  knowledge and confidence to be accepted by elites and those, for instance, who are invited to Davos, an elite club that excluded him until he became President.  His first act as President was to provide this elite with a massive tax cut that only enriches the wealthy in an attempt to impress them.  He is not helping his supporters!  He only needs them to get re-elected so he can continue to enrich himself and those in the group he wants join.  When will they see the truth?

Trump believes he has “…great and unmatched wisdom.”  This causes him to believe he is  his own best consultant and that he doesn’t need to ask the experts.  This self-delusion is dangerous to our country and, more importantly, our democracy.  He has methodically fired or dismissed those who disagree with his decisions of which many are based on disproven conspiracy theories taken from the tabloids or ideas planted in his brain by autocrats from U.S. hostile countries.  This is insane and frightening.

The first and true sign of great intelligence is recognizing and knowing your own limitations, everyone has them so denying them is just plain ignorant.  You know what you’re good at and you ask for help with what you’re not good at.  It is that simple, but his narcissism keeps him from seeing this truth.

In The Death of Expertise, Tom Nicholas says that the death of expertise is caused by rampant narcissism.  Many now believe that they know best, better than the experts.  For instance, we have Jared Kushner thinking he can bring peace to the Middle East, Ivanka thinking she is equipped to intelligently converse with world leaders with decades of knowledge and experience, and Don Jr. believing he has the authority to denigrate proven statesman and public servants.  Three boarding school, trust fund kids with no real expertise in government or foreign policy believing they are somehow magically qualified to fill these positions.

This is just scary and I can’t see where it ends.  It’s not just Trump and his offspring.  The narcissists are lining up to take over leaving the experts buried under a pile of unproven superficial concepts and conspiracy theories.  I got no answers.

 

 

Trump said his phone conversation with the president of the Ukraine was perfect and I say it was perfectly impeachable.  It is illegal to a ask a foreign government to interfere in an United States election and to threaten to withhold congressionally approved security funding until dirt on your political opponent is found and turned over.  The released Whitehouse  transcript of this conversation confirms the contents of the whistleblower’s complaint.  This is a slam dunk impeachment, no further investigation is needed.  GET ER DONE!