President Trump
Let’s see if I understand this. You voted for Donald Trump because you thought he was Mr. Straight Shooter who was allergic to Washington politics.
If I’ve been following the news correctly, President Trump just waffled twice, causing a government shutdown – because of politics. And you still support him?
Sen. Lindsey Graham
In case you haven’t been following this or received fake reports from Fox News and similar mouthpieces for Trump and the radical wing of the Republican Party, here’s what happened: Trump said on national television a couple or so weeks ago that he would sign any legislation on DACA that Congress worked out and presented to him, so there would be no stonewalling to prevent a budget agreement to keep the federal government running.
Sen. Dick Durbin
So Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois worked out a bipartisan compromise that would keep the DACA (Dreamer) program intact and address other issues that both sides could agree on, and presented it to Trump. He approved it.
Deals Dumped (Trumped)
Stephen Miller
Sen. Tom Cotton
Ah, but then he heard from his radical anti-immigration adviser Stephen Miller and Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Oklahoma. Nope, they said, you can’t sign this. It would have allowed children of parents who came to this country illegally to remain here because they couldn’t be responsible for their parents’ actions and they had grown up in the U.S. Uprooting them and shipping them to countries where they’d never been would be monumentally cruel, the big majority of Americans, and Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress, agreed.
Sen. Chuck Schumer
Deal’s off, Trump announced shortly after he’d assented to the deal.
Then Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, met with Trump at the White House, and forged a deal with the president, even agreeing to work with him on building the wall on the Mexican border. Democrats have cited the wall all along as a boondoggle that is unnecessary and will cost mega-billions of dollars to taxpayers, not to Mexico, which Trump had promised with great fanfare.
Two hours later, after Trump again heard from Miller and Cotton, that deal was scrapped, too. You might remember that Trump had publicly said we needed to show “love” to the Dreamers and not kick them out of the country they knew as home. Those feelings were overridden by the desire to appeal to the folks of the radical right wing, who, Miller and Cotton reminded him, sent him to the White House. The politics of hate won over the politics of love. Trump, a craven politician if ever there was one, caved. The great deal maker folded because he desperately needed the approval of his supporters. The shutdown was on.
Hillary worse?
Hillary Clinton
Sen. Bernie Sanders
But wait a minute. Didn’t you vote for Trump because his opponent, Hillary Clinton, was a deeply entrenched, cynical Washington politician? Due probably to the unrelenting bile spit at her by Fox Noise – er, News – and the rest of the Republican establishment, she has become surely the most hated woman in America. Yes, her stances on issues were often politically driven. During the primary battle, when Sen. Bernie Sanders’ opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement proved popular with liberals, Clinton switched positions and favored the deal. I strongly believe she was right, and should have stuck to her guns. Trump’s nixing of the deal ceded huge trade advantage to China. She accepted huge sums from big Wall Street firms for speeches, posing a conflict of interest. And her personality was likely as damaging as her lack of political sincerity; she had a record of abrasiveness, at best, toward those who worked under her.
But in the larger scheme of things, her heart was in the right place. She fought hard to improve the lot of women and children around the world – causes that the narcissistic, self-obsessed Trump cares not a whit about. Unlike Trump, who had zero government or political experience, she brought a background – secretary of state, U.S. senator, first lady for eight years – more steeped in the working of politics and government than perhaps any presidential candidate in modern history. She knew the ropes, how to work with Congress and with foreign leaders. The man who defeated her is a flailing buffoon who is ruining our relationships with nations around the world, including our allies, a laughingstock who is an embarrassment to our once great nation. No one can trust him, because he is a pathological liar who spouts prevarications even when it’s obvious to everyone he’s doing so. Behind his back, aides and associates have expressed utter contempt for him.
Increasingly, people who voted for this man, who is abysmally unfit to be president because of his incompetence, emotional imbalance and laziness – he doesn’t even read critical intelligence reports – and his abhorrent character shortcomings, realize they made a mistake. They wanted to believe he would be different once the enormous responsibility of the office of president weighed on him. He hasn’t changed a bit, unless for the worse, and sees the office as a way to personal aggrandizement for himself, mainly, and his family.
To err is human, to forgive divine. To deny the error, and perpetuate it, is unforgiveable.
