COMMENTARY:
When someone suggested we debate Donald Trump’s impact, I contemplated the context for that discussion.
The context includes truths we duck. That, to much of nature, humanity is the scourge of the earth, having killed off numerous species. Euro-Christian humans are the worst. Their Torah-Bible-Koran, as generally translated, tells ‘em the earth and animals are theirs to use and abuse – and they do. Everywhere, they’ve decimated indigenous peoples who generally believed more in living in harmony with nature, not trampling it. Our greed and carelessness now guarantee our grandchildren and their descendants a very inferior life.
A second context: the wealthiest of us have long controlled and abused the poorest. (Lighter-skinned folks have abused darker-skinned folks, too.) By any measure, wealth was very concentrated in a few hands in the late 19th Century. Early 20th Century progressives, the 1930s Depression, and the 1960s brought that obscene inequality down a little by the 1970s. Then, a reaction set in, bringing even worse inequality. The highest marginal income tax rates declined from 91% (1950) to 37%. The U.S. middle and lower classes got squeezed. And told it was the fault of welfare cheats.
A third point: charging “that sounds Communist!” meant little even when the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China were our sworn enemies. Pure socialism probably hasn’t been tried, except in Kerala; and pure capitalism demonstrably fails. Major efforts at communism have ended in dictatorships. The Chinese periodically had to add in more personal and economic freedoms – “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom!” but curtailed those when freedom annoyed the rulers. The U.S. has had to soften capitalism with pensions, fairer laws, worker’s comp, and even welfare – and regulations that protect workers’ health and even the environment we all share. Even so, we’re extreme: every other advanced nation has public health care, but we retain a dysfunctional private system. Our CEOs make 300 times a worker’s annual salary, not the 40-50x common in several of our allies. There’s lots of room between 300x and socialism.
We’ve also developed a dominant two-party electoral system that ultimately doesn’t serve us too well.
In that context, none of it Donald Trump’s fault, let’s consider his impact.
Claiming scientific facts are “a hoax” and joining Yemen and Libya as the only countries rejecting Paris Agreement on mitigating climate craziness, Mr. Trump is not going to help improve our descendants’ air, water, or temperatures. Denying the need to shift to electric cars lets China get way ahead of us in development we’ll gave to ape.
Lowering taxes for the wealthiest while cutting SNAP, scholarships, and health assistance, and destroying the Education Department probably won’t help diminish our obscene inequality.
Finally, gutting our professional and apolitical civil service system, our inspectors-general, and semi-independent Department of Justice, and mistreating legal immigrants who have anti-Trump materials on their computers, won’t enhance our efforts at democracy or true prosperity. Decisions made to protect the ruler’s ego don’t gain us the world’s cooperation, inspire our troops, or help us be the innovators who create the Next Big Thing.
He may get the Washington footballers to be “the Redskins” again, and bully the news media into submission, and maybe even stymie a welfare cheat; but your great-grandkids, sweltering and struggling to breathe, or sneaking across our northern border, won’t honor you for failing to shout “No!” Neither will veterans and folks with limited incomes and less than perfect health.
Peter Goodman's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.