The Trump Election

[fullwidth background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”0″ padding_right=”0″ hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]Thoughts on the election of Donald Trump, four days later:

My first and foremost thought is sadness and regret for the fate of living things on our planet, including humans. I have long felt that Al Gore’s loss to George Bush in 2000 was the last tipping point for the environment. I have been somewhat encouraged by the growing recognition of climate change and the need to combat it among not only our society but all nations of the world. A year or two ago I noted the observation that the only organized group in the world that rejected climate change was the Republican Party of the United States. Now, however, that party and its nominal standard-bearer are not only still climate change deniers, but they are in a position to greatly slow, if not completely undo, the progress that has been made under President Obama and through international agreements such as the recent Paris Accords. Just as Obama had to effect his changes through executive action, Trump can, if he is not stopped, subvert most of the environmental advances that were begun. We may already be doomed; who knows how much the pace of change will be accelerated by Trump’s actions and inactions.

My second thought is regret and consternation at the seemingly unbridgeable divide between my world of friends and the large number of my countrymen (although not even a plurality) that voted for Trump. His candidacy seemed inconceivable; I always considered it a publicity stunt. There is no way one-half of this country will ever be reconciled to the Trump administration. We will be living in a perpetual state of psychological, emotional civil war.

When it appeared to the mainstream media that Trump would be a big loser, columnists chortled that the Republican Party had brought this disaster on themselves by subtly catering to the racist, nativist elements in the country, and that the Party would be left in shambles after the election. Their chosen leaders – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan – had all been scorned by Trump and left in the dust. Now that Trump has won, however, he is the Republican Party, and rather than falling to the wayside, their Senators and House members rode to victory on his coattails. How far will they go in accepting his destructive policies?

If there is any one person to blame for this disaster, and the parlous state of our country, I would say it is Rupert Murdoch. First with the New York Post, then more glaringly with Fox News, he subverted basic tenets of American journalism. For his own commercial benefit, he fanned a discontent he detected in the body politic and energized an opposition that was not loyal but rabid. For years now, it has been next to impossible to rationally discuss differences with right-wing Republicans because it’s not just our opinions that are different, but the bases of our opinions. The country is operating on two different sets of facts. When someone believes that climate change is a “hoax” or that Obama was born in Kenya, it’s hard to have a discussion of the issues (and oh, by the way, the promulgator of those two ideas was, of course, our President-elect). At lunches with fellow golfers at Birnam Wood, how often have I heard repeated talking points from Fox News commentators. No more, perhaps, than at our dinner parties I hear talking points from New York Times columnists. The difference, I believe, is that the Times’ opinions are reality-based, not propaganda. Listen to any discussion of Second Amendment “rights,” to take one example.

I can think of no silver linings to the election results. One development, however, I will be interested in: how will the aggrieved, who adopted Trump as their hero, react now that their party is in power and they don’t have Democrats, or an African-American President, to complain about? Will Fox News lose its edge when the only corruption and cronyism they can find is on their side? The rich will get richer, the poor and minorities will have fewer rights – is this something they will be able to cheer about? In the face of a national tragedy, the next mass killing in an elementary school, is it really Donald Trump that we will want offering comfort to the people?

The only area about which I am not panicked is foreign affairs – not because I have any confidence in Trump, but because our policies have been so feckless or misguided in the past. If he does nothing, it could be an improvement. On the other hand, there is just as much reason to fear that he will become a pawn of the industrial-military complex and need to find his own Iraq to blunder into. He made noises on the campaign trail about using our resources at home instead of overseas. That would be welcome, but the money and the pressure will be on him to do otherwise.

One lesser, but personal to me, casualty of the Trump election will, I suspect, be Time Magazine. There won’t be much good news the next two years, at least, and how much bad news do most people really want to read? I know that I have no interest in doing more than skimming the headlines of the New York Times these days. Why be constantly depressed? I doubt there is much overlap between Trump supporters and Time subscribers, and I can see the latter just slowly dwindling away. In the same vein, how would you feel if you were a columnist or editorial writer for the New York Times (or The New Yorker), knowing that no one in a position of power is even reading your words, let alone considering them? No one is more lost than David Brooks, the Times’s nominal Republican, who is left to plump for a third party. See where that goes.

My litany of awfuls could go on much longer. Who will be running the country? I doubt that Trump has much interest in anything except his own aggrandizement. History is full of comparable monarchs, and the world survived; but those ages were generally dark, not something we expected to see repeated in the United States. At least we live in California – even Minnesota succumbed to the Republican tide – and we can enjoy what we can of our bubble (except at Birnam Wood).[/fusion_text][/fullwidth]