America once led from the moral high ground. We always did what was morally right. Republicans introduced and got passed legislation to clean the air and water, both sides worked on social reinforcements, we all agreed that if we thought of the general people first, the rest would fall into place.
That started to change during Reagan's tenure. We started to shift the tax burden from the rich, who could afford it without it affecting their purchasing power, to the middle and lower classes, who felt the pinch. We started to roll back laws that protected people from businesses and from the government. We started to give everything to an elite few who, in turn, gave enough as was required to keep that tap flowing and to turn off all other taps.
Republicans stopped being interested in governing about 30 years ago. They became obsessed with power and money. Instead of governing and providing direction and a fiscally conservative long-term plan for the country and its people, they became singularly focused on gerrymandering, court-stacking, and taking as much money away from government assistance programs as possible. They especially targetted unions (which, while they have both good and bad points to them, were one of the primary reasons for the middle-class's constantly rising income level) and education (because if the masses were dumber, they wouldn't recognize nor fight the "elite's" more sinister power grabs).
This all culminated in the current Idiot in Chief, President Trump. What's funny is that he isn't even really the problem. He's a symptom of it. It is the succession of Newt Gingrinch to John Boehner to Mitch McConnell that is the problem. It is not having term limits which is the problem.
I have said before that the President is like the steering wheel of a car, Congress is the engine, and the Supreme Court is the brakes. The President sets the tone and direction for the country, Congress enacts laws to push the country in that direction, and the Supreme Court stops the laws that are not constitutional or that are flawed. Because the Republicans have been packing lower courts and gerrymandering for so long, they now have an over 90% incumbency rate in Congress, so the same people are always there, always furthering the party's goals while the President packs the courts with as many life-time appointments as he can. In addition, since Trump is so stupid, he is surrounded by people who can convince him to do nearly anything... so he has been openly racist, sexist, and money-hungry since entering office.
It's all biting back now, however. The world is in crisis and America is woefully underprepared for it. Trump canceled America's best hope at having a swift response when he allowed the pandemic response team, set up by Obama, to be fired and the office to be removed. He has systematically taken money from the CDC, FEMA, and other groups that could have stepped up and helped. He is consistently not paying any attention to what his experts tell him and consistently making the problem worse.
His only real contribution so far is to prop up the stock market... which is doing next to nothing to solve the problem. He is talking with business leaders and buying stock in their companies, a clear violation of emoluments, and then giving the wrong people tax breaks because he (or someone close to him) believes that, contrary to hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary, tax breaks will incentivize businesses to be better, to do what is needed, and to pass the savings on to the people. It hasn't happened yet.
Luckily, some in America ARE stepping up. Some smart people are no longer paying attention to President Idiot and are taking the reins and giving people real advice. Some of the more moderate oligarchs are putting money into places that will actually help. Businesses see that having the country collapse is bad for business, and are stepping in to do the exact opposite of what Trump says for the good of the country.
My hope is that people will see the current sham of a party that the Trump and the Republicans have become for what they are and will vote these idiots out of office in November. We need Republicans who, like in the past, wanted to help and govern the people from a place of fiscal conservatism but see that the people are the most important part. We need to see wholesale turnover in Congress on the Republican side so that the two sides of our bicameral system will start talking to each other again, start working together to get some progressive ideas and some conservative ideas passed. We need Congress to start looking out for ALL of the people again, instead of the wealthiest 1,000.
I just wish that a worldwide pandemic wasn't what was needed to wake people up. Now that it is here, let's hope that they learn from the issues and press for better leadership tomorrow.
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