From King George to King Donald

I woke up one morning this week with a sense of joy and relief that I am an American and that, thankfully, I live in America in 2017. I realize that I live in a country that fought for our independence from England because we were facing taxation without representation.  King George saw us as a people who could be manipulated. Instead, we wrote a Declaration of Independence and fought a Revolutionary War, to gain our independence.  We wrote a Constitution and a Bill of Rights to ensure that we would never have to live under the rule of a tyrant, that we would have a government of checks and balances, and that we would become a society where all would be treated equally under the law.

To be sure, it has taken hundreds of years to inch our way towards the ideal that the Framer’s envisioned that our Constitutional Government would provide for us. We have endured slavery, the Civil War, the political game playing embedded in the Jim Crow period of our society.  Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Bill in 1965 have our African American citizens been assured of their place at the table of being equal to all. Then, in 2013, with the Robert’s Court gutting provisions of the Voting Rights Act, certain states have resorted to, again,  making it more difficult for members of our Black and Hispanic communities to vote. 

A definition of a conservative is “someone who holds onto to traditional attitudes and values and is cautious about change or innovation.” For four hundred years the social structure and economy of our the Colonies and fledgling nation thrived on slavery. Vestiges of those values are still ingrained in certain areas of the country and in certain people where there is a desire to make it difficult for Black People or anyone other than white, to vote.

It has also taken centuries for women to have the right to vote (1920) and to have the right to earn equal pay as men while performing similar work (2009).  Regardless of the Roe v Wade in 1973, women are still having to fight for their right to decide what they can do with their bodies in the area of reproductive rights.

Today, we are living hundreds of years later and yet, we are, in some ways, facing the same dynamic we were facing under King George.  In today’s version of oppression, our politics have become a tribal based, compromise is viewed as defeat, beat the other guy no matter what, and the ends justify the means way of life. Today we live in a political world where this has been extended to obstruct our first African American President, in an effort to guarantee his failure. In this effort, the conservatives did not pass any meaningful legislation to meet the real needs of our citizens during President Obama’s last six years in office.

 Infrastructure, health care, unemployment insurance issues, the needs of the poor, homeless, children going to bed at night on an empty belly, addressing the needs of our returning veterans, the funding of women’s health issues, funding for public education, to name just a few of the areas that have been neglected, have all been put on hold. With the gerrymandering that has been strategically performed to insure that a certain populations of Americans would keep their vested interests in tack, today, the majority of us face legislation without representation.

Our new “would be king” is Donald Trump.  He behaves like he knows nothing about the Bill of Rights, the workings of our Constitutional form of government of checks and balances, or the role that courts play in our American way of life. Where Obama was forced to use Executive Orders to get around a do nothing legislature and was roundly criticized as attempting to be a king, Trump is using Executive Orders in an attempt to change our way of life, without the involvement of the Republican controlled House and Congress. For Trump, the courts don’t seem to exist. And, that is what makes me feel glad to be an American at this point in our national history.  With George we said no to tyranny that led to a War of Independence. With Trump, the structures that were set up to safeguard us from future tyranny, are in place to protect us from his ignorance and dictates.

Trump has already been introduced to a “so called judge” from the state of Washington who said no to his Immigration Ban.  That ruling was heard before a Court of Appeals and was supported. So, Donald, welcome to a government of Checks and Balances.

The authoritarian Trump, who with the stroke of a pen, attempts to dictate that this will happen or that will not happen is, a part, living out his delusional world.  His view of people is that they can be manipulated and conned.  To be sure, tens of thousands of people have been, or he wouldn’t have been elected President, largely on strength of the “rust belt” vote.  For some his “make America great again” and “we’re going to build a wall,” “we are going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” and “we are going to cut taxes on corporations,” “we are going to cut regulations,” we are going to build up our military,” might seem like the answer to our problems. The devil is in the details. And, there are NO DETAILS. Where is he going to get the money for these projects? Some speculate that he is going to cut domestic spending, that is spending that is for the meeting of the needs of the very unemployed and hurting Rust Belt voters who elected him into the Oval Office.

In a March 2nd editorial that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Catherine Rampell, of the Washington Post, shares an Op-Ed piece entitled:  “America First Really Means American’s Last.” For many the title to her Op-Ed piece says it all.

It has been written, “ A con man makes you focus on what you think you can get and distracts you from everything you stand to lose.” A whole bunch of average American’s bought Don the Con’s play.  Only time and our government of checks and balances will tell how this turns out. 

farwelljs@yahoo.com