One Swamp Drains, Another One Fills

If you think that the appointment of everyman hero Reince Priebus to be Trump’s Chief of Staff is “draining the swamp”, you’re hilariously misinformed. 

If you think that the appointment of Stephen Bannon to any position in the White House is anything short of fundamentally alarming, you’re on the same side as the Nazis and the Klan. 

If you are wringing your hands over people protesting the election of Donald Trump, but had no similar reaction to the people who protested President Obama as part of the “tea party”, you’re a hypocrite. 

If you are hyper-concerned about an anarchist in Portland, Oregon breaking a window, but don’t have much to say about overtly racist acts intimidation and vandalism, I don’t think your priorities are correct. 

The new Republican majority threatens to privatize and ruin Medicare and Social Security. As many as 20 million people face the imminent loss of health insurance. Planned Parenthood, which provides free cancer screenings, contraception, and other healthcare services to women regardless of ability to pay is under assault. Our closest allies are afraid while our most pressing international threat is emboldened. We are poised to spend trillions more on an already massive military-industrial complex. Trump’s tax plan will not only bring about massive deficits, ultimately expanding public debt, but is designed most specifically to aid the superwealthy literally on the backs of, among others, middle class single parents. 

While there are some positive things that Trump is considering – trust busting perhaps, infrastructure modernization and spending – on balance it’s a huge leap backwards.

If you think that Carl Paladino belongs anywhere near the West Wing of the White House, you’re out of your mind. 

If you think for a minute that Donald Trump believes Obergefell v. Hodges to be settled law, you’re delusional. 

If you think that Obergefell is settled law, but Roe v. Wade isn’t, you don’t understand the law or the Supreme Court. 

If you think that Donald Trump can locate a potential SCOTUS nominee who would uphold Obergefell but overturn Roe, LOL. 

If you think that Russian meddling in the 2016 election was ok because it helped your guy, you’re not as patriotic as you think. 

More LOLs. Amazing what a week can do. 

If you think that Wikileaks is anything more than a front group for Russian intelligence, you’re not paying close enough attention. 

If you think Trump won in a “landslide”, you should look up what the term means and glance at the popular vote tally from a credible source. 

If you think it’s scandalous that professors gave students a day off after an election that was called at 2:30 AM, but don’t have much of anything to say about on-campus neo-Nazi recruitment efforts, you’re tacitly supporting the latter. 

If you think that it was ok for Trump to spend 8 years falsely accusing President Obama of being a Kenyan usurper unqualified to be President, you don’t really respect the office of the Presidency. . 

If you think that it was ok for people to protest and label President Obama a communist, a socialist as bad as Hitler and Lenin, a foreigner, someone who intended to destroy America, to depict him as a monkey – or, perhaps, to depict him and his wife as a pimp and ho – but it is beyond the pale and despicable for people to protest Donald Trump, you’re a hypocrite. 

If you think it was appropriate for Van Jones to resign his position as an environmental advisor to President Obama because of things he had once said, but that the outrage over Trump’s appointment of current white nationalist Stephen Bannon is ridiculous, you hold people to different standards depending on which team you’re on. 

If you think it was ok to view the stolen private emails of DNC staffers and John Podesta, but don’t demand to see the official emails of former Indiana Governor Mike Pence, LOL. 

A few things I’d like to add here. First of all, if you’re going around yelling that Trump isn’t your President, stop. He’s your President whether you like it or not, and this sort of thing is tea party asshole behavior of the highest form. What you’re trying to express is your outrage over the election of a buffoon who, in large part, appealed to people’s worst prejudices and instincts. I agree with you on that point. But just as Obama was the tea party’s President, Trump is yours. And mine. And we have to be mindful of what happens. We have to keep a close eye on what he proposes and what he does. But above all, we have to do what we can to promote the values and ideas which we believe are better than Trump’s. This is how you can best express that “not my President” thing – work to ensure that Republicans control fewer state houses, fewer Congressional seats, fewer Senate seats, fewer state legislatures, and vacate the White House. 

It was announced this week that Congressman Chris Collins (NY-27), who was the first Republican congressman to endorse the President-elect, will keep his seat and merely act as congressional liaison to the Trump transition team. What a shame, two more years of being unrepresented in Congress by an attention-seeking demagogue narcissist. After all, Collins has that seat for life, if he wants it. Ah, but on that point, Collins’ deputy Chief of Staff, Michael Kracker responded, “It also helps when you represent the interests of your district and work hard. But that doesn’t fit your narrative.” 

OK, but my point is that he doesn’t necessarily represent “the interests” of the district. Not all of them, anyway. To my knowledge, Collins – who has been in Congress since 2012 – has not held a single open and public town hall meeting. Hell, even Chris Lee held bullshit “telephone town hall” meetings, but Collins can’t be bothered to go out and listen to constituents who might confront him or differ with him on some issue in any way, in any forum, via any medium. Well, maybe once. This is a guy who is as establishment GOP as they come, playing a make-believe outsider. “I’m not a career politician”, he enjoys repeating, but he’s now been in elected office for 10 years, with only a brief interruption. 

Kracker’s response was, “2012: 72% 2016: 68% I think our constituents are happy with their representation.” Well, I guess about 2/3 of them are. Do the other 1/3 not count? Is he the Congressman only of the 2/3 who support him? Anyway, this didn’t answer my question about when the next (or last) town hall meeting was. Or when the next “Congress on your Corner” is being held. No one answered these questions, either:

Here’s a topic: House Speaker Paul Ryan’s most favoritest nocturnal emission has to do with the privatization of Social Security and the voucherization of Medicare, essentially leaving beneficiaries with poorer service and higher costs. It’s been voted on in the House no fewer than five (5) times, most recently in 2015. Chris Collins of Clarence voted in favor of effectively abolishing the foundation of America’s entitlements for the elderly; this is already his stated goal. For the record, Brian Higgins (NY-26) voted against this. 

Do you figure all of those economically insecure people who voted for Trump in order to “drain the swamp” wanted a millionaire to take away their Medicare and Social Security? 

So, who’s up for planning a few Congressional town hall meetings? If we’re all about anti-establishment populism now, let’s have some fun with it.