THE POSSIBLE END OF THE TRUMP ERA (2021): A Return To Normalcy?

 

The second senate impeachment trial ended, unsurprisingly, with the acquittal of Donald J. Trump.  The vote was 57 to convict and 43 to acquit, significantly short of the two-thirds vote required. 

 Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, voted against impeachment, but then boisterously attacked Trump for his conduct during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.  Nancy Pelosi was quick to attack McConnell as a hypocrite for not breaking with his party.  Ms. Pelosi likely forgot her own party’s partisanship.  No Democratic senator broke rank with their party, while seven Republicans voted for conviction.  Maybe the only surprise about the vote was that Louisiana’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who earlier voted the impeachment of Trump was not constitutional, voted to convict this time around.

 When prosecutors decided against calling more than one witness to the impeachment trial, it was apparent to even them that this was a show trial.  They wanted to have their say and get it over.  The excuse was that they did not wish to distract from the Biden early agenda for his administration.

Indeed, it appears that Joe Biden wishes to be cautious and thoughtful.  He is probably already thinking about the midterm elections of 2022.  Biden was Vice President when President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act.  Partially as a result, the U.S. House and Senate went Republican in 2010.  Biden wishes to distance himself as much as possible from Donald Trump by almost appearing dull and conventional.  And following the Trump presidency, it would be difficult for him to appear otherwise.  Biden, who is 78-years-old, has been a political insider for nearly 50 years.  Trump won the presidency by promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C.

 Biden’s harshest critics will continually portray his policies as merely appeasing the “radical left.”  And undoubtedly, Biden did choose his running mate, Kamala Harris, as someone who would appeal to those with more progressive leanings.  But Biden is also aware of how close the election of 2020 actually was.  If not for the global pandemic, Trump would likely have won reelection.  And even with the pandemic, Trump may still have won if he made an effort to appear more compassionate in his response.  Instead, Trump mocked Biden for wearing a mask.  What I’m saying is that Biden will have to straddle the fence of bipartisanship if he hopes to complete any portion of his agenda.

 So what is to become of Donald Trump?  He promises that he will be back.  And he still has a small but entirely devoted group of followers.  His followers were the swing votes that gave him the election in 2016.  They are the ones that the pollsters, time after time, somehow managed to ignore.  Finally, they showed how much importance they put upon Trump by what occurred during the Capitol riots.

 As an outsider, Trump had the opportunity to make positive changes.  The economy was going full hilt, and only a pandemic slowed it down.  But even with the pandemic, the stock market continued to sore.  Unemployment, though rising dramatically in March 2020, has come down significantly in the following months.  And despite criticisms of his handling of the pandemic, neither House nor Senate Democrats saw what was coming, either.  

 Trump is an opportunist who, in 2016, turned negative campaigning into an art.  He knows how to poke at his opponent’s vulnerabilities.  Trump is willing to turn on allies who were significantly responsible for his success.  The nicknames he labels his opponents with, if somewhat cruel and unfair, are usually apt.  Trump has no reservations against making personal attacks.  

 The primary and presidential debates of 2016 had a huge television audience for reasons of entertainment.  Yet Trump’s first debate with Joe Biden in 2020 was almost surreal.  Hopefully, it will forever get rid of the notion that presidential debates contain an ounce of substance.  Biden didn’t do all that much better in that first debate and probably lost the second debate to someone he labeled a “clown.”

 The problem with it is such tactics grow old.  Eventually, people saw Trump for maybe what he was all along: narcissistic.  Trump remained tone-deaf to issues of race and suffering within our country.  Because of his shortcomings, I hope that we do not hear about him again.  I’m guessing that he will never again hold public office.  Nothing below the presidency would likely satisfy him at this point in any case.  And whatever his messaging may be, history will paint him as the President who watched his followers break into the Capitol.  After all, we will remember James Buchanan as the President who took no action when the Confederacy overtook Fort Sumter. 

 I’m okay with acquitting Trump during the Senate hearing if only because it allows us to talk about other things.  I’m also uncomfortable with the Senate holding impeachment hearings for an individual no longer in office.  It’s an expansion upon their authority to try something never before done, and they already have too much power.  But Trump also abdicated his responsibilities as well, probably since the announcement of Joe Biden’s election.

 But Trump will not likely disappear, nor will his followers.  We will continually hear them shout their discontent.  An unsavory portion of his followers wave the Confederate flag and hold notions regarding race and immigrants all of us would be better off without.    Still, some of them are also blue-collared workers that both major parties ignore.  These are men and women supporting families and who feel left behind.  If we are to talk about inclusiveness, we need to include them in the discussion as well.

 I have not added a blog post for months hoping that events may eventually calm down enough so I could catch a breath.  Maybe the calming will now occur.  But we have to get beyond political leanings and the arrogance that we, whoever “we” may be, have all the right answers.  Citizens of the United States need to abide by a sense of decency.

 February 14, 2021

 

 © Robert S. Miller 2021

 

 

THE DEATH OF GEORGE FLOYD – And the Protests that Followed (2020)

Anyone seeing the video of George Floyd dying on the streets of Minneapolis at the hands of the police has the right to be outraged. His death was everyone’s loss.

I also take issue with those hijacking protests in his name to loot, vandalize and commit arson. For whatever reason, the protests spilled over to the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul. More than 170 businesses in that city were looted, damaged, and/or burned to the ground. Such businesses set on fire included:

1.  Lloyd’s Pharmacy on Snelling Avenue – a store that served the Midway area and senior citizens for close to 50 years
2.  Big Top Liquors – A store that survived many changes in the area
3.  Footlocker – Looted entirely before burned to the ground
4.  Sports Dome – Business opened approximately ten years ago unique to University Avenue.
5.  Springboard for the Arts – On University Avenue close to the State Capitol
6.   Bole Ethiopian Cuisine – Owned and operated by an immigrant from Bole, Ethiopia

Wonderful establishments such as Axman Surplus and The Turf Club also sustained substantial damage.A friend of mine, living in the Midway area with his wife and three daughters for twenty years, said the following: “My neighborhood is gone.”

For those who believe they can justify such violence, there is no use in speaking to me about it. Changing my opinion on the matter will not change the circumstances. Preach it to the young Ethiopian woman whose dream, livelihood and years of effort to open a restaurant on University Avenue just went up in flames. But I truly hope nobody has the conceit to convey such a message to her.

Let’s honor the memory and legacy of George Floyd by protesting in his name peacefully and with dignity.

May 30, 2020

© Robert S. Miller 2020

AMERICA: And the Handling of the Coronavirus (2020)

“These are unsettling times.”

I heard this quote three times on the same news station the other morning.  A national news company, by the way, who may wish to edit their copy.  The times need to be unsettling to justify 24-hour-a-day coverage.  In my lifetime, I’ve experienced the Cuban-Missile Crisis, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.  There were also assassination attempts made on Presidents Ford and Reagan. I remember as a boy hearing of the escalation of the Vietnam War.  In the late 1970s, there was news of the Iranian hostage crisis.  In 2000, there was a contested presidential election that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and just a short time after that, there was the attack on the World Trade Centers in New York.

This is just my own experience.  Both of my parents lived through the Great Depression and World War II.  My father even saw the flag raisings at Iwo Jima, so our current circumstances don’t seem quite so bad.

I agree that this pandemic ushered in unsettling times.  How much of it is due to the natural progression of the disease, the failure of government officials to take appropriate action, and the overreporting or underreporting of relevant facts will only be known in the future.

Locking Down Everything

Nearly every day there is an extension on lockdowns amounting to practically no restaurants or bars open in the nation.  In one Colorado county, there was a closing of most businesses liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries excepted (officials figured that a ban to such businesses would cause gnashing of the teeth).

The obvious issue to everyone (with the possible exception of some Sanders’ supporters) is that this costs money.  We are asking small businesses to take a financial hit that no government stipend will remedy.  And any cost for this will have to come from the taxpayer’s pockets.  Worse, there is no definite ending to these lockdowns to make it possible for businesses to plan around.  Without such certainties, many workplaces see no alternative but to layoff a good portion of their work staff.

Yet anyone who suggests considering the financial costs will likely be on the brunt end of criticism.  “How can we place money before lives?”  “You’re asking elderly people to give up their lives so that we can save our 401(k)s?”  Retorts to such emotional travails that there will also be an impact upon education, mental health, and the ability for certain people to buy their daily necessities will go unheard.  Unfortunately, such costs will cost lives as well.

It would be good if we would listen to arguments from all sides, including the one that we can’t make the cure worse than the disease.  Importantly, any solution cannot overlook the needs of small businesses.  Allowing for small businesses to thrive in the United States is what has made our country the top economy in the world.

Politics as usual

Will the coronavirus outbreak impact the 2020 presidential election? How could it not be a factor? 

In the Democratic race, while for some reason commentators wrote Joe Biden off, they made almost the same mistake they did back in 2016.  They didn’t wait to see what South Carolina had to say about the primaries.  Nobody seems to understand that black voters do not support Bernie Sanders – no matter how many commentators tell such voters that Sanders has their best interests at heart.  Most black voters indeed believe that their interests best lie with the Democratic Party.  But the average black voter is also more moderate than left-leaning.  Black families want the same thing for their children as do white families.  And there remains a certain distrust in government among black voters that may be as prevalent as it is among white voters.  Sanders’ supporters are known for being highly critical of the current administration – possibly remaining unaware of their inner contradiction.  That distrust of government does not seem to prevent them from supporting policies that would significantly increase the size of the government.

So, Joe Biden flourished later in the primaries because of a more moderate image – probably only somewhat deserved.  Despite his occasional verbal gaffs (actually mild compared to those of President Trump), he represents a more stable presence with lots of political experience.  Some say a nomination of Biden would be a repeat mistake of 2016 – brining in another political insider.  Maybe.  But Hillary Clinton has long been a more controversial figure than Biden – both on the right and on the left.  We will find out if Biden’s critics are right or wrong in November. 

And then you have the other major political party.  Whatever else some people think about our current president, he brings attention upon himself and, at times, makes us forget there is going to be someone out there challenging him for the presidency.  Unlike Sanders’ voters, Trump’s loyal following appear to show up at the polls when it matters.

In saying that, nobody should be surprised that the opinions of partisan voters will vary significantly on how President Trump handles the entire matter.  Still, it is surprising to me that the press so far has been relatively fair to him.  There will always be exceptions.  Some writers will never forgive him for winning the 2016 election.  But many citizens, even though who will probably hold their nose and vote for him in November, do wish that he’d refrain from off-the-cuff comments that only alarm observers rather than make them feel more assured.

I don’t think he can help it.  Trump will continue stating his opinions without any factual basis and maybe back-peddle later on – though there’s no guarantee that he will back down.  And it’s in his nature to gloat.  For someone who never sought political office before running for president, he does it probably as well as any politician I’ve observed – even if there’s nothing to celebrate.  But the old Republican adage persists: “He may be a jackass, but he’s our jackass!”  That’s why in 2016, the Republican party took the senate, congress and, of course, the White House.

The toilet paper crisis

I was one of the lucky ones.  I walked into a Walmart, met a manager who was carrying a package of toilet paper torn on one side, and he offered it to me.  And almost immediately upon having the package in my hand, someone offered to give me cash for the entire package.  I was buying it for someone else, so I had to disappoint him.  However, I do wish I asked how much he was willing to pay.

We will get through this!  There will still be toilet paper when this is all over!

March 31, 2020

© Robert S. Miller 2020