Once the leader of the free world, the city on a hill with morals and standards that engendered respect and emulation, America has turned inward, insular, predatory and self-serving.
What’s in it for me is the slogan of the New Republican Party (NRP), the Party of Trump (POT). The POT campaigned on populism but is governed by a plutocracy.
No pain, no gain. The problem, identified by Franz Kafka a decade ago, is that short term gains lead to long term losses.
“There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: impatience and laziness. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of laziness we cannot return. Perhaps, however, there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out, because of impatience we cannot return.” Franz Kafka
USAID has saved millions of lives over the past three decades. Now the nearly defunct agency moved to the State Department under Secretary Marco Rubio doesn’t have the staff, resources or expertise to run the limited programs that remain. Without the USAID program millions of poor and starving people around the world will die. China and Russia may pick up some of the slack and gain credibility while American credibility declines.
The inhumanity and meanness is not only overseas. The Big Beautiful Bill of the POT will cut Medicaid to the most vulnerable Americans many of who live in red states. Kentucky and Louisiana and many others could be forced to close rural hospitals. Hard working but poorly paid Americans will lose their healthcare and find the paperwork and travel too cumbersome to pursue. Emergency rooms, already crowded, will be more crowded and healthcare costs will rise in the long run, not fall, as a result of the cuts.
Are these really the right policies for a “Christian nation”? What did Jesus say in the parable of the grain and the weeds, the parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal son? Does anyone in the POT remember? Or care?
The POT is turning America into a very different country with less health care for the poor and more tax breaks for the rich. The POT is anti-law and pro-oligarchy. A bit like Putin’s Russia. The POT is a chimera that combines an old time libertarian philosophy with bureaucratic meddling. The POT proclaims “don’t tread on me” then uses the power of government to extort payments from media organizations and corporations, states and educational institutions. No inconsistency or hypocrisy is too great for the POT.
All POT relationships, foreign and domestic, are contractural in nature, never compassionate or generous, with the quid pro quo sometimes out front but more often hidden in the dark corners. As a result America’s reputation has declined, relationship with allies and friends has soured. What’s in it for me has replaced come let us reason together.
There is good reason to doubt the future of democracy as we know it. Voter intimidation (think ICE), challenges to voting rights including making voting more cumbersome and difficult, and a greater potential for election rigging are legitimate concerns. The POT has already started to tamper with data collection at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and in the CPI surveys as reported in Bloomberg by Tracy Alloway and Joe Wiesenthal (America’s Data Disaster Is Already Here). Once the envy of the world in terms of accurate statistical reporting, we are lowering our standards. By tampering with the numbers it will be easier to take away the benefits that American workers have earned. And, we are replacing our currency with speculative computer entries that make it easier to cover up all sorts of illegal activities.
There are some countervailing forces brewing. Cruel anti-populist, mean, greedy and selfish policies will not go unnoticed if they are implemented. Rising prices due to tariffs and more expensive and less available education and health care will have a noticeable impact on ordinary people. If we are lucky, voter regret may set in. On the other hand, with so much dismantling of the basic functions of government, it could be that the government can’t function well enough to enact these POT policies. We could have a total breakdown of government which depends more on the “bureaucracy” than the POT people are capable of understanding. It’s easy to sign executive orders and with the majority of both houses of Congress and a majority of Supreme Court justices to write new laws. Implementation is not so easy especially when those who know how to do the implementing have been fired.
In the next two or three years we will find out if democracy as we know it survives. This is a new and dangerous situation. America as we know it has radically changed. God help us.
Stay tuned.