President Donald remains a disruptive stunt-machine, but if Saturday Night Live pacifies Trump with “We have been with you all along,” let’s reassess MAGA results.
Famed for my realistic positivism, a truffle dog sniffing out buried treasures, my response to high distress and outright panic towards Trump bombardments is to search out potentially beneficial outcomes. Being a democrat who backs majority rule, how can I challenge the people’s choice, disaster be damned? It’s downright unAmerican to defy the aggrieved from legally acting on their rage? Good news: it’s safer and easier to bet on Trump being his own worst enemy than agonizing how blunted Democrats could resolve their plight. Incumbency is treacherous, and Trump may still end up demolishing the GOP rather than conquering resistant democratic institutions. The fallout from scattergun vengeance is a double-edged sword.
In the meantime, start with positive, undeniable truths: 1) any direct correlation between fantasy Trump campaign propaganda and reality will be purely coincidental; 2) learning the art of dictatorship will take greater skills than concocting another Trump Media or crypto scam; and 3) letting ruthless amateurs, whether loony sons, the extremist VP, or fatuous oddballs like RFK, jr. run anything will invite shit-shows, thus providing fodder for comic relief. The longer an impaired mafia boss lasts, the greater the risks.
First, we have the spectacle of Trump picking top officials from a diminished pool, considering how many inept doozies were ground up after 2016. It’s hard enough to commandeer the future, let alone the federal government without top talent, and Trump picks will face mine fields, even Black Swan shockers: economic reversals, inevitable emergencies, infrastructure failures and overseas saber-rattling. Yet, in a world no single force can control, one can still imagine the range of theoretical positives from Trumpism 2.0:
1) The promise to end the Ukrainian stalemate. Even though anything but sudden (laughable unless Ukraine capitulates), think of the positives: peace after brutal devastation! So Ukraine shrinks or returns to colony status – isn’t all fair in love and war? Who anywhere glories in wiping out civilians, especially women and children? Isn’t the word “peace” buried in “appeasement”? End the war, says Trump, and all will be good, including more living freedom fighters. Arms manufacturers will squawk but think of delirious US taxpayers off the hook. Putin will be happy, and if rational should conclude that belligerence pushed by propaganda is a tad too costly. Will not Putin see the error of his ways and never again threaten Europe or border states? Really, how many lessons must bellicose invaders endure before they mend their ways?
2) Anti-abortion state bans or federal restrictions. Look, no one likes stressful abortions, especially the fetus, and this election confirmed that women, even when pregnant from rape or incest, can’t look to doctors or the government to save them. Struggling mothers in parking lots will just have to learn how to stop the bleeding. Who promised childbirth would be easy or predictable? Obviously irresponsible types with unplanned or unwanted pregnancies are screw ups allergic to birth control (as long as that option lasts) – so why should they be let off the hook? Like elections, drug use, and constant speeding, sex has consequences. Without abortion on demand, then folks like JD Vance can welcome more babies for the labor pool, to become hotel, big box and farm workers, factory stiffs, even soldiers ready to become suckers and losers. Aren’t more workers good for capitalism, filling stadiums or becoming cannon fodder?
On the other hand, less unprotected sex means both less disease contagion and more attention to intimacy before or outside marriage – thus the elevated moral gain that favors delayed gratification, even discipline. That should result in fewer children, delaying planetary capacity pressures. Who knows, Mother Earth may sigh in relief. All in all, the “moral majority” of Trumpers must have carefully scrutinized all the positives from severe abortion bans. Finally, less sex and fewer births means closing wildly expensive maternity facilities, saving billions, then the displaced baby doctors and nurses, once fearful of being jailed or penalized, can choose more socially-acceptable healthcare operations. My, my, how many accumulated blessings.
3) Resolving the immigration mess. Think of the positive message that deporting undocumented, unwanted “guests” would have, especially if Trump begins with all the killers and rapists he alleged have flooded in. The immigration flood would cease immediately. What self-respecting country can’t stabilize its borders, letting any meanderer from “shit-hole” countries invade our sacred paradise? It’s not as if Nobel Prize winners are breaking in because everyone knows top talent comes by plane. Mass deportation aptly redefines our brand – no longer the beacon of hope and the land of immigrants – and citizens can now revel in how privileged it is to be true-blue American. Fewer undesirables should free up our costly, tight housing markets, even lower rents. As with abortion and wars, life forces trade-offs on everyone, and why should foreign strays get to live where they choose?
4) Tariffs and the glory of the improved free market. Back to what worked when “the business of America was business,”starring materialism and money making? People now want a businessman running the country – for how else to achieve lower taxes, more profits, less regulations and work safety standards, let alone checks on the leftwing hoax called climate pollution? The free market must be kept free or owner freedom will wither and die. Tariffs, however inciting trade wars, will protect less competitive dinosaur industries and those not dependent on imported parts. Dishonest foreign manipulators must be taught a lesson that no one screws with America and gets away with it. So what if high tariffs decrease overall trade and inflate prices? Who said freedom means freedom from penalties? Plus, trickle-down economics will compensate for any blows to blue-collar prosperity. After all, rich tycoons will become so rich they’ll have to find ways to secure charitable deductions, thus throwing crumbs to the truly aggrieved.
Trump may even stumble onto reducing outsourcing because high tariffs encourage domestic factories, though few are isolated from globalism. If jobs are per chance lost, the unemployed will owe less taxes – and that’s the ultimate fantasy of every rightwing ideologue. Federal tariff receipts can then fund, even finish that legendary southern wall, further reducing infiltrations by terrorist families. So, it’s all connected – less government, more growth, more prosperity if you only look at top-line GNP numbers. Okay, Trump’s Walmart workers may face hard inflation and have fewer foreign goods to buy, but think how they are furthering American economic might to protect us all from outside enemies (though less so “enemies within”). As with abortion, war-making, taxes, and immigration, there is no free lunch (even lunches for the ever-hungry).
Who promised anyone a rose garden? The savvy Trump planners assure us that riches still loom for those with the right talent, high ambition, willing to sacrifice for the right industries, at least middle-class educational opportunities and readiness to uproot your family to find work. How spoiled are Yankee workers, figuring they could live forever in their dying towns. Perhaps that’s why the (presumably smarter, harder working) top ten percent of Americans own 67% of total wealth, with an average net family worth in the many millions. What other than Trumpism answers to all those empty leftwing complaints about fifty years of stagnating blue-collar buying power? Or net family asset creation for the bottom half — all of a pittance?
What rough and tumble game in capitalism avoids obvious winners and losers? Thanks to Biden’s economic headwinds, Trump may not have to address job growth or inflation pressure for years, allowing more than enough time to deliver the goods to Putin, Musk, Thiel, and other enlightened donors, enablers and partners.
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