Dear America,
The apprehension, loathing and disgust I have felt since Trump was reelected has finally been transmogrified into abject consternation. This "big, beautiful bill" nonsense was the last straw, even though it is not yet a fait accompli. It bodes so ill for the nation that it now seems to me that the Trump administration is an existential threat to the endurance of our democratic ethos. I fear we are doomed.
The tax portion of this bill is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, which is already almost equal to our annual gross domestic product, or GDP, all in the name of enriching people who already have more money than they could ever spend, some of them hundreds of times more. And I fear that this legislation, in conjunction with Trump's version of Hoover's Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, will most likely push us over the same edge that Herbert Hoover's governance did. I'm guessing that some of Trump's plurality, including the pusillanimous Republican Party as a whole, takes solace from the deluded belief that Trump is possessed of some kind of wisdom that is guiding him in the direction in which he is leading us. But regarding the debt, for example, that faith in a man who is and has always been nothing more that a snake oil salesman selling grandiosity out of the trunk of his limousine is disastrously misguided. It has to be remembered with regard to the debt that Trump once called himself "the king of debt" during his dubious career as a businessman. We can't forget that over the course of five or six bankruptcies, Trump made money for himself and his businesses by what I would consider devious if not nefarious tactics. For example, when his casino in Jersey City, the precociously and vulgarly ostentatiously named "Taj Majal," had been run almost into business penury, Trump's management company floated a raft of junk bonds that it never wound up paying back, the proceeds from which were used in part to pay that very same Trump management company just before the corporation declared bankruptcy and in consequence failed outright. Trump got paid by using the debt of one of his corporations for his own enrichment at the expense of the willing dupes who bought the debt he was selling. To him, the presidency is just another Taj Majal debt scam from which he will walk away richer and the rest of us can go to hell as far as he is concerned. More golf for him and consignment to the dumping ground of history with the likes of Rome, Greece and the Holy Roman Empire for us. We, our nation, will play the roll played by the dupes in the Taj Majal caper. Who knows what will happen to America in consequence.
As to the tariffs, when Hoover attempted to use them for the same purposes and in the same modality as that in which Trump is employing them, they seemed to accomplish their purpose initially. But within a little more than a year after the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent market vicissitudes, the worm began to turn, and instead of commerce turning in our favor, both imports and exports declined by more than half. Unemployment began its rise from 8% in 1930 to 25% by 1932-33. Efforts by other nations to combat economic trends just exacerbated them and led to the devastation of the common man constituted by "The Great Depression."
Now add Trump's abuse of due process in the matter of deportation of undocumented aliens, who by the way are a major source of workers for American business and industry for which there is probably no substitute. Compound that with his persecution of all those who disagree with him through both civil litigation and use of what used to be a somewhat honorable institution, the Department of Justice, which Trump claims was doing to him what he is now doing to his adversaries: "weaponization" of the DOJ and the FBI. The fact is that, in his case the government was just trying to get back secret documents that he had flaunted to people like Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov (Trump read from one in the oval office, as shown on the news during his first term) and an ensemble of his sycophants, one of whom was writing an autobiography of Trump in the aftermath of his loss in 2020 (which reading he did on tape that also made the national news).
Of course you can add the Qatari jet, the crusade against DEI consideration, the dire reductions in entitlements like Medicare and SNAP, the food stamp program, which are included in the bill, Trump's bit coin venture from which he is profiting handsomely, and illicitly in my opinion, while in office, his sons and son-in-law using their consanguinity with him to make lucrative deals in foreign countries anxious to curry American favor, his plan to turn a country, Gaza, into a luxury resort instead of part of a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli war of attrition...and on and on. I hope someone can show me that I am wrong about the future, but unfortunately, only time will tell in the end.
Your friend,
Mike
The apprehension, loathing and disgust I have felt since Trump was reelected has finally been transmogrified into abject consternation. This "big, beautiful bill" nonsense was the last straw, even though it is not yet a fait accompli. It bodes so ill for the nation that it now seems to me that the Trump administration is an existential threat to the endurance of our democratic ethos. I fear we are doomed.
The tax portion of this bill is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, which is already almost equal to our annual gross domestic product, or GDP, all in the name of enriching people who already have more money than they could ever spend, some of them hundreds of times more. And I fear that this legislation, in conjunction with Trump's version of Hoover's Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, will most likely push us over the same edge that Herbert Hoover's governance did. I'm guessing that some of Trump's plurality, including the pusillanimous Republican Party as a whole, takes solace from the deluded belief that Trump is possessed of some kind of wisdom that is guiding him in the direction in which he is leading us. But regarding the debt, for example, that faith in a man who is and has always been nothing more that a snake oil salesman selling grandiosity out of the trunk of his limousine is disastrously misguided. It has to be remembered with regard to the debt that Trump once called himself "the king of debt" during his dubious career as a businessman. We can't forget that over the course of five or six bankruptcies, Trump made money for himself and his businesses by what I would consider devious if not nefarious tactics. For example, when his casino in Jersey City, the precociously and vulgarly ostentatiously named "Taj Majal," had been run almost into business penury, Trump's management company floated a raft of junk bonds that it never wound up paying back, the proceeds from which were used in part to pay that very same Trump management company just before the corporation declared bankruptcy and in consequence failed outright. Trump got paid by using the debt of one of his corporations for his own enrichment at the expense of the willing dupes who bought the debt he was selling. To him, the presidency is just another Taj Majal debt scam from which he will walk away richer and the rest of us can go to hell as far as he is concerned. More golf for him and consignment to the dumping ground of history with the likes of Rome, Greece and the Holy Roman Empire for us. We, our nation, will play the roll played by the dupes in the Taj Majal caper. Who knows what will happen to America in consequence.
As to the tariffs, when Hoover attempted to use them for the same purposes and in the same modality as that in which Trump is employing them, they seemed to accomplish their purpose initially. But within a little more than a year after the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent market vicissitudes, the worm began to turn, and instead of commerce turning in our favor, both imports and exports declined by more than half. Unemployment began its rise from 8% in 1930 to 25% by 1932-33. Efforts by other nations to combat economic trends just exacerbated them and led to the devastation of the common man constituted by "The Great Depression."
Now add Trump's abuse of due process in the matter of deportation of undocumented aliens, who by the way are a major source of workers for American business and industry for which there is probably no substitute. Compound that with his persecution of all those who disagree with him through both civil litigation and use of what used to be a somewhat honorable institution, the Department of Justice, which Trump claims was doing to him what he is now doing to his adversaries: "weaponization" of the DOJ and the FBI. The fact is that, in his case the government was just trying to get back secret documents that he had flaunted to people like Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov (Trump read from one in the oval office, as shown on the news during his first term) and an ensemble of his sycophants, one of whom was writing an autobiography of Trump in the aftermath of his loss in 2020 (which reading he did on tape that also made the national news).
Of course you can add the Qatari jet, the crusade against DEI consideration, the dire reductions in entitlements like Medicare and SNAP, the food stamp program, which are included in the bill, Trump's bit coin venture from which he is profiting handsomely, and illicitly in my opinion, while in office, his sons and son-in-law using their consanguinity with him to make lucrative deals in foreign countries anxious to curry American favor, his plan to turn a country, Gaza, into a luxury resort instead of part of a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli war of attrition...and on and on. I hope someone can show me that I am wrong about the future, but unfortunately, only time will tell in the end.
Your friend,
Mike
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