DARK AGES 2.0

 

Humanity’s incredible advances largely resulted from the benefits of Specialization and, much later, the Scientific Method.  Especially in the US, a growing rejection of both threatens society.

Members of the first primitive Homo species of Eastern Africa some two million years ago (Homo rudolfensis) would likely have had no way to comprehend the lifestyles of their later kin Homo heidelbergensis.  By approximately 300,000 years ago, our ancestors such as H. heidelbergensis had mastered the use of fire and advanced hunting tools to increase their caloric intake and improve their chances of survival.  Larger brain sizes were one result, and they led to evidence of complex thinking such as art, religion, and language in succeeding millennia. 

H. heidelbergensis and its descendants Homo neandertalensis and Homo sapiens famously lived by hunting and gathering; hunting both small and the largest land animals of the time, and gathering a wide variety of berries, tubers, grasses, and nuts. Men, women, and children participated equally in these activities, as well as the preparation of food and (later) crafting clothes for protection from the cold.  But at some widely argued time – as far back as a million years, or perhaps only about 15,000 years ago – most Homo societies practiced the first version of Specialization: one based on gender.  Generally larger and more powerful males did the majority of hunting dangerous animals, while child-rearing females stayed closer to home and engaged in the safer gathering of foods from plants, along with food preparation.  Human populations, along with their ability to challenge Nature, consequently expanded because each sex was relatively more productive at their given roles. 

Fast forward to 10,000 years ago, with H. heidelbergensis and H. neandertalensis long gone and Homo sapiens literally the last man (and woman) standing.  By this time the domestication of both plants and animals was in full swing.  Hunting and gathering foods was gradually replaced by farming and herding animals, likely beginning in Anatolia (modern Turkey).  The need to move around in search of food declined, stable communities developed, and early civilization as we define it soon followed.  Egypt and Sumeria are credited as having the first advanced civilizations, complete with cities, pharaohs/kings, class divisions, and a much wider variety of Specialization.  Most people were farmers, but there were also builders, merchants, craftspeople, administrators, soldiers, priests, nobles, teachers, and others.  As in the earlier version, Specialization increased efficiency and the amount of goods available.  

It also increased knowledge and the free time to develop new and better ways of doing things.  Writing systems, inventions, and scientific discoveries ensued over the centuries in the Middle East and Egypt, but also in India and China, and later – in the Americas.  Civilizations overall became more impressive, life became more complex, and material wealth grew, though the benefits accrued mostly to a small majority: the ruling classes and priests. Progress ebbed and flowed for millennia, three steps forward, two steps back-wise, until the19th century, when Specialization took a big leap forward thanks in part to Adam Smith’s observations on the topic in 1776’s The Wealth of Nations.  The American system of manufacturing linked Smith’s division of labor with interchangeable parts and mechanization, causing production to sky-rocket and birthing modern consumerism.  

But hold up; we’ve bypassed the second great source of societal gains – the Scientific Method. 

Arising in Europe in the 17^th century, its roots actually go back as far as the earliest civilizations in Egypt and the Middle East, thousands of years earlier.  Discoveries and advancements in mathematics, astrology/astronomy, medicine, science, engineering, and government were passed onto, and improved upon, century after century by the Greeks and then the Romans.  Until the fall of the Rome’s Western Empire and centuries of intellectual regression.    

During Europe’s Dark Ages starting about 500 A.D., learning and functional government collapsed; former knowledge was forgotten.  In the former province of Britannia, Anglo-Saxons marveled at Rome’s ability to build paved roads and formidable stone forts that still stood centuries later, but which they themselves had no idea how to replicate. The ability to read and write disappeared, save for the nobility and priestly classes.  Science and logic faded into the mists of ignorance, with societies now guided by myths, superstitions, and whatever priests told them.  In Europe, at least. 

In the Middle East and N. Africa, Rome’s Eastern (or Byzantine) Empire lived on, knowledge intact and progress still possible.  Contact with Asian civilizations continued via the Silk Road between China and the Middle East, as it had since early Roman times.  The interchange of information and ideas naturally increased knowledge in those places, even as Europe backslid.  Islam’s conquests of the 7^th and 8^th centuries accelerated the area’s search for enlightenment and reputation for wisdom; Arab schools, scientists, and mathematicians became arguably the best in the world even while Europe flopped about as an intellectual backwater.  

The first big crack in Europe’s wall of ignorance came in the year 1095, when Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to support the Byzantine Empire’s fight against Islamic forces.  Knights and assorted supporters from across Europe responded en masse, seeking glory and papal indulgences to exculpate their sins.  Upon crossing from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) into Anatolia, and then down into the Levant, Western warriors encountered their first Muslim resistance – and exposure to the advanced state of the Islamic world and the luxury products available there.  Those that survived the journeys and battles returned home and spread the word.  Subsequent Crusades, lasting until the late-13^th century, added to Europeans’ awareness of wonders of the East, and the benefits of learning, open-mindedness, and trading.  

Nicolo and Maffeo Polo were among the merchants who became wealthy from accommodating new European tastes by trading with Middle Eastern Muslims.  That led to the famed travels of their son/nephew Marco Polo along the arduous Silk Road between 1271 and 1295.  Word returned with Polo about the riches of China and nations along the Road, sparking dreams of easier, cheaper ways to access Asian treasures.  Constantinople finally fell to the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire in 1453, which ended Europe’s access to key trade routes, and sparking an Age of Exploration to find alternatives.  Its initial objective was to find oceanic routes to Asia, but of course voyages such as those by Bartolomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan ultimately resulted in additional consequences that changed the world forever.   

Besides exposure to Asian knowledge in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, other caused added to  the rebirth of art, learning, and an overall renewal of interest in the world around Europeans that arose in the 15^th century: The Renaissance. This rebirth was centered in Italy, where wealthy families that succeeded Venice’s Polos - such as the Medici, Visconti, and Sforza - funded great artworks and supported centers of learning such as the University of Pisa, where Galileo Galilei eventually studied.  Greek and Roman philosophy and scholarship were again the guiding lights, as critical thinking replaced the model of sheep following the blind.  The mechanical clock, microscope, and telescope were invented, Earth was disproven as the center of the universe, as growing knowledge spread aided by eyeglasses and the printing press – to name a few of the age’s new contributions. 

Building on the early work of those such as Persia’s Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, England’s Roger Bacon had already set the foundation for what became known as the Scientific Method in the 13^th century.  It guided a better understanding of the world through 1) scientific inquiry based on 2) rigorous skepticism of assumptions, then 3) creating a hypothesis through inductive reasoning, 4) testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, based on facts and logic, and finally 5) adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results.  Former false beliefs were disproven, replaced by new natural laws and verified truths, creating a new Scientific Revolution in Europe.  Francis Bacon (no relation to Roger Bacon), Galileo, and Isaac Newton were in the forefront of this movement, which gained momentum as the 1500s led into the 17th century. 

The Church and royal authority were the losers, as their word alone was no longer enough to establish truth, leading to the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason.  This Enlightenment period featured an intellectual and philosophical movement focused on a range of social ideas based on knowledge learned by rational thought and empiricism. 

It basically applied the questioning and attempts to prove/disprove ideas in much the same way as the Scientific Method had been applied to physical constructs.  Political ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, and the separation of church and state were its primary bailiwick.  The publication of René Descartes’ famous maxim, Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") of 1637, and Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica of 1687 are often credited as kicking off this new Age, inspiring the thoughts and writings of those such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the rights of men and the best forms of government. 

The new United States of America was built on those ideas, as was the French Revolution a few years later and countless other rejections of the absolute power of kings and colonialism throughout Europe and Latin America in the 19^th century.  An Industrial Revolution evolved out of the Scientific Revolution, as steam power drove factories and then railroads and steamships.  Internal combustion powered by gasoline engines followed, expanding possibilities even further. In the United States, blessed with immense territory and resources thanks to Manifest Destiny, the heady mix of the freedoms from an Enlightened government and the Industrial Revolution drove production and prosperity to unimaginable heights.  The US ended up with the world’s largest economy by the turn of the 20^th century, and was soon to usher in the Age of Consumerism.  American men and women, educated and specializing in distinct fields, continued to innovate using the Scientific Method, producing marvels one after another: automobiles, radios, televisions, computers, the Internet, time-saving and leisure products beyond count – all affordable for virtually everyone – along with weaponry to protect the homeland and American democracy.  These all existed side by side with the highest standard of living ever known. 

Scientists argue that we are now living in the Anthropocene Epoch.  Most believe that it started in 1945, with the first use of atomic power, or 1950, with the start of a dramatic increase in human activity affecting the planet (a.k.a. the Great Acceleration).  https://education.nationalgeographic.org

The televisions, computers, Internet, and cell phones of our current Information Age are a key subset of this Epoch.  For better and for worse, we live in this world thanks to centuries of advances provided by critical thinking, science, Enlightenment ideas, and specialization. 

SOURCES OF AMERICA’S GREATNESS

A belief in education to produce citizens who could make intelligent decisions, and experts who could be relied on in specialized fields. 

A belief in science and the Scientific Method to guide personal decisions and the nation’s path. 

Adhering to the Constitution, with its three equal branches and separation of church and state. 

Rule by the majority, with protections for minorities. 

A belief in social progress, away from outdated ideas and toward a fuller realization of the Constitution, where ALL men (and women) are equal; not just white landowning men, or just white men, or just men, or just straight men and women. 

 

America’s foundation is fraying, however, endangering the country, its people, and its place in history.

•  The highly-educated are being devalued, mocked and sometimes threatened.  Book bans are back.
•  The opinions of trained scientists and other specialists are brushed aside, some even being made illegal to express.  (Think: Climate change in Florida)
•  The ability to think critically and make sound decisions is being replaced by relying on deceptive social media and public figures who spread irrational claims and proven falsehoods.  We are told to believe a pathological liar rather than what we see or read, and 100 million Americans do.
•  All three branches of government are being attacked: Congress has become polarized and ineffective; the Supreme Court is unabashedly partisan as never before; a President fights the peaceful transfer of power, and three short years later is poised to be voted in again - this time as basically a dictator. 
• Hard-earned progress on individual freedoms is reversed, e.g. reproductive and civil rights.  One of two major political parties seeks to create an unconstitutional “White Christian-Nationalist”  government, and meanwhile threatens revenge on, and even violence against, opponents.
•  Minority views on a variety of critical issues are imposed on the majority, via wrongfully appointed judges and unconstitutional restrictions of voting rights. 

All of the above are more than partisan claims.  All can be fully documented using proven facts and proper logic – pillars of the Scientific Method that took the West out of the Dark Ages and eventually into the modern world.  Similarly, those with specialized knowledge in crucial fields are being ignored if not outright attacked, rather than being heeded.  These assaults, if not sufficiently countered, threaten to reverse social structures that trace back to our Enlightenment roots, and undermine the benefits of principles that initiated the Scientific Revolution.  Enlightenment-spawned principles of government, key freedoms and rights, defenses against deadly diseases, and the ability to minimize the catastrophic consequences of Climate Change – these are among the catastrophes we face. As a result of rejecting what made the West and our country great, America risks backtracking into something akin to a Dark Ages 2.0. 

The Luckiest Generation

 

What are the odds?  Born in the greatest, freest, wealthiest country in the world.  But also at the best time.  

The Lost Generation; the Greatest Generation; the Silent Generation; Baby Boomers; Generation X; Millennials; Generation Z – they covered the entire 20^th century and into the 21^st.  I was born in 1952, a third of the way into the Boom that followed World War II.  

People tend to think the best music is the kind they grew up with as teenagers and young adults.  So the Greatest and Silent Generations loved jazz, bebop, and Frank Sinatra, while for Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers it’s grunge, pop, and hip hop.  Along those same lines, we Baby Boomers think we were the best generation overall, growing up with, it goes without saying, the best music of all time.  We were, in other words, the Luckiest Generation.  Here’s why:

THE PEACE BENEFIT: Start by considering that Boomers lived during mostly peaceful times.  Yes, there was Vietnam, and many years later the mess in Afghanistan and Iraq.  But context matters: In the US Civil War 612,000 soldiers died, about 1.7% of the country’s population at the time.  In WWI, the toll was much lower: 0.12% of the population; WWII deaths totaled nearly 419,000 or 0.28% of Americans, and the Korean War a relatively modest 0.02%.  By contrast, the Vietnam War claimed some 58,000 precious American lives, 0.03% of the country’s population - basically in line with the Korean War.  1990’s Persian Gulf War?  Only 219 US dead.  During the mess in Afghanistan and Iraq, 15,000 US military and contractors perished, or 0.005%. 

So while American men (almost exclusively) fought in one or sometimes two horrific worldwide wars a mere 23 years apart, and/or in another major war just five short years later, we Boomers faced only one serious, but nevertheless much smaller military action.  Between the end in Korea and the present day, that’s seventy-four years with only two relatively minor wars – while recognizing they were anything but “minor” to those involved.  Again, perspective:  0.03% dead in Vietnam, 0.005% in the Middle East over a period of 74 years, vs. 0.12% in WWI, 0.28% in WWII, and 0.02% in Korea over a span of 35 years.  Baby Boomers were blessed to live in generally peaceful times that, apart from sparing them and their loved ones the agony of going to war, granted them huge additional benefits compared to those of their elders.  

HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING: One such benefit was the greatest real (adjusted for inflation) standard of living ever known.  Baby Boomers’ parents lived through the Great Depression and the scarcity years of WWII, when food and consumer goods were severely limited by a general lack of income in the first case and lack of supply in the second.  But by the mid-1950s, Americans increasingly had both the income and availability of goods to buy houses, cars, appliances, plentiful food, and just about everything else.  A common way to see the improvement as Boomers were growing up is by comparing Real GDP per Capita (RG/C), or the amount of goods and services the average American could buy in a year, adjusted for inflation.  

At the bottom of the Depression in 1933, RG/C was $4,800.  By the end of WWII, the economy was booming and RG/C stood at $12,100.  Things only slowly improved from there until 1960’s figure of $13,150 and then 1970’s $17,450.  The trend continued, to $21,600 in 1980, $26,900 in 1990, and then $32,600 in 2000.  And remember – those figures are adjusted for inflation and show vast growth in material wealth between 1960 and 2000, the time most Boomers were growing up and then building families.  Since 2000, however, improvements in material well-being have slowed, with 2005’s $35,380; 2010’s $35,390; 2015’s $38,000; and 2020’s $39,200 – up 20% in twenty years, vs a 51% gain between 1980 and 2000.  

So Baby Boomers enjoyed vastly higher standards of living than their parents or grandparents had at the same ages.  At the same time, the generations that followed Boomers saw notably smaller improvements in their standard of living.  Except in three key areas, the Achilles Heels of modern American prosperity, where they were much actually worse off: Health Care, Housing, and Retirement. 

In the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, working Boomers didn’t worry about having health coverage; virtually every job provided it to their workers with little or no deductibles.  Few employed people worried about whether they could afford to have a baby, get that operation, etc. The same goes for retirement plans; virtually every employer offered a way for workers aged 55-65 to retire and live a reasonably comfortable life in their golden years.  Obviously, neither of those benefits have been widespread for the past couple of decades, thus taking away any small gains in RG/C since the turn of the millennium – and then some.   

As for housing, we can look at both Home Ownership levels, and the ratio of Rent to Income, or what percentage of the average American’s earnings go to renting a place to live.  With the country still mired in Depression in 1940, only 45% of American families owned a home.  By 1955, that number had zoomed to 60% and for the next decades held mostly in the mid-60s, peaking in 2005 at 69%.  Since then, home ownership levels have wobbled a bit, most recently standing at about 65%.  In the past few years, however, things have gotten much tougher, with rising demand for housing far outstripping new homes coming on line.  Recent home owners are as likely to have achieved that status by inheriting their parents’ homes as by buying on their own; lower-income Americans, whose parents rented rather than owned a place?  Well, they are mostly stuck on the outside looking in. 

Rent to Income (RTI) rates are even worse, as they tend to affect middle- and lower-income Americans, already disadvantaged by extreme and growing income inequality. Their incomes are growing, sure; but rents have soared, far outpacing income gains.  Here we’re confronted by widely different statistics that make it hard to see just how bad renters are being hurt these days.  One source says that RTI has surpassed 40% “for the first time in many decades.”  Another writes that 2023 saw RTI “top 30% for the first time in two decades.”  Meanwhile, RTIs for the decades of the twentieth century are generally unavailable, and the state of Washington claims that the nationwide RTI stayed at 19-20% between 2005 and 2020.  So how much of their income do renters pay now?  20%, 30%, 40%?  

It’s not clear.  But the reality is: Renters such as Millennials and Gen Z’ers, along with many middle-income and most low-income Americans, are being mercilessly squeezed when it comes to housing costs - in direct contrast to most Baby Boomers, sitting pretty in their all- or mostly-paid for homes.  That underscores a dismal shift from the past: Baby Boomers were the last generation that could count on a standard of living higher than their parents.  Due in part from Boomers abandoning their “peace, love” values of the 60s and 70s to become poster children for excessive materialism, their progeny are too often left to their own (insufficient) devices.  

BEST EDUCATION: Another way that Baby Boomers were the luckiest generation was in terms of education.  Black and brown minorities admittedly didn’t benefit as much as their white peers, yet overall American students enjoyed the world’s best K-12 public schooling in the 1950s and ‘60s.  And U.S. universities were widely acclaimed (as they still are now) as among the best in the world. 

Quoting www.econlib.org , “In the 1980s, economists puzzled by a decline in the growth of U.S. productivity realized that American schools had taken a dramatic turn for the worse (a cause of the aforementioned slowdown in improved living standards). After rising every year for fifty years, student scores on a variety of achievement tests dropped sharply in 1967. They continued to decline through 1980. …Although achievement levels began to recover in 1980, the recovery has been weak and student achievement has yet to regain 1967 levels.” 

That source dives into the multiple reasons for the decline in U.S. educational quality, but the bottom line is that most Boomers got a better education than the generations that came both before and after them; one more life advantage they enjoyed over everyone else.  

GREATER PERSONAL FREEDOM: This is a broad category encompassing a great many improvements Boomers came to enjoy (and in many cases, create) relative to earlier generations.  Starting with improvements in Civil Rights, begun in the mid-1950s, kicked up another notch in the mid-1960s, and gradually improving further from there.  Black and Brown Americans still trail behind whites by most metrics, but the spread has narrowed substantially – most notably between 1954’s Brown v. Board decision and the 1971 legalization of school busing: prime Boomer years. 

Women’s rights improved substantially as well, starting with the FDA’s 1960 approval of “the pill,” and steadily progressing through the likes of 1963’s Equal Pay Act, Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, 1972’s Title IX, and 1973’s Roe v. Wade.  While those advances benefited both previous and subsequent generations of American women as well, it was the Boomers whose lives were the most different, the most improved, in terms of their personal freedoms and well-being. 

Gay rights advanced significantly too.  1958’s Supreme Court One, Inc. v. Olesen was the first case to advance homosexual rights, but the movement really gained traction following 1967’s Black Cat Tavern raid in New York. The 1970s saw more gains, with openly gay people being elected to high positions, and clawing back more and more previously withheld rights in succeeding decades.  After Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, most others soon followed.  

Recreational drug use is obviously a double-edged sword, but nevertheless an example of increased personal freedom of choice.  Whereas before the mid-1960s virtually no self-respecting American wanted anything to do with marijuana or other drugs, in the mid-‘60s Baby Boomers (mostly) were pushing hard against that image.  By the end of the 1970s, eleven states had decriminalized marijuana while most others had reduced their penalties.  The trend continued, with California legalizing weed’s medicinal use, breaking down the door that by now makes marijuana’s use legal for any purpose in nearly half of all states.  

Greater personal freedoms are literally visible in other ways as well, such as in the type of clothing that’s permissible in public and the workplace.  Along with hair length and styles, and facial hair.  Short skirts, puffy sleeves, psychedelic patterns, bell bottoms, going braless – all those and more were on the menu from the mid-1960s on, in glaring contrast to the previous strict social mores.  Today virtually any clothing, any styles are OK for both men and women; even top CEOs go tie-less and just as often suit-less.  Like recreational drug use, that’s not always a great thing, but in any case this other type of increased freedom is thanks to the Boomers. 

TECHNOLOGY: Oh boy!  Let’s recap what people had back in 1960, a time when most Boomers were kids of one age or another:

 - One or maybe two cars with manual transmission, manual windows, low gas mileage, AM radio, no air,  

   no seatbelts, no Bluetooth, and no cruise control.

- One or maybe two phones; corded, rotary dial, with no free long-distance. 

- One or maybe two TVs; black & white, 26” or less, low resolution, 3 or 4 channels, no remotes.

- No personal computers, cell phones, Apple watches, DVDs/Blue ray or streaming services

- No home air conditioning, microwave ovens, electric can openers, pasta makers, juicers, etc.

- No DoorDash, Uber, Sirius, eHarmony, etc. 

Unlike their grandparents, Baby Boomers grew up with reliable autos; unlike their parents, they grew up with TVs and a life full of most modern conveniences, even if primitive by current standards.  During their lifetimes, Boomers had the luck and the income to benefit from the steady improvements and outright inventions of all that we now take for granted.  Their quality of life, thanks to the incredible increase of technology, steadily improved. 

PLAY: But life’s about more than just having more things, better things, and Boomers lucked out here as well. They were blessed with the freedom to just be kids; to play outside all day long, chase pollywogs in the local pond, get hit in the lip during a rock fight, ride their bikes to the beach, or spend the day at a friend’s house, come home filthy - with none of it being a big deal.  Boomers spent time in Nature, getting fresh air with their friends, making up their own entertainment, and often being in Scouts.  But that changed.  Membership in the Boy Scouts of America peaked in 1972 at 6.5 million, for example; by 1998 it was 4.8 million; the most recent figures show only a bit more than one (1) million Boy and Cub Scouts.  Data on Girl Scouts isn’t readily available, but one imagines a similar decline. 

In the 1980s and beyond, though, it was increasingly about tightly scheduled “play dates” and other programmed activities.  But otherwise – inside most of the time, watching TV, then computers, then staring at their phones 24/7; building up little resistance to the bacteria and whatnot from playing in the mud and getting banged up outdoors.  Boomers commonly walked a mile or more to school; now parents drive their kids the three whole blocks to school.  They might get kidnapped, raped, hit by a car! Frickin’ bubble kids, absorbed by all their “devices.” But at least now they’re “safe”…  

ENTERTAINMENT             

Television was another defining Baby Boomer thing, with the 1950s considered the Golden Age of Television, and kids growing up with such great shows like The Mickey Mouse Club, Gunsmoke, and the Howdy Doody Club.  The ‘60s started out with Bonanza and The Flintstones, and ended with The Smothers Brothers, Sesame Street, and Laugh-In.  All of them, and early-70s shows like All in the Family – groundbreaking, high-quality television.  

Sure, later years brought other great shows: M.A.S.H., Cheers, The Cosby Show, and Law and Order among them.  But groundbreaking?  Not as much.  And what great things did the ‘90s and ‘00s give us – reality TV?  The Bachelor, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Keeping Up With the Kardashians?   All of them cheap to produce crap, mindless pabulum for the masses. So Boomers got to enjoy the best that television had to offer.  Better entertainment value, better for their growing minds than what followed.  And certainly better than what their parents and grandparents grew up with: no television at all. 

Now we come back to where we started, with the Baby Boom generation living during the most exciting time for Music, being blessed with the freshest and best music of any modern generation.  Starting with the mid-1950s and the first rock ‘n rollers, introduced by Hollywood via 1955’s Rock Around the Clock, then headlined by Chuck, Little Richard, and Elvis: a whole new teenagers-only music that set the stage for decades of the genre.  Round two kicked things up another notch between 1963 and 1965 with Motown, Girl Groups, the Beach Boys and the two incomparable, best-ever musicians of the 20^th century: The Beatles and Bob Dylan, with the Rolling Stones right behind and a whole passel of genre-boosting groups from both sides of the pond licking at their heels.  1967 led off the next and final stage of Classic Rock ‘n Roll, with the Doors’ Light My Fire that summer, quickly followed by Jimi, Cream, and the whole high-energy music that gave us Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, et al; mellower sounds a la CSN and the Eagles; and of course the ladies: Aretha, Joni, and Linda.  

By 1975, it was about all over.  Not that there wasn’t more great music to come from great groups in the late-70s, the ‘80s, ‘90s and beyond!  But nothing as good, as new under the sun.  Rap as the new Motown?  Grunge and techno as the new electric blues?  K-Pop?  You’re joking, right?  

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I sense a lot of “OK, Boomer!” out there.  Maybe so.  I’m biased.  But it really should be “OK, Luckiest Generation!”  And that matters, as the Luckiest/Boomers mostly run the world of today based on perspectives born of their extraordinary luck.  Their Not-As-Lucky kids and grandkids are quickly taking over the reins of power, with their dissimilar perspectives.  The success, or not, of this emerging paradigm shift requires that both groups understands where the other’s coming from.  And America in the 21^st century seems anything but a redoubt of respecting diverse outlooks.

TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT

President Donald J. Trump has done a lot of things during his years in office that may have justified impeachment.  But the final straw, the thing that actually caused his impeachment, was his alleged blackmailing of Ukraine in 2019.  Fighting for its life against a much more powerful Russia, Ukraine desperately needed US arms, $400 million of weaponry that Congress had already approved sending to the country.  But Trump held up shipping the arms, waiting for Ukraine’s leader to publicly announce it was investigating Trump’s likely election rival, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden. 

Or so the House of Representatives claimed.  They charged the President with abuse of power, and also with obstructing Congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.  Since the charges are heard and decided by the Senate, and since the Senate was controlled by the Republicans, nobody realistically thought Trump would be found guilty.  Yet Democrats felt they needed to charge Trump anyway, since failing to do so would send the message that it was OK for the president to violate the Constitution and abuse power any way he wanted.

The end result was indeed that Trump was found not guilty by the Senate, by a vote of 52 to 48.  All of the 52 who voted for acquittal were Republicans.  All Democrats voted guilty, along with two Independents and one Republican (Mitt Romney).  Naturally, Trump and his allies portrayed the verdict as proving his innocence.  Yet the evidence presented in the Senate trial, along with those things that were not allowed to be presented, tell a much different story. 

Before we look at those things, let’s rewind to what top Republicans said about the charges against Trump.  Initially, they said there was no evidence of a quid pro quo where Trump would release the military aid in exchange for Ukraine announcing an investigation into the Bidens.  That blackmailing abuse of presidential power was the key allegation behind the whole impeachment effort.  But if the blackmailing quid pro quo were the case, Republicans made clear at first, then Trump’s impeachment was justified.  As more and more information came out in the months before the Senate trial, it became clear that Trump had indeed demanded that Ukraine’s president investigate the Bidens in order to get those American weapons.  In other words, the charges of quid pro quo were true. 

Then in the Senate trial itself, we heard from the following top State Department experts:

Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman started things off.  National Security Council’s Director for Russia and Ukraine, he listened in on the call Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.  On top of his earlier concerns about the false smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Vindman “did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen” so as to gain domestic political advantage.  He therefore reported his concerns to the appropriate administration counsel, following the required written procedure. 

Dr. Fiona Hill, the National Security Council’s top Russia expert at the time, denounced what she called a “fictional claim that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 US election”, a fiction she said was pushed by Russia to divert attention off their own interference.  Trump and his team used this phony claim to justify pressuring Ukraine, and to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. 

David Holmes, a top aide in the US’s Ukraine embassy, testified that withholding the $400 military aid was a way to increase pressure on Ukraine to make such an investigation.  Both Homes and Dr. Hill agreed that investigations into Burisma, an allegedly corrupt company that Hunter Biden was connected with, was merely a way to shift attention to Biden’s potential wrong-doing.  Further, Holmes and Hill said that any reference by Trump and his top people to Burisma was a “widely understood code” for investigating the Bidens. 

Gordon Sondland was Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and a big donor to Trump’s campaign.  He unexpectedly shocked everyone when he testified that there was a quid pro quo and that “everyone (in Trump’s administrations) was in the loop.”  

Marie Yovanovitch, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, detailed how Trump’s man on the scene, Rudy Giuliani, was working with corrupt Ukrainians and spearheaded efforts to get Ukraine to announce an investigation.  She was fired for her efforts to stop that.  Her replacement was….

William Taylor, who testified how Giuliani represented an “irregular” channel of diplomatic efforts to pressure Ukraine to provide Trump with political ammunition against the campaign of Joe Biden. 

All of them, and other key witnesses, rebutted Republican efforts to show they were “never-Trumpers” who were biased against the president and thus falsely testifying against him.  In each case, they were credible, deeply experienced, politically-neutral, patriotic public servants with spotless records who had faithfully served both Democratic and Republican administrations.  As an interesting aside, if so many laudable public servants were “never-Trumpers,” wouldn’t that suggest they must have a damn good reason for opposing the president?  Say, to protect the nation against his many inappropriate and often unconstitutional actions?

But in any case, none of it mattered, as Republicans simply did not want to acknowledge the facts, or even to know the full story.  John Bolton was Trump’s National Security Advisor, with more access to Trump than almost anyone and “in the room” for virtually every foreign policy move for 17 months.  Bolton claimed he had definitive, first-hand information about what actually happened, and offered to testify.  The White House took steps to keep him from doing so, and in any case, Senate Republicans showed no interest in hearing what he had to say. Just recently, Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened confirmed the charges against Trump, and in fact presented evidence that Trump had tried the same thing with China, imploring Xi Jinping to “make sure I win” the November election in exchange for key concessions.  Actually, his book claims that the Democrats blew it, as they failed to investigate other grounds (besides just the Ukraine incident) for Trump’s impeachment.  As for Trump’s alleged obstructing Congress, Bolton wrote that for Trump, “obstruction of justice (was) a way of life.”

Senator Marco Rubio’s views were typical of those who realized that Trump had done what they previously said justified his impeachment.  They didn’t need to hear more evidence.  As Rubio said “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.”

For an unbiased, logical observer (the standard expectation of my readers), the bottom line is that Donald Trump was impeached with good reason.  Powerful evidence was presented of his abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, with even stronger evidence not being allowed to be heard.  As in so many other cases during Trump’s administration, Republican Senators judged that Trump’s “base” would severely punish them for a guilty verdict, and that outweighed any genuine consideration of guilt.  Donald J. Trump goes down in history as only the third US president ever impeached, and joined the other two in being acquitted.  That is far from the same thing as saying he was innocent of the charges, however.

The Holistic View

Holistic: characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole - Oxford Dictionary

As social science instructors, we were encouraged to evaluate students’ work in a holistic manner.  In other words, rather than looking at how a response matched up to the ideal answer, we looked at the merits of a student’s overall writing on a topic in the case of essays, or his/her overall demonstration of understanding in terms of a class grade.  We can use this same holistic approach in evaluating the kind of person Donald J. Trump is, his actions as president, and in other situations as well. 

To explain, suppose we aren’t 100% positive about a particular incident or statement.  However, we estimate the chances at about 85% that several key parts of the issue are correct, are about 95% certain about several other factors, and are 99% sure about a couple of key components involved.  On the other hand, we are aware of no contrary evidence with a high probability of being accurate.  A holistic thinker would reasonably conclude that the matter is therefore almost certainly true, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Here’s a specific example to clarify further.  Suppose someone says that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians and is president of the US because of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.  A reasonable reply might be that there is no conclusive proof of those things, and therefore they are just guesses or opinions.  Fair enough.  However, a holistic view of the matter would consider that:

·         The thorough and heavily documented Mueller report made it clear there was no doubt that Russia interfered in the election in Trump’s favor, and in opposing Clinton. Since it’s nearly impossible to be 100% certain of most things, let’s give this conclusion a 99% probability of being correct.

·         Each one of the US’s 17 intelligence agencies reported that they were “confident” Russia interfered in the election on Trump’s behalf.  Let’s give that view a 95% probability. 

·         Even Mike Pompeo, Trump’s current Secretary of State agrees, and is on record as saying “I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community,” Pompeo said. “This threat is real.”  Let’s give him a 95% as well. 

·         Republicans have continually criticized all of the Russia investigations.  Yet, a three-year review by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously found that the intelligence community assessment, pinning blame on Russia and outlining its goals to undercut American democracy, was fundamentally sound and untainted by politics.  It would therefore seem to confirm the Mueller report’s findings, and confirm the 17 intelligence agencies findings, so how about a 97% probability here.

·         The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who was in charge of all US intelligence agencies at the time, stated in 2018 that “To me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that (Russia) didn’t affect the election, and it is my belief that they actually turned it.”  In other words, the man who had access to information not revealed to the public thinks Russia gave Trump the win.  Well, that’s just his opinion.  But considering that he knows as much or more than anyone else on the subject, let’s give that an 85% chance of being correct.

·         As for the issue of how effective Russia’s efforts were, we know that surprising wins in a few key states, i.e. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, resulted from Trump victories in certain important districts.  Data shows that fewer than 80,000 votes in a nation of 146 million voters determined the winner in those districts.  Importantly – those were districts heavily targeted by Russian pro-Trump interference.  Considering the huge scale of Russia’s interference in the election, turning 80,000 votes seems easily doable.  Wouldn’t a 90% probability that their efforts in those key districts had the intended effect seem reasonable? 

·         Trump lied about not knowing any Russians, as later evidence clearly showed multiple contacts with various Russians.  Additionally, his son Eric bragged that Trump businesses got all the money they needed from Russians, his son Donald Jr. is recorded welcoming Russian help in the election, and Trump himself invited Russian interference by releasing Clinton emails, which they did the following day.  That leaves no doubt about collusion between the two parties, and puts us at the 98% probability level of that being true.

Taken together, the evidence leaves no reasonable doubt whatsoever that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf, and that there was indeed collusion (defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others) between the two parties.  Additionally, it seems highly likely that Russian interference was enough to swing a victory to Trump, making him president because of their efforts.  To credibly argue otherwise, one would have to come up with evidence to the contrary, with such evidence having high probabilities of being provably true.  I am unaware of any such arguments or evidence. 

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We can use this concept and technique to draw many other conclusions as well.  For example, we often hear the Democrats say one thing about Trump, his administration, and their actions, while the Republicans say something else altogether.  Usually, it’s not too difficult to figure out whose version is closer to the truth by studying the evidence and the facts.  But not always, and in any case, many people don’t want to bother.  So they just go along with whatever side they prefer politically, and leave it at that.  But there’s a better way. 

When a rational, unbiased person looks at the information presented by both sides, there is a clear pattern.  In almost every case in the past few years, data and other evidence presented by the Democrats and their media allies, e.g. CNN and the NY Times, are verifiably factual and are used in ways that have few if any logical flaws.  On the other hand, many of the Republican claims, and those of Fox News et al, are demonstrably false and/or logically faulty.  (You could say that I make this judgement because I myself am biased or illogical, yet a review of my background and history show that this is not the case, and I invite you to show otherwise.)

But at any rate, this conclusion about the two sides allows us to make further determinations.  Since we know that the Democrats and their allies tend to be sources of accurate information and logical analyses nowadays, while their opponents often do not, we can use that understanding to judge otherwise unclear situations.  For example, suppose the Democrats say the evidence shows that Russia investigations were justifiably begun, that a certain E.P.A. decision will harm the environment, and that we should continue to fully fund the W.H.O., while Republicans argue otherwise.  Our knowledge of the two sides’ ways of doing things lately should lead us to conclude that the Republicans are likely to be presenting misleading information and that the Democrats’ position is probably more credible.  It hasn’t always been this way; it is a huge shame, but it is what it is.

From there it is only a small step to this sad conclusion: Whereas only a short 5 or 10 years ago, it made sense to listen to both sides before making a political decision, that is no longer the case.  Nowadays, Republicans have mostly abrogated their position as legitimate sources of information for making political decisions.  Republican pronouncements on the economy, on Covid-19, on race relations, on trade agreements, on military matters – those often are no longer credible.  And of course, most Fox network non-news material is invariably flawed in a number of ways. 

This places CNN and MSNBC – previously representing the left – mostly in agreement with ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, and PBS and virtually every other legitimate news source in the world in reporting what is actually going on.  While we can detect some liberal bias from their top anchors such as Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, and Rachel Maddow, they present news with high levels of professionalism and credibility.  In other words: They don’t lie or intentionally misrepresent facts, and the times where their bias gets in the way of presenting verifiable truth are extremely rare.  They are reliable sources of what’s going on. 

That is in sharp contrast to Fox’s top draws such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who consistently offer thoroughly biased, bombastic reporting that is regularly misleading and often outright false.  As for the top (and liberal) print sources, the NY Times and Washington Post, these days they very rarely disagree with the most neutral and credible sources like Reuters, AP, and Christian Science Monitor, and even with the more conservative Wall Street Journal. 

Nevertheless, some people are going to insist that ALL of those sources are “fake”, but that is not a credible claim, as my related essay Mainstream Media makes clear: https://jstrebler.blogspot.com/2018/11/mainstream-media.html. 

Our final takeaway then is the bizarre and sad conclusion that a logical, unbiased person is justified in being biased against the Republicans and their allies.  That is because of what the former leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, admitted after leaving office: “There is no Republican party anymore.  There is only the Trump party.”  When Republican politicians regain their spines and minds, and when conservative media sources revert to presenting credible facts and logical argument, then and only then should we once again listen to what they have to say.  Meanwhile, lying, colluding Trump, put in power by Russia, deserves only our scorn and opposition, as do his Republican and media lackeys.

MINORITY RULE? A disturbing and most un-American power grab

What does it mean to be an American, a loyal US citizen?  How about: Somebody that understands, respects and protects the values of the country’s Founding Fathers, as laid down in the US Constitution?  Few Americans would seem likely to have a problem with that definition.

Keeping that thought in mind, let’s ponder how a clear minority faction (conservative Republicans) now dominates the three branches of our federal government.  Majorities numbering in the tens of millions of adult Americans oppose the actions being taken by that minority faction on numerous key issues, but so far have little power to do anything about it. 

We can start to understand this situation by considering that approximately 9 million more American voters preferred a Democrat to Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.  How is that?  Well, the official tally shows that Hillary Clinton got 2,864,974 more votes than Trump.  In addition though, we know that about 20% of Bernie Sanders’ Democratic supporters, who hated Trump, didn’t vote for Clinton in protest of how the Democratic Party treated him.  They protested by not voting for Clinton, certain that even without their votes, Trump wasn’t going to win.  Or so we all thought.

Given that Sanders won 46% of the Democratic votes in the primaries, and that there were nearly 66 million Democratic votes in the November election, that means Hillary would have had something like an additional 6 million more votes if the Sanders people realized their votes were needed to counter Russian interference.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders 2016_presidential_campaign.  Adding those lost protest votes to Hillary’s margin of winning gives us the 9 million or so preference for a Democrat in 2016. 

Now, it is well understood how the number of Electoral votes, not popular votes, chooses the President, so we can’t say that Clinton or the Democrats won the 2016 election.  But this idea of Trump being the people’s choice, that he represents the majority of Americans, is a fantasy – “fake news,” if you like.  

తదుపరి పాయింట్

Actually, the real story is stronger than the 9 million number suggests, however.  We know that a clear majority of Americans do not support the issues that Trump is pushing and his followers support.  For example, the majority of Americans want legal abortions, want gay marriages, want tougher gun control, want a pathway to citizenship for the Mexican “Dreamers”, want strong environmental protections, want the government to stay out of religion, and all the other “liberal” things Trump opposes.  They also don’t want his wall along our border with Mexico.

We know this from more people voting against Trump than for him in 2016, and from the landslide victories of the Democrats in 2018.  We also know it from numerous respected opinion polls.  The latest Pew Research Center poll shows Americans favor abortion by 61% to 38%, and that 60% want stricter gun laws.  Since the US Census Bureau says there were 309 million Americans in 2016, and that 77.6% (or 240 million) of them were 18 or over, then we can reasonably think that about 55 million more American adults favored legal abortion than opposed it, while 48 million more adults favored stricter gun laws than oppose them.  Gallup says that 63% favor gay marriage, and that 65% of Americans value protecting the environment more than economic growth.  Using that same mathematical process, then 62 million more Americans favor gay marriage than oppose it, while 72 million more favor protecting the environment over promoting economic growth. An NPR polls shows that 66% favor citizenship for Dreamers (77 million more adult Americans than those who oppose it), and that a majority oppose Trump’s wall.  Finally, Statista.com says that Americans favor the absolute separation of church and state by 41% to 34%; that’s about 17 million more Americans not wanting more religion in government.  

In every case on these key issues, the views and actions of the Republican Party that won control of this country illegitimately are opposed by a huge majority of American adults - tens of millions of them in most cases.

Wait – what?  How did the Republicans win control illegitimately?  Well, there is now no doubt that the Russians interfered in 2016 in a big way to help Trump win the election.  Their help added to the Trump campaign’s own unprecedented use of blatant falsehoods (example: The Pope supports Trump!) to deceive American voters.  And we can’t ignore the final dagger in Clinton’s back, FBI Director James Comey’s announcement of “possible” wrong-doing by Clinton, just ten days before the 2016 election.  Comey’s action, which was a clear violation of FBI policy, reversed Clinton’s rising poll numbers.  The FBI ended up clearing Clinton, but it was too late, and well – you know how the story ended.  Those three actions, taken together, leave no real doubt that Trump did not win the election fairly; an objective observer could say that he basically stole the Presidency. 

తదుపరి పాయింట్

Why does Donald Trump have many millions of American supporters?  This question has been rolling around in my mind for several years now, because it so hard to understand why good people could support the man.  As documented in my earlier essay (Four Reasons), long before the Ukraine incident and even long before the Mueller investigation, there were four powerful reasons why Trump had no business being President.  Each of the four would have quickly disqualified the man in most Americans’ eyes just a short five or ten years ago.  And yet – he is President, committing vile, illogical, unethical, or illegal (and often – all of those together) acts every single day, while never losing any supporters.  How can this be?

It has become very clear that these people’s support is basically the result of two main factors.  One has to do with how many of his supporters, for a number of important reasons, just don’t have an accurate picture of who Trump is, the actions he’s taken, and the consequences of those actions.  But let’s leave that whole, complicated issue aside, and recognize that:

Trump’s supporters (his “base”) are politically conservative, do not like the direction the country has been going in recent decades, and they absolutely hated Hillary Clinton.  They saw Trump as the antidote to the liberalism that Clinton personified, and as a result, felt he was their only option despite all of his flaws.  They liked his efforts on immigration, abortion, protecting Christians’ rights, and so forth. 

Further, they liked that Trump was an outsider, rather than a politician.  Liked that he spoke his mind in plain words, liked that he wanted to bring down the establishment (the “Deep State”) that had kept the common people down, and liked that he wanted to get the government out of people’s lives.  So even when they do realize he’s a horrible person doing bad things, they’re willing to overlook that because he supports things that are important to them.  Evidence of this includes a 2018 article in TIME Magazine that stated that “Eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for and, by and large, continue to support President Trump,” even with his extra-marital affairs, constant lying, swearing, lack of humility and lack of just about every other Christian value.  https://time.com/5161349/president-trump-white-evangelical-support-slaveholders/

To summarize, they back the man because they like his policies.  And that takes us back to the original point made in my first paragraph.  This country is founded on the concept of majority rule.  That means we do what most Americans want, even while we respect the views and civil rights of those people who disagree.  Besides that, we are a nation of laws, not people.  That means everyone follows the law, no matter how rich or poor, no matter how powerful or powerless.  Right?

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The history of this country is the history of change, of progress.  We used to have slavery, we used to have only property-owning white males allowed to vote, used to have people executed for minor crimes, used to dump sewage and toxic waste into our rivers – we used to do a lot of things that we don’t do now, because the country has gradually, steadily moved forward.  In fighting against political progressives, the pro-Trump forces are basically saying they want things to stay like they were, back in the 1950s and ‘60s.  And that’s great, as long as their's is the majority view. 

But they are not the majority view in America today – we clearly saw that a few paragraphs ago.  And yet those views are running the show, because Trump essentially stole the 2016 election.  Just as bad is what’s happening to the federal courts.  The Republicans defied the intent of the Constitution by not allowing President Obama to choose the next Supreme Court Justice in 2016, and thus illegitimately-elected Trump got to place a conservative on the court the next year.  Incidentally, even a majority of Republican voters thought that blocking Obama’s constitutional right to name a Supreme Court Justice in 2016 was wrong.  https://www.usnews.  com/news/articles/2016-03-21/even-gop-voters-think-senate-shouldconfirm-scotus-nominee  

Just in case anyone missed the political hypocrisy involved, when Obama was President, (Republican) Senate leader Mitch McConnell claimed that it was improper to place someone on the Court in his last year of office.  Yet he now says that he would definitely let Trump name someone to the Court in his last year in office! https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/mitch-mcconnell-says-he-would-seek-to-fill-supreme-court-vacancy-in-2020.html

But besides that, illegitimately-elected Trump got to name a second Supreme Court Justice in 2018.  His very conservative choice was Brett Kavanaugh, who strongly appealed to Trump (who was accused of multiple serious crimes) for his belief that a President could not be charged with crimes while in office.  In an unprecedented step, more than 2,400 law professors of all political persuasions sent a letter opposing Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Court.  Additionally, for the first time in the nation’s history, the (Republican) Senate confirmed a Justice that the majority of Americans opposed. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/10/12/brett-kavanaugh-poll-majority-americans-disapprove-new-justice/1616237002/

But nevertheless, Kavanaugh is now on the Court, along with Trump’s earlier appointee, giving the Supreme Court a clear conservative majority, rather than the liberal-centrist majority it would have had if the people’s will had been respected.  That’s the big headline story.  But there’s more going on behind the curtain.  While we don’t hear much about it, Trump has been appointing unprecedented numbers of other conservative Federal judges – 158 named and approved by the Senate as of last November.  As the White House website boasts: “President Trump has appointed more circuit judges by this point in his presidency than any president in recent history.  Approximately 1 out of every 4 active judges on United States Courts of Appeals has been appointed by President Trump.  This historic transformation is only accelerating, with President Trump on pace to have more judges confirmed this year than in 2017 and 2018 combined.”

This is wonderful news – if you’re a political conservative.  But remember, conservatives are in the minority now in the US.  It is only because Donald Trump won the presidency, unfairly and with the help of Russia, gullible voters, and James Comey, that those judges will interpret the laws for the next 20 or 30 years.  That is a reasonable span of service for judges since they are appointed for life. 

So what we have now is a Supreme Court that will likely vote to protect Trump from prosecution, from having to comply with subpoenas, and in other ways.  A Supreme Court that will likely hear a challenge to Wade v. Roe and quite possibly rule against legal abortions, despite Brett Kavanaugh implying at his confirmation hearings that wouldn’t happen.  Conservative Federal courts, Supreme and otherwise, ruling in all kinds of ways that go against the country’s more progressive majority – that’s what we should expect, possibly for decades.

Meanwhile, the President has taken countless actions to gut environmental protections put in place by every previous administration, both Democratic and Republican, while continuing to deny climate change.  This will benefit his own businesses, as well as those of wealthy conservatives who back him.  But it definitely doesn’t reflect the wishes of the people.  The latest Gallup poll shows that 62% of Americans want government to do more to protect the environment, the highest level since the question was first asked in 1992.  And that number was before many of Trump’s subsequent attacks on the environment, including his latest move to repeal important protections for the nation’s streams and wetlands on January 22, 2020 that his own EPA appointees argued against. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/798809951/trump-administration-is-rolling-back-obama-era-protections-for-smaller-waterways.   Not to mention Trump’s attacks on immigrants’ rights, on the separation of church and state, on efforts to reduce gun violence; attacks on our strongest allies while chumming it up with Vladimir Putin; betraying our Kurdish allies to score points with Turkey’s dictator Erdogan, and so many other actions that the majority of Americans do not want.

అవును, లేదు!

By the way, it’s common lately for Trump supporters to stop justifying his actions and instead claim that they just like him because of the strong economy.  That's a little easier to understand, given the need to put food on the table, a roof over our heads, etc.  But those folks don't really have it right.  (NOTE: The following comments on the economy were written BEFORE the coronavirus pandemic and economic shut-down.  Obviously, all of the latest figures are much worse than what is reported here.)

You see, most economists agree that Presidents have little impact on how the economy's doing; perhaps something like 15% of its health is due to whoever's in office.  In Trump's case, it's probably fair to say his impact has been greater than average.  In any case, let's take a look at some numbers, starting with GDP, which he said he'd make grow at "4, 5, maybe even 6%" a year.  In reality, the strongest quarter ever in his presidency had a 3.5% gain, with the latest figure a dismal 2.1% growth rate.  And as the pro-business magazine Forbes wrote last year, "Obama's last three years had better growth than Trump's three years."  Hmmm…..

How about the budget and national debt?  Trump boasted that he would balance the budget "fairly quickly," and “completely eliminate the national debt within 8 years.”  Sounds great, right?  But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just reported that the US federal deficit “will top $1 trillion annually over the next 10 years, ultimately reaching $1.7 trillion in 2030.”  Meanwhile, the US federal debt now stands at $23 trillion, up from $20 trillion when Trump took office.  Oops!

But at least there's the stock market, right?  Stocks rose a very impressive 52.2% during Trump’s first 3 years in office.  However, during Obama’s first 3 years, stocks gained 78.6%.    So as another conservative magazine, Fortune, claimed recently: "The stock market is doing far worse under Trump than it did under Obama," and then backed it up on an apples-to-apples comparison of the two presidencies.  

Well OK - surely in the area of jobs, Trump has been a winner, right?  Um... no.  Back to Forbes again, where its headline "Trump Has Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obama", makes us wonder.  And just to be clear that it's a fair comparison, they followed up with "Trump’s job growth falls short of Obama’s last three years."  Dang....

Meanwhile, one of the nation’s biggest problems – income inequality – has not been addressed by Trump's policies that have mostly helped wealthy Americans.  As reported just 3 months ago “U.S. Census Bureau data confirmed that income inequality has hit its highest level since the federal government started tracking it five decades ago. The richest one percent of Americans now rake in one-third of the country’s net worth, while the bottom half of the population scrapes by with only 1.2 percent.”  https://www.fastcompany.com/90427855/while-trump-boasts-of-economic-growth-inequality-deepens

Granted, the economy has done well under Trump, or truthfully:  It has merely continued the strong trends established in the Obama years.  Stocks are soaring, unemployment numbers are amazingly low, and Trump has done some good things in the area of trade agreements, IMO.  But the theme he’s been pushing, especially evident during the State of the Union address, of saving America from the disastrous economic times of his predecessor, is an outright falsehood.  Especially when you look behind the curtains to realize that the costs of further economic gains during his administration include the huge additional debt and environmental destruction his policies are creating.  Donald J. Trump: the economic Wizard of Flaws.

చివరకు

So returning to where this essay started, the bottom line is: People who support Trump, despite what a horrible person he is because he favors issues that are important to them are betraying our country.  They are NOT patriotic Americans, as they typically boast.  They are throwing away the concept of majority rule, of fair play, and of nobody being above the law just so they can get what they want.  They opposed his impeachment, just as they have opposed every other effort to reign him in and make him accountable for his horrid actions.  In other words, they put themselves first, and the nation second.  It’s shameful and brands them forever as being like Trump: Doing whatever it takes to get their way, regardless of the consequences.

Speaking of betraying the country, the very worst offenders are the members of Congress who keep protecting the President, denying that he does anything wrong, and continually pushing his agenda.  (Oh, and the current Attorney General, who's supposed to represent the American people, but who very clearly works as Trump's personal protector instead.)  While some in Congress support what he does, the majority of them know that he’s an illegitimate jerk, know that he constantly does things against the nation’s Constitution and better interests, but back him simply because they fear not getting re-elected if they cross him. 

The classic example of this is Trump’s current BFF, Sen. Lindsey Graham.  Back in 2015 when he still spoke truth, he said this about Trump: "He’s a jackass.  You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell… He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.  He doesn't represent my party.  He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for…”  Many other powerful Congressmen/women have said similar things, and even more surely thought these things privately.  But today, they all (except Mitt Romney, lately) back Trump – no matter what he does.  It’s another case of putting their own interests in front of the nation’s interests which, by the way, they swore an oath not to do when they assumed office.  Former (Republican) House Speaker John Boehner knows what’s up, and now that he’s out of office he can tell it like it is.  Boehner knows that now "There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party.”

There are always consequences.  Among the consequences for those betraying the country in pursuit of their own interests are that, in violating our Constitution, they are setting the stage for people in the future to violate conservatives' rights when they are in power, so they can do whatever they want.  This is what our country is becoming.  In the short-run, the minority of selfish conservatives wins.  But in the long-run, we all lose, and the US is no longer America.