Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick...

Tick, tick, tick, tick…the clock continues to count the seconds, minutes and hours in the inexorable march towards the reckoning that will be the 2020 Election. And with each passing second, minute, hour, day, etc., the sense of impending catastrophe grows as well.

On the one hand, there is the current administration, bolstered by the complicit McConnell Senate and a duplicitous Attorney General, that continues to bask in its solid belief that it is above the law due to the previously far-fringed and far-fetched Unitary Executive Theory. We are hearing more and more Trumpisms focused on the idea that he can do what he wants, because he “has an Article 2” that gives him unlimited powers as President. The burgeoning Executive Order mill operating from the Oval Office is a testament to this. These proclamations, both the Executive Orders and the authoritarian Tweets, should freeze the blood in all American’s veins, owing to the fact that they subvert the Constitutional system of the separation of powers among three co-equal branches of government.

Adding to this is the unswerving support of certain groups of citizens who cleave themselves to Mr. Trump and the GOP, now recast in Trump’s image. It is evermore apparent that no matter what Mr. Trump says, insinuates or does, too many of his cultish sycophants accept his every word and keystroke as Gospel, despite the fact that most of what he proclaims is antithetical to the very Gospel to which many of these followers claim to adhere. Having been swept up and laid low by the neoliberal economic policies of the past several administrations of both parties, these red-hatted MAGA believers have opted to accept an even harsher Randian brand of neoliberalism based on the myths of rugged individualism, hatred of expertise and academic thought, rabid anti-socialism and deplorable nativism. Instead of having the intellectual and critical agency to trace back to the roots their current social, political and economic dissatisfaction, many of these Trump supporters fall for the facetious narrative espoused by right-wing pundits and parroted by Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell and many others, that narrative being that the blame for the woes of society fall squarely on the shoulders of immigrants and liberals and **gasp** socialists. This fascistic othering provides a tried and true distractive consumed like so much spun sugar given to a whiney child. It lasts but a second and provides no real sustenance, prompting the child to beg for more and more and more.

At this current juncture, despite the hubristic boasting coming from the White House, the sole “win” for the Trump Administration is the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, an ironically named piece of legislation if there ever was one. As time has begun to tell, the economic ramifications of this hand-out to the wealthy are surfacing. The U.S. debt, so often the bane of GOP deficit hawks in the past but not so much now, is skyrocketing. As the federal coffers begin to gather cobwebs, the calls for austerity by members of the GOP are beginning to get louder—cuts to Social Security, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, cuts to SNAP. All of this while corporate profits are at record highs, CEO and upper management pay is unconscionably higher by several magnitudes than their average-paid worker and a nearly trillion dollar defense budget. Mr. Trump keeps claiming that the U.S. economy is the best that it’s ever been, that it’s red hot and that it’s ready to soar. His boasts are based on the metrics of the stock market and GDP and adjusted unemployment figures. These may be all well and good for certain segments of the population, but not for most of the people providing the labor on which this economy is built. How about looking at the GINI co-efficient, real wages, cost of living increases and the real unemployment rate? These indicators, as well as others, tell a much different story. The economy is most certainly good, great even, if you already have money. Not so much if you don’t.

Those who are doing well—the CEOs, the trust fund set, the hedge fund managers, corporate board members, and others—will continue to support Mr. Trump despite the deleterious effect he and his administration’s policies are having on the rest of society and our system of governance. They realize that they are in the driver’s seat. Mr. Trump is a vehicle to their sustained economic and political hegemony. In addition to the overt economic policies enacted by the Trump Administration is the deregulatory campaign being waged surreptitiously in order to lighten the load of pesky rules that corporations and industries previously had to follow to ensure the health and safety of the environment and people. Regulations, also known as “rules,” proved to eat into the profits of these businesses too much, hence the need for an administration pledged to jettison these absolutely horrible, previously binding guidelines to keep the environment and people safe and healthy, all in the name of increased profits. The rules have been changed, endangering many citizens, in order to make sure that those in the upper echelons of society have more and more and more. These people will never abandon Mr. Trump as long as the promise of increasingly unregulated capitalism is present. We will pay.

On the other hand, to quote Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof”, we have a fractured and fractious inauthentic opposition party in the Democrats. The daily internecine fighting clearly shows that there is a lack of direction and no unifying message from the supposed leftist party, unless you count “We’re not Trump” as a viable message. Which it’s not, as evidenced in the collapse of the Clinton campaign in 2016.

The corporate-owned media have ordained the frontrunners as seen in the inordinate coverage they garner over those deemed too far to the left. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and, to a bit lesser degree, Cory Booker have been getting most of the positive attention in the non-Fox media, such as CNN, MSNBC and the like. These four also happen to have raked in most of their money via Wall Street and big business. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the candidates furthest “left”, have been effectively frozen out by the establishment as their proposals are deemed too anti-corporatist and, hence, they are seen as unelectable. The latter two also happen to be the candidates who espouse the most truth in pointing out the root causes of societal inequality and have refused corporate donations. Don’t tell me Citizens United wasn’t a big deal.

At the same time the presidential primary has been put to a slow boil, there are new voices in the House of Representatives that are getting loud, unafraid to attack the root causes of inequality and societal suffering. “The Squad,” monikered derisively by the press to make these able, intelligent minority women seem nothing more than a high school clique, are gaining admirers for their incessant attempts at creating a more just and equitable society. The more they are admired by many in the general public, the more they are attacked by those holding power—both within and outside their party. Discrediting their message has become an online cottage industry.

And, finally, the Mueller Report and subsequent hearings and the insistence that it was Russia, all Russia, that led to Mr. Trump’s coronation, er, inauguration. Was there Russian interference in the 2016 election? I’m sure there was, both directly and indirectly. Was it supported and sought out by Trump operatives? It sure sounds like it. Did Trump and his minions attempt to cover something up? Definitely so. I mean, how many charges and guilty pleas have there been? But, and as my high school history teacher used to say, “the bigger the but, the bigger the trouble,” the Democrats had every opportunity to win the election anyway. We all knew what Mr. Trump was peddling--his white nationalism and economic nativism. He was playing on the fears and trepidations of those whom the neoliberalism of the past 40 years had hurt the most. He was offering a solution, though hollow, around which many could rally. He was offering something new and different and not the same old, same old. He tapped into the economic and societal insecurities felt by a large swath of the electorate. And what did the Democrats do? They sunk the Bernie Sanders campaign, which offered something new, something different and not the same old, same old. The Democrats instead offered up Hillary Clinton, about as flawed a candidate for the 2016 election as there could be. The political and personal baggage of her past that she drug around proved to be like the cash boxes of the phantom of Jacob Marley in “A Christmas Carol.” It weighed her down. This, paired with the aforementioned campaign message of “I’m not Trump,” proved to be her undoing (OK, that and the antiquated Electoral College).

Instead of wasting more time on the Mueller Investigation and Report, realizing that even if the House passes articles of impeachment, Mr. Trump will never be removed from office before his term expires, perhaps the Democrats could craft a plan, a message, something. Anything. Do some soul searching. Realize the mistakes of the last election. I understand the trepidation of needing to elect anyone but Mr. Trump. I see the undercutting of our Constitutional foundations and the growing oligarchical control of our country and other countries around the world. I fear the growing fascist tendrils spreading hate and violence emanating from the White House. The hardness and lack of empathy that is becoming the norm is repugnant to me. There is no way any of this will be fixed with Mr. Trump being reelected. I don’t see the causes of this being changed with a corporate-endorsed Democrat taking office, either. Perhaps some of the meanness and hardness will dissipate, but not the root causes. And do I think that any presidential contender will be our savior, coming into office and magically creating a more equitable society based on the rule of law, fairness and equal opportunities? No. That is up to each of us individually and in small groups and in big groups saying that we see where our society has gone and that we don’t like it and that we refuse to continue down that path and that we will be advocates for change. The clock is ticking.

And this doesn't even take into account the pending environmental catastrophe. That's being tracked on a different clock entirely.