American Politics – Page 10

The newest ‘persecuted class.’

January 30, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It has always been amusing that the news media make a point of having reporters on hand who represent this persecuted class or that one. They are always at the ready to claim that the racial group or demographic they represent is being persecuted by the presumed powers who are running things. What is amusing about this is what I have always thought of as the Pogo Effect. This is cartoonist Walt Kelly’s creation from the Okefenokee Swamp. Pogo is a possum who has met the enemy and discovered that ‘It is us.’

But we saw the ultimate conclusion of this thinking the other day. It was in a detailed explanation of the quandary facing the republican senators in the Trump trial. A senior Washington bureau chief of a Canadian newspaper was saying that the newest persecuted class in the United States is republicans. Standing in the vanguard of this class is the much-pilloried Donald Trump.

And now tell that to a kid from a hardscrabble childhood in downtown Toronto. Please do not tell me about the vagaries of life and the feeling of rejection. Ill-fitting, hand-me-down clothes and a bad haircut are just as identifying as skin colour and the shape of your eyes.

But we hardly need a tag day for American republicans. The republican senators in Washington are a self-serving lot. Their masters are the real climate-change deniers. They are the spawn of John D. Rockefeller’s oil barons, the coal exploiters who are destroying the Appalachian Mountains, and the military-industrial complex who thrive on the rumours of war. And more to be pitied are the adherents to this warped and dying concept of right-wing politics spreading like a disease across the continent.

History will not be kind to the Trump presidency. It will be a dark blob on the story of a once-envied nation. A nation that is being reduced to a ‘could have been.’

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Trump’s guilt is not the question.

January 23, 2020 by Peter Lowry

What kind of trial is this in the U.S. senate chamber, where the rules are controlled by the jurors? Does a trial matter if people have already made up their minds? Can ordinary citizens be satisfied with a moral victory? Can the voters be satisfied with a sham? Maybe it is a question of whose strategy you buy into.

The Democratic party senators and representatives are going for the high ground. The house of representatives has already impeached the president. It is now in the hands of the higher court in the senate. Very few have to be convinced to make history.

But is not the real jury the American people? The more the republicans obfuscate, the greater the swing in the vote in November. There are republican senators on the knife edge. A democratic majority in the senate will also be a game changer.

The constant quandary for the republicans is how far they dare go. How short can they keep this show trial? How much can they deny? Is there no point where enough is enough? Is there no point where the evidence convinces?

Sure, the defendant will continue to deny. Everyone knows he lies. His followers admire him for it. They will take the Trump denier over the democratic reality any day.

The defendant is not at his trial. He is not facing his accusers. U.S. president Donald Trump is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Just what he could contribute to the discussions of world economics is a puzzle. What he might gain in understanding from the conference, to the benefit of America is open to question. He contributes not. He learns nothing.

It is no surprise that he keeps telling the world news media at Davos of his displeasure with the proceedings back in Washington. He is petulant and self obsessed.

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The terrors of Trump’s testosterone.

January 6, 2020 by Peter Lowry

You never know what you will read in the Economist. Just the other day I was reading about the lower levels of testosterone in modern American males. Despite the changes in diet and the higher levels of male obesity, this is probably good news for the Me-too movement. Let’s face it: Modern men are wusses.

Except Donald Trump. The president is old school. He used to brag about grabbing what he wanted, whenever he wanted some. It sounded more like locker-room talk than civilized discourse between gentlemen. The difference was that he paid for his wants and ladies who did not like his advances or tired of them, seemed to have the opportunity to leave a bit richer. As some ladies have been heard to note: He might be a pig but he can be a generous pig.

Like it or lump it, this pig is more equal than other pigs (according to George Orwell and some republican senators).

But as men age, their testosterone levels tend to lower. Donald Trump is a septuagenarian. He might not be up to the game quite the way he used to be. And that can make some older men cranky. In fact, Mr. Trump might be the crankiest American president in U.S. history.

Just look at Trump the other day when he, in a fit of pique, so gleefully sanctioned an Iranian general. The Donald was so happy, he was embarrassing the boys and girls at the Pentagon and enraging the professionals at Foggy Bottom (U.S. foreign affairs headquarters). Wouldn’t you rather he just took a Viagra?

There is no way of telling where Trump’s next excursion into foreign affairs might lead him. He just sent thousands more troops to the Middle East. Their only problem is that their leaders have absolutely no idea just who they are there to fight.

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Only the brave make predictions.

January 1, 2020 by Peter Lowry

People love to make predictions as we start a new year. I was laughing at a particularly amusing one the other day by a Toronto Star writer, Tony Burman. He was predicting that Donald Trump would resign from the presidency and get a pardon from incoming president Mike Pence. All that prediction proved was that Mr. Burman does not understand Mr. Trump.

Not that many of us do understand Donald Trump. He is not exactly rational in his behaviour. In fact, he is the most irrational of all the American presidents. He always reminds me of the Forrest Gump philosophy about life being like a box of chocolates. You never know when you are going to get one that is nuts.

But we must acknowledge that Mr. Trump is not going to sit still for a process that forces him to resign and be beholden to that guy Pence for saving him from persecution. In fact, the very idea of Mike Pence following him as president would curl the Donald’s hair.

Trump would be fully prepared to fight any legal attacks after he leaves the presidency down to his last billion dollars. His only problem would be his family trying to have him declared incompetent before he wastes all of their inheritance. Be warned, anyone who wants to take on Trump before the courts needs to have billions to waste on lawyers and ten years to spare. And do you really think the American supreme court is made up of those democratically inclined?

I agree that Dick Nixon had no alternative but to get a pardon before leaving the White House. People really were out to get him. Tricky Dick was caught bare handed and bare faced. He belonged in jail more than any of his party plumbers. The difference between Nixon and Trump is that Nixon knew his limits. Trump thinks he is omnipotent.

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‘You’re a mean one,’ Mr. Trump.

December 25, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It is a surprise that nobody has taken that novelty Christmas song about the Dr. Seuss character who did not like the Who having Christmas and simply substituted ‘Mr. Trump’ for ‘Mr. Grinch.’

But here it is Christmas and it is the proper thing to find something nice to talk about. We simply cannot have Grinchy topics over our turkey dinner. It would not be appropriate. And it could cause indigestion.

So, we have searched hard and long and we finally found something nice to say about Mr. Trump. He might be a greedy bugger but his greed is paying off for me. Have you seen the stock market recently?

I think I finally got some improved earnings in a surprisingly robust market. It is my first substantial raise in earnings in the last 30 years. I used to think I had the anti-Midas touch when it came to the stock market. Anything I touched immediately changed to dust.

You really got to hand it to that slimy bastard Trump. He insults world leaders, toys with despots, defies Congress and scares the Fed. He thinks he can bully the bankers to keep down interest rates.

And it worked, we have a hot market heading for the election in the United States in November 2020. After that, all bets are off. All that Trump is focussed on is getting re-elected. A hot market up to then can help him.

He promised those dummies who supported him that he would make America great again. So far it has been fabulous for multi-millionaires and not-so-bad for us retirees. (And I’m only really getting the spillover to the Canadian market.)

But as a consequence, he has also got more people working in America and he has had to cool it on the trade wars because it finally got through to him that trade wars stifle growth.

Mind you, don’t let the Christmas spirit get you saying anything you might regret next year. Americans still have to get rid of that cretin Trump next November.

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In a divided America.

December 22, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Where else would the GOP be? But sitting on Donald Trump’s knee.

The symbiotic relationship involved defies logic. Donald Trump, his followers and the republican party are bound together at the hip. They need each other and they deserve each other. And do not use logic to try to split them asunder.

It is an alliance of red necks and manipulators wallowing in their mutual ignorance. They know only where they have been and not where they are going. It is Christers and the unchurched rabble drinking their Trumpian Kool-Aid. It is self-immolation in a once-powerful nation.

And what does it gain them? The right to Hail Trump!

Trump’s impeachment is like the Crucifixion. All Hail to Trump!

Donald Trump never was a republican. Hail the wisdom of Trump!

Trump never showed any tax returns. Hail the sanctity of Trump!

He never wasted his time in church. Hail the righteousness of Trump!

Donald Trump is always rallying his troops. They give him the reassurance and strength to carry on his fight for a nation that panders to the rich and powerful. Trump followers do not believe everything that Donald Trump tells them. He is Trump, he is omnipotent and a Trump can tell lies and it does not matter.

It is alright for a Trump to hate Muslims. The churches tell us that Christ loved us all. Donald Trump, as the Antichrist, can hate anybody who displeases him. He hates people who defy him. He hates people who try to explain things to him. He hates people who ridicule him. He has many people to hate.

But he is spending this Christmas holiday at his resort in Florida. It is a time when people ask their God for peace on earth and goodwill towards others. He is busy strategizing his role for when the impeachment process moves to the Senate. Even Emperor Trump needs to take a few days off for golf, contemplation and bacchanalia.

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Gunfighter versus Gunfighter.

November 27, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It’s a classic Hollywood film script. The ‘good’ gunfighter has to buckle on his six-gun just one more time to take on the ‘bad’ gunfighter. Whether the ‘bad’ guy is coming in on the noon train or waiting down behind the livery barn, there is always a lot of worrying and fretting by the town folk.

And all you have to do is substitute billionaire for gunfighter and you have the current situation in the good-old U.S. of A. It is multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg pitting his billions against Donald Trump’s billions to see who spends the next four years running things from the White House.

It has come to who wants to spend the most money. The expert at this is actually Bloomberg. He spent hundreds of millions on his three self-financed campaigns for the New York mayoralty, while his wealth kept growing by the billions. And when you are among the 15 richest people in the world, what’s another 100 million dollars?

Compared to Bloomberg, Trump might be considered just a petty grifter who bamboozled his way to a few billion.

The serious difference is that Bloomberg built his empire on his skills as a security broker with high technology smarts and a sense of what the business audience really needs: timely news and information.

In practice, Michael Bloomberg is considered more of a right-wing liberal, than a social conservative. He seems to be able to live with abortions and same sex marriages but some of his business-oriented solutions to social issues, while mayor of New York, came to unhappy endings. He has been both Republican and Democratic and is quite independent. And with the money he has to spend, why not?

He is only a year younger than Bernie Sanders but obviously better preserved. You can be sure he would not want Bernie Sanders on the Democratic ticket with him. That would be unless his pollsters told him he needed more credibility on Medicare.

But it has come to this, ladies and gentlemen. One presidency is up for auction. Gone once, gone twice, sold to the gentleman at the back of the room with $58 billion to spend.

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With no respect for the U.S.A.

November 24, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Every once in a while, it seems necessary to mention Donald John Trump. He is a man who has taken on the presidency in the United States of America. It has been a destructive act. He did it because he could. A corrupt system of governance allowed him to purchase the presidency. And based on his usual business practices, he did it on the skinny, with trickery and malice. If for no other reason, Americans should be embarrassed that they rented out the White House, as a four-year AirBnB, so cheaply.

There is nothing special about this man. His business practices are questionable. His relations with people are deplorable. He buys what he wants from women.

And what kind of president is he? This man has a grade school understanding of economics. He has a comic book understanding of foreign relations. His social skills are limited and crude. Treaties and pacts and agreements between countries are meaningless to him. They are but the thinnest of tissue to be discarded after use.

And his voters hardly understand that he is harming America’s reputation around the world. They do not care. He promises to make America great—just for them.

But what else is he doing for them?

There are the threatening clouds of carbon from oil, coal and gas consumption continuing to darken our earth. The raging fires of forests, the dreaded tornadoes of the wind-swept prairies, the hurricanes sweeping the coasts are but the tempests of a wounded nature. Why should he care if the end of days for our earth is 50 or 100 years from now? He knows it will not be his problem.

That can be the mantra of all Trump supporters. “It’s not our problem” they can chant in unison. It seems to be what America says to the world all the time: ‘It’s not my problem.’

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All Americans need decide Trump’s fate.

September 30, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It seems undemocratic for Congress to decide the fate of the American president. As self-serving and as obnoxious as president Trump might be, he was the choice of American voters. They should decide his fate.

As a relatively impartial Canadian, I make this suggestion as I am as concerned for democracy in my own country as I am for democracy in America. History shows us how easy it has been for democracy to be set a side. Democracy is never guaranteed. It needs watchful citizens and politicians. It needs the support of the courts.

The first sign of trouble in a democracy is a falling off of participation at the polls. If people are prevented or discouraged from voting by others, it is an abuse of process. If people lose interest in voting, it is a sign of not caring or believing that their participation is a waste of time. This worries me in the United States as it does in Canada. Both countries are trending down in voter turnout.

What has always surprised me is the propaganda spread around the world by America as being the ‘Land of the Free’ and the assumption that it is the world’s most successful democracy. I think I will wait until national elections in the U.S.A. are under the control of a truly neutral body, instead of state officials, before applauding. In many states in the U.S., political gerrymandering has become something of a fine art and an embarrassment to the country. And Americans will only get a gold star for common sense when supreme court judges are chosen for their lack of bias instead of their political leanings.

But the point of all this discussion is the concern for impeaching Donald Trump. I have absolutely no use for the man but I feel that the people need to make the decision. By doing so, they will recognize the power of voting. Congress can make a mess of the decision. If they succeed, they will save a few months of Trump but you cannot tell me that Mike Pence in the White House would be any better. For that man to be in office for even those few months, until the January, 2021, inauguration of a new president, could be painful.

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Trump tramples on our territory.

September 23, 2019 by Peter Lowry

The other day something caught my eye on the opening page of Microsoft’s browser. The company was doing a survey to find out why people dislike their MSN News. I did the survey, but I was reaching for different ways to spell ‘crap.’ This is news lifted from news-gathering people. Microsoft takes no responsibility for the authenticity.

The other day, they even had some Canadian news among the Hollywood trash. It was an item about president Donald Trump commenting on the current Canadian election. It was a lift from U.S.A. Today and, in it, Trump says he has always had good relations with Trudeau. And if you believed that, you could be sitting on the moon eating all the green cheese you want.

You always know when Trump is lying. He is moving his jaw bone.

The truth is that Trump has always been jealous of Trudeau. He hates him for his good looks and youth. He resents his ease in speaking French and he was obviously annoyed that at the recent G7 conference, French president Macron and Trudeau could chat in that language and leave Trump out in the cold.

And Trump also knows that the Canadians bested him by simply holding their positions in the recent free trade negotiations. Trump had obviously been advised by his negotiators that what they got was all they were going to get and there was no reason to prolong the negotiations. Trump does not like losing. He does not like Trudeau.

Donald Trump’s kindred spirits in Canada are people like Doug Ford, premier of Ontario, Jason Kenney, premier in Alberta, and Andrew Scheer, whom Trump wants to see win the current Canada-wide election. These are much friendlier people who would support him next year in what is shaping up as very iffy election for Trump.

Mind you, I expect that Trump’s chances next year are about as good as the chances of Microsoft becoming a respected news source.

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