The State of the So-Called Union
The State of the Union? Here’s how I see it:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at an all-time high. But so is xenophobia. Our President blames ‘both sides’ when a white supremacist drives his car into a crowd and kills someone. The President keeps pushing for a wall that won’t work and that will only drive the country deeper into debt. Meanwhile, immigrants who have been here for years—decades, in some cases—are being unceremoniously deported back to their ****-hole countries, often without their families. Travel bans based on thinly-veiled anti-Muslim paranoia continue to wind their way through our courts.
We just experienced a government shutdown. Partisanship in the House and Senate is keeping either side from getting any real work done. The Congressional majority has tried and failed on numerous occasions to ram through legislation to undo the Affordable Care Act and other laws they don’t happen to like, seemingly without regard to what their constituents actually want and value. On the other hand, Congress did manage to pass a tax bill that, according to non-partisan analysis, gives little to no relief to the middle and lower classes, but provides big tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and the corporations they own and manage.
The President’s Twitter misadventures grow more bizarre and unstatesmanlike by the day. Random and unprovoked attacks on Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, demonstrable lies and misrepresentations about easily verifiable events and facts, and personal attacks against ‘fake news’ media outlets are the routine of the day. Anyone who disagrees with these tweets or tries to point out the factual inaccuracies is shouted down, shamed, and bullied. Above all that, the President is in a personal p*ssing match with the leader of North Korea; the only reason we’re not at war yet is that Kim Jong-il is the only world leader more bombastic and incompetent than ours.
We’ve pulled out of the Paris Accords, because our government leaders are more willing to listen to the 3% of scientists who agree with their political and economic agenda than the 97% who agree that climate change represents a credible threat to the future of life on this planet. But this is hardly surprising; for the past year, government science agencies have been defunded and their social media accounts gagged. Agencies like the EPA and the National Science Foundation can only publish what Capitol Hill approves.
We have a climate change denier at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a brain surgeon running Housing and Urban Development, and a Secretary of Education who has never attended a public school (and neither have her children). The White House has become a revolving door of staff appointments and resignations, and the sole voice of reason at the top levels of government appears to be a Marine Corps general nicknamed Mad Dog. And there’s still that little Russian election issue that nobody wants to talk about.
Our nation is less respected, less truthful, less welcoming, and less stable than it was a year ago. President Trump ran for office on the promise that he would Make America Great Again©. By all independent metrics, that hasn’t happened and isn’t happening.
But hey, the Dow is up, so it’s all good, right?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at an all-time high. But so is xenophobia. Our President blames ‘both sides’ when a white supremacist drives his car into a crowd and kills someone. The President keeps pushing for a wall that won’t work and that will only drive the country deeper into debt. Meanwhile, immigrants who have been here for years—decades, in some cases—are being unceremoniously deported back to their ****-hole countries, often without their families. Travel bans based on thinly-veiled anti-Muslim paranoia continue to wind their way through our courts.
We just experienced a government shutdown. Partisanship in the House and Senate is keeping either side from getting any real work done. The Congressional majority has tried and failed on numerous occasions to ram through legislation to undo the Affordable Care Act and other laws they don’t happen to like, seemingly without regard to what their constituents actually want and value. On the other hand, Congress did manage to pass a tax bill that, according to non-partisan analysis, gives little to no relief to the middle and lower classes, but provides big tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and the corporations they own and manage.
The President’s Twitter misadventures grow more bizarre and unstatesmanlike by the day. Random and unprovoked attacks on Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, demonstrable lies and misrepresentations about easily verifiable events and facts, and personal attacks against ‘fake news’ media outlets are the routine of the day. Anyone who disagrees with these tweets or tries to point out the factual inaccuracies is shouted down, shamed, and bullied. Above all that, the President is in a personal p*ssing match with the leader of North Korea; the only reason we’re not at war yet is that Kim Jong-il is the only world leader more bombastic and incompetent than ours.
We’ve pulled out of the Paris Accords, because our government leaders are more willing to listen to the 3% of scientists who agree with their political and economic agenda than the 97% who agree that climate change represents a credible threat to the future of life on this planet. But this is hardly surprising; for the past year, government science agencies have been defunded and their social media accounts gagged. Agencies like the EPA and the National Science Foundation can only publish what Capitol Hill approves.
We have a climate change denier at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a brain surgeon running Housing and Urban Development, and a Secretary of Education who has never attended a public school (and neither have her children). The White House has become a revolving door of staff appointments and resignations, and the sole voice of reason at the top levels of government appears to be a Marine Corps general nicknamed Mad Dog. And there’s still that little Russian election issue that nobody wants to talk about.
Our nation is less respected, less truthful, less welcoming, and less stable than it was a year ago. President Trump ran for office on the promise that he would Make America Great Again©. By all independent metrics, that hasn’t happened and isn’t happening.
But hey, the Dow is up, so it’s all good, right?
posted by Michael at
4:34 PM
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