To Form a More Perfect Union

As we can tell by the terrible choices that President Trump has made even just recently, it is obvious just how little he understands economics, business, social norms, international diplomacy, and anything else that has to do with being a chief executive of any organization. We will question whether someone will fire him. And that begs the question, would Hillary Clinton have done better? 

If your metric is can she perform the duties of the President of the United States without exposing her own incompetence at nearly all the same measurements that Trump has exposed? The answer is yes, of course. For many, that is sufficient. And she most certainly understands social norms; there would not be any 5 am rambling nonsensical tweets to entertain and frighten us. Hillary Clinton is far too disciplined and calculating for that. Again, for many, that is sufficient. And after close to a year, can we say that Donald Trump’s presidency has failed at moving the country to a more egalitarian and productive society? Absolutely. And if Hillary Clinton had won, is there any chance she would have succeeded with those goals? Legislatively, there is no prayer of any success. We have already seen how the Republicans react to a mostly moderate black man’s agenda. Does any evidence suggest that people will treat a woman any better? None. 

In the international arena, her history as Secretary of State gives us a glimpse into how she will run international policy. Her policy will align more with the McCain / Graham view than Trump’s. Of course, Trump runs US foreign policy exactly like Rufus T. Firefly ran Freedonia’s foreign policy; no comfort there. Economic policy, which is a large piece of what happens in a country, includes fiscal policy, tax policy, government management of how the economy operates including the government funding of education, health care, retirement, banking, infrastructure development, anti-trust enforcement, environmental issues, public spaces, and many more. Clinton would have made appointments to head the agencies that manage all these areas that are appropriate compared to the appointments made by Trump. There are two caveats to this observation. Clinton would not get the best people available to head these agencies because of inevitable Republican obstructionism, and her favored appointments would all, to a person, represent neoliberal economic policy. The same policy, which Reagan started, became more compassionate under Bill Clinton so that Democrats could adopt it. The history of neoliberal economics is a slide that, over its 40+ year lifespan, has expanded the wealth of large corporations and very rich individuals, and created an ever wider income inequality. Clinton, during her campaign, never disavowed her allegiance to the continuation of neoliberal economics. Trump is certainly worse. His appointees are entirely unqualified for their positions; often they are the antithesis of the selection that should be made. Trump, too, has disavowed allegiance to neoliberal economics. In continuing a failed economic explanation and putting incompetent persons in charge, he has exposed the weaknesses of the policy, himself, and the Republicans. 

Since you have read this far, allow me to explain why I did not vote for Clinton (or Trump), since I expected the issues I mentioned before the election. This is important because, as I have listed, Clinton would have been a better president based on optics. But not based on the impact of her policy choices, except of course, in understanding social norms and using rhetoric considered appropriate for a president. In order to reverse the decline of American shared wealth, I cannot abide a president who will not run on a platform that continues the neo-liberal economy and also supports the neo-con international agenda. No matter who, no matter what the optics, it is a continuous slide downhill with history’s dustbin at the bottom of the slide. 

Here are a few things the Democrats have done since Trump’s election that convince me even more that unconsciously America made the only choice it had available to save itself from the dustbin. 

Once Trump was elected, the Democrats labeled themselves as “The Resistance,” suggesting that the party and its followers would actively do anything legally allowed to hinder Trump (and, by extension, the Republicans) from implementing their agenda. Recall, it was the Democrats that ran all of their campaigns as a plebiscite on Trump and the Republicans, in place of advocating any full-throated policy, and never addressing the concerns of much of their presumed base – Progressives. 

Democrats in their role as “The Resistance” rolled over and allowed Trump to put in place people clearly not qualified for their jobs. The Democrats allowed Trump and the Republicans to expand military spending after publicly stating how much they distrusted Trump’s foreign policy. The Democrats failed to back candidates who ran against Republicans in special elections and who would not swear allegiance to neoliberal economics. Democrats stood mute and voted no on a bill for tax reform that was not ready for a vote. It had hand scribbled notes on the margins, there was not enough time for anyone to read the bill before deciding their vote, voting not instead of abstaining was capitulation and allowed Republicans to claim victory while demeaning the tradition of deliberation and debate on critical policy. Democratic leadership has stated that impeachment is currently off the table — a statement and congressperson should never utter. Impeachment is a tool that the founders gave to Congress so that a president cannot overstep his bounds or prove incapable of performing the job of president, as defined solely by Congress. After the election, Democrats chose not to challenge the vote totals in very close states. Utter capitulation. There is no resistance from the establishment Democrats, and there is no sign that any is forthcoming. 

I could go further and discuss how Democrats took Progressive voters for granted. Instead, I will wrap up this rant. 

What we have now is a president who is supporting idiotic international agendas and a few sane ones too. The Republicans have dreamed about his economic agenda since Daddy Bush lied. But the Republicans have been clamoring for these policies, insisting they will jump-start our economy, and Trump insisted he alone could shut down our enemies (real or perceived). We will find out about the economic policy. The Democrats’ half-assed economic policy was not doing anything for us; let us see what the Republican economic policy does. Sliding down into a dustbin at a slow speed will help no one. 

This is democracy. A flawed system on its best days. On its worst days, the parties fail, and we end up with candidates unworthy of representing us. The election of 2016 was possibly the worst day in American history, but it did not happen without cause. Both the candidates for president and most candidates for office across the country resulted from years of political malfeasance and willful neglect of two of the Constitution’s guiding principles as stated in the preamble. To provide for the general welfare and to create a more perfect Union. When the only admonition followed is to provide for safety and ignore all the other is to force all of us into fearing for our safety. We become worried about our own welfare and are ready to rip up the very document that asks us to strive for perfection. A plea to future leaders to keep making improvements to the document. They knew it was anything but perfect. 

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” We can and should refresh the tree with metaphorical blood, and that can only happen if we stop allowing establishment politics — Democrats and Republicans — to define the limits of our choices. Part of the American experiment has failed. I contend that failure is because of our two-party system, and we should dismantle it, impeach Trump on grounds of incompetence and force other politicians to resign that cannot do their job according to the Constitution’s “Mission Statement”. 

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense (sp), promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”