November 9, 2016
THE COMING IMPLOSION
There is no disaster that does not benefit someone, and the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States will mainly serve to benefit one person: George W. Bush. He has deservedly had to endure a dismal rating in evaluations of the nation’s best presidents, but there is no chance that Bush will ever again finish last in any future rankings. That spot is already reserved for Donald J. Trump, who will send this country – and perhaps the entire global infrastructure of economic affiliations – into a tailspin from which it may well not emerge until the next century. Intertwined with that implosion will be an environmental collapse that will now only hasten in bringing concomitant misery to species everywhere on the planet.
While sexism and racism certainly influenced the outcome of this election, it must be emphasized that many of those who voted for Trump did so out of legitimate grievances about the failure of the Obama administration to concentrate on the creation of jobs that paid a living wage. At his party’s final rally of the campaign, President Obama said that “no one could see how bad the Great Recession would be.” I’m hardly the first person to point out that Obama is kidding himself if he really believes that ludicrous excuse. Many people understood all too well how bad it was, and Obama only made things worse by appointing to powerful positions in the U.S. government the very people who were responsible for the mess in the first place. I find it astonishing that he still does not have a clue about this crucial error. Obama’s inability to assess the enormity and gravity of the situation in 2008 caused more suffering in “ordinary” people’s lives than he can possibly imagine, and they got their revenge (which is no more than a gullible fantasy) in today’s vote.
In choosing to focus on health care reform in his first term of office, instead of substantial job creation, Obama created an opportunity for a narcissistic bully to mount a racist campaign in 2016 that succeeded in playing discontented people for suckers. And they will regret their choice. In four to eight years they will bitterly regret it.
Nixon in 1968 and 1972; Reagan in 1980 and 1984; George H.W. Bush in 1988, and his son in 2000 and 2004. My fellow citizens in this country seem to be incapable of learning from their mistakes. Under President Trump, there will be a major recession within the two and a half years, and it will only be the first of many. You wanted another Great Recession, eh? Don’t worry, you will get what you voted for, and don’t expect those of us who voted for Hillary Clinton to feel sorry for you. We will be too busy trying to salvage our lives to care about your homelessness and malnutrition. In voting for an ignorant, racist bully who has no idea whatsoever as to how to govern public institutions, you have put the entire social fabric at peril and this time you will deserve the resulting havoc it causes in your lives.
About Bill Mohr