What Donald Trump is doing to our country - and the world beyond - is nothing short of vulgar.
Historians will look back on this time as one of the lowest moments in the history of our republic.
A place that, if we are being honest, has had more than its share of shameful moments and events.
The mainstream media, for the most part, still chooses to cover modern politics as a horse race where both sides should get equal airtime.
No matter that one side has refused to honor facts and is being led by a drug-addled madman who is about to start a federal criminal trial for election interference.
This is happening after a recently gutted RNC, replaced by Trump’s family and sycophants, has stated their strategy for winning the 2024 election is basically to participate in election interference.
Just last night Trump urged his voters to go to the polls in huge numbers and harass fellow voters and poll workers - ramping up the model he employed in 2020 - where election workers were targeted by MAGA goons and thugs in Georgia and Arizona and a few other swing states that Trump lost.
The states that Trump won they were left alone, illuminating the lies that we ‘rigged elections’.
Of course, the polls are only rigged where Trump loses.
Most media still adheres to the horse race model of covering elections.
The NYT’s in particular is breathlessly covering the latest results of a Siena poll and quotes from young voters in their early twenties who ‘trust Trump more on the economy’.
Answers that defy logic and should come with a primer on economics for these young voters - but it is cheaper and easier to just skim the surface and post the results, where outrage and potential viral hot takes are baked into the editorial strategy.
Posting quotes and poll results from men and women who were children entering elementary school when Joe Biden, as Vice President, led an 800 billion dollar spending program designed to rescue the American economy after the financial collapse in 2008.
The largest economic disaster this country faced since the Great Depression.
One that was set in motion largely by financial industry abuses stemming from deregulations set in motion under Republican presidents of the recent past.
And guess what kids? Biden’s strategy worked (even though he was straightforward enough at the time to level with the American people and admit there was a 30% chance it could fail).
The irony of the current situation, as President Clinton pointed out at the recent ‘Three Presidents’ mega fundraiser in New York City, is that Trump was the one who benefited from the economic leadership of then Vice President Biden.
It takes awhile for stimulus to take effect and make its way into the metrics that measure economically successful stewardship.
President Obama then pointed out that Clinton was in fact correct - and Biden’s economic experience was the biggest reason he chose Biden as his running mate.
The hard work they had done began to bear fruit ironically during Trump’s term.
Of course the first economic decisions Trump made were to give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and corporations.
The only two interests he has loyalty to besides Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs that bail out his businesses and buy his condominiums.
Trump’s tax cuts alone added trillions to our national debt.
His other big move early on was to cap property tax deductions at 10k which disproportionally hurt middle class Americans on the East and West Coast that he knew for the most part hadn’t voted for him in 2016.
The man is nothing if not spiteful.
Trump also went out of his way to side with predatory lending industries designed to prey on low income families.
Not to mention the ‘Trump Tariffs’ he put on industries, including goods and steel imported from China, which drove up costs for American manufacturers, immediately driving up costs for American consumers.
Trump did this at the same time he himself had rented THREE entire floors in Trump Tower to China’s largest state-run bank, who became his tenant in 2008 and who put two million dollars per year into his private real estate business.
An ‘empire’ that was essentially a fraud for decades and for which the former president must now pay an enormous sum in penalties, having been found guilty of falsifying business documents and evading taxes.
While Trump was levying tariffs on China to look like a tough guy on twitter, he was also secretly maintaining bank accounts in China where during his first year in office, 2017, Chinese interests deposited 6.5 million dollars.
The source of these payments was not available on the tax returns the House Ways and Means committee received after a long legal battle.
Of course his daughter, Ivanka, was also granted 18 trademarks from China for her personal business in her first two months working in the White House.
All of these facts and complexities are not mentioned to the voters who are quoted in the polls the New York Times and others love to print.
This is not to say young people’s opinions are not valid - they are of voting age and what they do at the polls and in what numbers they show up could very well determine the next election.
But they are giving these opinions in a climate where the GOP spent three years ‘investigating’ Hunter Biden, on the basis of Russian misinformation and strategic subterfuge, much of it designed to pull focus aways from Trump’s own dealing with China and the imminently corrupt family members whose job it is to collect the checks from Trump’s malfeasance and side deals.
Many of these young people are getting their news from Tik Tok influencers and Instagram accounts.
They are being done a disservice, as we all are, by a mainstream media that is attempting to play catch-up to online influencers.
Algorithmic impressions are taking the place of reporting actual facts by folks who should know better.
The week ahead will no doubt bring the circus that Trump requires to town and the punditry class will get as much mileage as they can out of every insane utterance.
Make no mistake about why Trump is on trial.
It is for an in-kind contribution to benefit his campaign in 2016, stemming from an affair with Stormy Daniels and hiding a payment to keep that affair a secret from American voters.
One of many such secrets Trump carried with him to the Oval Office.
Only a few have seen the light of day; especially because of the media focus on the horse race and easy coverage.
We will no doubt endure clip after clip of Donald’s bloated bloviations outside the Federal Courthouse in New York City in the coming days.
Instead of repeating the former president’s lies and making his insane ranting into clips played on an endless loop on cable news, perhaps we should look at what is really going on underneath them and focus on what it truly at stake for America.
Vote Blue.
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Well said Noel, but can you tell us why Trump’s trial will not be televised? Surely the Networks want that, and America needs to see and hear what he is accused of and his utter lack of any defense.
What can I say that hasn’t been said? Your grasp on our reality makes me cringe and fear for another tRump White House occupation. I’ll keep optimistic as I believe in my heart, we deserve better and will vote accordingly. Keep telling it like it is. We need more of it.