Saturday, November 26, 2016

Take Heart! Elton John Won't Be Helping Trump Either!

Two days after the election I posted a piece discussing how Trump cannot carry out all the frightening nonsense he spewed in his campaign. What Can Trump REALLY Do?

Since then other writers have finally stopped beating the drums of terror and started looking at the reality of the limits on Trump and his GOP Congress. They too foresee Trump and the GOP Congress having a hard time trying to wreck Obama's legacy and mess up this country. Below is a list of recent articles you may want to read, but just the headlines alone should give you some reassurance.

As I said in my November 11 post and is reiterated in these articles by others, it's very hard to turn the ship of state. Checks and balances exist throughout our system, states have adopted many of the same laws as the feds, businesses now see the sense of environmentalism and have invested in it, market forces are supporting a switch to clean fuels, and on and on.

And what about the fear that Trump will round up and imprison vast numbers of our people? In 1968 I lit the spark that led to enactment in 1971 of a federal law which effectively bans federal mass arrest and detention in the absence of an act specifically made criminal by Congress. This law was cited by the Supreme Court in the Guantanamo cases, ordering the Feds to give the detainees the due process that is required by our Constitution.

I mention this because it shows what we can do to oppose any president doing Nazi-type things. The law was my response to the rounding up and internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II. This crime against our fellow Americans took place when I was a child, far from where it happened. Some of those detainees were subsequently my beloved journlism teacher, a best friend in college, my first candidate, and other good friends. If one young woman, enraged by a long ago offense by her government, can set off such reaction to an injustice of thirty years earlier, think what the young millennials can do now if the "knock on the door in the night" begins in our nation.

Now here's the list of reassuring headlines. Maybe you'll even read some of the articles.  Whether you do or not,  please take heart. As Yogi Bera said, "It ain't the end of the world until it's the end of the world."

 Why Trump’s Education Pick Won’t Be Able to Privatize U.S. Schools

Betsy DeVos and the Wrong Way to Fix Schools

 U.S. Companies to Trump: Don’t Abandon Global Climate Deal

Trump’s Proposals Won’t Help The White Working Class — Or The Urban Poor 

President Trump's Toughest Foe: The Bureaucracy

 U.S. Companies to Trump: Don’t Abandon Global Climate Deal 

Trump Probably Can’t Get Roe v. Wade Overturned


There is yet another constraint on Trump, one that no one has yet considered so far as I know. It's the principle of "bad managers drive away competent people." If Trump persists in appointing extremists and power-bloated billionaires, the talent these top bosses need to hire will snub them. Extremists and billionaires from the private sector generally are regarded as bad bosses. And it's very hard to get anything done in government without hiring people who know where the "on button" is. The Trump folks can't even get Elton John to sing at the inauguration!

So sit back and watch Trump and the GOP flail. Soon begins the circular firing squad?

As we wait in our front row seats, please pass the popcorn.

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