Bill Moyers: Donald Trump Is Turning American Democracy into Demolition Derby
Affordable health care? Smash it. Fair pay for working people? Crush it. And on and on.
By Bill Moyers / BillMoyers.com January 28, 2017
(links ommitted)
We’re a week into the Trump administration and it’s pretty obvious what he’s up to. First, Donald Trump is running a demolition derby: He wants to demolish everything he doesn’t like, and he doesn’t like a lot, especially when it comes to government.
Like one of those demolition drivers on a speedway, he keeps ramming his vehicle against all the others, especially government policies and programs and agencies that protect people who don’t have his wealth, power or privilege. Affordable health care for working people? Smash it. Consumer protection against predatory banks and lenders? Run over it. Rules and regulations that rein in rapacious actors in the market? Knock ‘em down. Fair pay for working people? Crush it. And on and on.
Trump came to Washington to tear the government down for parts, and as far as we can tell, he doesn’t seem to have anything at all in mind to replace it except turning back the clock to when business took what it wanted and left behind desperate workers, dirty water and polluted air.
In this demolition derby, Trump seems to have the wholehearted support of the Republican Party, which loathes government as much as it worships the market as god. Remember Thomas Frank’s book, The Wrecking Crew? Published in 2008, it remains one of the best political books of the past quarter-century. Frank took the measure of an unholy alliance: the century-old business crusade against government, the conservative ideology that looks on government as evil (except when it’s enriching its allies), and the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Karl Rove — the one that had just produced eight years of crony capitalism and private plunder.
The Wrecking Crew — and what an apt title it was — showed how federal agencies were doomed to failure by the incompetence and hostility of the Bush gang appointed to run them, the same model Trump is using now. Frank tracked how wholesale deregulation — on a scale Trump already is trying to reproduce — led to devastating results for everyday people, including the mortgage meltdown and the financial crash. Reading the book is like reading today’s news, as kleptomaniacs spread across Washington to funnel billions of dollars into the pockets of lobbyists and corporations.
That may include the pockets of Donald Trump’s own family. As Jonathan Chait wrote after the election in New York magazine, “[Trump’s] children have taken roles on the transition team. Ivanka attended official discussions with heads of state of Japan and Argentina. [As president-elect, Trump himself] met with Indian business partners to discuss business and lobbied a British politician to oppose offshore wind farms because one will block the view at one of his Scottish golf courses.” Only a couple of days ago it was reported that the Trump organization would more than triple the number of Trump hotels in America. And why not? Its chief marketer works out of the Oval Office.
Jonathan Chait went on to say: “Trump’s brazen use of his office for personal enrichment signals something even more worrisome than four or more years of kleptocratic government. It reveals how willing the new administration is to obliterate governing norms and how little stands in his way.”
And oh yes, something else: David Sirota at International Business Times has just published a new report showing that the Trump administration appears to be quietly killing the federal government’s major ethics rule designed to prevent White House officials from enriching their former clients. Experts say a review of government documents shows that regulators appear to have abruptly stopped enforcing the rule, even though it remains the law of the land.
We were warned. Donald Trump himself told The New York Times, “The law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Shades of Richard Nixon, who said, “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.” And who also announced, “I am not a crook.”
I know plutocracy is not a commonly used word in America. But it’s a word that increasingly fits what’s happening here. Plutocracy means government by the wealthy, a ruling class of the rich and their retainers. If you don’t see plutocracy spreading across America, you haven’t been paying attention. Both parties have nurtured, tolerated and bowed to it. Now we’re reaching the pinnacle, as Trump’s own Cabinet is rich (no pun intended) in millionaires and billionaires. He is stacking the agencies and boards of government with the wealthy and friends of wealth so that the whole of the federal enterprise can be directed to rewarding those with deep pockets, the ones who provide the bags and bags of money that are dumped into our political process today.Which leads us to the second design now apparent in Trump’s strategy of deliberate chaos. He may have run a populist campaign, but now it appears he aims to substitute plutocracy for democracy.
Yes, both Democrats and Republicans have been guilty of groveling to the wealthy who fund them; it’s a staggering bipartisan scandal that threatens the country and was no small part of Trump’s success last November, even as ordinary people opened their windows and shouted, “We’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.” So now we have in power a man who represents the very worst of the plutocrats — one who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. I shudder to think where this nightmare will end. Even if you voted for Donald Trump for a reason that truly is from your heart, I cannot believe you voted for this.
Tell me if I’m wrong. Tell me whose side are you really on? The people of America or the cynics and predators at the very top who would climb atop the ruins of the republic for a better view of the sunset?
BOREALIS -- but they do have that whole "extreme vetting" thing down pat, gotta give 'em that:
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Woman impersonated lawmaker's wife, snuck into GOP retreat
By ERICA WERNER Jan. 28, 2017 10:39 PM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman impersonated the wife of a GOP lawmaker and snuck into the congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia Thursday, the same day President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence appeared, retreat organizers told lawmakers late Saturday.
The revelation came as the nonprofit Congressional Institute that organizes the retreat investigates how audio of the gathering leaked. In an email to GOP lawmakers, institute president Mark Strand did not directly say that the impersonator was the same person who leaked the audio, but that was the implication.
"The Congressional Institute is continuing to investigate this breach in order to fully understand how it happened and to ensure it does not happen again," said Strand's email, which was obtained by The Associated Press.
The audio was leaked to several news outlets and first reported by The Washington Post. It reveals lawmakers airing concerns about the practical difficulties and political risks of repealing and replacing President Barack Obama's health care law, among other things. There is also audio of a question-and-answer session with Pence, indicating that the intruder was in the same room as the vice president, which raises security concerns. It was not immediately clear if she was also present for the session with Trump, who spoke before Pence but did not engage in a private discussion with lawmakers.
The email says that the unauthorized person "misrepresented herself on multiple occasions to retreat organizers as the spouse of an elected official" and used counterfeit credentials. She went through the same security checkpoints as every other attendee, including magnetometers, and was escorted from the event around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, after Trump and Pence left. The email says officials are working to "ascertain the identity of the woman in question."
Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms are investigating, according to a statement Saturday night from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who chairs the House GOP conference.
"Leaks from internal member discussions are unacceptable," McMorris Rodgers said. She said she welcomed an investigation "to get to the bottom of this serious breach, as these conversations are intended to allow members to candidly discuss how to address the issues facing the American people."
In the audio, leaked anonymously to several news outlets, Republican lawmakers could be heard airing their concerns about the health care issue.
"We'd better be sure that we're prepared to live with the market we've created," Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., was quoted as saying in the Post and elsewhere. "That's going to be called 'Trumpcare.' Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we'll be judged in the election less than two years away."
Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., worried that Republican plans could strip health insurance from many of the 20 million people who gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act, including through the expansion of Medicaid.
"We're telling those people that we're not going to pull the rug out from under them, and if we do this too fast, we are in fact going to pull the rug out from under them," MacArthur was quoted as saying.
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