By David Bolling
While Donald Trump continues to behave with the emotional maturity of a hormone-addled, poorly educated, over-privileged teen, continues to demean virtually anyone and everyone who disagrees with him, criticizes him, or simply tells him things he doesn’t want to hear, and has left parts of the federal government in literal rubble, it is beginning to dawn on some of his critics that perhaps we should begin to thank him.
That’s because, while he’s an easy man to hate, and a dangerous man to anger, it has to be clear to many of us by now that he wouldn’t hold any significant power, wouldn’t be president, might not even be rich, if he hadn’t been allowed to exercise his two great skills – cheating and lying.
His ability to do both with a straight face, in broad daylight is impressive. But it wouldn’t be nearly as impressive if a critical cadre of enablers whose venality, greed, self-interest, moral depravity and civic indifference had not paved the path and fueled the engine of Trump’s practically psychotic presidency.
Let’s be serious about this. There is nothing in the character, the quality, the intelligence, the training, the ability, the vision, the experience of Kash Patel, Don Bongino, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, Dr. Oz, Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. or personal Deputy AG and Ghislaine Maxwell Whisperer, Todd Blanche – I could go on – that qualifies them for the positions they now hold.
Nor is there any ethical way that son-in-law Jared Kushner should be allowed to represent the United States in international diplomacy circles that give him (and his father-in-law) personal investment opportunities with foreign governments.
Many of these absurd appointments are virtual cartoon characters, (Kash Patel? Pete Hegseth? really?) all of them bring shame and risk to the health and safety of American citizens.
So why should we be thanking Donald Trump?
Purely and simply because his presidency has power-flushed the presidential toilet, forcing into clear public view the sewer that circulates beneath our feet. These classless clowns love to talk about draining the swamp without the self-awareness to realize that they are the swamp. They represent the bald tires, the lapsed warranty, the brake shoes worn thin, the absence of seat belts and airbags, the over-stressed engine that hasn’t had an oil and filter change since not long after 1776. They are the wear points in the kitchen floor that was first covered with asbestos before the family moved in. They are the pushbutton AM radio with five-mile reception.
They have, in other words, revealed to us all the vulnerable, outdated and dangerously amenable-to-manipulation weaknesses and stress points that need to be serviced, replaced, or reinvented before the Automobile of State can be safely trusted on the road, in a storm, with a driver of questionable ability or intent. Trump and his clown show have shown us the weaknesses of a system that has not had a foundational makeover in 250 years.
The American Constitution is an extraordinarily brilliant creation, hands down the best document of its kind in history and the model for many other constitutions much newer to the game of democracy. Most Americans don’t really know that, although many give it loving pats, like a favorite family pet.
But it is 250 freaking years old!!! It needs new tires, an oil change, and maybe electronic fuel injection instead of a four-barrel carburetor and dual overhead cams instead of pushrods, disc brakes instead of drums, and three-point safety harnesses along with airbags.
“OK Mr. Motorhead,” you’re saying, “fun metaphors, but translate that into a political blueprint.” Of course. And when the road is clear of ICE traps and revenge suits and other impediments to open discussion, we need to take really SERIOUS stock.
First of all, we need to understand that nothing will change until we are willing to recognize that the extraordinary and ever-expanding inequality in wealth distribution in America will doom any attempt to reform the political system, until we address it. One reason Donald Trump is president is because of that chasm between the rich and the poor, in fact between the very rich and everyone else.
This isn’t about billionaire shaming and there are numerous enlightened and generous billionaires among us committed to social and economic justice. But we are no longer a frontier society, families can’t simply walk out into the woods, plant some seeds, shoot some deer, and get by.
Housing, health and hunger are the three sides of the survival paradigm that no successful nation, culture or family can ignore. Without all three of those needs met, the family breaks down, the community breaks down, the country breaks down. As Nic Kristof writes in his book “Tightrope…” More children die each year in the United States from abuse and neglect than from cancer.”
That in a country where, Kristof writes, “the top 1 percent now owns twice as great a share of national wealth as the entire bottom 90 percent.”
Donald Trump likes to call America the greatest country in the world. What he doesn’t say, perhaps because he doesn’t know, is that we rank 41 among all nations in child mortality; 46 in internet access; 44 in access to clean drinking water; 30 in high school enrollment.
Reducing income inequality is not just a moral, Christian thing to do. It is the single most pragmatic thing we can do to ensure the survival of the longest enduring democracy on Earth.
And while we wrestle with that challenge, we must meanwhile strip off some of the engineering artefacts of that 250-year-old vehicle and attach some modern replacements, including:
Dump the Electoral College. Impose term limits on Supreme Court justices and apply a Congressionally-imposed code of ethics.
Find a legislative way to kill Citizens United, taking private wealth out of political campaigns.
Keep pushing for a single-payer national healthcare plan, with abundant opportunity for the wealthy to buy what they want on the private market. Design, fund and build affordable housing in village-sized configurations embracing public gardens, like the federal government did with VetVilles scattered across the country for returning World War II veterans. There’s a model that could work.
And drive a movement for renewing and improving civics education in U.S. high schools. When it comes to our own government, we’re mostly just plain ignorant.
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