Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth



Following is an excerpt from an article in today's Boston Globe. It speaks to the concerns millions upon millions of Americans have following the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the "United States of America". The author, Michael A. Cohen nails it.

Between now and Jan. 20, when Donald Trump takes the oath of office as America’s 45th president, many Americans will wish for him to be a successful president.

Not me.

I don’t want Trump to succeed. I want him to fail spectacularly.

I say this not because I don’t accept the outcome of last week’s election or because I don’t recognize him as my president. Trump won fair and square and will be the president for at least the next four years.

But make no mistake — success for Trump would be a disaster for America. If his campaign promises are to be taken at face value, his success would mean that tens of millions of Americans may lose health care insurance. It would mean a step back on fighting climate change that could have a catastrophic, even apocalyptic effect on the planet. It would mean a shredded social safety net and little federal attention to voting restrictions and structural racism in America’s criminal justice system. It would mean global instability and a weakening of American’s leadership role in the world. It would mean acquiescence to an assertive Russia and a weakening of the international institutions that help to maintain global order. It would mean disastrous trade wars and a domestic agenda that would do more to harm the people who voted for Trump than help them. It would mean mass deportation — and a humanitarian catastrophe — for millions of undocumented immigrants.

And even if Trump were inclined to reverse the threadbare policy positions, any kind of success for Trump means a tacit acceptance of the hatred and mistrust that he has sown in this nation over the past 16 months. It would mean making acceptable nativist, racist, and xenophobic hate. It would mean that the Trump supporters who have over the past week spray-painted swastikas on churches and schools or publicly accosted women, Jews, and people of color would be validated. It would mean looking the other way at misogyny and sexual assault and the mocking of the disabled. And it would mean zero accountability for a politician who has not only violated every imaginable democratic norm, but who lies and deceives practically every time he opens his mouth.

Success for Trump means normalizing the ascendancy of Stephen Bannon to a position of extraordinary political power within the halls of the White House. Under Bannon, the right-wing Breitbart News became the forum for white nationalists, Islamophobes, misogynists, and anti-Semites. You hear lots of people talking about the need for Americans to come together over the next few weeks and months. But how, as a Jewish-American, am I supposed to “come together” with a president who holds me in such disrespect that he appoints an anti-Semite to a position of such political power? I can’t, and I won’t.

What gives me fleeting hope is the knowledge that millions of Americans — a majority even — feel as I do. They are angry. They are scared for the future. They are holding their children just a little tighter and perhaps looking over their shoulders in ways they hadn’t done before. Like me, these Americans want Trump to fail. They want him to be rejected and have his ugly vision of American defeated. For many of them, Trump’s success is an existential threat.

Full article BELOW THE FOLD.

Comments

  1. Not much different from what Rush Limbaugh hoped for President Obama in that they both hoped for a presidential fail.

    I hate what I have heard from Candidate Trump. His words, his actual words, his actions in mocking disabled people, his apparent disdain for others, and his seeming lack of understanding of both the gravity and importance of his new job scare me. It is not what I want to see in our President, whether that person has an R, D or I after their name.

    But I will not root for failure, because failure will be bad for America and her people. I will root for a success based in the values we have always held dear in this country and maybe, Trump will at last, come to those.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have much more faith in tRump than I Dave. The President of a company I worked for (I reported to him) had a saying for these type of situations, a leopard can't change its spots. tRump exemplifies that saying IMO.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, I got no faith Les... I'm just choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt... for awhile...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As one of my best bosses ever used to say, a leopard can't change its spots . I've grown to agree with him over the years.

      While I will never say never my money is on tRump being who he is. I'll leave it at that.

      Delete
  4. Want him to fail or not, I think that *is* what is going to happen. As for giving him the benefit of the doubt, Breitbart's Steve Bannon, who "has been called racist, anti-Semitic and a white nationalist" is going to be Trump's chief strategist. Not the way to go if you want to be a president representing EVERYONE. In my opinion AND in a lot of people's opinions.

    Some Bannon quotes

    "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe. Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right?"

    "That's why there are some unintended consequences of the women's liberation movement. That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn't be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that's why they hate these women". [Republican women like Sarah Palin, etc].

    The Anti-Defamation League says "Mr. Bannon was responsible for the advancement of ideologies antithetical to our nation, including anti-Semitism, misogyny, racism and Islamophobia. There should be no place for such views in the White House".

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unfortunately, no matter what happens to trump, we are stuck with radical republican policies for at least the next two years, and probably the next four years. Even if he quits, just look at the line of succession. It is filled with radical republicans whose policies are bad for the vast majority of Americans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even if he quits, just look at the line of succession. It is filled with radical republicans whose policies are bad for the vast majority of Americans.

      Obviously they don't know it, and, maybe they don't care.

      Delete

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