Now that, thankfully, it's all over but for the shouting, it's time to look back and truly observe the strange long journey America just endured. I want to start with a premise of which I would hope most could agree with: America has many real problems that are not being addressed by our federal government, and whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge, nothing fundamental ever positively changes in the lives of the average citizen. I'm not talking ideological issues, hot button issues, or conservative/liberal ways of seeing things, but actual concrete problems many of us face which have yet to be addressed by anyone, like good paying desirable jobs, appropriate taxation, infrastructure, fixed roadways, 100 year old water pipes replaced, paid sick leave, quality health care and healthcare coverage that makes sense, good schools, affordable higher education, paid maternity/paternity leave, childcare options, and the promise of being taken care of when we get old. Sure, each party promises to fix a subset of these concerns each and every election, but when it's their turn to drive, the other side simply blocks every attempt to get anything lasting signed into law.
Washington doesn't work anymore, and the people are growing tired of the dysfunction.
To somewhat answer this angst, felt by many, along comes a political outsider with the name recognition and uncontrollable tongue and twitter fingers to start a revolution. Very few recognized it for what it was, but once it wiped out every other Republican contender and set its sights on at least making a somewhat favorable showing in the general, more and more concerned citizens started responding to its siren song. From a disappointedly headlined convention in Cleveland, to some very strange attacks on a war hero from Arizona and some awkward moments with Billy Bush, emerged a force to be reckoned with. He seemed poised to be in the ideal situation to perhaps tackle some of these real issues since he is his own man and comes in without owing favors to some wealthy aristocrats, without the need to kowtow to politics or getting bogged down with party infighting or ideological hangups. Even Dave Chapelle, while deeply disappointed in the person America chose to represent us to the world, had a sense that at least the opportunity was there for him to shake things up, potentially for the good. Most others on the left couldn't even give him that much, but no matter because some of them would certainly come around if the outcome Trump was seeking turned out to be a beneficial lifting of all Americans.
Sadly, this was not meant to be. He doubled down on the misogyny, the racist dog whistles, the immigrant bashing, and the laserlike focus on enriching himself and his rich friends. And then the presidency went off the rails.
Fast forward to the fall of 2017. With much more hyperbole on both sides, still the federal government somewhat worked like normal with each side giving and taking just enough to, in their minds, position their party for gains in the midterms. But when it came to passing a funding resolution to pay for the first real budget put forth by the Republican majority, something started to buckle and a disturbance in the force was felt across this great land. By all accounts, the budget that passed earlier was a gift to corporate America, and enshrined tax cuts for the wealthy while slashing ordinary deductions middle-class Americans were accustomed to. It also increased the budget for the military while cutting programs geared toward the poor, but importantly didn't include any earmarked funds for Trump's border wall, and the fight for that was teed up and ready to go.
The way I remember it is this: after months of Trump bashing illegals, Mexicans, and pretty much every other brown person not born and raised in the states (and even some who were), the question of what to do about The Dreamers was forefront on many political minds. Trump decided that they weren't real Americans and should be classified with all the other illegals to potentially be deported. It was assumed Obama fixed this problem with the DACA executive action, but the administration found a way to get it overturned in federal court. All of this is in the minds of the Democrats when the negotiations start, and the conventional wisdom forced them to make a stand to prove to the Latino community that their concerns are front and center in the Democratic Party (hoping, of course, for their great support in the upcoming midterms and 2020 election). Certainly, "The Wall" had to be the big sticking point for the Latino community, right? If the Democrats fold and provide any funds for this "racist symbol" they will lose not only all of their support, but also the super-woke who were screaming for nothing but Full-Resistance.
So, it happened. The fateful moment from which there was no coming back from. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer put their foot down and demanded an entire litany of things while at the same time giving $0 to go towards Trump's Wall. There was a lot of back-and-forth and complaints on both sides that neither side was playing fair… I believe The Democrats should have made a large deal and dangled in front of Trump a reasonable amount towards his border wall. Doing so, I feel that they could have exacted some great concessions that would have been super beneficial (oh, I don't know, paid sick leave for all workers, actual progress on legislation to fix The Dreamer situation for good, migrant worker legislation which would benefit companies and workers, etc.), and they easily could have proven to Trump that they were worth dealing with. I truly feel that all Trump wanted was something to hang his hat on and to show to his followers that he is the dealmaker they elected him to be, and if the Democrats were the ones to make this dream come true for him I truly believe they would have found a more willing partner to at least attempt to tackle some other things in the future that the majority of Americans could agree were real problems.
But, the Democrats refused, and they shut the government down for over a month. They actually won this battle, because Trump eventually relented on most of the sticking points and nothing was included in the CR for "The Wall". But the die was cast. In the mind of Trump, it was over. Never again would he even consider doing a deal with the Democrats in any fashion. From that point on the Democrats were even bigger enemies than before, enemies of the state, and not worthy to even talk to, or be allowed to win any future elections.
I contend that Trump was not ideologically tied to what the Republicans were selling, but just that it fit his particular narrative that he was preaching at the time. He found a forgotten group of people and he made himself their hero, and now those people form the backbone of the new Republican Party. For the record, after he got in office I believe he could have been swayed away from taking the country for such a hard right turn. I still feel he had the potential to not become the president who just focused solely on dividing all of us; giving to his diehard supporters exactly what they wanted all of the time in the mistaken hope that he would get reelected.
It's hard to know how this would have played out and who would have benefited politically from the deal I penned above, but it's hard to see how any alternate agreement would have resulted in an even more contentious future than where we currently find ourselves. Just look at what comes next in 2018, 2019, and 2020 in our timeline. Where can we even begin to imagine how things could have turned out worse?
And on top of it all, Trump even loses his reelection, so it didn't even work out for him. I guess you can say it eventually-sort-of worked out for the Democrats politically since they now hold 2/3 of the executive and legislature, but at what cost to our political discourse, all of the unfixed problems, and at the human cost and the lives lost with all the fighting over COVID? Surely if we had a more functioning federal government when the pandemic hit would we now be in this dire of a situation with over 1/4 million Americans dead and a very disturbing looking December and January looming in front of us?
Which leads me to Joe, good old drama-free sleepy Joe. Joe is the right man at the right time to rebuild the important parts of government that Trump took a flamethrower to, the EPA, the FBI, the civilian leadership of the military, the DOJ, and to a limited extent the CDC and the FDA. It is important to reestablish the partisan-free nature of many of these civilian jobs, and to "build back better" some of the fundamental democratic ideals this last group barely paid lip service to.
However, is Joe the right man (or woman, or other non-binary gendered person) at the right time to actually address the fundamental problems America is facing? Do we want to just get back to the way things used to be, or should we take a real assessment of where we find ourselves and start to steer this ship the right way?
For example, after the White House is fumigated can we have a serious adult conversation about our dealings with other countries in the world? We can't pretend that everything Trump did on the international playing field was wrong for America. Getting NATO members to chip in some more funds to pay their fair share, ending the Isis threat for good, convincing Mexico to take the illegal border crossings seriously, stopping the caravans from Central America, somehow convincing some Middle Eastern countries to normalize relations with Israel, using the threat of tariffs against enemies and friends as a penalty to force a more favorable deal, and like it or not North Korea and Iran are certainly more intimidated against messing with us or our friends. Now, what it cost us diplomatically to achieve some of these things, I'm sure we will be upset about when we find out, but I don't think it is a good wise move to try to turn all of these things back to where they were in 2016. Surely we lost some time and some major influence in the affairs of the world, especially looking at the moves China and Russia made during Trump's distracted phase, but just trying to get us back to the beginning shouldn't be the goal. Yes, we should certainly sign the Paris Climate Agreement, but dealing with Iran and North Korea will require some new thinking. And don't even get me started on Russia.
Domestically, all Trump really did for us was to make it obvious what our real problems are. He didn't make much progress to bring back the factory jobs, and his tax cuts certainly didn't do all that much for the average family. Big business sure loved him and their record profits are quite visible in the nonstop running up of the stock market over these last 4 years. This, however, simply made the rich richer and didn't do all that much for the rest of us. The cost of healthcare, childcare, rent, all kept going up and up and wages were just barely starting to creep up before Covid. People still had to work multiple jobs just to make it, and a higher percentage of the population relied on government programs (like SNAP or Medicaid) just to get by. We weren't being led into some magical future where jobs were lucrative and plentiful no matter how much the Republicans wish it to be true.
But, what can we learn from the Trump years that will help us in 2021, 2022, and beyond? Were there any domestic successes where certain populations are now excelling where they once weren't? Are certain industries returning to American shores due to the policies of the last 4 years? If so, these should be encouraged to continue and more runway given if they need more assistance to grow.
My point is this: Trump came to Washington to, supposedly, drain the swamp. What he meant by that, we can only imagine, but surely each one of us recognizes a certain part of the federal government that we totally think is either useless or actively working against the ideals that we want America to be about. For us, that is the swamp that needs drained, and I think if certain parts were drained appropriately by Trump, let's not waste our time filling it back up when we don't need it or want it. I fear Joe may have a tendency to want to do just that.
