Happy April Fool’s Day!! The headline, “White House reached out about adding Trump to Mt. Rushmore,” must surely be a joke – right? Unfortunately, it appears that it is true. If anyone had any doubts about whether or not Donald J Trump is a first-class megalomaniac (‘a mania for great or grandiose performance’ or ‘a delusional mental illness that is marked by feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur’ – Merriam Webster) this should dispel all doubts. I’m sure Trump supporters will just brush this off as another of his ‘jokes’ meant to fire up the media. However, after reading Mary Trump’s and John Bolton’s books, I have no doubt that it is true.
Don’t forget, one of the charges against the Trump Foundation that was forced to shut down for improperly using charitable funds was that money was spent on a large portrait of Trump. Perhaps, if Trump is reelected, we can look forward to large portraits of Trump scattered around the country or decorating Times Square kind of like Kim Jong Un scatters his portrait all over North Korea. This is just another example of how Trump is only concerned with Trump and doesn’t give one hoot about the United States, it’s history, or the constitution.
Speaking of the constitution, Trump signed executive actions over the weekend to theoretically provide some relief to people when Congress failed to reach a deal on the overall relief package. Once again, this is typical Trump – doing something that will provide a good photo op and good campaign talking points without really solving the underlying problem.
One would think that with the nation in crisis, a man who bills himself as a ‘great negotiator’ and who wrote his infamous book, The Art of the Deal, would feel compelled to sit down at the table and hammer out a deal that would help resolve this mess. However, again in typical Trump fashion, rather than role up his sleeves and try to solve the problem, he prefers to sit on the sidelines and point fingers and place blame – always at political rivals, never at himself or his minions.
Once you start to peel the onion about his executive actions, it becomes apparent they are likely to have little positive impact on anything and could very well have huge adverse impacts on several things.
The first problem is the whole issue of constitutionality. The ‘power of the purse’ rests with the House of Representatives – not with the President. This is certainly not the first time that the President has viewed the Constitution as merely a ‘suggestion’ and one that does not apply to him. The President and his advisors may very well know that these executive actions are not legal or, at a minimum, will be challenged in court, but that will create yet another campaign talking point that they will use. I can just hear Trump now, “I tried to solve the problem but the Democrats didn’t want to help the American people, so I did” ‘(I’m your hero’ would be the subtext). He will fail to mention that the House of Representatives passed a second coronavirus relief bill back in May and Mitch McConnell refused to take it up.
Beyond the whole question of constitutionality, there is the potential adverse impact on Social Security and Medicare benefits with the implementation of the payroll tax cut. Social Security and Medicare are already on questionable long-term financial footing and this executive order, if implemented, could make the situation worse. But, then again, slashing benefits is high on the Republican agenda and this certainly is consistent with that philosophy.
Further, even if this payroll tax cut is implemented, the businesses that withhold those taxes are not likely to immediately give that money to employees. There is no guarantee that the executive order will withstand any legal challenges and there is no guarantee that Trump will be reelected and in a position to make the cuts permanent as he as said he wants to do, so employers are going to be unwilling to gamble by giving the money to employees when, when all the dust settles, they may still have to give it to the US government. It is highly unlikely this will do anything to immediately put money into employees’ pockets. It is just another campaign talking point.
John Bolton made the statement in his book to the effect that he had never seen Trump make any decision that was unrelated to how it would benefit his reelection prospects. This is a prime example of that. If anyone thinks differently or if they are relying on the sounds bites and spin provided by the White House and Trump’s minions, they need to really look at the details of these executive actions. They are not what they seem. It is just Trump shooting from the hip once again. It is also another example of how desperate Trump and some of his Republican minions are getting and why the entire electorate needs to be on guard running up to this election.
Even here in little old Montana, the Republicans are pulling out all of the stops. A judge recently booted the Green Party off of the upcoming ballot when it came to light that the entire effort to gather the signatures required to get them on the ballot was funded by a Republican PAC. Once that came to light, many people who signed those petitions asked that their names be removed which resulted in there being an insufficient number of signatures. And why would the Republicans pay to have the Green Party installed on the ballot? It should be patently obvious. They wanted to draw votes away from the Democratic candidates to increase the chances the Republican candidates would win. There are similar Republican actions going on around the country to get Kanye West installed on ballots for the upcoming election in the hope that he will draw black voters away from Biden.
When you look at the recent actions regarding the post office, the ongoing actions by Republicans to make voting more difficult for many, the unconscionable gerrymandering that has occurred, the ongoing effort by Trump to sow distrust in the results of this election and the ongoing and increasing threats of foreign interference, it is a truly scary time. One can only hope that American democracy survives this assault.