Month: November 2016
Congratulations, President-elect Donal Trump
Congratulations, Donald Trump. You have emerged as the winner of a rigged race for the White House. At the moment, you are running second in the popular vote. Of course, you have issued a statement claiming that you would have won the popular vote except for the millions of illegal votes cast by your enemies. No doubt your supporters will take you at your word while the rest of us roll our eyes and say, “There he goes again.”
Fortunately for you, the popular vote doesn’t matter at the moment. The world in general ignored you back in 2012 when you wanted us to get rid of the Electoral College. So here we are today waiting for the Electoral College, that fossil of American politics to anoint you POTUS, Commander in Chief and Leader of the Free World. We are all hoping that in spite of what we have seen, you will succeed.
Please be careful in your choices. You have won the election but you have not won the country. Don’t make the mistake of following in President George W. Bush footsteps. He announced that his win in 2004 entitled him to burn his political capital any way he wanted. He gave us “The Surge” which killed and maimed a lot of people but failed to produce a stable democratic government in Iraq.
You will be the third Republican president in the last hundred years to take office with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidency ended with the Wall Street crash, the collapse of the US economy and the Great Depression. George W. Bush’s 2004 presidency ended with the collapse of the US economy and a $3 trillion dollar war that was developing into an endless commitment of our Armed Forces to conflict in the Middle East.
I hope you take the political divide in this country seriously. You are the apparent leader of a very large proportion of our society. Your supporters are angry, disaffected Americans who demand change. But your opponents are also numerous and they have expectations. You can’t make America great without uniting those two factions. That does not seem to be happening at the moment.
I do have one suggestion. Nominate Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. He is respected by both Republicans and Democrats. He seems to lean towards a strict interpretation of the Constitution.