Jude Iam
05-23-2017, 10:36 PM
via a friend. right. jude
Robert Reich released a piece called "Europe's View of Trump" on Saturday. It's interesting to hear what others around the world are thinking. Here's what Reich reported:
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European governments, preparing for a round of major summits with Donald Trump, are wary. I spent much of the past week speaking with officials and cabinet ministers in Europe. All they wanted to talk about was Trump. Here, in summary, are the most frequent remarks I heard from them, and from others in my travels, in rough order of frequency:
1. Trump is unstable, and we’re not going to count on anything he says or commits to.
2. Trump doesn’t support NATO or European integration.
3. Trump is actively encouraging racist nationalists in our country.
4. Trump is allied with Putin to bring Europe down.
5. There’s no doubt Trump worked with Putin to win the U.S. presidential election.
6. If Trump’s polls drop too low, he’ll start a war in order to get Americans to rally around him. (Opinions varied on whether Trump’s war would be with North Korea, Iran, terrorists in Nigeria, or an escalation in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan.)
7. How did you Americans come to elect this ego-maniac? (Others called him an infant, moron, ignoramus, fool.)
8. He’s another Berlusconi (or Franco, Mussolini, Salazar, Hitler).
9. We remember fascism. We never thought it would happen in America.
10. The world depends on American leadership. We’re very worried.
My overall impression: Anti-Trump sentiment is even stronger in Europe than it is in the U.S. If Trump expects his European trip to give him a reprieve from his troubles at home, he’s mistaken.
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Yes, Trump is an unstable, delusional and wholly untrustworthy person and you cannot "count on anything he says or commits to." What an outrageous thing to say about a U.S. president! The longer the Trump-Pence administration remains in power, the greater danger everyone faces.
Trump is the dangerous symptom of the even greater challenge we face about whether the democratic republic we've had as our form of government will survive. It can survive if we fight for it, or it will sink into a corporate-controlled authoritarian government if we allow that to happen.
For the record, during the first quarter of this year, lobbyists in Washington distributed more money than ever before to influence (buy) the Trump-Pence government and Congress. They're spending that money to own as many people in Washington as they can buy.
"Former Vice President Joe Biden just took a strong stand for public financing of our elections." Good for Joe for leading that charge because that gets to the root of the greater problem - private, anonymous billions buying people and elections. Public financing of elections is one of the most important steps that can be made to preserve our democracy and our future.
The other major step is, of course, greatly increasing the participation that American citizens exert upon their government. We do that by voting, by running for office, by getting involved at the community level with friends and neighbors to make good governing decisions happen.
We're in the fix we're in now to a large extent because many Americans just gave up on their government or were too lazy or distracted to participate. Many don't realize that a democracy is only as healthy as the amount of people who engage with it and guide it.
Authoritarian-types will always be drawn to positions of power if they can get into them. But they and their followers are always in the minority of national populations. But a minority of citizens can and will control a government, or part of it, by cheating.
A perfect example of that is the fact that the Republicans used gerrymandering congressional districts in states that they controlled to prevent majority vote totals from actually winning seats. Changing the boundaries of districts isn't illegal because states have to have the flexibility to do that when populations shift. But the way the Republicans (and some Democrats) have done it after the 2000 and 2010 censuses was wholly unethical and immoral if not illegal, because Republicans are now being voted into more seats in the House of Representatives, giving them control, even though they received less total votes made for the House in recent elections. Gerrymandering can do that. It's another way the democracy part of this republic is being undermined.
Getting private money out of elections through public financing will go a long way toward restoring things. Limiting campaign seasons to just a few months prior to an Election Day will keep us from being overwhelmed and tuning out. Closing down the Electoral College and electing directly by popular vote will end that undemocratic antique.
Just think -- by using the actual citizen vote totals in the 2000 election, it would have given us President Gore and sensible policies to address Climate Change instead of President Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Using actual vote totals in the 2016 election would have given us President Clinton, our first woman president, and at least avoided the preposterous inauguration of two men who never should have been entrusted with the presidency and vice presidency of this nation.
The one good thing that Trump has brought to the nation is the horror that the majority of citizens have at that man being our president. It is motivating the growing resistance we need to turn things around while we still have time, and I am thankful for that.
Robert Reich released a piece called "Europe's View of Trump" on Saturday. It's interesting to hear what others around the world are thinking. Here's what Reich reported:
-----------------------
European governments, preparing for a round of major summits with Donald Trump, are wary. I spent much of the past week speaking with officials and cabinet ministers in Europe. All they wanted to talk about was Trump. Here, in summary, are the most frequent remarks I heard from them, and from others in my travels, in rough order of frequency:
1. Trump is unstable, and we’re not going to count on anything he says or commits to.
2. Trump doesn’t support NATO or European integration.
3. Trump is actively encouraging racist nationalists in our country.
4. Trump is allied with Putin to bring Europe down.
5. There’s no doubt Trump worked with Putin to win the U.S. presidential election.
6. If Trump’s polls drop too low, he’ll start a war in order to get Americans to rally around him. (Opinions varied on whether Trump’s war would be with North Korea, Iran, terrorists in Nigeria, or an escalation in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan.)
7. How did you Americans come to elect this ego-maniac? (Others called him an infant, moron, ignoramus, fool.)
8. He’s another Berlusconi (or Franco, Mussolini, Salazar, Hitler).
9. We remember fascism. We never thought it would happen in America.
10. The world depends on American leadership. We’re very worried.
My overall impression: Anti-Trump sentiment is even stronger in Europe than it is in the U.S. If Trump expects his European trip to give him a reprieve from his troubles at home, he’s mistaken.
-----------------------
Yes, Trump is an unstable, delusional and wholly untrustworthy person and you cannot "count on anything he says or commits to." What an outrageous thing to say about a U.S. president! The longer the Trump-Pence administration remains in power, the greater danger everyone faces.
Trump is the dangerous symptom of the even greater challenge we face about whether the democratic republic we've had as our form of government will survive. It can survive if we fight for it, or it will sink into a corporate-controlled authoritarian government if we allow that to happen.
For the record, during the first quarter of this year, lobbyists in Washington distributed more money than ever before to influence (buy) the Trump-Pence government and Congress. They're spending that money to own as many people in Washington as they can buy.
"Former Vice President Joe Biden just took a strong stand for public financing of our elections." Good for Joe for leading that charge because that gets to the root of the greater problem - private, anonymous billions buying people and elections. Public financing of elections is one of the most important steps that can be made to preserve our democracy and our future.
The other major step is, of course, greatly increasing the participation that American citizens exert upon their government. We do that by voting, by running for office, by getting involved at the community level with friends and neighbors to make good governing decisions happen.
We're in the fix we're in now to a large extent because many Americans just gave up on their government or were too lazy or distracted to participate. Many don't realize that a democracy is only as healthy as the amount of people who engage with it and guide it.
Authoritarian-types will always be drawn to positions of power if they can get into them. But they and their followers are always in the minority of national populations. But a minority of citizens can and will control a government, or part of it, by cheating.
A perfect example of that is the fact that the Republicans used gerrymandering congressional districts in states that they controlled to prevent majority vote totals from actually winning seats. Changing the boundaries of districts isn't illegal because states have to have the flexibility to do that when populations shift. But the way the Republicans (and some Democrats) have done it after the 2000 and 2010 censuses was wholly unethical and immoral if not illegal, because Republicans are now being voted into more seats in the House of Representatives, giving them control, even though they received less total votes made for the House in recent elections. Gerrymandering can do that. It's another way the democracy part of this republic is being undermined.
Getting private money out of elections through public financing will go a long way toward restoring things. Limiting campaign seasons to just a few months prior to an Election Day will keep us from being overwhelmed and tuning out. Closing down the Electoral College and electing directly by popular vote will end that undemocratic antique.
Just think -- by using the actual citizen vote totals in the 2000 election, it would have given us President Gore and sensible policies to address Climate Change instead of President Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Using actual vote totals in the 2016 election would have given us President Clinton, our first woman president, and at least avoided the preposterous inauguration of two men who never should have been entrusted with the presidency and vice presidency of this nation.
The one good thing that Trump has brought to the nation is the horror that the majority of citizens have at that man being our president. It is motivating the growing resistance we need to turn things around while we still have time, and I am thankful for that.