A large part of my political activity seems to be trying to figure out how much I need to worry about Donald Trump’s current Presidency. My beliefs have ranged from, “We’ll get through this, we just have to hang on” to “The American experiment is over, and democracy is doomed.”
Lately, as I notice the evidence of Trump’s advancing age and possible cognitive decline, I have begun to zoom out in order to get a better picture of where the country is headed post-Trump. What I see gives me much more reason for alarm than the antics, however destructive, of one narcissistic entertainer who loves the spotlight no matter how he gets it (except, of course, from the release of the full Epstein files).
My current picture of Trump’s place in the food chain shows him to be farther down than I understood before. Even though he has power and is totally enjoying using it, I don’t think he really cares about it except as a vehicle for being admired and admitted to the cool billionaires’ club. The cool billionaires are the ones we need to keep an eye on now. (By the way, he’ll never get into the club.)
There exists what I can only call a cabal, consisting of corporate and tech leaders, the super-wealthy, and christian nationalist evangelicals, who have joined in an unholy alliance based on enhancing their own position in the way each group prefers. I’m not suggesting they know each other, although some surely do, but I’m suggesting that the twin idols of money and power have united them in this perfect storm of destruction of our democracy and our beloved nation as we’ve always known it.
I know, I’ve become a conspiracy theorist, right? Well, to me these people are more aptly called opportunists, who figured out during Trump’s first term that there was a brass ring to be caught. Actually, the changes have been going on for a while, as the forces of conservatism gained momentum starting with the advent of Reaganomics and an economy more favorable to capital than to labor. By the time Trump was re-elected, the conservative long game was paying off by appealing to the groups who stood to gain and weighting the Supreme Court to support the plan.
So let’s take a look at the folks who plan to be running the show long after Trump is out of office, which may in fact be sooner than you think if JD Vance has anything to say about it.
The corporate heads, whatever their product, know that their job is to earn money for investors. If improving a product harms the bottom line, their job is to come up with reasons not to improve the product. Tech leaders have a similar goal, but their product is information about you and me, that they can use to get us to buy stuff. Currying favor with the federal government is the ultimate smart business expense, at least as long as a few pesky regulations remain on the books.
The super-wealthy want to get wealthier. As I wrote in my column about billionaires, only about a quarter of them use their wealth for the benefit of others, so the rest of them also have an interest in tax laws and minimal regulations that benefit them and their billions. The recent passage of a huge spending bill guaranteed that Trump’s tax cuts would remain available to the wealthy, offset by vast cuts to services that the wealthy have no interest in, such as Medicaid, food benefits and other safety nets for the non-wealthy. Let them eat cake.
Finally, the christian nationalists (I refuse to capitalize the c-word) and the evangelicals have a strong interest in the type of America that Donald Trump is leading us to. Despite the fact that our nation was founded by people seeking freedom of religion, these people believe that we have always been a christian nation, and that people of other beliefs and different cultures represent a threat to the integrity of our founding. It’s like a kind of modern manifest destiny – using a false story of divine origin to justify cultural and political domination.
Here’s the thing: money and power are necessary in order to accomplish any large-scale project, no matter what it is. The common denominator of these groups I’ve described is that their interests seem confined to themselves, their families, and other members of their groups; members of other groups are either disdained or completely ignored. True conservatives may favor smaller government and fewer regulations, but the conservatives I know are appalled at the disregard shown by Trump, and the groups that support him, towards the multi-faceted, multi-cultural nature of a healthy United States of America.
Moderate Republicans still exist, and I sincerely hope they will consider that the values they believe in are not different from those of moderate Democrats, or Independents. The ways of expressing these values, and whether they require regulations or not, are things that we can talk about. No real American wants to be dominated and disenfranchised, nor do they want to do that to others, but it may require some courage to be willing to stand up and say, “I don’t agree with what my government is doing.”
There are enough of us that we can have each other’s back and still work out the details about things we don’t see eye to eye on. Don’t be tricked into turning against one another.
Susan Hull is a retired clinical psychologist, a horse trainer, and an Independent voter. She believes that, rather than posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom in Texas, we should post the Golden Rule.
.png)
