Now that the president has got his heavy-muscle, four-star general as his chief of staff (his foul-mouthed, “Tony Soprano” mouthpiece didn’t last as White House communications director), the Prez may be able to become his own, true Edward G. Robinson, “Yeah, Tough guy,” self, instead of the shoulder-shrugging, “Rodney Dangerfield” kind of faux-tough guy he was becoming in the Washington political arena: “I don’t get no respect…”
His Nibs and the GOP brass have an important agenda to fulfill, which was seriously waylaid when they failed to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare.
It was intended to be a massive takeaway from the poor, in order to give tax breaks to the super-wealthy. Now, they can get back to The Plan.
“The Republicans’ goal here is to fulfill their promise to their supporters that they were going to stop the provision of publicly subsidized or financed healthcare for poor people, and they were going to address what they’ve clearly identified as the major economic problem in America: The rich don’t have nearly enough, they need to get more to the rich, and the way to do that is you take it from the sick, the disabled, the elderly and children,” David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and founder of DCReport.org, told Democracy Now.
Uh, why would middle class, and lower class white people overwhelmingly support these politicians and policies that are openly contrary to their own best interests?
“There are a lot of folks who have hostile feelings toward minority group members, toward women, especially uppity women, that they don’t even know that they are dependent on these various government programs,” political scientist and statistician David Bositis told me in an interview. “They don’t see the world that way.”
“They see the world as: health care goes to black people and Mexicans, health care goes to women wanting to have abortions. That’s how they see the world. So they’re perfectly happy to support Donald Trump,” who is taking those privileges away from the non-whites, Bositis said.
“These people don’t see themselves as benefiting from government. They do, when they’re on Medicaid, when they’re on Medicare — they think that Medicare is some private insurance plan that they paid for,” he said. “They don’t think of it as a government program. Social security, they don’t see it as, somebody who’s benefiting from government.”
So in the guise of socking it to the undeserving blacks, immigrants, and Muslims, and random other malcontents, the defeated Republican plan would have socked it to everyone — everyone, that is, except themselves (wink, wink).
Their ultimate goal is the Social Security Trust Fund, a supposedly “set aside” pool of worker contributions for nearly a century, which they’ve long wanted to “privatize” — in other words, loot. For years, Congress has dabbled into the Social Security “lock box” for general budget expenses. Now they want to open it wide for speculation on the stock market.
That’s after they give themselves generous, really generous tax breaks.
There is a corresponding foreign policy which grows out of American toughness, and “so much winning.” That policy is: “See what we want? Take it!”
POTUS 45 already initiated a conversation with the president of Afghanistan after U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that Afghanistan has huge (“hyouge”) deposits of rare metals used in the manufacture of smartphones. “Look here Mr. President. We’s been fightin’ in your country for about 15 yeahs now. And we’s got a lot of bloodshed for your freedom. So, we expect some major consideration when it comes to access to those minerals, if you know what I mean, Mr. President?”
And the backup resource, insuring the success of all his gambits, his backup is the U.S. Marine Corps abroad, and the cops he’s encouraged to brutalize detainees, at home. Tough guys. Goodfellas. Made men.
So while the banks and stockbrokers get away with all the currency, Whitey’s Mob in the West Wing gets all the residual liquor, drugs and prostitution, and the ordinary citizens get stuck with the bill. Nice work if you can get it.