Last night’s election of Donald Trump, a primal scream from conservative whites and Republican Party loyalists, isn’t going to solve our problems.
We don’t know a whole lot about what Trump will do in office, since he’s been vague about policy, other than hating immigrants and wanting to round them up and deport them—and ban those who he doesn’t approve of from entering the country in the first place.
So let’s look at the problems his voters are identifying.
We’re not “great.” We all know this is coded language for saying America isn’t white enough. Well, you can’t fight demographics—unless you attack immigrants. But is that productive? We need immigrants. We always have. So unleashing racism and bigotry isn’t going to make America great.
Rural residents with a high school education have been left behind. Yes, the global economy has shifted in the past few decades and it’s difficult to get the kind of jobs previous generations relied on without higher education. It’s easy to blame others for this lack of opportunity—you know, the Chinese and Mexicans who have “stolen” our jobs. But if Trump unleashes a trade war, as he promises to do, will that bring jobs back to rural America? No. But it will satisfy some folks’ need for retribution and vengeance. And Trump isn’t going to make college more affordable and accessible, either.
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We need to drain the swamp. OK, I agree that something needs to change in Washington. But is the Obama-era GOP obstructionism the solution? Isn’t that part of the problem? And yet it got rewarded last night?
Trump won’t be able to do what he wants to do, and that’s OK. He tells it like it is. Think about this: You’re counting on the president being stymied by advisors and/or Washington gridlock. This makes no sense. And if you remember the Bush/Cheney era, you know how dangerous this is. Plus, Trump is getting a GOP Congress and will be able to appoint at least one Supreme Court justice, so he’s got a blank check to go medieval on us.
Obamacare sucks. Guess what—the health care system sucks. But repealing it isn’t going to improve matters and we haven’t seen the GOP’s alternative. In addition, as the country deals with our opiate addiction crisis, we need Obamacare, since it provides coverage for substance use disorder treatment. Without that—what happens?
