My view from the Rockies today is troubled. It is hard not to be alarmed by the behavior of our sociopathic ex-president on this day when one of the largest banks in the world just collapsed, sending the international financial world into a tailspin.
The stock markets in the US and abroad have been edging downward for the last two years. Most people invested have lost a quarter of their stock value unless they happened to get out early. America’s economy has been leaning on the strength of the high-tech sector which has been leading the world and creating wealth for tens of thousands of Americans. Yet tech is faltering. All the biggest companies are laying off thousands of workers and its Silicon Valley Bank failed.
Meanwhile economists predict a recession even while the economy generally is purring along with lots of jobs and a shortage of workers to fill them. Consumers keep buying stuff and the Chinese keep manufacturing it for us, even while China continues to grow into a major economic and military rival of the United States, asserting to the global south that their authoritarian capitalist system is better than that of the weakening United States’ faltering democracy.
How can you blame the Chinese? Here at home, we are deeply polarized to the point where our political system barely functions. We have a conservative movement that refuses to acknowledge the most basic realities our country faces on several fronts, preferring to engage in culture wars to satisfy their angry working-class base which is feeling deep economic frustration because of the very problems their “leaders” refuse to acknowledge or address. The right would rather ban books, restrict academic freedom, and intrude on people’s personal medical decisions rather that help make the critical economic decisions to save our country from various disasters looming on the near horizon.
There is no doubt that Democrats have also contributed to these problems. Both parties have failed to work together and Democrats have pursued many polarizing arguments and policies over time. At least Democrats propose and pursue realistic solutions, even if they don’t always find republicans willing to discuss and compromise as the party did for decades before 2016.
Some conservatives seem to be embracing reality and moving the country forward. Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia comes to mind. He is welcoming electric car manufacturers and battery manufacturers to his state and creating lots of new jobs. Yet he dares not tell republicans he is helping with the climate change problem because republican doctrine stands that climate change isn’t real and oil must be the core of the American economy forever and ever.
While people in California are up to their necks in floodwaters and the east coast gets battered by huge hurricanes and fires ravage the West hotter and bigger than ever, while storms of unprecedented proportions batter the Midwest, republicans keep their heads planted in conspiracy theories about climate and their enemies on the other side of the aisle who they must vilify and defy on all issues. There is no reality for them, just the endless need to rile up their base and raise money from big oil corporations.
At a time when we are in a deep economic competition with China, we are wasting our nation’s strength on culture wars, denial and immigration stupidity. China watches with a wry smile as the far right ignores the chronic income disparity that is rotting out the core of our economy. Americans can only believe we are the greatest economy on earth until it becomes obvious we no longer are. But attacking symptoms and engaging in cultural warfare is so much more rewarding in the short term than addressing obvious structural problems.
The leaders of China and Russia gloat at our collective incompetence.
If all of this weren’t enough, Donald Trump is back to create another political and law enforcement crisis. Faced with a likely prosecution for financial fraud that he knows very well he committed; he insists that New York State prosecutors are political enemies who contrived a fake case to bring him down. From his mansion in his luxury golf club, he calls out his followers to rescue him and “take our country back” from state and federal law enforcement authorities. (In other words, attack the rule of law on Donald’s behalf.) Rather than seek a win in court with his high-priced lawyers, he wants his armed mob to protect him from a series of indictments coming his way. Clearly, he has little faith in his lawyers at his time of personal crisis.
Trump is a cowardly sociopathic criminal. His selfishness knows no limit. While the country is facing extremely dangerous times economically and in terms of our failure to come to terms with global heating, Trump foments a constitutional crisis for purely personal reasons. His narcissism is boundless. His followers, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States apparently cannot see that Trump is driven by mental illness, not by some vision for our country. His ideology is cheap, shallow and common. Nobody needs Donald Trump.
Spring will come. Flowers will sprout on the alpine fields of Colorado and New Mexico. Babies will be born and the old will fade away. Life will go on. Whether humanity descends into the myriad economic and social consequences of climate change out of control, or if we somehow come to our senses and outgrow the childish chaos that grips our political system, only time will tell.
