by B. R. GOWANI
President Donald Trump at a press conference on February 16, 2017 PHOTO/9 News
The Republican Party’s winning of the presidential election and both houses of the US Congress has paved the way for it to get a conservative judge on the Supreme Court. The Court has been without one since Justice Antonin Scalia‘s death in February 2016 because the Republicans refused to allow Congressional hearings for the then President Barack Obama’s nominee. (Obama belongs to the Democratic Party.) Professor Noam Chomsky, an astute observer of US politics, had this to say on one party controlling so much in the US:
“On Nov. 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total control of the government—executive, Congress, the Supreme Court—in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history.”
This “dangerous organization” thinks it has found in President Donald Trump (who is a communalist, misogynist, racist, and a great liar) a conduit to carry out their conservative agenda. To be fair to Trump, one has to admit that once in a while he utters a truth which makes the US establishment shudder.
In a FOX TV interview, Trump was asked by Bill O’Reilly about his “respect” for Russian President Vladimir Putin whom O’Reilly called a “killer.” To which Trump’s reply was,
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?“
It sounds so good to the ears when the United States President is honest about his country’s violence in which it has indulged since prior to its inception. Nobel Prize winner Obama never uttered such a truth.
Trump has his agenda of accumulating as much power as possible, go after immigrants (especially Mexicans and Muslims), letting the filthy rich to loot so that they can enhance their wealth, so on and so forth. Also to remember is his plan to change his standing on the Forbes list.
It’s almost a month since Trump took over power; one thing he has succeeded in was installing his right hand man and chief strategist, Steve Bannon ( a Catholic Taliban), in the National Security Council, which is one of the most important places where major policies related to national security and foreign affairs are formed.
The Republican Party is more than happy to approve Trump’s candidates for different ministry posts: Scott Pruitt, the guy who sued the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has been appointed to head it; Rick Perry who was in favor of eliminating the US Energy Department is now going to be the Energy Secretary; billionaire Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil chairman and chief executive, whose views on climate change are ambiguous has been approved as the Secretary of State; Elisabeth “Betsy” DeVos, a corrupt Christian conservative who has nothing to do with real education or public schools is now the Education Secretary; and so forth.
Trump’s authoritarian style demands that he should have more power and control over all the decision making. The chances of his becoming a despot are not bright for a number of reasons:
He has no political experience and cannot put his ideas coherently. These two things are very necessary to get the message, even a false one, across to the wider audience rather than to one’s hard core followers who believe each and every word of his. He speaks whatever comes to his mind, and when he gets cornered he comes up with a silly answer and makes a fool of himself. He then accuses the news media of disseminating “fake news” and his followers buy that.
(The mainstream news media has never been forthcoming on lots of issues and had always supported US governments in its wars. However, one cannot ignore when they are correct.)
Without even getting familiar to the day to day working and understanding the system, the Trump administration has started laying off people as it has happened at the State Department (i.e., foreign ministry).
Trump has several adversaries. To a great extent, Trump himself is responsible too; during the election campaign and after getting elected he pissed of many people – including the people of his own party. It has been reported that intelligence agencies are not sharing information with Trump because they don’t trust him and have doubts as to whether he could keep the secret information to himself only. His ban on people from Muslim-majority countries was criticized by some of his own party members.
Many in the Democratic Party and its supporters in Hollywood, other celebrities, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other liberal media are unwilling to accept Trump as president. And they all, without producing any proof, accuses Russia of helping Trump to win the election.
The Republican Party has got such a golden chance to impose its conservative agenda on the entire nation without fighting for it because Trump is doing all the work. Once Trump loses his energy and has not much to offer, the Republican Party, I think, will discard Trump through impeachment and it will be the business as usual.
Trump’s dream of becoming the US fuhrer is not easy to realize with so much opposition. The question is whether he’ll survive his first term or will he be shown an exit very early.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com