And now he's saying he can change the US Constitution with an Executive Order, and is planning to. If he pulls that off, the US is effectively a dictatorship, since it means the US Constitution can be changed at the whims of one person.
Is this seriously an issue? I mean, in the article in which I read about Trump's thought bubble, it also mentioned that Paul Ryan had already dismissed it on the grounds that this wasn't how you lot change your Constitution.
But in reading it, and the reaction to this matter and the heap of others in the recent months and years, some thoughts began to crystalise in my thinking.
Even across the Pacific Ocean I worry about what Trump says and does as much as most of you on this forum. But I also worry that people are falling into a reflexive pattern of behaviour - Trump says something stupid, the progressive side of the Internet lights up, and Trump supporters point and laugh...wash, rinse, repeat.
There's another thread I think on this forum (golly, it may even be somewhere in this thread) where someone said that the 9/11 attacks on the USA produced a massive anaphylactic reaction from the American people. I wonder now that progressive Americans are reacting to Trump
exactly the same way - he says his next stupid thing, and like clockwork comes the outraged response. Sure it's easy to
Like a clever meme or even to create one yourself, but no amount of
Likes counts for even one vote.
So perhaps it's time to tune out of listening to what he says and turn instead to the hard, unglamorous and slow work of building the Democratic Party from the grassroots up - getting people to volunteer, finding good candidates, encouraging people to register to vote and then actually vote - in other words, rebuild the people's direct involvement in democracy.
And when I say good candidates, I don't mean people who will as an equally predictable response crank up the outrage in Congress and do whatever they can to block the latest Republican or Trumpian agenda. Instead, I mean people who are willing to sigh and wave it through, and show to the American people that at least the Democratic Party is trying to get the Congress working again. At the moment, from what little I see of how things are going in Congress, Democratic leaders seem to think a series of minor tactical successes in blocking confirmations or legislation represents a coherent strategy, without considering how that makes them look to the American people.
The other thing to keep in mind is that tens of millions of people voted for Trump and Republican candidates. They're not traitors and they're not idiots; many have said they held their noses when they voted for Trump, many said they felt he had the better policies, and others said they thought long and hard about which candidate to vote for. But in general they're just as patriotic as you are.
Also consider there are still many millions of Americans who sit in the political centre; and unless you're rather more politically blinkered than I think most of you are, you don't actually oppose
every policy move Trump makes, any more than those who voted for him
support every policy move he makes, which makes most Americans centrists to at least some extent. There are also many millions of people who are currently turned off by the outrage (on both sides, sure) who could be engaged in politics if they were just given a good enough reason to vote. Why not give them every reason to vote Democratic?
But patriotism is the key thing here. People like Trump come and go, but (IMO) the USA is facing two external threats which are far more serious than him and which will continue as threats long after he's gone, and the current deep divisions in American society and insularity will only weaken any attempts to respond to them. Russia is led by a man who's never got over America's victory in the Cold War, and he's doing his best to bring the USA undone; the troll farms and their fake news are classic Russian
maskirovka, and it's working a treat. And China is playing a
very long game (described as a "hundred-year marathon") to displace the USA as the major power in the world, and they're pretty much committing their entire economy to the task; I recommend you read Clive Hamilton's "Silent Invasion", which, although it looks at the issue from an Australian point of view, has lessons relevant to the USA.
We Australians love to make fun of Americans, as do many people around the world. But, warts and all, I'd prefer living in the USA to just about any other country in the world (apart from Australia: we're pretty much perfect!); your democracy and the rights you have as citizens are a beacon of hope to people everywhere. Please don't get so caught up in the latest Trump dumbness that you forget that. It would be a tragedy if people around the world looked at the USA and decided they preferred the authoritarianism of China or Russia - I don't want to live in the world of David Wingrove's "Chung Kuo" novels.
