I am still rubbing my eyes after my husband woke me to tell me the election results.
For the first time in my life I understand how my parents and grandparents must have felt in 1933 when the Nazis won the German Reichstag election. I feel I have lost my country.
Of course Trump is not an anti-Semite, with an Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, married to future first daughter Ivanka, who converted. But he tolerated David Duke and his ilk supporting his candidacy. Moreover, Trump has never come out in favor of a dictatorship ending future elections. Hitler spelled it out in Mein Kampf.
But so many of the things he pledged to do go against my prejudices and positions:
tearing up Nafta and the various Pacific Rim and pending trade agreements pending to impose protectionism;
tearing up the deal to denuclearize Iran;
repealing Dodd-Frank and other regulation of banks;
ending Obamacare, the singular achievement of the current president;
building a wall to stop Mexicans crossing the border;
hyper-vetting or banning Muslim immigrants;
returning to dirty coal and dirty electric generation because global warming is a ‘hoax’ and cutting US global warming payments to the UN;
making abortion illegal again (I belong to Planned Parenthood);
charging Nato and Pacific allies for US military support or not providing them with security;
tackling China for allegedly manipulating its currency downward (which happened today because of his threats, not manipulation);
palling up with Putin;
not repaying debt the US owes;
not observing the mutual assured destruction rules applying to countries having nuclear weapons; gutting the independence of the Federal Reserve;
unilaterally imposing tariffs and making trade war on countries supposedly taking advantage of the US; removing obstacles to mergers;
torturing suspects of terrorism and killing their families (I am a member of Amnesty International);
and deporting 1 million illegals and undocumented immigrants (I am a first generation American married to a foreigner.)
He also frightened Wall Street with potentially inflationary plans to cutting taxes on individual and corporate filers and on firms repatriating money held abroad. At the same time he wants to increase increasing infrastructure investment by a trillion bucks. Where will the money come from? The global financial system will be destabilized. Moreover with control of both houses of Congress, President Trump can get his programs through. There will be US growth, but at a cost.
I suspect he will not follow through on the “London Bridge is falling down†theme of “take a key and lock her up.†Hillary Clinton will not be jailed for her sins. And if he groped womens’ private parts in the past, at age 70 with an absolutely gorgeous wife (I saw Melania in the flesh for the first time at the polls yesterday) I think he will control himself better than Bill Clinton did. I also think he may reward the FBI head Comey with a key cabinet post, for the singular best help for the Trump Triumph.
