Dear Editor,
It’s almost too late.
In the past, when republics or democracies fell under the spell of a really bad demagogue, the citizens paid dearly to get out from under the intolerable conditions imposed— usually in vain since those conditions are usually accompanied by the exercise of excessive control.
We are in just such a quandary now. Every cabinet position and every major department appointment made by the new President is someone who has already expressed a desire to “gut” it by cutting the funding or terminating the department altogether. Except, of course, the mother of all worthwhile graft— the Defense Department.
Nobody is in favor of a bloated bureaucracy, but there are functions to which some attention should be paid. Attention perhaps, but not funding because we are going to have big tax breaks! It’ll be great! We who have really big incomes will see our tax bill reduced to practically nothing. We who have really small incomes will have to spend a much larger percentage of our income for taxes.
Our government will have no income. Those environmental regulations that cost so much will be gone. etc! etc! etc! Even paying the interest on our bonds will be problematic. We will just renegotiate? That’s a bunch of BS! (That doesn’t stand for Boy Scouts)
One small problem should not be overlooked. All of this comes about only if we (the electorate) cede all of our political power to the Guttersnipe with the Golden Mane.
And, he gladly took it and more too. Maybe he will be willing to give us 40 acres and a mule!
The important question remains. How did he do it? While I’m no fan of Hillary, he was not the lesser of two evils. I submit to you that it was we, the electorate, who fell asleep at the switch. We did not notice that the man has serious mental problems. Nor did we notice his serial bankruptcies. He directly appealed to racist skinheads and their ilk. He lavished more praise on our arch enemy than anyone in the other American political party. It appears that he engaged Russian hackers to mess with our election. Enmasse we deemed him fit to take control of our country. Putin split a gut laughing at us, at our system and at the new leader of the free world. The two of them will enjoy each other’s company for quite different reasons. We will pay a big price for our inattention to important issues.
—Jerry Baird