Donald Trump makes some otherwise reasonable people crazy. Russia and Putin make some otherwise reasonable people crazy. Combine the two and for some people it’s double the crazy.
Reuters published an item on a PIMCO report predicting a 2 - 2.5% increase in gross domestic product during 2017. I didn’t read the report (the item doesn’t have a link), as I was put off by the following excerpt:
Pimco, a unit of Allianz SE (ALVG.DE), characterized the world as "stable but not secure."
Recently, my news feed and social media feed have been inundated with story after story about Russia “hacking” the election, the Electoral College going rogue and blocking Trump reaching the requisite 270, “briefing” the Electoral College on the Russian “hack,” holding a new election, etc. If the roles were reversed, the Russian allegation would be denounced as a wild conspiracy theory and those promoting Electoral College sabotage would be accused of hostility to democracy and outright subversion.
What Speaker Ryan said on 60 Minutes last weekend about letting “bygones be bygones” with President-Elect Trump may only be partly true. There are certainly contradictions within the Republican party as a whole. But as between these two individuals, both ready to wield powers granted by the Constitution, the proper word would be “confrontation,” not dialectical “contradiction.”
The Texas judge who threw out the Obama administration’s rule on overtime exempt status needn’t have bothered, had he? The Trump administration wasn’t going to let it stand anyway, right? Not with the Republican Congress on his side!
The Phenomenon. President-elect Trump has introduced a new element into the Republican party: white, working class people, many of them male, but all lacking higher education. They find themselves alongside two other already disparate elements: social conservatives, whose religious or moral scruples drove them into the party’s embrace; and fiscal conservatives, the Republican Establishment, who have long steered the party’s ideology and legislative agenda in favor of the monied interests.
In light of Donald Trump’s victory, I hope we can finally put to rest an argument that I, as a Trump supporter, have had to deal with repeatedly during the course of the campaign. If you are one of the conservatives who espoused the conspiracy theory that Trump was really a Hillary plant put forward to deliberately take a dive for her, perhaps you should never offer commentary on any political issue ever again. His victory exposes that theory as the absurdity that it always was.
My social media feed is erupting with Trump supporters already panicking that Donald Trump is selling us out. The appointment of Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff seems to be of particular concern to many. My advice to my fellow Trump supporters is to take a couple of deep breaths and relax. Remember that the MSM is deliberately trying to sow discord among us and harm the Trump Administration before it even begins. Don't take the bait.
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