With mistletoe definitely out at office Christmas parties this year (especially the media group grogfests ) and the war on Christmas officially won by Mike Pence, it’s time to salvage at least one end-of-the-year holiday tradition. The New Year’s Predictions.
I’m going to give you a couple. Or maybe not. After all, there is a new sheriff in town, a new world view that sees things - all things - in simple black and white. Or not.
See how simple it is. A lot of people already live in this binary world, and more seem to be getting into it every day. Things are yes or no, on or off, good or bad. Republicans or Democrats. Conservatives or Liberals. And, never shall they ever meet.
Naturally, I disagree. By career choice and personal attitude, I tend to avoid simplistic distinctions. I see life as being more complex and subtle, interrelated and ever-changing. Which, I admit, is great for poetry and art, but lousy for running a bill through Congress or blocking the appointment of a Supreme Court justice until your own guy in the White House gets in and nominates someone else.
Now my friends and family will say that I just naturally like to argue. I say they are wrong. (See how easy it is to fall into the binary trap). But, for the sake of argument (I know. It proves their point, barely) let’s say they are right. That gives us just two choices on most things. But, it doesn’t make predictions easy.
Still, December 31 is rapidly approaching, so I will bravely wade deep into the binary world that controls our political system and offer by binary predictions. Here we go.
First, Trump will either be impeached and forced out of office in disgrace or he won’t. Now, I predict that no matter what happens, life will get a lot worse before it gets better. Let me show you.
If he is impeached, two things can happen. Normalcy will return to our government or it won’t. Mike Pence will be truly independent of the most radical of the GOP donors and the most fundamentalist in the GOP Christian conservative wing or he won’t. I think he will make government in Washington even worse, and the Republicans will spend a good part of next year selling whole chunks of the interstate highway system to private investors, leasing out big hunks of our national park system, and taking a really sharp knife to Social Security to balance out the revenue losses caused by their indecent tax cuts for the rich.
One other thing (those darn binary choices again) is that he won’t be impeached, That scenario is a lot darker. A war somewhere. A total betrayal of Israel because he wants to build hotels in Arab countries. (The talk about moving our embassy to Jerusalem is just another shiny bauble, and doesn’t really mean much to anyone under 35).
Then the Republicans controlling our government will pack the federal courts with so many hard-line judges that we will never get normalcy back. After all, to them the Constitution is not so much a living document as it is something set in stone. The Constitution never said anything about the internet, so the federal government can’t pass any net neutrality laws.
And, of course, great chunks of America will be going broke.
I call that one trickle down pain. Remember the local Republicans who got elected to town and county and state offices? Well, how will they respond to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid? Raise local taxes that are no longer deductible?
I don’t think so. But, in our binary world, they might just surprise us. They could raise taxes on...well, just who do you think will see their taxes go up?
I see Pennsylvania getting a block grant to maintain its interstate highway system, a big road net that takes almost a whole day to drive from the New Jersey border to Pittsburgh. An unimaginable amount of freight from the west and the midwest goes along that road each day, heading for New England and down to Georgia and Florida.
Now if the block grant doesn’t cover the cost of maintaining the road, plowing snow and making needed improvements, how much do you think Pennsylvania will raise its own taxes to fill that financial hole? No, the tolls will go up. A silent nickel or dime on every parcel going from New York to Ohio or Colorado to Atlanta. Or a silent 50 cents or a dollar on every UPS package headed across the country. Guess who pays.
What else will happen if Trump stays in office? (The binary route is a sticky one to travel.) The counter-puncher will have no one to attack. Certainly, he can’t spend four long years in office attacking Hillary Clinton. His ratings will go down. And his attacks on the minority Democrats in Congress aren’t going too well. Maybe he could just wait until some U.S. possession is hit by a hurricane, or some state is devastated by floods or fires and then blame local officials for ingratitude.
No, I think his first target will have to be the Republican Party, and then the nation’s businesses for not creating new jobs and raising worker’s salaries. Shame on them. He may even put out an angry tweet, which the compensation committee that is reviewing the CEO’s next compensation package will dutifully take into account.
Now, here’s my final prediction. And, it’s where the choices stop being binary. Things aren’t going to work as promised by the President and the Republican leadership. The tax code we still haven’t read - it’s not yet adopted, you realize - is going to build up the deficit and is not going to put money in the pockets of the working poor or the middle class or the folks on Social Security.
(And if it doesn’t pass, there are still ways to tweak things through regulations and administrative changes that will do the GOP donors bidding).
The economy will start tanking before most of us notice. Businesses aren’t going out and hiring people because (a) jobs are being automated at an ever-increasing pace and (b) a lot of companies just do not see a sharp increase in the demand for their products over the next year or two. And (c) we are pretty close to full employment in a lot of fields, and there are no new workers with the skills to step in and fill those new jobs except for the undocumented folks already living here.
So, our new president will rant and rave and look for people to blame for our nation’s new problems.And we voters will say it is a shame, and that this wasn’t what we wanted when we gave the nation over to the worst of the Republican party, and that there is nothing we can do about it.
That attitude will probably last until it really is too late to turn things around - at least turn a lot of things around - for a long time. If we just keep denying things for long enough, our anger will not be unleashed for a year or two.
Maybe not until after next year’s vote for Congress.
I predict it will. Or it won’t. That’s called the binary out.
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