A Liberal Dose
“Are Some People
Wising up to the Con Job?”
Troy D. Smith
Donald Trump’s popularity and approval ratings are
plummeting, in every poll, in every category. He is the most unpopular
president at the 100-day mark of anyone since they started keeping track, and
measuring presidential performance out of the gate with FDR’s first hundred
days in 1932. While apparently about 30% of the American public supports Trump
consistently no matter what he does, that 15 to 20 % of casual Trump voters
-who cast their ballots last November based on inflation and their wallets -are
coming around to the truth. The truth is, Donald Trump is not going to make the
economy better; in only three months he has made it much worse with prospects
of catastrophe ahead. Heck, everyone seems to forget the shape he left the
economy in when he left office last time. Or the number of times he has gone
bankrupt, or the number of people he has cheated in his long career. Donald
Trump is and always has been a narcissistic con artist, whose only concern is
what he can bilk you out of and how much richer he can make himself and his
friends at your expense.
He promised voters on the campaign trail, though -day after
day after day -that he would start making things better on Day One (the same
day he promised to be a dictator, a promise he actually has been fulfilling). In
my column of December 5, I made note of current prices that week and invited
everyone to check back in one year and see how much he had improved things. In
light of the public’s falling confidence in Trump, let’s check in right now,
five months after that column and three months after Trump was sworn in, and
see how things are going.
Dec. 5, average price of eggs in the U.S. was $3.37 per
dozen, which drove voters crazy… right now they are $4.95 per dozen. Gas
averaged $3.01 then, $3.15 now. Milk was $4.04, now it’s $4.29. Rent was
averaging $1,559, now it is $1,828. No wonder only 19% of Americans polled
believe Trump’s economic policies are benefiting them financially. And no
wonder that -for the first time since WWII -worldwide confidence in the
stability of the dollar is declining. Rapidly. Why is that important? Because
it enables the U.S. to secure loans much more easily, at lower rates. Losing
that would make the price of everything go up, and cripple U.S. economic power
around the word. Trump’s tariff games are causing massive disruptions -even
when he keeps walking them back. We’re levying high tariffs today, no wait
they’re lower, no wait they’re even higher, no wait they’re maybe just a little
bit lower… this makes investing in the U.S. seem incredibly risky, because you
can’t make any long-range plans. Every new day is entirely dependent on Trump’s
whims of the moment.
Meanwhile, Trump and Musk are cutting government services
(and jobs) left and right. Most Americans agree that government needs to be
more efficient, and waste needs to be avoided… but the current administration’s
policy seems to be that any tax dollar spent on anything that can’t blow people
up is automatically wasteful. If you voted for Donald Trump, were you voting to
end Headstart? Meals on Wheels? Americorps? To fire most of the staff running
social security and Medicare, and to possibly cut those programs themselves?
And for what? To secure unprecedented tax cuts for billionaires. To run the
con.
Lately Trump has been claiming that the high point of U.S.
history was between the 1870s and early 1900s (before the introduction of
income tax). The fact is, that period was the absolute best time in American
history to be filthy rich -and it was horrible for everyone else. That’s why we
call it the Gilded Age (a term coined by Mark Twain). It LOOKED like solid
gold, but the gold was a thin veneer disguising how bad things were inside. The
primary beneficiaries were the class called Robber Barons (“Get rich,” Twain
wrote sarcastically, “dishonestly if you can, honestly if you must”).
The fact that Trump thinks of that time as “the good old
days” tells us volumes.
Believe me, or any other historian -we don’t want to go back
to that.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee
Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
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