Have you ever heard this saying, “if someone calls you a horse, laugh at them. If two people call you a horse, think about it. If three people call you a horse you’d better get a saddle”. I may be misquoting or phrasing it wrong but I think one can get the gist. For months now, few people were talking about impeachment (of Trump), as time went by more people began thinking about the impeachment (of Trump), today more people, elected officials and the media are beginning to talk about the impeachment (of Trump). Maybe it’s time for Trump to “get a saddle.” We see how this “noise” is making Trump crazy (well crazier) than we have seen him before.
Last month (December, 2018), Trump met with Democrat, and minority House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Senate Speaker Chuck Schumer, in the White House and before television cameras for all the world to see, threw a tantrum and literally stated that he would shut down the government and not blame them (Democrats) but would gladly own that shut down if they do not give him the money he wants for his border wall. Perhaps he thought that this threat would intimidate Pelosi and Schumer into getting the Democrats to cave in, however to Trump’s dismay, they did not cave in and he, in fact, did shut down the Government.
On January 3rd the Democrats took control of the house of representatives and Trump no longer has a “yes man” congress and is losing his mind. Trump stands firm on his position that Congress allocate 5 Billion Dollars for the building of 240 miles of a new border wall. Congress is standing firm on not allocating these funds. So the federal government has been shut down now for three weeks. What does this shut down mean? Well for the federal employees working in the affected federal agencies it means working with no pay. Many of these employees are low wage earners – that means that most of them live pay check to pay check and for them there was not a very Merry Christmas.
Today I saw a television paid for by Trump’s supporters and endorsed by Trump wherein they try to paint Pelosi and the House of Representatives as left wing kooks that support, or at least embrace, terrorism and the influx of illicit drugs.
Trump does not care about facts and statistics. His own administration has repeatedly contradicted his claims. Trump, one the does not like to be contradicted, would either A) ignore their findings, of B) fire them or pressure them to leave.
I really do not understand why his base is so loyal to him when he lies on television, I mean there is no one earth that has not seem and heard Donald Trump lie. His lunatic rants has already cost the GOP the Congress. The momentum in the country is swaying away from the right and beginning to normalize. Normalize means a happy medium although it does seem that the left leaning branch of the Democratic party is gaining some ground. Sure Nancy Pelosi was re-elected Speaker of the House but it was not a walk in as she may have once thought. Remember that in the 2016 presidential race it was Bernie Sanders (Independent, Socialist) that was leading the pack and not Hillary Clinton. It was only because of dirty dealings by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the then leadership of the Democratic Party that she became the party’s nominee.
That in house bickering, along with Russian meddling and Trump’s corruption, made it possible for Trump to steal, I mean win the presidency.
That ugliness made it possible for an unknown, Socialist Democrat, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to unseat a very powerful New York Congressman. Sure that is only one seat in a very crowded house, but it was a very significant win. So significant, in fact, that she has become the newsmedia’s darling. Ocasio-Cortez has already garnered more publicity than some senior congress people. Four days after being sworn in she was featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes. This is no small feat. But Ocasio-Cortez is not the only breadth of fresh air. For the first time in American history the house of representatives is truly diverse. As an aside, and this is only my own thought, this is exactly what the “Extreme Right Wing” is afraid of. When “they” chant “take back our country”, we know that that is code for keeping the country “white”. Ok back on track, this diverse Congress consist of 42 women, 24 people of color, 25 of these Democrats are progressives. Included in this mix is two Muslim women, several gay or members of the LGBT community.
Could this be the beginning of a more realistic, human thinking government? I mean we hear them say that there is a separation of Church and State on the one hand, but then condemn an elected official that does not embrace “the church”. I think that godly thing should be left in God’s sphere and earthly things should be left, well on earth. For me thinking like this or speaking like this many will say I am blaspheming, which I am not. I am not talking against god I am merely speaking for human kind. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent man. I know that planet earth is huge (the equatorial circumference of Earth is about 24,901 miles) with many different people (7.7 Billion to be exact). I also know that depending on what part of the planet one lives in, the belief in God differs. Some people worship Jesus, some worship Allah, other worship Buddh and there are many other beliefs as well. Do you realize that historically most wars were fought because of one groups belief vs another groups belief. What I am saying is no one really knows what God’s name or sexual identity for that matter, is.
I don’t want to be negative or step on anyone’s beliefs but from where I sit, from where my ethnicity stems, Christianity has not been very loving, welcoming or friendly. We can look back at the Crusades. Christians went on a mission to eradicate Muslims. Christianity was used to stupefy natives in many lands. While the United States of America leans toward a judeo-Christian philosophy, it is one of the most violent and corrupt nations on earth. Lets not forget that the bible was used to justify the enslavement of black people and that America’s largest terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, claimed to be “Good, White and Christian”.
On the other hand, I am not so naive as to think that all white people or all christi ans are evil or bad or corrupt, or that all blacks, Muslims or Hispanics are good, moral and decent. The facts are that there are bad seeds in every group. The problem comes when one group is so prevalent that it actually dominates and can assert undo influence (good or bad) on others.
As I end this article, my question is this: How is shutting down the government beneficial for “We, the people?”