Back from vacation just in time to start a new feature — the weekly news editorial which I will try to do each Sunday — providing a brief recap of the news with my opinion and interpretation — consider this a weekly editorial.
First, some personal news, after close to 10 years living in the Madison area, we are moving to Nashville — new home and new careers!
News roundup for today: the executive order.
President Trump came out of the gate this week with a flurry of executive orders (the executive order sure was a power of pure evil the last eight years, but it seems to have made a complete turn-around in less than a week) — most written exactly for his supporters by trying to undermine the Affordable Care Act as much as possible, and by banning all refugees to our country for 120 days.
I am not surprised by these moves — but I find the refugee ban absolutely loathsome. America is at its best when it opens its arms to those in need, and this is a slap in the face to that tradition. Also, let’s note that the specific country bans (for 90 days) include seven Muslim countries — none of whom have ever been tied to any person who committed an act of domestic terrorism. However, the countries not on the list do have ties to people who have committed terrorist acts on our soil (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan). So, it boggles the mind that the reason for this is our country’s safety — it is clearly a racist attempt to appease Trump’s supporters (also a business decision since those countries also happen to be locations of Trump businesses?)
How will this play out? I did my daily review of the major news outlets, including Fox (yes, friends, I must watch and read Fox in order to know), and it is clear that if your only real news source is Fox, then you are not getting much of a critique of Trump policy. That is a unique disservice to the group of Americans that love Fox and supported Trump — to date, the coverage from Fox news has also done a 180 . . . to the point that I am considering just renaming the network as Pravda.
So why the extremeness of the order? All of those families barred from the safety of our shores, all of those families trapped in airports, why? It’s truly an inhuman act, so why do it?
This, friends, is where we must look behind the curtain. It is obvious to me that Trump is not really doing any of this himself — Trump is a classic Narcissist and there is nothing personally in these actions for him (again, maybe business interest?) — he is more interested in picking fights about inaugural crowds or bragging about the great things he will do in the future more than he is interested in the actual running of the country day to day.
Frankly, I believe he is not much more than the signature stamp for those around him that do want to exercise their own perverse views of power. To find the culprit, I think we need to look squarely at Steve Bannon.
Bannon is the Rasputin of our times, the man of the alt-right, the man behind Trump’s victory, the stone-cold racist and anti-Semite that uncapped the sewer of hate that runs through a perverse section of our nation, the man that channeled that effluent into a campaign of fear, bigotry, and idolization that brought us to this week.
I believe Bannon set this up deliberately to provoke a fight with the the so-called “liberal and media elites” who are opposed to this action, who are protesting, and who are criticizing these actions in the press. Can this win the day? Unfortunately, if Trump supporters are only watching Fox news, they will not witness critique or controversy, and they will not be swayed. This, friends, is demagoguery at its worst — the politics of raw fear and emotion.
This. Is. Not. My. America.
My vision of this country is not a dark, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic diatribe of hate and self-loathing. Nor do I think that anyone I know believes that sick vision either; however, that is exactly what we are getting, so I ask that you think, that you react, and that you pressure your legislators at every turn to reverse this scourge upon our democracy.
This action can not continue without the acquiescence of the Republican congress. Even executive orders can only be extensions of the law — the President cannot make law. Congress can and should limit and/or curtail the effect of these orders by passing laws to stop them.
When Pigs Fly and Other Political Oddities 
First of all, congrats on the new home and career! Exciting!
I agree, this is not my America, either. I used to think that no one I knew would support such a dark vision of our country that is currently starting to take shape; however, I have had a rude awakening over the last few months, and I am very sad to see sides of friends and family that I never knew existed.
LikeLike