In a word, Trump. What do I mean by this? Here is a person who is perhaps the most vile, corrupt, detestable person who has ever occupied the White House & most of us know that no one gets even close to that position without having been approved of by that tiny fraction of the 1%. And this says to me that they just plain don’t give a fuck about what we think or feel.
Trump is like that tiny fraction of the elite, morally bankrupt corporate cockroaches flipping us & the rest of the world, the middle finger i.e. we could give a shit less about what you think, feel, or care about.
Many of us have heard of the proverbial “talk” given to new presidents when they take office. The new president may have promised the world to his constituents regarding all the changes he was going to implement but after “the talk,” those promises seem to just fade away?
So, it’s very clear except to the willfully blind that those who give the new presidents this lesson in the reality of how the U.S. government is really run are those top-secret men behind the veil of secrecy, and they are the de facto masters of the universe.
And my guess is that were it not for Trump being the president, most of the high-class restaurants & clubs across America wouldn’t even allow Trump in their establishments due to his vulgarity & total lack of decent etiquette or proper behavior & speech. This may be another reason why he just hangs out at his own hotels & resorts though who knows if he actually owns them or merely gets to plaster his name all over them for the grand façade of his “success” brand.
You see, my imaginary reader, Trump isn’t simply some malevolent force out of the blue, no, he’s just the end result—sort of like the end result of our bodies’ processing of the food we take in—of a publicly declared agenda by the rich after FDR enacted his “New Deal.”
In short, they declared that they weren’t going to stop fighting until they had rolled-back every single aspect of the New Deal that helped us, the coerced taxpayers & cost them so much as a penny. Moreover, you may recall Mitch McConnel, the Machiavellian miscreant who announced from Day 1 of Obama’s election that he & the G.O.P. were going to block Obama at every single bit of legislation he tried to pass. What a noble patriot!
By-the-way, don’t misunderstand me, the Democratic party is pretty damn close to being equally guilty in their betrayal of us, the 99% but for the sake of brevity in this essay, I’ll keep my criticisms mostly targeted on the G.O.P. (Greedy Old Pigs).
So, here’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how that elite scum think of us or rather, don’t think of us.
- The privatization of all public water—note Nestles water in Michigan which gets the water from the Great Lakes at pennies on the dollar while Flint’s once clean source of water is shut-off & they are forced to use the toxic water of the Flint River
- The elimination of all unions, public & private. Note one of Reagan’s first acts as president was to fire the Air Traffic Controllers out on strike for life. And this sent a message to corporate America i.e. it’s open season on unions
- Sorry American public, but there’s simply not enough money for quality health care, education, or welfare for the 99% but there’s a never-ending flow of billions & trillions to the “Defense Industries,” because the terrorists are coming (and we get a nice slice of the pie!) i.e. Halliburton, Bechtel, G.E., etc.
- No taxes for the rich or the megalithic monopolies that are strangling not only America’s workers but workers around the world. And ever since Reagan, they’ve promised that this would cause a trickle-down benefit for all of us. Yeah, and how are you doing financially from this trickle? But we, the intimidated taxpayers are sent to jail if we “cheat” on our taxes.
- No, or very rarely do they prosecute the rich & when they do, the rich, especially the giant corporations, don’t even have to plead guilty & there’s no conviction on their record. So, they go right back to committing fraud, poisoning our environment, etc., pay a relatively small fine as compared to the profits they made from their criminal activities. You or I, pay a huge fine relative to our financial status, have a record, & often go to jail or prison. And we get three strikes & we’re out i.e. your third offence could be as little as stealing a candy bar & you spend the rest of your life in prison.</li>
- More & more protestors are being labeled terrorists so they have no rights such as habeas corpus, right to a lawyer, etc. & their lives are destroyed (see The Patriot Act) & note Obama’s prosecution of more Whistleblowers than all other presidents combined—the brave souls like Edward Snowden who warned us that our government with the help of the tech giants is spying on every single communication device & platform
- The Hell with clean air, clean water, safe food—Monsanto can experiment with GMO food & we can’t even know which foods are GMO (would hurt their profit margin) the corporate cockroaches are polluting the entire planet & pushing into ever greater ecological disaster which threatens humanity’s very survival, Oh well? They’re getting richer by the minute.
- Deregulation ad nauseam i.e. deregulate every industry but when their greed brings about their downfall, we, the taxpayers must once again bail them out (The World-wide Crash of 2008 which stole the pensions, homes, life savings, & jobs of tens of millions of people around the world, but when we, Joe & Jane average with maybe a mom & pop mini-market, go under? Too bad, too sad, it’s the free market for us but socialism for the rich i.e. we are all left to that mythological “free market,” where it’s sink or swim or the law of the jungle but the elite are always bailed out by us, the taxpayers because we’re forced to. And they proclaim that they must be saved or America will go under.
In conclusion, the 1% have nothing but complete & utter contempt for the 99%. Just look at Trump’s chin, poked out in arrogance like he’s Louis the XIV th or Mussolini. He’s been spoiled & protected all his life because of his dad’s wealth built largely on his being a slum lord & manipulating the loopholes of tax laws, bribing of city council members, & friendships with mafia figures.
And this is why Donny throws a fit whenever anyone criticizes him. He’s used to always getting his way & this is also why he loves authoritarian figures around the globe. They remind him of the mafia bosses & the fear they have instilled in their citizens who dare not speak out for fear of being killed.
Trump demands total loyalty to him like the kings during the age of feudalism but he has absolutely no loyalty to anyone except his buddy, Putin who has killed god knows how many of his own citizens. Putin even hunts down his opponents who have fled to other countries like those in England that he had poisoned.
Trump admires Duterte who declared himself above the law & told his police to shoot dead anyone they suspect of using or selling drugs. Tens of thousands of Philippinos have been gunned down in the Philippines, no court hearing just summary execution. This appeals to Trump again because he loves the feeling or thought that he has absolute power & his word is law.
We also have Erdogan in Turkey who has declared himself “sultan,” and runs his country like it as well. And don’t forget Trump’s friend whom he declared falling in love with i.e. Rocket Man of North Korea has been letting his people starve for decades so that he can live like Kubla Khan in opulence. And last but not least, President Xi of China who declared himself president for life & has also killed god knows how many Chinese citizens & has the world’s largest open prison comprised of that religious sect who harm no one but dare to dissent.
Moreover, what really confuses & depresses me is the fact that so many American citizens can sit by & watch Trump flout our laws—remember, we love to brag about being a nation built on law & order—most glaringly his ignoring of the emolument’s clause in our most sacred document, the U.S. Constitution, and brazenly he tries to steer the G7 Summit for next year to be held at one of his resorts.
Trump supporters are either the world’s biggest fools or hypocrites & willfully blind to the fact that he is clearly not one of them & has nothing but contempt for them. He’s coming for your food stamps people, Make America Great Again! I’ll see you in line at the food bank.
—Rob DeLoss, Dec. 4, 2019 in Gold Beach, Oregon
P.S. I almost forgot to add that the arrogance of the rich has touched my life as well. I worked many shitty factory jobs in my 20s & I hated it with a passion on one particular occasion, the owner of the factory was leading a group of businessmen on a tour of the factory. I was standing & working at the machine I was assigned to & they stood not ten feet away from me & studied the machine & never once acknowledged my presence, not even a nod of recognition. I felt like a domestic animal in their barn. That anger has helped to fuel my lifelong pursuit of knowledge in order to empower myself and not have to be in a position like that one ever again.