I had a different first line for this piece about the never-ending vote count, but just as I punched it out I learned that Joe Biden had won the election. Whew! Even our world allies celebrated with fireworks, music (I think I heard the Munchkins singing, “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead”), and pealing church bells in France. Many world leaders are smiling, sending congratulations, and breathing a sigh of relief. The stock market is rallying. Our relief may be short-lived because there are nearly 70 days left in the Donald Trump Show. That is plenty of time for him to whine, throw a tantrum, blame everybody else for his loss, and, generally, wreak havoc on the Nation that turned its back on him. Boo-hoo. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to jail you go.
Back in 1968, when I was a young punk and voted for Tricky Dick Nixon in my first election, those of us with different politics could converse, maybe have a beer together, and chide one another on our differing view points. We didn’t worry about getting whacked in the head with a 2×4 for expressing our views. But those were the days when men running for president in any party and, even though they were politicians, had integrity, a conscience and a moral code they lived by, qualities that have eluded Donald Trump. My contemporaries and I were glad Lyndon Johnson was going out of office and we’d worried about electing Hubert Humphrey, someone who would continue Johnson’s war policy. We’d hoped Nixon could get us out of Vietnam quickly (dream on).
I never thought this election would be as close as it was, because Trump had derided, mocked, and demeaned, minorities, women, the disabled, combat veterans, scientists, medical experts, Native Americans, the FBI, LGBTQ, R2D2, C3PO, and more. That left only his base, which was supposedly made up of lesser-educated white males ages 18-45, to support him. Apparently that wasn’t the case because 70-plus Million individuals, many in the aforementioned summarily-dismissed groups, still cast their votes for Trump.
Many voters seemed to feel he could do better with the economy. Really? Trump even bankrupted a casino. How can you do that? The house has the odds in its favor. Winning is a given. Soon, Donald’s $400 Million of debt comes due. Did somebody say Putin? I just did, so here’s my uneducated, unsubstantiated, fact-free, not-endorsed-by-anybody opinion: I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin loaned him the money because of the grand hotel complex Donald had planned to build in Russia, another deal that fell through. Vladimir doesn’t mess around and Trump, as in a Dostoevsky novel, may end up chopping bricks out of frozen mud in Siberia. If this comes to pass, you can say you read it first here in my column; if not, hey: What do I know? I’m just supposed to be writing stuff that passes for humor anyway.
Continuing on my current rant, which I didn’t intend to start, I was sorry to see the Fair Tax proposal on the ballot fail. I’m sure it’s because all the voters under the age of 50 don’t remember the when the tax system used to be fair (really?). Say you had $1 Million (I wasn’t a successful, high-paid writer in those days. I didn’t even know how many zeroes were in a Million. But someone did and had a Million dollars). Taxes were graduated, so on the last 100,000 of that Million, the tax rate was 70%. That was fine with me, down in the bowels of the Middle Class. Mostly rich people were grumbling. This set-up worked nicely until the Ronald Reagan tax cuts came along and capped the tax liability at 50%. This was fine with me because, still down in the bowels of the lowly Middle Class, I never earned enough to make a difference in my taxes. But wait. One day a light bulb popped up over my head. After changing it to an energy-saving version, I thought if the rich people are no longer going to be paying their share of taxes to support the infrastructure, mental health, aid to the poor and elderly, and whatever else kept the country functioning, where was the money going to come from? Yes, from us in the lowly, hard-working Middle Class. Raise their taxes and cut their services. No worries. Trickle down economics would take care of that because the rich now had more wealth to share. Wrong. It didn’t work even back in the 19th Century. Trickle down economics is like a two-story outhouse. With the rich up in the second story, you know what trickles down. The rich upstairs get relief and the rest of us downstairs get (bleep).
Well, to quote Scarlett O’Hara, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” No, that’s not it. “Tomorrow is another day.” Very profound. At least with the Trump Troop headed out the door, I’ll never have to utter the word “sycophant” again.