Washington Reverberations

At one time, however reluctantly, I considered the Republican Party (of the eighties and the nineties) as a bunch of wrong-headed fellows, but with honorable intentions.  The relentless hounding of Bill Clinton annoyed me, but I clung to the belief that they were decent guys, just a lot more interested in lowering taxes than was good for everyone.  Now, I have given up; regarding the present leadership of the GOP as a bunch of wrong-headed good guys is a stretch that I cannot undergo, without snapping my elastic.  Someday, I suppose, the GOP could ride again, but playing dirty has become a way of life, because as they understand it, their political base is incapable of understanding the gentility of old-school politics; but it does like crude behavior, and taunting the liberals, (they assume,) which probably explains the boorish behavior of the Trump-influenced GOP.

It is, I think, a big mistake to assume that T-GOP boorishness is going to be the norm for henceforth.  To assume that might be what will keep us sane, but it will paint us out of any possibility of even flashes of civility in any branch of Congress.  Balancing the budget, restoring environmental protections, none of these things are, IMHO, as important as holding out the promise of a return to civility.

That is not to say that we consider bad behavior as something in which a president can indulge with impunity.  All this reckless golfing, all the blatant promotion of Trump's businesses at government expense, all the maneuvering to obscure obstruction of justice, and to load the administration with Trump loyalists, is bad, but so is the rudeness extended to foreign heads of state, and the encouragement extended to racist organizations at home.  The latter strikes me as cowardly; Trump may not be himself a racist, but he indulges racists in the belief that they are friends and family of the Alt-Right, and they are a means to an end.  Or rather, chastening them might be a possible beginning to his possible end.  Many of the essential flaws of Trump, (laying aside his essentially flawed character, to begin with,) have to do with the flaws of businessmen turned politician in general.  They are unethical.  I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise, but this is the lesson we can take away from the poster boy of Business: Donald R. Trump.  He has ruined the reputations, in the eyes of the Democrats, of everyone who associates themselves with Business.  And Democrats are not just those in Congress whom he considers to be "losers".  There are Democrats everywhere, and as long as Trump and the GOP orchestrate the flow of our money to the haves, the number of Democrats are going to rise, and the GOP may have to re-think the wisdom of alienating the Working Class.  We may have thought of ourselves as The Middle Class, but, haha, it is looking more than ever as if we're becoming the proletariat.

Meanwhile, I sincerely hope that the vast number of women elected to Congress will be received with civility and respect by their Republican colleagues.  Just as importantly, I hope they are able to deal with their outrage at the overreaching of the Congress of 2016 with stern control and moderation.

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