At noon today, Der Furor will take the oath of office as President of the United States for the second time; he is only the second president in our history to be elected to two non-consecutive terms (the other was, as you surely know by now, Grover Cleveland).
I am dreading his second term more than I did the first, for many reasons. He is a miserable human being. He is bombastic, amoral, self-centered, greedy, and focused more on personal loyalty in his minions than in their competence to fulfill their duties of office. His idea of presidential gravitas is to use demeaning schoolyard nicknames for his opponents and critics. His towering ego makes him easily manipulable by friends and enemies alike. His approach to every issue and problem is purely transactional, answering the essential question "what's in it for me?" He prides himself on disdain for norms of presidential behavior and is, as presidential historian Douglas Brinkley once commented, "just a bull carrying his own china shop with him whenever he travels the world.” Finally, because he will head an administration informed by the experiences of his first regime and supercharged by the work of conservative organizations exemplified by Project 2025 ... which he disowned during the campaign but has happily moved to implement now that he's been elected.
In short, Der Furor is ready to be a terrible president for the second time.
But having said that, there are some positions he has espoused (often out of convenience rather than conviction) that make sense and that I could support (in principle, if not in execution).
First, Der Furor is correct that we have a problem of unregulated and uncontrolled immigration. His approach to the problem is, however, ludicrously simplistic, unworkable, and ignores the fundamental problem of outdated and inadequate immigration law. Building a "big, beautiful wall" will not keep out those anxious to enter the country ... it didn't work for the East German government in Berlin* and it won't work here. Rounding up and deporting millions of illegal/"undocumented" aliens in massive sweeps is both unconstitutional (for various reasons) and detrimental to the economy (he seems to think that American citizens are lining up to take the difficult, low-wage, service and agricultural jobs now largely being filled by those he would deport). At the same time, he appears anxious to support his billionaire tech supporters by offering more "H-1B" visas for the high-tech workers they need. He has not said a word about taking legislative action to fix the issues with our immigration system that have created the situation he now rails about ... you may recall that he directed his minions in Congress to kill the bipartisan border security bill that gave conservative Republicans almost everything they asked for. I have, myself, offered a detailed plan to fix our immigration system, which has been graciously accepted and then ignored by my elected representatives for years.
Second, our tax system is a mess and needs to look as if someone designed it for sound economic reasons. Der Furor's answer is to cut taxes for the very wealthiest Americans and for big businesses, on the long-discredited assumption that they will invest all that saved money in actions that boost the economy, resulting in lower prices and other benefits that will eventually "trickle down" to the poorest Americans**. In his confirmation hearing, Der Furor's Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent said that the "single most important economic issue" was extending tax cuts for the wealthy and businesses. I think that even a lot of the underinformed people who voted for Der Furor would have a hard time swallowing that. Tax laws should address the needs of the lower and middle classes as well as the top 1%.
Third, looking to the larger economy, I think we definitely need to have some changes made, although the sort of changes that would most benefit average Americans would be opposed by big business in our current market economy. For instance, Mr Bessent (who we met in the previous paragraph) also said in his hearing that he saw no need to increase the national minimum wage ... which has remained unchanged at the national level at $7.25/hour since 2009, 16 years. Prices for food staples, basic medical care, and essential medicines are squeezing the lower and middle class, but I have yet to see any sort of plan that adequately addresses them ... there's no magic wand to wave that will fulfill feel-good but difficult to achieve campaign promises like: "Starting on Day One, we will end inflation and make America affordable again;" "Groceries, cars – everything. We're going to get the prices down;" "... we're going down and getting gasoline below $2 a gallon;" and "We will eliminate regulations that drive up housing costs, with the goal of cutting the cost of a new home in half."
Finally, some reform of our Civil Service is needed, although the horrendous "Schedule F" plan which would replace professional, merit-based government employees with ones loyal to Der Furor, regardless of merit, is hardly the answer. When I worked in the Pentagon as a military officer, I (very) occasionally supervised or dealt with government civilians who were utterly worthless in their positions, but were all but impossible to fire, even for cause. Junking the merit-based Civil Service in favor of presidential loyalists is not the answer ... improved personnel management regulations that make it easier to remove non-performing employees is needed.
Those will do for starters. In summary, I could get behind some changes and improvements in our government, but Der Furor and his extreme conservative, wealthy, and religious supporters are hardly the ones to provide what we need.
What do you think?
Have a good day. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
* I served in West Berlin while The Wall was still up, so I think I can speak with some authority on this.
** As Will Rogers once said, "The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn't know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow's hands."
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