An Appeal to Reason
By neglecting the concerns of most Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike have created a vacuum for centrists. But can they set parties aside and fill it?
Donald Trump’s drive for unchecked power and the Democrats’ fumbling response expose the same vulnerability: Both parties have drifted to the extremes and lost touch with their roots and with the majority of “we the people of the United States”.
Trump’s campaign to move fast and break the bureaucracy and the Democrats’ paralysis are creating an opportunity for centrists of both parties to avoid extinction and unite behind an agenda that addresses the issues that most concern the majority of Americans. Even if they can find leadership and act, they have less than two years to get their act together.
An opportunity is there. Americans are growing increasingly uneasy about the power the unelected Elon Musk and his juvenile MuskRats have amassed. Even some business leaders are raising doubts about Trump’s tariff and trade policies. Others are concerned about how the funding cuts invented hourly by the MuskRats — whose expertise is limited to ones and zeroes — without any thought to how the consequences will affect health care, scientific research and education. Still others are growing alarmed by Trump’s move to remake law enforcement into a tool for personal revenge, intimidation and punishment.
Nevertheless, cowardly Republicans who know better have fallen in step behind downright dangerous cabinet choices such as Tulsi Gabbard and Trump’s vengeful get-even agenda.
Democrats who should know better are still clinging to rhetoric and an agenda that are admirable but won’t do enough to help young couples start families or buy their first houses, or older citizens pay for the medications they need. Even when they have acted in the public interest, as they have on drug prices, they’ve done little to claim credit.
Nevertheless, the stakes today, best defined so far by Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, and Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, demand leadership, despite the cost to popularity, personal safety, prosecution or party unity.
Still, the chasm between what matters to Americans and what both Trumpublicans and leading Democrats are doing and saying is large enough for a movement to quash Trump’s efforts to turn the clock back to 1774 and crown another mad king.
Trump and his allies seized upon Americans’ discontent to win their slender victory in November. A Gallup survey conducted just before Trump took office and published on Feb. 5 found that the average satisfaction with 31 aspects of the country remains at a record low 38 percent. Only 20 percent of those polled said they were satisfied with the direction of the country.
Lest the Trumpeters celebrate, however, a majority of Americans also said they were “generally satisfied with America’s military strength, the overall quality of life, the position of women, the opportunity for people to get ahead and the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the country”.
Trump’s 2024 election by depression was built in large part by falsely claiming that the military is weakened by wokeness, the quality of life diminished under Joe Biden, women have achieved their positions thanks to politics rather than proficiency, Democratic policies have robbed people (especially white men) of the opportunity to get ahead and gay and lesbian people have no place in the military or pretty much anyplace else.
The lowest satisfaction rating, 16 percent, was for the nation’s efforts to deal with poverty and homelessness, which aside from his vague promise to provide housing somewhere for Palestinians expelled from Gaza, have yet to appear on Trump’s agenda.
So far, Trump’s immigration, trade and health care policy moves have done nothing to address Americans’ concerns and instead are likely to raise the costs of everything from housing built with Canadian lumber to medications developed with help from federal investments.
A study of 2,000 Americans by BBG Ventures and reported by Fast Company has more worrisome news for Trump: It found that “Health and Financial Security are the two top priorities for every race, gender and nearly every age group”.
Americans younger than 18 are more concerned about employment and education, the survey found. Trump, though, has yet to issue more than empty promises about creating jobs and has declared war on the Department of Education with no apparent thought about dropping student loans, financing research and other consequences.
Although Trump’s aptitude for creating chaos helped him reclaim the presidency and is the foundation of his presidency so far, the BBG study found that it, too, has had a cost. The study found that mental health is Americans’ number one health and well-being concern, “driven by finances, stress, and loneliness”. So far, however, Trump and company are doing nothing to make most Americans (or the nation’s closest neighbors and allies) sleep better.
(Note to Trump, Musk and Co., whose emotional IQ hovers near the average winter temperature in Gospodin Vladimir Putin’s Siberia: The people you’re bent on laying off, directly or indirectly, have families, relatives, friends, fellow parishioners, local merchants and others who will feel the effects, if they aren’t already.)
A more detailed survey by The New York Times and Ipsos contains more bad news for Trump and his Republican allies — but also some for the Democrats.
For openers, the Times/Ipsos survey found that 72 percent think “the government is mostly working to benefit itself and the elites”. Putting the world’s wealthiest man, who already has a host of government contracts, in charge of a private organization to streamline the government is not likely to change that opinion.
Even before Musk and his engineers went to work, 68 percent of the respondents said they think “the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy”, a concern that more tax cuts for the rich and relaxed (if any) enforcement of financial regulations are unlikely to alleviate.
Only 21 percent of those Ipsos surveyed think Musk’s deviously named Department of Government Efficiency will be “very effective at streamlining the government”. A prescient 69 percent said they think it’s likely that Trump “will use the government to investigate and prosecute his political opponents”. Close behind, 62 percent oppose deporting “immigrants who were children when they entered the U.S. illegally” under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The Ipsos results, however, also contain warnings for Democrats who seek to resist Trump’s moves by relying on the issues that appeal to their base.
For example, 49 percent of the respondents agreed that “society has gone too far in accommodating transgender people”, and were evenly split on ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools, universities and government agencies.
Only 4 percent of those surveyed said “Gay/Lesbian/Transgender policy” is important to them, compared to 47 percent who listed the economy and inflation and 30 percent who listed health care.
In another warning to Democrats, 31 percent of those surveyed by Ipsos said they think abortion is the Democrats’ most important issue, tied with gay, lesbian and transgender policy. That’s compared to 47 percent who said the economy and inflation was the most important issue to them, followed by health care at 30 percent.
All that suggests that defending the government is not the way to go. In the Ipsos survey, 60 percent of the respondents said “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient”, compared to 37 percent who said it “often does a better job than people give it credit for”.
All that suggests that those such as Murphy, King, Adam Kinziger and Liz Cheney who rightly think Trump, Musk and their apostles and acolytes pose a threat to American democracy might consider a two-track approach:
Let Trump be Trump. He has an accelerator, but no brakes or guardrails.
Set aside for now some of the issues such as the ill-defined “diversity” that are now trademarks of the Democratic Party, and starting at the grassroots focus instead on the damage Trump’s actions are doing to the health and welfare of most Americans. If immigrant labor vanishes, track the price of lettuce in Cincinnati. Watch what tariffs on Canadian aluminum do to the cost of aluminum foil in Wichita.
This may be the only chance to make government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy perish, not from the earth, but at least from America. If there is a battle for America’s future, it won’t be won or lost on a quivering Capitol Hill, a Supreme Court tainted by politics or in the opinion pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal or on 60 Minutes or the Sunday talk shows.
It will be decided, just as the first American revolution against a monarchy was, in every Middle American village and town.
For further reading and a complete look at the Ipsos survey see below, but first a musical tribute to the MuskRats:
https://apple.news/Au9-5HCcQQ4mQ_F2WO9PjdQ
https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-doge-staffers-additional-names
https://news.gallup.com/poll/656114/americans-state-nation-ratings-remain-record-low.aspx
https://www.fastcompany.com/91269088/the-two-main-issues-most-americans-care-about
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/a66cc1cd29a9ea2c/41386e22-full.pdf
There is nothing predictable about an administration headed by a megalomaniac and staffed by the utterly unqualified save for the certain crises they'll create and the fact their incompetencies will ensure they are unable to handle them. This excellent piece lays out why in no uncertain terms.