Hope and Change

I think Trump won principally due to his anti-establishment independence. Prominent Republicans refused to support Trump, which probably improved his standing in the minds of the disaffected, who helped vote him into office. Ironically, the majority of the people that voted for him have the most to lose once he assumes power.

In 2008 Obama promised hope and change, the same thing Trump promised us this time around. Obama was stymied at every turn by the party of No. Trump will not be quite so fettered.

Will the Democrats in congress now become the party of no? I'm not sure that's a bad outcome given the playing field. Republicans want to roll back everything Obama achieved, revoke our security alliances with other nations that have stood for decades, and withdraw from the Paris agreement, just recently ratified by the United States and China.

The parallels between the 2000 and 2016 elections frighten me. In both elections, the progressive Democratic candidate won the popular vote but lost the presidency to a conservative Republican in a close race. Bush led us into a war we didn't have to wage and oversaw the most devastating economic crisis since the great depression, both having a profound impact upon the world we live in today. What lies in store for us from a more impulsive and divisive leader, who's bearing is not presidential, nor even gentlemanly?

It's hard to find a good Republican president since Eisenhower. Nixon was one of the worst, the only president who has ever resigned. Reagan was bad, Bush jr. was worse. The great Republican saga continues with Trump as the new apprentice.

Americans are fed up with grid-lock, largely the responsibility of the Republican party. We need more parties, or at least more compromise between the 2 major parties. Ross Perot tried a new approach with his Reform party, which clearly wasn't as successful as Trump's strategy of upheaval from within.

I advocate that we rewrite our constitution to form a parliamentary type government, enforce term limits, eliminate gerrymandering and the power of political action committees. The state of our democracy is not what our forefathers had in mind 240 years ago. Thomas Jefferson himself suggested we rewrite the Constitution every 19 years. I think he was onto something.

America's body politic has developed a high fever and a remedy is needed. Trump is a consequence of this ailment and will probably worsen the patient's condition before there is any chance of improvement. Dwight Eisenhower said if you want to solve a problem, make it worse. On that count, I'm optimistic.