The Weary Pilgrim – So What Now?

Word for the day: kakistrophy- defined by the American Heritage dictionary as ‘government of the people by its worst elements’

First of all, let’s settle the blame for this current situation - aside from the October surprise of James Comey, which really didn’t help Hillary, was basically out of line in so many ways, and will be the subject of numerous conjectures for years to come, I gotta tell you: Hillary screwed up…..when she uttered the words, “basket of deplorables”, I thought, ‘there goes the election’……it wasn’t her words, it was what they represented…her deep misunderstanding of anyone not supporting her.

Hillary never got the basic message for the Trump resurgence. Sure, Trump had bunch of wingheads rooting for him, but the vast number of people who voted for him weren’t deplorable – they were scared. And disgusted. And worried. And sick of being looked down on by a morally superior political party. They were hard-working Americans who were tired of the same people claiming to have their best interests at heart who simply wanted power.

And now they have new bunch of people who claim to have their interests at heart. Who want power.

Forget Trump – he has the attention span of a teenager on Tinder, he shoots from behind his back, and he really doesn’t want to read a zillion policy papers, or bother with those pesky details which have belabored so many heads of state in years gone past… He will delegate…..not the worst tendency in a chief executive. IF…you pick wisely.

So far, we have Rudy Giuliani, who was a pretty good mayor, but seems to have sailed off into the blue of senior mist. And Newt Gingrich, who demanded a divorce from a former wife on her deathbed, and then shut the government down in a fit of petty power, for which he was justly vilified. Speaking of petty power, Chris Christie has been sent to his corner without dinner, but trust me, he will be back – Trump owes him. Mike Pence, the VP, has a history of denying history, but maybe he’ll go where so many Vice Presidents have gone, which is showing up at funerals of heads of state in foreign lands….that one is a cypher. The Chief of Staff is Rance Priebus, the RNC chairman – hardly an outsider, but SOMEBODY has to have a rolodex at the White House, and he is the Last Man Standing who knows where those bodies that aren’t yet buried are waiting by the phone.

Enter Steve Bannen – chief bottle-washer of Breit-Bart, the home of the Alt-Right, widely known for pro-white, semi-Nazi, generally Bad-Boy headlines…..Bannen himself is one weird dude – nobody really knows what he believes in, other than not just tilting at windmills, but burning them down…he is the True Contrarian: if it’s mainstream, he is against it – an anarchist of the middle class…and now the Senior Strategist of the next White House.

I think that every new president has a period of sheer anarchy, where the White House needs a few months to get up to speed…in this case, you can expect a prolonged period of complete disarray, while the immense challenge of running the World’s Largest Corporation poses a tremendous hurdle. The problem is, how far into Trump’s presidency will the First Crisis appear, and when it does, who will actually react to it? That will be the test……

I will admit to indulging in a few ironic fantasies:

– How will North Korea feel when they are faced with a narcissistic neophyte with a history of anti-social behavior and a suitcase full of nuke codes? Now it’s THEIR turn to worry….

– I’m pretty sure Trump will build some kind of wall, if only here and there along the Mexican border – but wait till we get the details, complete with architectural specs – never mind the fact that no terrorist has ever been found to have entered the US over that border, it’s the photo-op that counts…..wait for it.

– The first State of the Union will be a beaut. And so on…

So what can we expect, other than the now-usual daily headlines that the sky is falling on us?

Short term, if you have a stock portfolio, expect the old Dow Jones holdings to do pretty well….fossil fuel is back, big time….gas, oil, coal, for all I know, steam power. The EPA is on the endangered species list. You and I will be fine…our children, not so much….our grandchildren – I’d rather not think about it, honestly.

Climate change? What climate change? Donald Trump doesn’t know El Nino from the Pinta or the Santa Maria…this is just another vague problem far off in the future. It doesn’t take a smart person to figure it out – it takes a wise one. And right there, folks, is the problem.

The pirate ship has sailed into the bay. The pillaging of America has already begun. Lobbyists are stacking up in the lobby of Trump Tower like planes over LaGuardia in a blizzard. Remember the profits reaped by Schlumberger and Halliburton during the George Bush-the-Younger years? Chicken feed……keep an eye on the national debt….and start making excuses to your grandchildren – it’s going to be their headache, not ours.

David Brooks, a conservative columnist with the New York Times, called for a third party BEFORE the election. Now the whole idea of a socially liberal and fiscally conservative party certainly sounds like a winner, doesn’t it? By this summer, you will hear the rumblings of a challenger three years off – feel free to dream about this – just don’t wait too long to do something about it.