From outside looking in...The solidarity of American communities in the face of catastrophe, whether natural or manmade, is an aspect of our national character that most of us cherish. We never tire of stories about our fellow citizens upholding one another at the worst of times. We venerate the firefighters, emergency service workers, law enforcement officers and ordinary neighbors whose endurance and sacrifice hold communities together against cruel circumstance -- without regard to race, creed, color, gender or partisan affiliation.
Or at least we did during much of our history. Yet as huge swaths of Los Angeles are consumed by wildfire, it is striking to see those traditional American values torched by a self-serving coterie of right-wing billionaires, whose loyalty to any principle beyond self-aggrandizement is nil: Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk and of course their political avatar Donald Trump, the president-elect.
While the LA blaze rages on, all three of these men have used their gigantic public platforms to stoke a different but exceptionally destructive conflagration. Rather than encourage patriotic bonding and mutual aid, they broadcast messages of division, hatred and suspicion, served up in a poisonous stew of blatant lies, conspiracy theories and wretched nonsense.
Trump and his minions attempt to make America small, stupid and mean
The solidarity of American communities in the face of catastrophe, whether natural or manmade, is an aspect of our national character that most of us cherish. We never tire of stories about our fellow citizens upholding one another at the worst of times. We venerate the firefighters, emergency...www.alternet.org
Trump, and his appointees actually making a natural disaster even worse.
Trumps America.
Trump runs on the idea that for him to do well you must do badly... It is a transactional frame of mind.. If you are doing well it must be at my cost.
This is why he talks about trade imbalances between countries.
Modern Economics has shown that trade is a win-win. The Democrats used to oppose that but quickly saw that over any reasonable time the more you trade the more you benefit because you do what you are good at and trade with others for what they are good at.
Now that is meant to partnered with measures to curb income inequality which most countries do with a progressive tax system...
Then there is the American system:
- A Constitution that is very hard to change unlike rest of the first world where a simple majority of the people works.
- Massive lobbying influence (this is bribery in other countries) has created a society which has locked in the wealth to the winners of trade.
- Due to lobbying, a heavily divided media bubbles which just speak to converted (confirmation bias)
So if you want to have a tariff war, go on ahead... The rest of the first world will target as much as they can on Red State products... They don't really want to hurt Blue States...
