The Trump Destruction of America
By James Donahue
While the Republican controlled House and Senate has been making a lot of noise battling over the future of health insurance, immigration reform and “fake news,” the little man in the White House has been busy using the power of his office to quickly dismantle everything the American people have long enjoyed and held dear about the United States and its role as a leader of the free world.
A recent report in the Guardian, among the last great newspapers still publishing real news, notes that the damage already done by Mr. Trump and his goon squad has been so extensive and so lasting that it may take years to repair it when the political pendulum swings back to center. The report, prepared by a team of six skilled staff researchers, also proposes that the full extent of the damage may not be known for years since a lot of it has been going on behind closed doors and out of view of news reporters and the public eye.
Writer Dominic Rushe examined Trump’s attack against laws regulating bank financial investments, industrial pollution and job safety. He wrote: “After years of gains for consumer, environmental and worker rights groups, the pendulum is being swung the other way – most often those changes are happening behind closed doors.” Early after taking office Trump ordered a review of Dodd-Frank, and regulations designed to prevent unsafe bank investments, He set about to dismantle Obama’s work designed to protect internet freedom, and removed the teeth from environmental laws thus allowing coal burning electric plants to pollute inland lakes and rivers once more.
Rushe noted that Trump pledged in the first weeks to “remove every job-killing regulation we can find” and set up special “deregulation teams” to comb through the books looking for rules to cull. He wrote: “It’s hardly surprising given that the Trump administration has literally removed the White House visitor’s book, so we may never know who has been whispering in the president’s ear. Six months in, it is hard to tell what is being cut and by whom. We may never know the consequences of Trump’s regulation death squads until it’s too late.”
Reporter Oliver Milman examined Trump’s attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency. His appointment of Scott Pruitt, a known opponent of the EPA’s work, was designed to hobble the agency and consequently make it ineffective. While Pruitt was on the job, public land was opened to coal mining, oil and gas drilling is now allowed in the Arctic and Atlantic waters as well as most waters off the U.S. coasts. Also treasured national parklands have been opened for lumbering and oil and gas drilling.
“Emissions standards for cars and trucks, the clean power plan, water pollution restrictions, a proposed ban on a pesticide linked to developmental problems in children, regulations that stop power plants dumping toxins such as mercury into their surrounds – all were targeted with efficacious zeal by Pruitt,” Milman wrote. “In less than six months, Trump has begun to tear up almost all of the key planks of Barack Obama’s environmental agenda.” This sadly has included the nation’s withdrawal from the Paris accord designed to try to slow global warming.
Tim Dickinson, writing for Rolling Stone early in the Trump regime, said: “We have watched this unfold in the open: Trump has thumbed his nose at custom and the Constitution by refusing to resolve the conflicts of interest that will now shadow his presidency. He has used his Twitter account – a 21st-century bully pulpit – not to unify Americans behind his agenda, but to settle personal scores in a sustained assault on freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Trump has installed an inner circle that aims to marginalize millions of our countrymen, even as it seeks to degrade the institutions of our government.”
Trump’s bluster over immigration reform which has targeted so-called “illegal aliens,” has been a bitter pill for the American people to swallow. It singled out mostly Mexican born families that migrated to the United States, turned the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a militant force that separated families. The result was an untold number of children homeless and allegedly caged until public response forced an alleged end to the practice.
Writer Oliver Laughland noted that Trump’s travel ban “left many in Muslim and refugee communities around the US living in fear.” He said Trump also “moved quickly to supercharge efforts to round up and deport undocumented immigrants. By empowering Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the fedral agency responsible deportations, to target essentially anyone in the country without legal paperwork, the number of immigration arrests has soared.
His tariff war with China and Mexico has threatened to destroy the nation’s stable economy and his placement of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Education Director has been excessively damaging to public education. Trump has successfully dismantled the nation’s safety nets for seniors, the unemployed, low wage earners and family planning. Under his leadership many states have boldly closed down abortion clinics and passed laws making it nearly impossible for women to abort pregnancies, even those resulting from rape or other criminal acts.
The only good news to date has been Trump’s inability to start a new war. His tampering with Iran, however, has instigated the very drums of warfare throughout the Persian Gulf states.
These are but a brief review of the damage this President and his Republican goon squad in Washington has accomplished in the last two-plus years. Strangely enough Trump’s tactics appear to have attracted a public following. It the 2020 election is sabotaged, as many fear may happen, the man will leave America a much different place than it was when he took office.
By James Donahue
While the Republican controlled House and Senate has been making a lot of noise battling over the future of health insurance, immigration reform and “fake news,” the little man in the White House has been busy using the power of his office to quickly dismantle everything the American people have long enjoyed and held dear about the United States and its role as a leader of the free world.
A recent report in the Guardian, among the last great newspapers still publishing real news, notes that the damage already done by Mr. Trump and his goon squad has been so extensive and so lasting that it may take years to repair it when the political pendulum swings back to center. The report, prepared by a team of six skilled staff researchers, also proposes that the full extent of the damage may not be known for years since a lot of it has been going on behind closed doors and out of view of news reporters and the public eye.
Writer Dominic Rushe examined Trump’s attack against laws regulating bank financial investments, industrial pollution and job safety. He wrote: “After years of gains for consumer, environmental and worker rights groups, the pendulum is being swung the other way – most often those changes are happening behind closed doors.” Early after taking office Trump ordered a review of Dodd-Frank, and regulations designed to prevent unsafe bank investments, He set about to dismantle Obama’s work designed to protect internet freedom, and removed the teeth from environmental laws thus allowing coal burning electric plants to pollute inland lakes and rivers once more.
Rushe noted that Trump pledged in the first weeks to “remove every job-killing regulation we can find” and set up special “deregulation teams” to comb through the books looking for rules to cull. He wrote: “It’s hardly surprising given that the Trump administration has literally removed the White House visitor’s book, so we may never know who has been whispering in the president’s ear. Six months in, it is hard to tell what is being cut and by whom. We may never know the consequences of Trump’s regulation death squads until it’s too late.”
Reporter Oliver Milman examined Trump’s attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency. His appointment of Scott Pruitt, a known opponent of the EPA’s work, was designed to hobble the agency and consequently make it ineffective. While Pruitt was on the job, public land was opened to coal mining, oil and gas drilling is now allowed in the Arctic and Atlantic waters as well as most waters off the U.S. coasts. Also treasured national parklands have been opened for lumbering and oil and gas drilling.
“Emissions standards for cars and trucks, the clean power plan, water pollution restrictions, a proposed ban on a pesticide linked to developmental problems in children, regulations that stop power plants dumping toxins such as mercury into their surrounds – all were targeted with efficacious zeal by Pruitt,” Milman wrote. “In less than six months, Trump has begun to tear up almost all of the key planks of Barack Obama’s environmental agenda.” This sadly has included the nation’s withdrawal from the Paris accord designed to try to slow global warming.
Tim Dickinson, writing for Rolling Stone early in the Trump regime, said: “We have watched this unfold in the open: Trump has thumbed his nose at custom and the Constitution by refusing to resolve the conflicts of interest that will now shadow his presidency. He has used his Twitter account – a 21st-century bully pulpit – not to unify Americans behind his agenda, but to settle personal scores in a sustained assault on freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Trump has installed an inner circle that aims to marginalize millions of our countrymen, even as it seeks to degrade the institutions of our government.”
Trump’s bluster over immigration reform which has targeted so-called “illegal aliens,” has been a bitter pill for the American people to swallow. It singled out mostly Mexican born families that migrated to the United States, turned the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a militant force that separated families. The result was an untold number of children homeless and allegedly caged until public response forced an alleged end to the practice.
Writer Oliver Laughland noted that Trump’s travel ban “left many in Muslim and refugee communities around the US living in fear.” He said Trump also “moved quickly to supercharge efforts to round up and deport undocumented immigrants. By empowering Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the fedral agency responsible deportations, to target essentially anyone in the country without legal paperwork, the number of immigration arrests has soared.
His tariff war with China and Mexico has threatened to destroy the nation’s stable economy and his placement of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Education Director has been excessively damaging to public education. Trump has successfully dismantled the nation’s safety nets for seniors, the unemployed, low wage earners and family planning. Under his leadership many states have boldly closed down abortion clinics and passed laws making it nearly impossible for women to abort pregnancies, even those resulting from rape or other criminal acts.
The only good news to date has been Trump’s inability to start a new war. His tampering with Iran, however, has instigated the very drums of warfare throughout the Persian Gulf states.
These are but a brief review of the damage this President and his Republican goon squad in Washington has accomplished in the last two-plus years. Strangely enough Trump’s tactics appear to have attracted a public following. It the 2020 election is sabotaged, as many fear may happen, the man will leave America a much different place than it was when he took office.