Trump is a moronic grifter on a permanent bigotry-bender
so it should not surprise us that he is not actually the one driving the biggest
con in US history. Mitch Mc Connell (Senate majority leader) is...
Looking back at this doodle from 2016, I realise that
I – like a lot of folk - focused on Trump as a singular problematic and
destructive anomaly in US politics.
The disease with the Trump stamp on it is spreading
its spores (and mingling with others) around the world increasing disharmony,
fear, bigotry, environmental damage, profit before people and all that jazz.
However, two things have happened in recent weeks
that make it clear that the dawning suspicion of many is in fact correct.
Southern Republican states have made extreme moves
to roll back women’s reproductive rights with laws that may eventually
challenge Roe v Wade in the Supreme Court – where Brett Kavanaugh and other misogynist
right wingers lie in wait.
But there is another reverse-the-clock event, in
some ways more chilling because there has been less noise about it. A slew of
new judicial nominees have stumbled and stalled and harrumphed and obfuscated
when asked by Senator Blumenthal the clear and simple question – do they think
Brown v The Board of Education was decided correctly. In a nutshell – this was
the case that outlawed black/white segregation in US schools. In a recent letter I suggested that this was like asking someone if it was ok to kick a disabled old person and them failing to find the easy, acceptable answer.
If you add these two recent developments to the
overturn of environmental legislation to please the oil lobby; if you look at
that eye-watering tax breaks for the very wealthy it becomes so suddenly obvious
you’d be forgiven for choking on your breakfast.
Remember also that Mc Connell made it clear he'd take right-wingers in what are permanent judicial appointments over short-term political gains and you begin to really see the picture.
Trump is nothing more than a smoke screen for the
evangelical ultra-conservative, wealth-obsessed right wing of the Republican Party.
Note I do not say Christian. I am a Christian. And in anything other than a very selective reading of Christian teaching, there is no room for hatred and bigotry. There is no part for theft by the rich
and leaving the poor and vulnerable to rot. Plus, there is an absolute duty of care for our planet.
I even go as far as to suspect that many of those
sweating away behind the orange Trump screen are not wild about his overt white supremacy (they have their own more subtle version) or the wall nonsense
and the vile hatred against immigrants - maybe. But hey – what’s a few babies
in cages if they get to notch up control-freak government in the name of
American freedom? What are a few deaths of desperate migrants if they get to
put women and black people back in their place – which is – for them - in
America but right at the bottom of the pile and doing as they are told?
It is time for Democrats to stampede and for any decent Republicans to stop hiding behind the big orange
smoke screen which is Donald Trump; more damaging in the long run than any wall. Mc Connell's quieter, deeper, darker con will blight America for a generation.