Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton (photo:US election atlas)
On Jan. 20th, 2017, Hillary Clinton will take the oath of the office of President of the United States and it will be a breath of fresh air.
Ironically, this election isn't about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. We are experiencing one of the greatest populist backlashes against the role of the politician in our history. Eight years of GOP anti-government talking points decrying anything Federal as being both over-reaching and broken at the same time, the hobbling of international security budgets, attempted repeals of the Affordable Care Act with no replacement plan, the birther movement questioning the President's legitimacy, refusal to meet the President's Supreme Court Justice nomination, the GOP Congress shutting down the Federal government in 2013 over budget impasses reducing the credit rating of the entire country for the first time in history and the endless blocking, stalling and attempts to kill every appointment, bill or initiative the President or his party bring to the floor of Congress has done its job.
The public official is now suspect, corrupt and untrustworthy by definition. The new icon of the political officer as villain has successfully entered the cultural mindset. And this even though eight years of President Obama's tenure in office has resulted in zero scandals in his administration. Read that number again, it's pretty impressive.
What is astounding is that in this general atmosphere of anti-government feeling, and anti-political backlash, Hillary Clinton continues to have a 45% support in the polls nationally. That is remarkable given all she's been up against, not the least of which is twenty years of GOP character assassination and $500 million spent on years of investigations which have resulted in zero criminal charges. Some GOP public officials have turned anti-Clinton campaigns into full scale careers and so her continued support of almost 50% of the country is nothing short of extraordinary.
The endless broadcast of government as inefficient, ineffective and malevolent by conservative media has done its work. For many in the GOP base, undecided voters and disgruntled democrats as well, all are exhausted with the self fulfilling prophecy of a federal system that they perceive a) doesn't work and half the time in actuality b) doesn't work half the time. Those who are anti-Hillary are rabidly hateful of a candidate who's been pilloried from pillar to post paraded before them for decades judged guilty before proven innocent.
All this anti-government, anti-politician, anti-President pundit and partisan committee noise has brought to rise two extremely 'outsider' candidates in this campaign year who have achieved the greatest groundswells of popular support in history in their opposite camps; Trump and Bernie Sanders.
And again this election is not about Clinton, or Sanders or Trump. It's about the caustic environment that our national politics have become. Any outsider would be held in a bubble of honor and heralded as the needed change that could waylay the anger and frustration of the frustrated masses, who feel crushed under the uncaring machine of government that's become the GOP's self fulfilling prophecy in Washington. Again, this makes Hillary's Clinton support of almost half the country absolutely amazing.
And when President Clinton is sworn into office it will be a breath of fresh air. This First Lady, first in her role elected as Senator after the White House for two terms representing the state of New York.
Trump calls himself an outsider as any failed real estate magnate and reality TV star properly should. A businessman who must be the only casino owner in history to claim a billion dollars in losses in the same year and bankrupted four of them. As Steven Colbert said:"You know what they say in Vegas; the house always loses." As Trump moved the bank loans for his properties to his personal accounts and left the properties running in crippling debt leaving shareholders and partners high and dry when they folded, the scammed veins of banking and loan capital he mined in the 1990s were bridges burned beyond repair. He was now untrusted by most banks, investors and shareholders domestically and his $685 Million in outstanding debts that he and his company's carry forced him to go to other countries for capital. Paper trails lead to Russia and China, where his penny stock brand name still seemed shinier than in America.
And when President Clinton is sworn into office it will be a breath of fresh air.
The irony is that a vote for Trump is a vote for the best politician in the race. He is what he claims to hate, a practiced wheeler dealer who's gotten ahead on huge promises and a brazen bullish attitude. Bragging about his own ability to 'pay for play' he ridicules others who do the same. He has done more self dealing and played faster and looser with his own charity for personal gain than any politician in history. That the GOP calls him a business genius to pay no taxes for 18 years makes one think of Bernie Sander's remark:" "If everybody in this country was a genius like Mr. Trump is at not paying any taxes we would not have a country."
Too many to count are the smaller companies and personal businesses called into his lawyers' offices and told Mr. Trump 'won't pay', but would offer 10% or less on the dollars owed. 'Take it or sue me,' being the genius negotiating tactic he's diplomatically employed, preparing him for the office of President, with crushing legal attacks and lawsuits that bury naysayers and complainers under a pile of legal paper and court costs. Trump has more court cases against his illegal contract breaking practices than all the other politicians in Congress COMBINED. His failed university goes to trial in November as a scam, his charity is reportedly under investigation by the New York state Attorney General who has now barred the charity from raising money in NY as it violates state statutes. Take note that his own lawyer, who fought thousands of small claims in court on Trump's behalf so he wouldn't have to pay on agreed terms, has also sued him when he refused to pay them.
And when President Clinton is sworn into office it will be a breath of fresh air. This Senator who went on to become the most traveled Secretary of State who occupied the office.
Trump talks about a shiny new America of tomorrow, but his paint is wearing thin, his make up is looking more caked, and his face is tired. At the first debates he appeared a little unhinged, his wavering answers including opposites like Rosey O'Donnell and nuclear weapons in the same sentence. Hillary Clinton looked relaxed, calm and in control.
And when President Clinton is voted into office it will be a breath of fresh air.
Trump goes to court again in November on rape charges. Newsweek just reported he sent employees to Cuba in the 1990s in violation of the embargo and paid them their expenses indirectly so as not to record it publicly. He most recently taunted a previous miss USA defending his fat shaming of her years ago during the first debate, with a barrage of 3AM tweets demanding all examine her non-existent sex tapes to prove Hillary's defense of her misguided. Alicia Machado has no sex tapes. But journalists subsequently discovered Trump himself personally negotiated his then wife's Marla Maples Playboy spread, which the editor at the time commented was 'odd'. They also discovered Trump's own appearance in a soft porn film as himself (clothed thankfully).
And when President Clinton is voted into office it will be a breath of fresh air. This Senator and Secretary of State who as a Senator helped secure $20 Billion to recover and rebuild NYC at ground zero 48 hours after the attack on 9/11. Who as Senator prioritized bills and policies promoting reproductive rights, equal pay, and family leave.
Trump's supporters don't mind his fantastically crude, cruel and brutish behavior. Not because Trump is so great, or even moderately respectable. He's charmless and embarrassing in terms of what he thinks is appropriate and his own actions and lewd comments around his daughter Ivanka, women in general, Mexicans, Latinos, African Americans, fellow business tycoons, heads of state, endless public officials, veterans, POWs and a laundry list of other groups and individuals too many to name.
People certainly aren't behind him because he has a better plan. Most of his supporters don't know what his plans are beyond his brand. To them he's just another fine upstanding character that happens to have this gargantuan train wreck of public actions and betrayed business partners and employees against him.
His supporters don't mind that he promises to close the borders to Muslims or have a national stop and frisk policy against African Americans, (even thought it was termed unconstitutional), his followers don't care he wants to lower the minimum wage, threatens to limit the first amendment to reduce free speech and create new liable laws for legal action against the media. Even though each of those points would shatter the ideals that built this country and that it stands on.
But boy is he a good politician. He can sell a word, and make a sentence seem like a bed of roses. It's when he leaves the stage that you realize you're just left with thorns.
And when President Clinton is sworn in, it will be a breath of fresh air.
Trump is still careful about dodging the details of bold new ideas five weeks before the election. His plan to fight ISIS is 'secret'. His plan to turn around the economy is full of holes economists say will add $5 trillion to the debt. He's so specialized in putting his name out in the press for decades consistently that his content, unlike most public figures, is merely a means to an end, not something that has weight or integrity or even matters in any significant way.
When forced to make a point he'll concede a detail, then change it the next day if necessary. No harm, he declares, just a convenience to stay in the spotlight. He doesn't have better ideas, or possibly any ideas, he just swings the bigger attitude.
His supporters like this not because they like him particularly, but they get a vicarious wish fulfillment for their own feelings of helplessness and frustration at the media, the corporations, the government who are the unseen and all powerful 'Them'. Trump's actual plans may be nothing more than what he's done for decades. To notoriously pillage the middle class and the poor for the suckers they are and support himself soaking the rich class as he's done throughout his career.
And when President Clinton is sworn in, it will be a breath of fresh air.
When Roy Cohn passed, Trump's mentor, the notoriously brutal lawyer and king maker who loved the media limelight, understood back room politics, strolled the corridors of power and crushed his enemies under cunning litigious action, had his creditors rush in like a tsunami to rip apart his estate and accounts for monies owed after his death for decades of evasive, deceitful and belligerent denying of payments owned.
Trump's business model is similar and may experience a similar fate when his indebted paper empire is called to the carpet on such a fateful day. Paper thin walls are all that defend his dominion against decades of betrayal, deceit and hostile legal defenses. When the brutish personality keeping the wolves at bay evaporates so will his imprint on history.
He will be a footnote in a college essay on outsiders with few remembering that he was the best politician of them all in the worst sense of the word.
And President Clinton will be a breath of fresh air.