Wake-Up, America!

Wake-Up, America!

“It is a sin to be quiet, when it is your duty to protest.”  Abraham Lincoln

After watching the disgraceful Putin-Trump Helsinki summit/press conference this week and seeing how few Republicans rebuked the President for his appalling anti-American behavior, I’m wondering what it will take to awaken American patriotism on that side of the aisle and how did we ever become so rabidly divided that for so many "leader/party" is now before the country itself?

After living in Russia for the rise of Putinism, I find the rise of Trumpism eerily similar.  Putin’s first major achievements in pushing toward authoritarianism were undermining the freedom of the press and the rule of law.  Trump is following that playbook.  The calling of real news fake and fake news real has already reaped massive rewards for him, the largest being his election itself.  Also, continually attacking law enforcement and labeling the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt” has created distrust and confusion that has resonated with many of his supporters and greatly undermined their ability to process information that conflicts with their “alternate fact” based beliefs.  Instead of dealing with real facts, they just write them off as fake or partisan and with the GOP controlled congress rubber-stamping partisan investigations there is nothing pushing them to confront their dispositions.

Putin quickly took control of Russian media when he was handed the presidency and managed to get the Russian masses to write-off the Western press as fake news and to only believe Russian state-controlled news.  In America, many Republicans now ignore the most trustworthy, historical news sources and only accept what Fox news or partisan online news sites like Breitbart feed them.  Once you take away peoples’ ability to question their views, the battle for Truth is lost. 

Political dogmatism is the new norm and love of country doesn’t come into consideration if it goes against the President or his policies.  An old ideology based on nationalism and fear apparently seems fresh to many Americans who’d fallen through the cracks or were left behind by the emergence of the new global economy.  While they may be rightfully angry over their situation and with Washington itself, pushing the blame solely on Democrats, minorities, and/or foreign trade is not going to solve any of their problems.  In fact, what is currently unfolding will only make their problems worse.

There is something inherently wrong with a political party that will ignore its own long held beliefs and the destruction of our institutions because they are not willing to risk losing power over the short-term.  The current GOP has done just that.  They immediately stopped being deficit hawks and increased the national debt by $2 trillion over Trump’s first 14 months in office despite having a strong economy.  The GOP has always been the party of free trade, but they supported pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  They also shrugged off the start of a trade war with our main partners and allowed the administration to start putting unnecessary and harmful tariffs on a wide spectrum of needed goods. This will cause inflation and hurt U.S. businesses.  Lastly, the party that labeled itself the law and order and national security party are now content to ignore this President undermining the rule of law, our democratic institutions and a foreign adversary manipulating our country with the sole intent to diminish our standing in the world and our economic and ideological well being.  It seems too absurd to be real, but it is happening- every day.

I believe the economy will become an issue too big for voters to ignore, but that will only happen once we enter a major economic crisis, so while change will eventually come, it will likely be too late and we’ll all be down on our backs, hurting with significantly weakened institutions.  Foreign Direct Investment was down 32% in the U.S. in 2017 despite a strong economy.  That’s an unheard of drop.  Tourism is down.  Job growth in 2017 was slower than in 2016.  The stock market is up largely due to stock buybacks fueled by the tax cuts that helped only the very top tier.  This is not the way forward and once we hit the tipping point on consumer and investor confidence, it will be a steep and painful ride down. 

Despite openly going against world order, Russia has been the biggest geopolitical winner over the last few years and no one is holding them responsible.  They have also taken the Internet and used it masterfully to work against the Western world and breed division.  On the political front, Russia’s online propaganda campaigns coupled with massive monetary support has led to the election of a anti-EU prime minister in Greece, the election and re-election of the authoritarian government in Hungary, the election of a former Communist pro-Russia president in the Czech Republic, the rising of Marine Le Pen in France, and they tipped the scales in both the Brexit vote and the last U.S. election.  They’ve also illegally annexed Crimea and started a war in Ukraine.  These are just a few examples and since there've been only limited repercussions; they’re still at it.  Further, an early obvious fact from the U.S. tariff war with China is that it will hurt American agriculture largely to the benefit of Russian suppliers who will take our place. 

We all need to open our eyes and realize there is a quiet Cold War still going on and if we do not band together as a people (and with our allies), we are going to wake-up one day living in a world that is worse than anything we’ve ever imagined and from that chaos no one will see a better tomorrow or fairer system for a long, long time.   

  

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