Summoning the Spirit of Teddy Roosevelt
Wayne D. King
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| Spirit Buffalo in a Painted Sky For a signed original of this image, click here |
A Trust Buster will be needed after we extract ourselves from White Christian Nationalism and this toxic administration. It won't be pretty but it will be necessary.
It’s easy to focus on whatever madness Donald Trump is engaged in and forget that the “rupture” of which Canada's Prime Minister spoke requires us to look forward and ask “what’s next"?” We can’t go back. We must move ahead.
The “Merger Madness” that Donald Trump rides like a grifting Yosemite Sam, grabbing every errant dollar for himself and his family of bandits and scowflaw sycophants promises to drive the everyday cost of living for Americans - especially the working class - even higher.
The historic echoes of our country’s fight to end the excesses of the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th - led relentlessly by a Trust Buster - Teddy Roosevelt, offer a real path to healing.
If we want to make life more affordable for all Americans the most effective and sustainable solution to this is to reverse this merger mania and inject more competition into the economy. We need not one TR but candidates we can elect who will form an army of trustbusters.
Even if the latest Supreme Court rejection of the Trump Tariff policy, which Donald Trump seems inclined to ignore, increases to the cost of living have already largely been baked in.
Fixing this will not be easy. Candidates owe it to the people to be honest with us.
First, they need to be clear that there must be an accounting for the illegal acts of the Trump administration. Not retribution, but an exercise of an honest rule of law. Without this the danger of reverting to the “MAGA mean” will keep our country in an economic and policy tailspin for years. We are capable of delivering justice while also addressing the many disruptions and economic perils we face.
Senators and Congressional representatives must also emphasize how we will begin to unwind the injustice that has been done to middle-class and working-class people. How we will both fix the roads, bring some stability to inflation, and build a future we can all believe in again.
There is, with almost no exceptions, barely a handful of Republican members of Congress who should be elected to office.
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| The Road Darkens |
That does not let the Democrats off the hook. Both political parties have failed the people of the country, the Republicans especially, but both have abandoned working-class people and paved the way for the billionaire class.
Now, in fairness, regardless of which administration controls Washington, lowering everyday costs is already exceedingly difficult. Don’t “shine on” the American people with “lower costs on day one” the way Donald Trump did. Oh sure, we can take actions to impede further inflation, but stepping back is a far more difficult matter altogether. With few exceptions, day-to-day costs do not tend to go down over time. At best we hope to control the further rise, while we increase earnings so that the difference between them gives each of us more breathing room.
However, the “vig” that Donald commands to clear the way for mega-mergers assures that not only will we NOT see prices lessened but we will pay a premium on it.
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| George Road S Curve Signed Originals |
The vig may come in the form of a simple grift - simplest of all, permission to build a golf course, or two; or a hotel or two, as the President received in Vietnam recently in exchange for lowering massive tariffs announced against the country on his “liberation day” list.
More often, Donald Trump builds into a merger agreement with companies that want to receive an exception to laws that have been created to assure future competition, or creative lawsuits that serve to scrape some additional cash from a company looking to curry favor with the administration.
Most brazenly of all are the direct lawsuits to “recover” the costs of his legal expenses in defending his 32 convictions in New York State Court, or to punish the IRS (20 billion dollars to be paid by all of us) for releasing his tax returns that he had promised us 12 years ago during his first presidential campaign.
Sadly, these direct thefts from the pockets of working Americans will only get worse in the coming months as the Trump administration - realizing that its days are numbered - will dramatically ramp up their grifting. Based on the notion that if they can’t steal our democracy at the very least they can steal a lot more of our wealth on their way out the door.
About Wayne D. King: Author, podcaster, artist, activist, social entrepreneur and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor.
His novel “Sacred Trust” a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives on the “Narrows” in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags.
His publishing website is: Anamaki.com
From the Gallery
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