A Happier New Year

It's the end of the year 2017 and what a year it's been. During the last two weeks much has taken place that will cement a future of more of the same for those disenfranchised enough to have voted for Donald Trump and the Republicans. To be fair, the working class men and women that represent the populist Trump movement are not entirely responsible for the reward, or lack thereof, they will reap. After all, there were not enough of them for Trump to win the popular vote. No, the Republican tax bill passed last week is a gift to the Donald and the rich GOP white men that authored it on behalf of their even richer donors. It was the one percent constituents, not the working class, that got a big return on their investment in the for-sale public servants they purchased. 

Those that voted Trump should take note that the tax legislation has nothing to do with guns, abortion, immigration, or any of the other hot button issues that Trump populists speak of when talking about their man. The bill doesn't bring coal jobs back or raise wages. It doesn't improve education or public infrastructure. Instead, Trump's single legislative accomplishment lines the pockets of the rich, strips healthcare from the poor, and expands the divide between the haves and have nots to a size not seen before in American history.

Those realities will go unnoticed by the average Trump supporter and that blindness is the only fact that matters when it comes to the public discourse. Given all that's happened in 2017, it's clear that once a Trump supporter, always a Trump supporter. This constituency has made a conscious choice to deny fact and ignore reason. They have woven a low information fairy tale where distrust is king and reality has no place. There will be no happy ending to this grim (not Grimm) fairy tale yet there is no reasoning with pro-Trump protagonists over the why.

So, as 2017 comes to a close, Trump is still the president and the GOP is still unchallenged as it divides and loots the country. What's next? It's a question that I've spent time wrestling with for weeks. It would be very easy to cut and run. From a personal perspective, the tax bill won't hurt me nor will the healthcare mandate repeal.  While I'm certainly not the one percent, I'm comfortable enough that even if this bill costs me more I won't feel the pain. It would be easy to sit back and say, "I told you so" once the inevitable pain does hit working class Trumpers.

However, 2017 has been all about incivility and as easy as the I told you so defense would be it does not represent the kind of person any of us should aspire to become. It mirrors the vindictive, reprehensible behavior of the president and the worst of his supporters. In 2018, there is still hope. There is hope that a majority of Americans believe we are better than Donald Trump. There is hope that the large percentage of eligible voters that sat out in 2016 will choose differently in 2018. We may not be able to change Trumpers' minds but we also don't need to debase ourselves to affect a change away from the ugliness they've embraced.

I hope the promise of 2018 does not wind up being my own fairy tale. I simply don't know what the future will bring but wish us all a happier new year.