My Thougts On The 2016 Election
I originally posted this peice on my critical analysis and opinions about Trump winning the election on Facebook. Not really fitting the overall theme of the blog, of course, but it's a hugely significant current event. Figured I'd mirror it somewhere that was permanent, so it's here.
So all in all, here's my complete take on it:
I've long been of the opinion that in general politicians running the government is a bad thing, and someone that's in business should become president, and the government should be run as a business in some sense. Streamline the government, make it smart in its spending, and politicians just don't know how to do that in general in the way that a business does. Trump is definitely NOT anwyhere on the first clipboard of pages of people that should be the one to do that, but...well, too late on that point.
Trump's a loudmouth, bigoted, sexist pig, but he's by far not the person I fear the most here (speaking as a straight white male, of course makes it lose its impact of course, and I can compeltely understand where any other ethnicity/gender/orientatoin is coming from being scared of him). He's only one part of the equation, we're a three-tiered government system. setting aside his dumb personality, the biggest real problem with Trump is that he's a climate change denier, and in the long term that could be bad.
My problem is with the GOP. With both Republican-held House and Senate, there's an actual threat of bad bills being written and passed into law if Trump isn't paying attention to what's in them. There are some really scary people with truly backwards mindsets in the GOP that can do far more damage than Trump ever could to the country. Everyone's eyes are going to be on Trump, and what he's going to do, and these people are going to think that's free pass to try and sneak in stuff nobody wants while we're busy looking at Trump.
The foil to this, ironically, might be Trump himself. Trump strongarmed hismelf into being the actual GOP nominee by threatening to go third party and take the votes away with him, which was a genine actual threat as opposed to most third party candidates. And that means he's got some clout that the GOP is afraid of. They may tread carefully, knowing that if they don't play nice, if they do try to introduce some bad stuff, there may actually be chance that trouble may come of it.
And in the aftermath of the official announcement of his nomination we've had an unpredictable whirlwind. the worldwide markets dipped, but then, unpredictably, after he gave his acceptance speech they came back up again. and then Putin, again unpredictably, says he's now ready to go into talks with the US.
the thnig about it is, we have a lot of things on the line that will be coming very soon without anyone's say. self-driving vehicles are almost here, and they are coming whether anybody likes them or not. alternate energy source costs are falling fast, and once there's a serious cost advantage for things other than oil and coal-based energy the market will explode, no matter how any subsidies or whatever happens. this is business, and the business will always go to where the cheapest option is. and this is, strangely, where Trump may actually turn out to be some good. as a businessman, thinking like a businessman, he may surprise us. he may look at the things and say okay, that's the most cost efficient option, we're going with that. his creating jobs may turn out to be in the manufacturing and installation of solar, wind, and whatever else. once the market starts to turn to where there's no looking back, as a businessman he might surprise us and turn too. or not, who knows. He might fix other things. As good as the concept of Obamacare is, it's utter disaster in its implementation. GOP in general wants to get rid of it. Trump wants to replace it. Who knows, he may actually fix it to make it something even better, and something that actually works.
But, there is at least one thing I think we can expect. He probably won't let the GOP bully him. they're not the puppetmaster here, the strings are controlled by someone else. he's not a 'Republican', in the same sense that all the people in the House and the Senate are Republicans. And this could lead to several things happening. The worst would be Trump just doesn't pay attention to what he's signing in, which is a real distinct possibility. But there's also the possibility that he doesn't. That they suddenly realize this isn't what they asked for either, and he's going to play bu different rules. We may end up with, ironically, a same-party deadlock, instead of a cross-party one, with the House/Senate and Trump not liking each other and blocking each other the way it usually would be when they're controlled by the opposing parties.
It's over and done with, Trump is the president whether we like it or not. But, instead of trying to dwell on the bad, let's look forward to the future and see what happens. And remember, the House has only 2-year terms, and the entire House will be up for vote again in 2018. If things go bad, the House will turn then, and then we'll enter a deadlock period.
In short, if Trump acts like the GOP wants him to it will be likely bad. if Trump doesnt let the GOP call the shots then it really is a total wildcard
Date posted: 09 November, 2016 Tags:
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