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POLICY CHOICES INDICATE NATION IN GREAT PERIL

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

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emocracy must prevail in America because the rest of the country has become so dearly fragile, like the tinder dry hills above the Pacific Ocean or the scattered towns along tornado alley.

If the hurricanes don’t get you from the Florida Keys, the Midterm elections will reduce you to shreds.

Votes for the Governing Party will silence the critics for the remainder of the term.

Votes against the Presidential Administration will check Presidential Power, and slow down change until the term ends and democracy decides on who will be the next President for the next four years.

This time around, United States President Donald Trump may lose what effectiveness he had scratched out for himself with the use of Executive Power, and a Cabinet of MAGA loyalists.

Trump being eased out may be too light of a sentence for his heart and love for America, as he may yet be overcome with grief in not being able to stand for reelection in 2028, although he has developed several Presidential successors from the MAGA movement to succeed him.

Democracy must prevail in a divided nation otherwise the nation will dissolve or otherwise collide into each other. If blue Democrats versus red Republicans was not divisive enough, Trump further polarized the electorate by stumping to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.  

Because, you know, if Trump is fighting to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, what is everyone else fighting for.

Influencer Elon Musk believes that the world needs a strong America that can protect smaller nations from mega predatory economies like China and Russia. China and Russia are imperial, military powers that must be checked with size in kind by such political entities as the European Union and America.

And besides, the rest of the world can no longer do too much about it, anyway. Every once in a while, America falls sideways and causes more harm than good on the world stage.

America though has protected the world, perhaps for selfish reasons, by fighting the many incantations of tyranny, by pushing back Nazi Germany, holding in check the Russian Communists in Europe, and by stopping the Chinese Cultural Revolution from gobbling up the Asia Pacific dominoes.

And since 9/11, the United States Central Intelligence Agency has had oversight of the global anti-terrorist security network. No doubt Britain, France and Germany check terrorism, but the USA has had more motivation after the massive and humiliating attacks on American soil.

The main offence taken from the current Administration in Washington DC is from the tariff policy, the war policy and the immigration policy, and the increased costs of living in the United States, and around the world, that has coincided with these manspreading objectives.

The world intelligence red box knows, without much having to be said, that all three policies are signs of a nation desperate to reclaim America for Americans, because the response to these three policies is guaranteed to be negative and cause fundamental shifts in global relations.

Trump has waged a policy war on friends and enemies alike, and in the process turned friends into enemies and enemies into, well what is worse than an enemy other than a friend who has become one.

Trump claims that tariffs are bringing back high paying manufacturing jobs to America, included the precious autoplants, such as Audi and Toyota. Americans love the automobile as much as the French love wine and cheese.

Canadians continue to ignore all the warnings, and decidedly allowed the importation of inexpensive electric vehicles from China, although 39,000 units at $39,490 CDN will not dent the domestic car market north of the 49^th, like Chinese manufacturing did to the appliance industry, with approximately 1.9 million vehicles sold in Canada annually.

China is ever present, because Americans have spent so much time destroying each other’s integrity that the Chinese have taken over manufacturing to the point that one might wonder what Americans are doing for work in America – especially when they cannot sell soya beans to China.

Former United States President Barack Obama has been rallying on behalf of Democrats to swing the power away from the Trump Administration by encouraging America to vote in Democratic party candidates for the Lower House, Senate and Gubernatorial races.

While Trump uses degrading and derogatory scapegoating phraseology to loyal MAGA supporters at political rallies, Obama uses superlatives and references to the Civil Rights Movement that began before he was born.

Midterms are so contentious and so penultimate to democracy in the United States that even past Presidents are summoned to the political alter with the hope of catching bits of Primetime on the networks for the party.

The swing of power in the American Republic is a sophisticated matrix of checks and balances, refreshed every two years, while Presidential power is limited to two four-year terms.

Obama is on overtime given the dearth of 2028 Presidential hopefuls among the Democrats.

The most limiting part of Presidential power is that Congressional elections are held four times during the two, four-year Presidential terms. Change slows even more so if you only get one four-year term, like US President Jimmy Carter.

Don’t get me wrong though, not everyone in Washington DC loses their Congressional seats all at once, every two years, only 435 Representatives in the Lower House, and 1/3 of the Senate.

The Upper House of 100 Senators has veto power over federal legislation passed by the Lower House of Representatives. Senators are elected for a 6-year term, but only one of three batches of 33 or so Senators are thrown into reelection mode during any particular election.

A President could help sweep in 33 Senators during his election year, only to stand-by while 34 other Senators are forced to leave two years later during the Midterms.

The Senate must pass legislation with a majority of votes, which amounts to a power check if the Democrats control the Senate, and the President is a Republican. Americans may call this a power balance, forcing the Oval Office and the Senators to negotiate and compromise, but surely those elected politicians with power, who lose power, call the sudden shift a fuddle duddle.

And to boot, while change may occur in who holds power, Democrats or Republicans, the American Republic may remain deadlocked with little change occurring within two years. Change that has occurred may even be clawed back when the balance of power flexes.

If that ain’t enough of a check, Governors from 36 states will be elected this Midterm cycle in a political system that shares power between the federal government in Washington DC and the state legislatures in the state capitols.

Where does the Republic stand then?

Trump has aggressively agitated a majority of democratic minded voters, or just pissed off Americans on the other side of three very polarizing policy issues.

The political conundrum is evident in that Trump is right and wrong, and Obama is right or wrong.

Trump’s immigration policy includes a border wall with Mexico, right?

Obama’s immigration policy involves providing a deferred amnesty for those illegal immigrants already in the country, and full rights of citizenship to their children born in America.

Obama is opposed to roving ICE Patrols. You got that right!

Obama’s war policy is that no war is a good war, and let everyone else fight it out amongst themselves, wrong?

And when in doubt, assassinate the Jihadists.

Trump’s foreign policy involves the supply and demand of oil, and something about Latino Dictators on the lamb from the FBI, and Jihadists with nuclear weapons, wrong?

Trump’s economic policy is to gaslight trading partners with crazy high tariffs until they build automobile and microcomputer chip plants on US soil, right?

Obama accelerated globalization and then called on the world to install climate controls.

Right and/or wrong…let democracy prevail.