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Dan Simpson: America isn?t moving toward the future
May 10, 2017 12:00 AM
By Dan Simpson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
James Comey, when he was still FBI director, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week it made him ?mildly nauseous? to consider that informing Congress on Oct. 28 about new emails in the Hillary Clinton investigation ?might have had some impact on the election.? It was clearly an ?October surprise,? at least for Ms. Clinton and the Democrats if not for Donald J. Trump and the Republicans. His remarks reminded me that I am feeling more than mildly bilious at the trip that Mr. Trump and his putative leaders are so far giving the American people.
What American voters did on Nov. 8, not unlike what the British did in voting for Brexit last June, stands in contrast to the sensible French vote on Sunday for the centrist Emmanuel Macron, 39. We somehow seemed to have missed the signal that it was time to change the generation in charge this election, narrowing our own choice to between a 69-year-old and a 70-year-old.
So what we have instead of moving forward to the future is what looks like a relentless withdrawal into the past, making America great again, as it was before all these newfangled ideas came into place, such as health care for all Americans, just taxation, waging war only in cases of national interest, safe drinking water ? can you imagine that we now have to worry about that? ? and nonreligion-based travel.
Are these white- or dyed-haired, mostly old white men, such as those photographed surrounding Mr. Trump rejoicing about House passage of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the ones steering our ship now, as it appears they are? Those steering the steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi in the 19th century were at least aware of the logs in the current and the danger of fire from the boilers even though they nonetheless produced some notable disasters, particularly when they raced each other. ?Here come the ?Paul Ryan? and the ?Mitch McConnell?! ?
Health care is scariest. The House has now passed a bill, to Mr. Trump?s applause, that, if enacted, would potentially take health care away from 24 million Americans and raise health care costs a lot for older people. Medicaid, the safety net for the poor, elderly and chronically ill, would be left, with limits, in the tender, caring hands of, in most cases, Republican-controlled state legislatures. (Pennsylvania has one. We know what it does.) This is supposedly America, the richest country in the world, in the 21st century.
Two barriers exist between us and this major steamboat fire, with us on deck or in the water. The first is the Senate, where we can count on inter- and intra-party conflict to mangle the House bill, not, in the case of most senators, on the basis of compassion for the poor, elderly and helpless. The second is the lurking electorate.
The tax bill is, not surprisingly, a potential cornucopia for the rich, with slim pickings for the poor and more disaster for the tormented middle class. We don?t know how well it will take care of Mr. Trump and his family since his taxes remain a secret from us, the normal taxpaying peasants. If the tax reform bill were passed, again very much in question given the state of play in the capital of the empire, we should be very suspicious of what it would mean for the Trump brand.
What we do know is that senior White House adviser Jared Kushner?s sister is just coming back from a trip to China where she has been hawking EB-5 visas to Chinese moguls at $500,000 a pop for investments in Kushner family real estate.
Overseas, in the Syria issue, Russia?s best hand in the Middle East, Mr. Trump?s intrepid team has let Iran, Russia and Turkey band together to create ?safe zones,? that is to say, zones where American aircraft are not supposed to fly. The degree of U.S. abstraction from the Syrian conflict that new step represents is certainly in the category of what I think we should be doing with respect to the Syrian war. The part that I find disturbing is the Iran-Russia-Turkey alliance piece. The United States should have the kind of effective relationships with all three that would cause us to be dealt in, not out, of this particular game. The United States, with the negotiation of the Iran nuclear agreement, had the basis for building a reasonable relationship with Iran, even the Iran of the ayatollahs. Turkey was and is a longtime NATO ally, on our side in the Syria and Iraq wars. Russia, well, what happened to supposed Trump-Putin fellowship?
Back home, where is the infrastructure construction/reconstruction piece that almost everyone liked about Mr. Trump?s various promises? He makes it look as if he is thinking of spending the money instead on a new ?re-elect the war president? attack on North Korea. (The trouble with that as a political move is that most Americans don?t see Kim Jong Un?s Korea as a real threat to us, perhaps expecting our hackers to do a Stuxnet on Pyongyang.)
In the meantime, at home, even now in Pittsburgh, it looks like the water problems in Flint, Mich., were probably not unique. Then there are the earthquakes from fracking and the various cataclysms that are probably prompted by climate change. Presidential actions to cancel measures to deal with that phenomenon are also on Mr. Trump?s list to be held up at his desk, surrounded by adoring subjects, with his signature on them.
Then there are his attempts to impose a travel ban on people from Muslim countries Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. I think it is absolutely vital that we not let in people from the ones where we are waging war. Think what a shock it would be to the well-being of the 320 million Americans to let in pitiful children from Yemen. What have we come to?
The last line of F. Scott Fitzgerald?s ?The Great Gatsby? is, ?So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.? That?s exactly what we are doing. This is not progress. The current in the Ohio River can be 9 miles an hour. One cannot row for long against that. For America this is ridiculous.
Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1976).
Dan Simpson: America isn?t moving toward the future
May 10, 2017 12:00 AM
By Dan Simpson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
James Comey, when he was still FBI director, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week it made him ?mildly nauseous? to consider that informing Congress on Oct. 28 about new emails in the Hillary Clinton investigation ?might have had some impact on the election.? It was clearly an ?October surprise,? at least for Ms. Clinton and the Democrats if not for Donald J. Trump and the Republicans. His remarks reminded me that I am feeling more than mildly bilious at the trip that Mr. Trump and his putative leaders are so far giving the American people.
What American voters did on Nov. 8, not unlike what the British did in voting for Brexit last June, stands in contrast to the sensible French vote on Sunday for the centrist Emmanuel Macron, 39. We somehow seemed to have missed the signal that it was time to change the generation in charge this election, narrowing our own choice to between a 69-year-old and a 70-year-old.
So what we have instead of moving forward to the future is what looks like a relentless withdrawal into the past, making America great again, as it was before all these newfangled ideas came into place, such as health care for all Americans, just taxation, waging war only in cases of national interest, safe drinking water ? can you imagine that we now have to worry about that? ? and nonreligion-based travel.
Are these white- or dyed-haired, mostly old white men, such as those photographed surrounding Mr. Trump rejoicing about House passage of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the ones steering our ship now, as it appears they are? Those steering the steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi in the 19th century were at least aware of the logs in the current and the danger of fire from the boilers even though they nonetheless produced some notable disasters, particularly when they raced each other. ?Here come the ?Paul Ryan? and the ?Mitch McConnell?! ?
Health care is scariest. The House has now passed a bill, to Mr. Trump?s applause, that, if enacted, would potentially take health care away from 24 million Americans and raise health care costs a lot for older people. Medicaid, the safety net for the poor, elderly and chronically ill, would be left, with limits, in the tender, caring hands of, in most cases, Republican-controlled state legislatures. (Pennsylvania has one. We know what it does.) This is supposedly America, the richest country in the world, in the 21st century.
Two barriers exist between us and this major steamboat fire, with us on deck or in the water. The first is the Senate, where we can count on inter- and intra-party conflict to mangle the House bill, not, in the case of most senators, on the basis of compassion for the poor, elderly and helpless. The second is the lurking electorate.
The tax bill is, not surprisingly, a potential cornucopia for the rich, with slim pickings for the poor and more disaster for the tormented middle class. We don?t know how well it will take care of Mr. Trump and his family since his taxes remain a secret from us, the normal taxpaying peasants. If the tax reform bill were passed, again very much in question given the state of play in the capital of the empire, we should be very suspicious of what it would mean for the Trump brand.
What we do know is that senior White House adviser Jared Kushner?s sister is just coming back from a trip to China where she has been hawking EB-5 visas to Chinese moguls at $500,000 a pop for investments in Kushner family real estate.
Overseas, in the Syria issue, Russia?s best hand in the Middle East, Mr. Trump?s intrepid team has let Iran, Russia and Turkey band together to create ?safe zones,? that is to say, zones where American aircraft are not supposed to fly. The degree of U.S. abstraction from the Syrian conflict that new step represents is certainly in the category of what I think we should be doing with respect to the Syrian war. The part that I find disturbing is the Iran-Russia-Turkey alliance piece. The United States should have the kind of effective relationships with all three that would cause us to be dealt in, not out, of this particular game. The United States, with the negotiation of the Iran nuclear agreement, had the basis for building a reasonable relationship with Iran, even the Iran of the ayatollahs. Turkey was and is a longtime NATO ally, on our side in the Syria and Iraq wars. Russia, well, what happened to supposed Trump-Putin fellowship?
Back home, where is the infrastructure construction/reconstruction piece that almost everyone liked about Mr. Trump?s various promises? He makes it look as if he is thinking of spending the money instead on a new ?re-elect the war president? attack on North Korea. (The trouble with that as a political move is that most Americans don?t see Kim Jong Un?s Korea as a real threat to us, perhaps expecting our hackers to do a Stuxnet on Pyongyang.)
In the meantime, at home, even now in Pittsburgh, it looks like the water problems in Flint, Mich., were probably not unique. Then there are the earthquakes from fracking and the various cataclysms that are probably prompted by climate change. Presidential actions to cancel measures to deal with that phenomenon are also on Mr. Trump?s list to be held up at his desk, surrounded by adoring subjects, with his signature on them.
Then there are his attempts to impose a travel ban on people from Muslim countries Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. I think it is absolutely vital that we not let in people from the ones where we are waging war. Think what a shock it would be to the well-being of the 320 million Americans to let in pitiful children from Yemen. What have we come to?
The last line of F. Scott Fitzgerald?s ?The Great Gatsby? is, ?So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.? That?s exactly what we are doing. This is not progress. The current in the Ohio River can be 9 miles an hour. One cannot row for long against that. For America this is ridiculous.
Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1976).
