When A Reality Show Becomes Reality

Trump is not a real economist; he is just playing one on his latest reality show, “The Great Republican Candidate!” If I did not know better I would think he was a parody or the leading character in a particularly stinging satire. The role he is playing is the political equivalent of a rogue bull leading a stampede of dumb asses. Since the GOP herders were not able to head him off they are now divided about what course to pursue. Some of them are falling in line behind him while others are hanging back in the hopes of being able to say “I told you so” when he leads the herd off the cliff!

What has real economists wetting themselves is that Trump's incredible ignorance and naivete about the national debt and the world economy are causing him to advocate some really dangerous actions. In regard to the national debt it appears that Trump has embraced the iterations of the Greedy Old Plutocrats without understanding their code. They do not see the debt per se as a problem. Their objection is really about what the borrowed money is paying for, or more accurately the fact that they are not making a profit off of the programs the borrowed money funds. If you privatize those programs the plutocrats will go to great lengths to defend the spending no matter how wasteful that spending may be. If you do not believe me, just look at the attempts to privatize Social Security, Medicare, and even education, and ask yourself how much money we waste on the military industrial complex. Everyone who has looked at it will tell you we are not getting our money's worth from defense contractors, yet there is always this absurd call to spend more rather than becoming more efficient.

All right, I will admit that it is easy to see why the Trumpster might be confused. After all, starve the beast is a subterfuge. All of those dire warnings about the national debt are because you cannot whip up hatred for programs that actually help people unless you are able to connect those programs to something people perceive as a threat. And the fear of being indebted to other countries goes clear back to the very beginning of our republic. A perfect example of how we as a nation have reacted to this fear is the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling dates back to WWI and was designed to make it easier to finance the war through the sale of bonds by removing the requirement for congress to approve each issuance of the bonds to be sold. The problem with the debt ceiling, however, is that it does not serve its intended purpose. Rather than preventing us from incurring debts it gives the lunatics (usually ignorant Republicans) a convenient way to repudiate our debts and thereby blow up the world's economy! In recent decades it has become the tool of economic terrorists who have gone much farther than the Greedy Old Plutocrats are prepared to go in opposing the debt and the disfavored programs. Even the Koch brothers were telling Ted Cruz we had to raise the debt ceiling the last time it was raised

Enter the Trumpster. Most Presidential candidates are smart enough to realize they do not know all that a President needs to know. Most Presidential candidates are smart enough to set aside their egos and hire experts to advise them about the economy and other issues. Donald Trump is not that bright. He is acting as if he believes the myth that businessmen are better at managing the economy than real economists are. If you follow his business model it is perfectly reasonable to say debt is power. If you owe the bank 50 thousand dollars the bank owns you. If you owe the bank 50 million dollars you own the bank, and you can make the bank discount your debt if that is what you want it to do. But that does not mean that the most powerful nation in the world can or should force its creditors to discount its debts. If the Trump Organization defaults on the payment of its debts there will be a negative impact on the market but the creditors who suffer the loss will not take the national or world economy down with them! If the united states defaults on its debts or refuses to pay the full amount of its debts as Trump is advocating the currency market will be thrown into turmoil and stock markets will crash. What Trump is advocating is an insane remedy for a problem that is largely non-existent. I guess that is what happens when the line between a reality show and reality becomes so blurred.

Why It Matters

Hillary Clinton has high unfavorability ratings; the latest poll I saw indicated that 52% of the respondents have an unfavorable opinion of her. Obviously many people, including we Democrats who are feeling the Bern, are not in love with Hillary. But even her greatest detractors have to admit that she is accomplished and competent, which is more than we can say about Donald Trump. Over 70% of the respondents demonstrated a reasonable political IQ by expressing an unfavorable opinion of him! Okay, I know we want much more than Hillary will even try to deliver, but there is too much at stake for anyone to vote for Trump or to stay at home during the general election. Yes, I am telling you to hold your nose and swallow the only anti-Trump medicine that will be available. If you cannot do that at least realize there is a very grave danger that is both of and separate from Trump. What I am talking about here are the State Houses, The House of Representatives, and particularly the Senate!

According to Hedrick Smith of Ourfuture.org the failure of all the people the Koch brothers backed in the Republican Presidential primaries has the Koch's shrugging in a gesture of futility. In regard to the Presidential race the Koch brothers have been rendered irrelevant by the nomination of Donald Trump, and that is not the worst of it for them. To put it in the vernacular, they are scared as all hell of what rolls downhill! They and other right wing plutocrats are very afraid of losing a majority in the Senate, perhaps in Congress, and in some state houses. The Senate is particularly problematic for the Republicans because if they lose just six of the twenty four Republican seats up for grabs they will lose their majority in the Senate. That is why the Koch brothers have allocated $4 million thus far to support Republican Senatorial candidates in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Do I need to tell you about a few of the things at risk in the Republican controlled Senate? Do I need to remind you of the dear ayatollah letter that threatened negotiations with Iran, or the inability to vote on a bill authorizing the use of force against ISIS, or the many assaults on Planned Parenthood, Roe v. Wade, the minimum wage, and earned benefit programs such as unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, not to mention the Republicans shutting down the government and threatening the full faith and credit of the United States in an effort to deprive millions of people access to affordable health care?

Ah, but control of the Senate is even more important than the things listed above indicate. Thanks to the hyper partisan and outrageous refusal of Republican Senators to even consider a proposed nominee for the Supreme Court until after the Presidential election what is at stake in regard to who is President and/or who controls the Senate has never been greater. I know most pundits say that the Supreme Court has very rarely been a successful issue in general elections. But we have now experienced the worst Supreme Court since the Civil War, and most people disagree with the Republicans refusing to even consider anyone President Obama proposes to fill the vacancy on the court. Come on people, whoever replaces Antonin Scalia is likely to be on that court for at least twenty years. What this horrible Republican Court has all ready consistently threatened are voter's rights, a woman's right to choose, a property owners right to keep a local government from forcing him to sell his property for commercial purposes, and our ability to sue corporations for damages they have caused. The bottom line is that we the people will never be able to take back our government as long as the Republicans can dictate whether or not a majority of the Supreme Court will be comprised of reactionary injustices who block all meaningful reforms and elevate the political influence of money with decisions like Citizens United!

Please do not give me an argument about the futility of making the Supreme Court an issue. Even a large percentage of independents want to overturn Citizens United. And given the Trumpster's views on eminent domain Kelo v. New London is a decision that really twists right wing panties into a wad. It is up to the candidates to take the Supreme Court issue out of the realm of the abstract by pinning their opponents down on specific decisions. It is up to us to help our party regain control of state houses that have gerrymandered  congressional districts. It is also up to us to give a Democratic President a responsible Congress that believes in governing, or in the worst case scenario a Congress that will prevent Trump from doing as much damage as we fear.