Arthur E. Sowers is a resident of Harbeson.
Do you remember the 1865 children’s novel, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”? It’s about Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of surreal characters, like the Cheshire Cat and Humpty Dumpty who sat on a wall. Well, I will tell in my story here my version of Donald Trump and Alice in Wonderland. But first, we need some facts.
Fact No. 1: Polls have been showing a solid downward decline in Trump’s approval numbers, nationally and internationally, since the beginning of his second term.
There is no “golden age” in sight, anywhere. The national debt is vastly higher than before. Here is a CBS News article that says people are unhappy: “U.S. consumer sentiment is at the lowest it has ever been, but what is it?” “Consumer confidence” is different than consumer sentiment, and it is measured by a different organization. The latest news is in this article from The Conference Board: “US Consumer Confidence Inched Up in June.” But, if you look at the graphics in that article, it is clear that, in Trump 2.0, things were getting much worse right from the start. And here is another article, from PBS News, that says there are many more unhappy people because of Trump’s budget cuts: “About 3 million people have dropped Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise.” And, in one more PBS News article, we learn what some people are being forced to do to pay the higher healthcare premiums: “Many Americans plan to cut food to afford ACA health insurance, new poll shows.”
Oh, excuse me. There was one guy that did get the “golden age.” It was Trump. Here is just one of many articles on this, from CNN: “How Trump made more than $1 billion on crypto when most of his coin’s investors lost money.” The article is very good and full of a lot of details.
Those who already had some “golden age” and then got on the “Trump train” had a bad day. Read this Forbes article: “‘I’m Now Broke’: Meet The Investors Who Lost Billions Buying Trump Stocks And Crypto.”
Fact No. 2: The “resistance” movement against Trump is growing. This Newsweek article is one of many that came out in early July about the Removal Coalition: “Who Is Jason Watson? Decorated Air Force Major Arrested After Trump Protest.” The Removal Coalition website (removalcoalition.org) shows dozens of anti-Trump grassroots organizations. I learned from an artificial intelligence inquiry that the number of protesters has almost doubled from a year ago. I recall that Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 allows for some kinds of protesting to be recognized as terrorism.
Considering Trump’s bad attitude toward criticism and his established pattern of “manual override” on our civil rights, he could cancel your freedom of speech. There is such significant and subtle nuance in NSPM-7 that one would be wise to read quality commentary such as is in this article at lawfaremedia.org: “The Bondi Memo’s Quiet Rewriting of Domestic Terrorism Rules.”
Fact No. 3: From a recent poll on Trump versus Barack Obama, we learn the following interesting bit of news via CNN: “Americans view Obama far more positively than Trump or Biden, CNN poll finds.” Obama gets a 57% approval to Trump’s 34% approval.
Here is another poll result, reported by PBS News: “Only one in four U.S. adults say Trump policies have helped them, AP-NORC poll finds.” That is further proof that we are getting worse, not better, under Trump.
Human society has always tried to teach or preach that we should pursue “good” things instead of “bad” things. Internet searches proved to me that all religious ideologies, all secular folk stories and fairy tales, and all philosophies and essays on morals and ethics and constructive actions could be said to boil down to doing just two basic default things: You should, first, “work hard” and, second, “behave yourself.” That all means, in other words, “be good.” It’s interesting that, even in secular writings, there is a line of thinking that says you should be doing “good” without even expecting a reward. It is called being “virtuous.” Exceptions to this are few and unpopular.
Trump is surely playing something like this game: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” It is so “philistine” and materialistic. It is about money and power and greed and selfishness. It is not about good, truth, fairness and justice.
I looked up what life is like in countries with corrupt dictators or elite families of plutocrats, kleptocrats and cronies. They are rich and powerful. Underlings get low or zero civil rights. Business involves lots of payoffs and bribery and reciprocal favors. Laws are on paper but not enforced in reality. The media are controlled, and underlings have a lower standard of living than in strong democracies. Trump is already dragging the U.S. into this kind of system. You might be fine if you are in the upper 1% of the socioeconomic ladder. But, if you are much below that, you will grovel.
I got the original Alice and Humpty Dumpty text by searching the internet with this string: “Lewis Carroll script for Alice with Humpty Dumpty.’ Here is the priceless part: “HUMPTY DUMPTY: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less. ALICE: The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things. HUMPTY DUMPTY: The question is which is to be master — that’s all.” So, this is what we have: A “Humpty Trumpy” who decides, all by himself, if a person is guilty, if something is a crime or not and if something is true or fake news. It’s like letting the students, not the teacher, grade their own schoolwork. Or, to put it another way, should Trump get the Nobel Peace Prize because he says he should? No, Trump cannot tell us he has a monopoly on everything.
And, if you’re wondering about that “great fall” part of the Humpty Dumpty story, the whole chapter, including the original charming illustrations, is on the U.K. website, cleavebooks.co.uk/grol/alice/glass06.htm.
Will Trump have a “great fall” at some point in the future?
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
