Let's all face facts: The end goal here was to get a president Pence, so the way they rigged everything was rather well done. How else do you get an unelectable man elected? Overshadow him with a loud brash fireworks show that distracts the simpletons with flashing colors so no one pays any attention to the Voldemort behind him. There was absolutely no way even Pence would have been able to beat that robotic lizard Hillary, so they just snuck him in as the VP because they knew the story everyone wanted to hear was Trump.
Once Trump is impeached we will be left with far worse, so yeah you may hate Hillary which is understandable, but by voting Trump you've ****ed absolutely everyone in the end.
I was chatting about this with a fellow Hoosier in the know on government affairs. I thought was Trump was worse because he is more unstable and Pence is more predictable and malleable. He thought Pence was worse because of his ultraconservative, theologian agenda, and Trump could be convinced to be less extreme. We agreed that is was a tossup about who is worse.
My take is that the approach of this administration will be disastrous, which appears to be move fast without any idea of the effects of their actions, just push your short-sighted, opportunistic agenda through so hard and fast that the opposition can't respond. I am certainly open to the idea of businessmen and outsiders running government agencies, I've seen it succeed before. But when the newly appointed agency heads don't have any interest in learning about the agencies or listening to the people that have deep agency knowledge or experts in the field, it will inevitably lead to poor outcomes, employees will be unhappy, service delivery will suffer, the regulated community will be frustrated by the internal chaos, and the people that benefit from government services, which is all of us, will be affected. Businesses like stability, not chaos.
It's possible to reform government without f-ing up the whole system or bringing it to a complete halt, which is what is happening right now. What it takes is doing more than playing politics, but rather respecting your employees and citizens, setting realistic goals, both short and long term, and actually trying to manage the organization, like a real inspiring organizational leader does, if any of you have encountered one before.
Regarding the legislation coming out of Congress, the idea of cutting taxes and privatizing as much as possible will certainly benefit the wealthy and corporations, but have middling effects for the common man, like massive privatization or defunding of public programs usually does. I would have some respect for Congress if they were not the biggest hypocrites I've ever seen as soon as one of their own got into the office. Heck, they tried to push out ethics and open the door for corruption right away, but somehow that got stopped. All I see is ego, power grabs, fights for control, and an overzealous desire to carry out a fringe agenda they've kept in full uniform on the sidelines for years. It is and will continue to be a circus.
I'll check every now and then to review the trends. I will gladly eat my words if there is some massive turnaround in a couple years.