Moyers: Trump Turning American Democracy into Demolition Derby
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bill-moyers-donald-trump-flattening-our-democracy-monster-truck
Were a week into the Trump administration and its pretty obvious what hes up to. First, Donald Trump is running a demolition derby: He wants to demolish everything he doesnt like, and he doesnt like a lot, especially when it comes to government.
Like one of those demolition drivers on a speedway, he keeps ramming his vehicle against all the others, especially government policies and programs and agencies that protect people who dont have his wealth, power or privilege. Affordable health care for working people? Smash it. Consumer protection against predatory banks and lenders? Run over it. Rules and regulations that rein in rapacious actors in the market? Knock em down. Fair pay for working people? Crush it. And on and on.
Trump came to Washington to tear the government down for parts, and as far as we can tell, he doesnt seem to have anything at all in mind to replace it except turning back the clock to when business took what it wanted and left behind desperate workers, dirty water and polluted air.
In this demolition derby, Trump seems to have the wholehearted support of the Republican Party, which loathes government as much as it worships the market as god. Remember Thomas Franks book, The Wrecking Crew? Published in 2008, it remains one of the best political books of the past quarter-century. Frank took the measure of an unholy alliance: the century-old business crusade against government, the conservative ideology that looks on government as evil (except when its enriching its allies), and the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Karl Rove the one that had just produced eight years of crony capitalism and private plunder.