As Agatha Christie’s famous fictional detective, Hercule Poirot, liked to say, “in time, all will become clear.” Well, in case we still had any doubts, lately quite a bit has become clear.
What could be more obvious than why Russian president Vladimir Putin is defending his old buddy, Donald Trump, and claiming the former president’s indictments are evidence the U.S. is corrupt and American democracy is a failure? There is nothing Putin would like more than to have Trump get back in office and end America’s support for Ukraine, thus handing Russia a victory in its barbaric war of aggression. Is there any question that Putin supported Trump for president in 2016 because he knew he would make a good Russian patsy? Putin wanted Trump to weaken NATO and the western alliance so he could have his way in Europe (e.g., Poland, the Baltics), and now, given the Russian military’s failure in Ukraine, he needs him more than ever.
Nobody knows how many of his opponents Putin has disposed of during his reign of quiet terror. Trump is an aspiring dictator who has threatened vengeance on his enemies if he is reelected. Talk about showing us who he is—we’d better damn-well believe him! The horrible image displayed in Trump’s now infamous mugshot—an angry, vengeful force of “retribution” that will never be placated—tells us everything we need to know. Do we really want an American version of Putin, with people being shot out of the sky and falling out windows at his whim?
As Liz Cheney Said, “Putin has Now Officially Endorsed the ‘Putin-Wing’ of the Republican Party.”
The United Auto Workers’ strike—which presents the stark contrast between management and workers, profits and people—is another good example of reality finally coming into focus. According to UAW president Shawn Fain, speaking of America’s three largest automakers:
“In the last decade, these companies made a quarter of a trillion dollars in profit. In the last six months, they made $21 billion in profit. In the last four years, the price of cars went up 30 percent. CEO pay went up 40 percent. No one said a word. No one had any complaints about that . . . And then he went on to talk about the tremendous double standard that pervades our society . . . But now workers ask for their fair share of the fruits of their labor, and all of a sudden, it’s the end of the world. They say if we strike it will wreck the economy. It’s not that we’re going to wreck the economy. We’re going to wreck their economy, the economy that only works for the billionaire class. It doesn’t work for the working class.”
Never Mind Failing the Working Class, Trump’s “MAGAnomics” Didn’t Work for Anyone but the Top 1%.
Mr. Fain’s statement captures the crux of the “Trump economy,” a colossal fraud (based on a fraudulent “middle class tax cut”) that most certainly worked for the top 1% and the Republican donor class, but not the vast majority of Americans, who fell further behind as economic inequality worsened. Touted by the former president as “the greatest economy ever,” the tax cuts that financed it stuck the American Taxpayer (and future generations) with the largest deficit in American history. This is what President Biden labeled as “MAGAnomics” last week, a fraudulent exercise in “trickle down” economics that was financed on the backs of the American people, as per-usual.
Given the current threat to democracy, both in the U.S. and around the world, we can’t afford to ignore the clear choices before us. Doctor Martin Luther King may have said the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice (maybe not Poirot’s version of justice, mind you), but rather than wait for a slowly bending arc we should take the initiative and act upon what we know to be true.