Now is the time for patriotic dissent.
By Ilana Novick / AlterNet December 12, 2016
Dissent is patriotic and Americans should be grateful to Charles Blow for reminding us of that. When the Associated Press publishes a puff piece on the KKK, and other writers at the New York Times invoke "the vexing Jewish Question" in an article on rebranding white nationalists, without explaining that this phrase paved the way for the horrific "final solution," we have at least one columnist who refuses to normalize. In Monday's column, Blow reminds us that, with his picks of an education secretary who hates public schools, an EPA head who denies climate change, an anti-abortion and anti-public health activist to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Trump is "trying to destroy these agencies from the inside out, the way a worm slowly devours an apple."
He doesn't want to run the government, he wants to blow it up, and to do so specifically with officials who donated generously to his corrupt campaign. As a Washington Post article quoted by Blow points out, "Trump’s nominees gave $11.6 million to support his presidential bid, his allied super PACs and the Republican National Committee, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal campaign filings.” He also reminds us of Trump's defense for this decision: “I want people that made a fortune!”
Yes, the man who spent months decrying Hillary Clinton's Goldman Sachs speaking fees while not disclosing his own tax returns is auctioning off his cabinet to the highest bidders. It's enough to send Americans into a mass despair, as Blow is well aware. "I know that it can feel like we are all drowning in a deluge of compounding outrages, with every headline about this impending administration appearing to one-up the last," he writes. This outrage however, can be energizing, and, plus, if the Pew study that Blow citesis any indication, we are far from alone:
“Trump also receives low marks for his initial cabinet choices and other high level appointments. By 51 percent to 40 percent, more say they disapprove than approve of the cabinet choices and appointments Trump has made so far. In contrast, majorities approved of the choices made” by the past four presidents-elect. “In fact, approval ratings for Trump’s cabinet choices are 18 points lower than for the next lowest-rated president-elect.”
Just in case you're still ready to fall into a four year nap, Blow brings out the big guns of the Founding Fathers, in this case Samuel Adams, to encourage resistance among those who were considering "retiring into private life":
“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experiencd Patriots to prevent its Ruin. There may be more Danger of this, than some, even of our well disposd Citizens may imagine. If the People should grant their Suffrages to Men, only because they conceive them to have been Friends to the Country, without Regard to the necessary Qualifications for the Places they are to fill, the Administration of Government will become a mere Farce, and our pub-lick Affairs will never be put on the Footing of solid Security.”
Read more
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/charles-blow-trump-destroying-our-government-inside-out-way-worm-slowly-devours-apple
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