Trump And Republicans Show Their Heart Of Stone
Reagan had his welfare queens, George H.W. Bush had his Willie Horton and George W. Bush had his precious waterboarding but today’s Republicans make Reagan and the Bushes look like left wing radicals.
The party of trump has given us the freedom to carry concealed weapons, a proliferation of semi-automatic military-style rifles, a Supreme Court to the right of Atilla which has pilfered women’s right to decide on their own bodies and of course Jan. 6. Excuse me if I forgot to mention something.
Now, the great and magnanimous trump is calling for forcefully relocating thousands of homeless people to tents on “large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities.” Out of sight and out of mind is the plan but I have a better name for the tent cities; call them concentration camps. And guess what, there will be many more homeless people as the economy continues to crash, and rents rise and housing becomes even more scarce. By golly, though it will be ghastly, you’ll run out of space outside the cities and will have to set up those tents in the suburbs. Heaven help us.
The man who cannot utter the word “compassion,” also has suggested executing drug dealers although he was vague about whether he meant convicted or suspected drug dealers of just people who look like drug dealers. Police also must return to stop and frisk policies in cities, he said, ignoring the studies that have shown that such policies have not cut crime but have been incredibly successful in fueling hostility to police. And if that’s not enough, the clown who would be king would send the national guard to neighborhoods with high crime rates, translate that into sending the Army, preferably led by people like Kyle Rittenhouse, into predominantly Democratic cities.
The Washington, D.C., ballroom erupted into cheers of “four more years” as trump bloviated at the “America First Agenda Summit” for the first time since he lost his reelection campaign. His call for concentration camps for the homeless elicited salutes of raised arms while the plan to kill drug dealers was met with a resounding call to “kill them all.” The salutes and calls for killing didn’t really happen but they were the likely in the hearts and minds of the followers of the snake who has tried and continue to try to upend our democracy.
The reference to concentration camps is hardly inappropriate given that Hitler imprisoned undesireables that the Nazis defined as mentally ill, physically deformed and of course, the Jews and Gypsies. Undoubtedly, Hitler would have locked away homeless Germans also.
In GOP-trump world, the homeless are like pesky mosquitoes. They litter the landscape, make it difficult to maneuver over them on city streets and they are downright scary to our women and children, who we must protect. Also they beg for money and use squeegees to smudge the windshields of your Esplanades and they sleep on cardboard and cover themselves in the dead of winter with newspapers and they smell and spread disease. And what’s more, if they would only get a job and stop being a drain on you and me.
So who are these terrible, inconsiderate homeless people? They are often people who lost a job or otherwise lost a source of income while the rent on their homes was jacked up to the point of being unaffordable and the only alternative is homelessness. As you may know, inflation is getting worse with rents going up at the fastest rate since 1986.
The tragedy of being homeless is like an open wound that festers, as people struggle to find jobs but lack access to the Internet or a mailing address, critical to locating an employer.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that 7 million extremely low-income renters cannot get affordable homes. Compounding the problem are the numerous laws, zoning changes and public outcry that add up to limited chances of building affordable housing. And in areas where encampments have cropped up, the homeless residents are too often hounded or outlawed by the politicians who are pressured to get the homeless problem under control, meaning out of view.
They may be people with mental illness who by the nature of the disease reject treatment or they may be under a psychiatrist’s care but stop taking the medication when they are feeling better, leading to the ultimate crash. Or they may be too difficult for family members who throw up their hands in surrender.
Being homeless is getting increasingly dangerous, with the proliferation of super potent drugs like Fentanyl and the resulting, tragically common, lethal overdoses. Violence is often rampant when groups of people with severe mental illness and people with fragile bodies and minds congregate. Then there are traffic deaths, much more common among homeless people who are at greater risk by living with many people under bridges or beside freeway ramps.
They are prone to premature deaths from treatable and often preventable conditions like heart disease, diabetes and COVID-19. Throw climate change into the lethal stew and more homeless people are dying of heat exhaustion on the all too common blistering hot days of summer or of exposure to the bitter cold that is becoming more the rule than the exception.
The Los Angeles county health department’s Center for Health Impact Evaluation found that between 2017 and 2019, homeless people in Los Angeles were 35 times more likely to die of drug or alcohol overdose, 16 times more likely to die of traffic-related injuries, such as being hit by a car, and 14 times more likely to be murdered.
One expert told The Guardian for a Feb. 7, 2020, story, that on average, homelessness cuts 25 percent off of a person’s life and that people without a home are three times more likely to die prematurely than those living in homes. The Guardian reported that the number of people dying while homeless has surged dramatically in the past five years. It found that 18,000 people died homeless over five years in encampments, on sidewalks or in shelters, including 5,000 deaths in 2020 alone. The National Health Care for the Homeless Council said many deaths are not counted and the total number of deaths is actually between 17,000 and 40,000 every year.
A family becomes homeless because problems become too much to bare. It may be a loss of a job, a family break-up through divorce, a veteran suffering from post traumatic stress disorder who cannot keep a job, the death of a spouse or physical, sexual or emotional violence where leaving and becoming homeless is the only escape. It may be substance abuse that has consumed a person’s home life, to the point where he is no longer allowed at home.
Those hard-hearted politicians who would punish the homeless for their plight may very well find members of their own families and even themselves one day without a home. And then who would care?
By the way, “America First Agenda Summit,” an oxymoron if I ever heard one, which hosted the awful trump speech, is sponsored by the America First Policy Institute, another oxymoron. That is where trump spoke, and he is just a moron. The American Policy Institute supports “liberty, free enterprise, national greatness, American military superiority, foreign-policy engagement in the American interest, and the primacy of American workers, families, and communities in all we do.” It is a non-profit research institute that is non-partisan though curiously it is loaded to the gills with right wing Republicans and trump supporters.
Its chair is Linda McMahon, administrator of the Small Business Administration under trump and founder with her husband, Vince of Titan Sports Inc., now the WWE or World Wrestling Entertainment.
The rest of the officers is an employment agency for former trump staffers.
The vice chair is Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, under trump.
The president and CEO is Brooke L. Rollins, director of the Domestic Policy Council, under trump.
The chief strategy officer is Chad Wolf, the brief secretary of homeland security, under trump.
The chief operating officer is Doug Hoelscher, director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, under trump.
The chief marketing officer is Nick Barbknecht, associate director of White House Intergovernmental Affairs, under trump.
The chief of staff, Constitutional Litigation Partnership and advisor, Center for the American Child, is Catharine Cypher, spokeswoman for Melania Trump.
The chief development officer is Martin Gillespie, former director of Donor Relations and Senior Advisor to the President for Corporate Relations at The ultra conservative, right wing Heritage Foundation.
The chief engagement officer is Ashley Hayek, former National Coalition Director for the 2020 trump-Pence presidential campaign.
The research director is Aaron Hedlund, Chief Domestic Economist and Senior Adviser at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, under trump.
The Chief Government Affairs Officer is Renee Hudson, Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, under trump.
The Chief Communications Officer is Marc Lotter, formerly Director of Strategic Communications for the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign.
The senior advisor and director, Center for the American Worker, is Rachael Slobodien, former Chief of Staff for the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) under trump.
The chief of staff and director, Center for New Frontiers, is Steven M. Smith, former Special Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the White House Office of American Innovation and the Domestic Policy Council, under trump.
The general counsel is Jessica Hart Steinmann, director for the Office of Victims of Crime at the Department of Justice, under trump.
Other notable trump bigwigs listed as chairs of various committees include David Bernhardt, former Secretary of the Department of the Interior, under trump.
Pam Bondi is chair, Constitutional Litigation Partnership and co-chair, Center for Law and Justice. In 2020, Bondi was one of trump’s defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial.
Jack Brewer is chair, Center for Opportunity Now and vice chair, Center for 1776. He was an advisory board member of Black Voices for Trump.
Kellyanne Conway Chair, is chair for the Center for the American Child. She was assistant to and senior counselor to trump and coined the phrase “alternative facts.”
Fred Fleitz, vice chair, Center for American Security, former Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, under trump.
Bobby Jindal, chair, Center for a Healthy America, is a former Louisana governor who once called trump a “narcissist” and an “egomaniacal madman” but later said he would support trump because “electing Donald Trump would be the second-worst thing we could do this November, better only than electing Hillary Clinton to serve as the third term for the Obama administration’s radical policies.”
Alveda King Chair, Center for the American Dream,was on the advisory board of Black Voices for Trump for the 2020 campaign.
Robert Lighthizer, chair, Center for American Trade, was U.S. Trade Representative, under trump.
Rick Perry, chair, Center for Energy Independence, was Secretary of Energy, under trump.
John Ratcliffe, co-chair, Center for American Security, Director of National Intelligence, under trump.
Scott Turner, chair, Center for Education Opportunity, was director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, under trump.
Paula White-Cain, chair, Center for American Values, was chair of the evangelical advisory board in trump.
Matthew Whitaker, c-chair, Center for Law and Justice, was acting Attorney General, under trump.
Richard Valentine Burkhauser, member, Board of Academic Advisors, was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, for trump.
Kevin Hassett, chair, Board of Academic Advisors, former Senior Advisor and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, for trump.
Casey Mulligan, member, Board of Academic Advisors, was chief economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, for trump.
Kiron K. Skinner, member, Board of Academic Advisors, former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, for trump.
Cale Clingenpeel, visiting fellow, was senior adviser to the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, for trump.
Etc., Etc., Etc.