"All The World's A Stage" (& Trump's The Clown):
Summing Up The Big Ideas Of Trump 2.0, Plus A Recollection Of Rhode Island Political News
“All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players,” as Billy Shakespeare once wrote.
But not all players are created equal. Some play the parts of statesman, and others play the role of fools. Zelenskyy the former comedian, ironically enough, has shown himself to be a true statesman. A statesman in the tradition of Churchill, even down to his choice of clothing while his country is in a war for its very survival.
Throughout all the obstacles, including those put up by our own American government, Zelenskyy has stood drawn and has even outmaneuvered Putin at key points to expose the shallowness of Russia’s “outreach” for peace.
But if he’s the statesman, who’s the fool? Welp, the current “Leader of the Free World,” Donald J. Trump. Yes, the clown in the White House seems as far from his coveted Nobel Peace Prize as he could possibly be. He SAID he would end the war in Ukraine before he even got into office. He DID, well, nothing. He is currently 130 days into his term, and the war is still raging.
His mission to charm Putin into peace through unofficial channels like his former business partner Steve Witkoff has gone nowhere. If anything, it has gone so badly that Trump has been forced to admit (again) that his buddy Putin might be “tapping us along” (no Donald; tapping YOU along; there is a difference).
As he put it himself, “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
Really, Donald? The madman who said two years ago that Ukraine was run by a Neo-Nazi government headed by a Jewish-Ukrainian comedian has gone CRAZY??!! Wow! Stop the presses, everyone!
Anybody who knows anything about Putin knows that he went crazy long ago—probably around the time he put himself into self-imposed isolation from his fear of COVID (you see, RFK Jr.? COVID is real). They would also know that he has been lying his way out of trouble since he first entered the world stage in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But you see, back then, people had reason to believe Putin, because he was a fresh face with an uncertain record. What’s Trump's excuse?
None. And Trump knows it. And he’s embarrassed. Here, TACO (“Trump Always Chickens Out”) becomes TAMALES (“Trump Always Makes America Look Embarrassingly Stupid”).
Meanwhile, after just about 70 days of a full blockade on Gaza of unimaginably hellish proportions, Trump and Netanyahu have finally let trickles of aid come to desperately starving Gazans. Maybe this is worthy of a Trump Nobel Peace Prize.
Oh wait. Netanyahu’s government plans to control 75% of Gaza in the next two months. Not exactly a plan for a lasting and stable peace, is it? More like a recipe for a Trump-inspired humanitarian and moral disaster.
Onto the short recap of the week:
For those who want to stop Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral bid, I am no insider of NYC politics, but it seems to be based on the news reports that you better consolidate behind NY State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. And for all of Cuomo’s charismatic connections to the late Mario Cuomo’s talk of inequality, let me tell you something from family experience: Andrew is no Mario.
The US Supreme Court is one step closer to giving Donald Trump the power of the unitary executive to single handedly fire members of the National Labor Relations Board.
DOJ purger Emil Bove may be appointed to one of the top federal appeals courts judges in the entire country.
Despite the existence of MAHA, the FDA failed to report a deadly e. coli outbreak in romaine lettuce.
The historians and authors of the Foreign Relations of the United States have all been fired.
Republicans plan to abolish the PCAOB agency that sets federal audit standards for consumers.
Trump nominates several controversial Inspectors General nominees for the Senate to approve.
Leaking tax returns may now be illegal under the GOP budget resolution.
Salon.com offers a guide on how to defeat Trump’s flood-the-zone strategy.
Trump pardons more criminals convicted of crimes like massive fraud and tax evasion.
Finally, Trump floated the idea of pardoning the criminals who wanted to kidnap and execute Governor Whitmer. Goes to show that trying to appease Trump to establish a “working relationship” with him will get you nowhere. As Ben Franklin once said, “either we shall all hang together or we shall each assuredly hang separately.”
So with all the news we’ve been offering here, as well as whatever you readers might be getting elsewhere, it is worth summing up the bigger trends at play in national politics.
The 47th Presidency should easily be defined first and foremost by a dour and scary trend towards right-wing authoritarianism, echoing the kinds of democratic erosion and authoritarian breakthrough witnessed in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Viktor Orban’s Hungary, and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Rights are being rolled back or threatened, institutions being tested to their maximum, civil servants being purged at record speed, and retaliation by the federal government rapidly afoot. Heed the warnings of those like renowned billionaire investor Ray Dalio who compare Trump to the far-right regimes of the 1930s.
Donald J. Trump and his administration is a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The Trump-Vance White House is consolidating and redistributing power away from the working and middle classes towards the wealthy, corporate class and the top 1% (or to be more specific, the top tenth of 1%). That is what we call oligarchy, and that is what can otherwise be known as a rigged system. This dysfunctional economic and political system is what people are angry about. Look no further than the recent bitcoin summit and the controversy regarding the Trump bitcoin slush fund.
Donald Trump, JD Vance, and other MAGA Republicans in Congress and in the state legislatures are on a cutting binge to reward the wealthiest oligarchs even more, while almost literally cutting off the backs of working families in an agenda focused on government austerity and privatization. Republicans are going after the social safety net and government services to fund tax cuts and corporate welfare for Corporate America, Wall Street, and the extremely wealthy elites.
Trump and his Family are historically grifting to make money while occupying public office. We see it with the cryptocurrency interests, a product used mostly by terrorist organizations, drug cartels, and organized crime elements. We see it with the Qatar Force One luxury jet payout. We see it with all the products Trump has promoted in office from digital cards to Trump Bibles and much more. We are seeing corruption on an unseen level in open and plain sight. Trump is taunting Americans to challenge the most blantantly corrupt Administration in history.
Trump-Vance is not focused on lowering costs for working families, bringing peace to foreign conflicts, or strengthening the border to prevent criminals from coming into the country. The White House today is instead focused on inciting culture wars, on creating price-raising policies like the extremely broad and inconsistent Trump Tariffs. Meanwhile, as said above, it has all but forfeited peace negotiations in Ukraine and Gaza, it has pardoned January 6 rioters, and detained and deported law-abiding undocumented immigrants; and/or American citizens. They even lied about the Project 2025 agenda now in full force.
Democrats in Washington DC and all across the country have to acknowledge the pain out there in the country and the realities that stem from 4 decades of government policy (some of which came with their complicity), from record wealth & income inequality, to racial inequality & police brutality, staggering poverty, groundbreaking homelessness, high costs for healthcare, education, energy, housing, and food, and cyclical unemployment that exists with the hallowing of the American manufacturing base and mechanization of the agricultural sector. Conservative economic policies have widened the gaps between the haves and have-nots, and the rich and the poor.
Democrats have to emphasize the importance of a Fair Shot Agenda that gives a chance to every hardworking man and woman in America to get ahead. People want a hand up, not a hand out, something that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson understood with their legislative programs. The Democrats must be the party that stands for leveling the playing field for working families and taking on corporate greed. The Democratic Party that stands for family farmers and organized labor and small businesses is the Democratic Party at its best. We need a Congressional Populist Caucus revival that stands for such principles such as economic human rights to healthcare, education, housing, worker organizing, and food, social safety net expansion, reforming industrial policy, fair trade policy, and leveling the playing field for all farmers, not just Big Agriculture. Those are the principles of a real working class Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party has to call out the Big Money in politics, something that not everyone is doing just yet. Instead, the best some people, such as Rahm Emanuel, have is to use nonsense slogans like “toxic, weak, and woke.” How about a slogan with real substance: “stop taking money from Corporate America, from Wall Street, from Big Pharma, from Big Oil, from Big Agriculture, from Big Tech, from Big Agriculture, from Big Crypto, from Big Media, from the AI sector, and from the Netanyahu lobby?”
The DNC needs to reexamine the methods and techniques that are commonly credited for the electoral successes of the 2006 and 2008 elections. The needed outreach through a 50-State Strategy, a fully funded and staffed DNC Rural Desk, regulations and/or bans on dark money, and an Election Litigation War Room, among other proposals, have still not met serious consideration by the appropriate leading stakeholders.
The gerontocracy problem in the Democratic Party is real, and while I have no solutions personally to that, it is an issue that needs to be addressed. Democrats need more young leaders in their ranks.
With that, I’ll now recap some of the most enticing RI stories you should take note of:
A union representing more than 800 frontline staffers at Butler Hospital (a campus for psychiatric adults) continue their strike for better wages, safer conditions, more facility staffing, and a fairer contract, despite obstacles to organizing from the Mayor’s Office in Providence.
Casino workers seek to ban smoking in Bally’s casinos in Lincoln and Tiverton and get rid of the smoking loophole created specifically to put profits and casino revenue over the health and safety of workers (when these employees potentially become sick with smoking-related diseases, will the State be there for them? We imagine not).
A whole host of groups and causes, including those related to homelessness advocacy, all seek relief from severe budget cuts proposed by Governor Dan McKee sent for approval to RI’s state legislature.
Providence now has a flag policy because of Mayor Brett Smiley’s opposition to a Palestinian flag at Providence City Hall.
And having summarized all that, happy June!
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