Chartered Financial Consultant


Commentaries

Warning: Rant Follows

Despite good intentions, I have not been able to sit down and write a thoughtful, succinct commentary in some time, so you’ll have to settle for a meandering, long-winded political diatribe.  This is my therapy.

 

Some of you may remember Bob’s Quarterly Update, the four-page paper newsletter that I mailed out from 1994 until 2008.  The final paper copy, President Barack Obama, How Cool, I Hope, was mailed out shortly after Obama won the 2008 election.  Within the first 100 days of his presidency, I began losing that hope.  Anger during the Bush years was replaced by disappointment.  I lost my writing motivation and am just starting to get it back.

 

I know that the Congressional Republicans viciously battled to keep the first black American President from being successful, but Obama’s cautious and conciliatory nature led to the 2010 mid-term election landslide that shifted the balance of power in Congress and ultimately elected Donald Trump.

 

Since February, I’ve thought that Trump would not be in office by the end of the year.  It won’t be because he does mean-spirited things merely to harm Obama’s legacy or because of his awful policies on so many issues.  His incompetence, ignorance, nepotism, greed, personal financial secrecy and his blatant conflicts-of-interests are getting him into trouble, but these don’t seem to concern his supporters.

 

He obviously likes BEING the president, but Trump doesn’t seem to realize that being The President of the United State is his job.  He works for the American people.  Trump seems bored by news that isn’t about him, and he doesn’t like having to play by the rules (laws).

He is not our boss; we are his boss.  His lack of interest in doing or learning to do his job is stunning.  I predict that he will resign, using a bogus illness as his excuse, because he is bored and tired of not always getting his way.

 

It amazes me that 35% of Americans still give him a positive approval rating.Three percent would amaze me.  So where are the gutsy Congressional Republicans?  I remember Senator James Baker of Tennessee and Lowell Weicker from Connecticut on the Watergate committee who put their country ahead of their party.

 

Few Republicans are standing up to our bully-leader, despite his low regard for American institutions, diplomatic protocol, the democratic electoral process, and the truth. It makes for great soundbites when you wave the flag and throw out words like “freedom” and “democracy,” but those word are hollow when you are unwilling to stand up for those values.  Until Faux News stops supporting this dangerous man I don’t think Republicans will have the courage to act.

 

If Hillary Clinton had been accused of cozying up to Russia, Republicans would have gone crazy.  If fact, she might have been impeached for merely dancing a lively foxtrot with Vladimir Putin at the G20 after-party.

 

President Trump is not Making America Great Again.  It already was, despite its flaws.   The “Leader of the Free World” is embarrassing our country abroad.  He is Making American Worst and dividing Americans.

 

Lowell P. Weicker, a Republican Senator from Connecticut, is the last living member of the Senate Watergate Committee.  Here’s a quote in a recent New York Times Op-Ed:

“(W)e must remember that even our most dogged public servants will falter without public support. When the executive goes rogue, we have James Madison and his magnificent document for our authority. But our Constitution is only as powerful as the will of our people to enforce it.”

Bob Dreizler

Bob Dreizler