31-year-old Tennessean, James Walker (above), is now my new superhero. A Trump-voter from Nashville, he had the honesty and integrity to admit, after watching Trump healthcare proposal, environmental policies and his subpar cabinet appointments, that he made a “huge mistake.” He didn’t double-down and repeat clear falsehoods like the President, who never backs off of even the most inane accusations and statements. He resisted what had to be the monumental pressure from his populist peers, many of whom hang on every obviously false utterance from the Orange Mouth and label truth as “fake news.” This man has guts!
But I guess watching the GOP Congress stumbling with a healthcare proposal that will obviously hit lower income Americans so hard that many could actually die in the “oh, I can’t get health insurance” crossfire. Lots of Trump voters in that group. He obviously paid attention to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office report that the bill would drop millions and millions of Americans from the medical health insurance rolls. So did a lot of Republican members of Congress.
Walker also may not yet fully appreciate Donald Trump’s fallback plan to healthcare “reform” if Congress cannot bring a bill to his desk soon: let the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) continue, and I, Donald John Trump, will make sure it is so underfunded, that its rules and insurance mandates (which generate the cash to make it work) are completely ignored and not enforced, which must result in more carriers pulling out, until the ACA collapses. Then, Trump can blame the Democrats for what he caused (his followers won’t dig for the truth), and, he surmises, he can then get anything through Congress, “believe me.”
Mr. Walker, my hero, doesn’t live in one of the western states where methane (24 times more dense as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide) is a toxic by-product of oil and gas extraction – where an overwhelming number of Republicans, Independents and Democrats oppose the recent removal of an Obama-mandated ban on just letting methane escape, unchecked, into the atmosphere. But I suspect he gets it.
He might not even be concerned about the obvious failure of Donald Trump to connect with the new leader of the free world, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel or the fact that Orange Mouth has failed to provide a scintilla of evidence that the Obama administration did “tapp” his Trump Tower address during the elections. Mr. Walker may have glanced at the headlines outlining all of the programs – from school lunches, consumer protection and environmental controls – that Mr. Trump proposes to curtail. He may or may not appreciate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or the National Endowment for the Arts, or that the best scientists and engineers (including the folks who track potential epidemics) are going to get a whole lot less federal research money or that the richest people in the land are probably going to get the biggest tax cut in recent memory, but I suspect he noticed.
Want a need summary of the discord and chaos in Washington these days? Clinton-era, Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, tells it like it is with this March 17 tweet-storm (this is only part of what he said):
· Republicans (and their patrons in big business) no longer believe Trump will give them cover to do what they want to do. They’re becoming afraid Trump is genuinely nuts, and he’ll pull the party down with him.
· Many Republicans are also angry at Paul Ryan, whose replacement bill for Obamacare is considered by almost everyone on Capitol Hill to be incredibly dumb.
· I didn’t talk with anyone inside the White House, but several who have had dealings with it called it a cesspool of intrigue and fear. Apparently everyone working there hates and distrusts everyone else.
· The Washington foreign policy establishment — both Republican and Democrat — is deeply worried about what’s happening to American foreign policy, and the worldwide perception of America being loony and rudderless. They think Trump is legitimizing far-right movements around the world.
And it’s not exactly like the Democrats have any clear and coherent alternative these days; they still are fractious, many tied to the out-of-touch, old-world “liberals” like House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, who simply don’t get/prioritize the plight of the recently displaced/marginalized working class… the massive group that made Donald Trump possible. But exactly how do we get real? Deal with the world as it actually is and maximize who we are? Will the currently administration inflict such incredible long-term damage that we cannot recover? Who exactly are we looking to for genuine leadership? Who should that person be? Now that we know it cannot be Donald Trump.
I’m Peter Dekom, and James Walker represents the best part of America, needs to be admired and supported, and we should be deeply grateful for his courage.
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