By John R. Gray, Guest Columnist
Now that Donald Trump has settled into the presidency of the United States, his tenure is increasingly starting to resemble the allegory about a boy and his red pony.
The Red Pony allegory tells of a lonely young boy on a ranch who dreamt of a red pony that became his friend. When he woke up the next morning, he persuaded his father to buy him a pony, just like the one in his dreams. For a while, the boy was in high spirits. But this good feeling doesn’t last as the boy realizes that the pony his father purchased was no substitute for a human friend.
This brings us to President Trump. The new president’s nominations to fill his cabinet pretty much foretell what the social political landscape will be for the next four years.
Steve Bannon, an ex-Breitbart News executive director, also known as Trump’s brain, was appointed senior advisor. Noted for his white nationalist views and his championing of the Ku Klux Klan, Bannon believes government regulations are like witchcraft cursed demons to be burned at the stake. As those in Cajun nation would say: laissez les bons temps rouler (English translation: Let the good times roll). He will have the real last word regarding the Mexican border wall, changes to Obamacare, people of color and America’s Muslims.
Bannon’s red pony ideas will eventually fail. Trump’s people will discover that they can’t turn back the hands of time and that isolationism won’t keep us safe, especially where humanity’s survival will depend on the ability of nations to share resources.
On the nomination and confirmation of ex-Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Sessions’ embrace of racist law was a reason to reject his confirmation. He has never seen a civil rights, voter rights or human rights law he could approve. Who can he represent impartially?
Ex-Rep. Mick Mulvaney was nominated to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, is a bosom buddies with House Speaker Paul Ryan in that they are both devotees to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of rational objectivism. Translation: Pay or perish. In their view, health care will not be a handout. How will they appease Trump’s poor and middle class supporters who must have reduced health care.
Without identifying all of the players in Trump’s cabinet it is safe to say, most are unqualified to manage any office in government.
It’s a pointless endeavor in assigning blame on how we got to this point. Trump, a propagandist demagogue, performed a circus act of giant proportions and fooled enough of people long enough to become president. And, the media helped him.
We saw a man of narcissistic delusions of grandeur, who believed he was ordained to save the decadent United States from its self. Trump jerked the chain of those asking for change, but what change? It was not just Obamacare. It was that lingering anthem of too many foreigners from those who can no longer compete for America’s apple pie. It is the cry of those who fear becoming irrelevant asking for their country back.
Red state nation, you bought the red pony. Now you must ride him.