Contrary to Trump's boasting, he has put this country in a weaker position on many metrics

Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was predictably incendiary and meant to split the country further apart than he has already made it.  Unlike past SOTU addresses, where the presidents giving them stressed unity, Trump employed falsehood, defamation and exaggeration to turn what was supposed to be a dignified affair into a campaign rally replete with hypocritical props in human form and Republican lawmakers embarrassing themselves behaving like a crowd of Nazis at a Nuremberg rally, chanting mindlessly in adoration of their Fuehrer. Why must people who see who Trump and his Republican familiars are to be denied the opportunity tell the truth about how they “fit” in a historical perspective?

Let’s take Trump’s constant references to illegal immigration in his speech. Believe me, if illegal immigration was the real “issue,” anti-immigration fanatics would mention that the number of Chinese and Indian migrants have been crossing the Mexican border in dramatically higher numbers in recent years—and unlike Central Americans who face far harsher conditions in their home countries, these illegal immigrants are simply released into the safe haven of their immigrant communities  and “reminded” to respond to a court summons in one or two years, but more likely never to be bothered again. On the other hand, Hispanics—“illegal” or not—are being characterized by Trump, Stephen Miller and Laura Ingraham (this country’s version of Julius Streicher) in the same way Jews were during the Nazi regimes: an undesired, crime-infested human “pestilence” that must be “eradicated.” Obviously “deporting” every Hispanic in the country—while is certainly supported by the lunatic fringe of Trump’s support—is “unrealistic,” but the effort to stop all legal immigration from Latin America is not just real, but is the principle motivation of the “public charge” order and sending asylum seekers to countries just as dangerous as the ones they left.

Trump predictably threw his racist base the red meat they crave, and believe me they are out there waiting for it. It took me two years figure out this older white man I’ve been waiting in line with at the bus stop is a petty bigot, but he isn’t fooling me anymore. It took over two years for this state to “convict” a white man who assaulted Burien’s Latino mayor, Jimmy Matta, on hate crime charges; his “punishment” was paying chump change “restitution” and a “donation” to the ADL, which is a Jewish organization, not a Latino one, which would have sent a better “message.”  I can’t tell you how many complete strangers I encounter, mostly white vagrant types (but black males with "issues" too), who look like they want to just pop me in the skull, probably because they see a “Mexican’ and its “OK” to take out their frustration on someone who is to blame for “everything.” 

Trump railed against crimes committed by illegal immigrants, even though think tanks like the Cato Institute have pointed out that even in communities with presumably large undocumented populations (such as in Texas) show no evidence of an increase in crime rates. That wouldn't have stopped Trump from rolling out a person whose family member was killed by an illegal immigrant, as he did last night, or allow people to believe a 92-year-old Hispanic woman was raped and murdered by a Hispanic illegal immigrant, when it was a man of Indian descent. No mention of Hispanic immigrants killed by white U.S. citizens; in one infamous case in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania Luis Ramirez was kicked in head repeatedly by a gang of white high school football players after being told to “go back to Mexico.” Ramirez died of his brain injuries; one resident was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t have died if “he wasn’t here.”

USA Today got into the act today, publishing an “op-ed” by a white woman who claimed that giving an illegal immigrant a driver’s license was reason her husband was dead. Only three percent of the population is “illegal”—and that includes the fast growing numbers coming from India and China who are of course not just ignored but encouraged by the Trump administration (the alleged “cap” on H-1B visas has been rendered moot by the administration’s move to allowed those with expired work visas to remain in the country pending their employers’ submitting paperwork to extend their stays, with no apparent intention for follow-up checks for legality). Of course, such incendiary commentary ignores the fact that we can surmise that 97 percent of vehicular deaths have as “perpetrators” people who are not illegal immigrants, which begs the question of whether U.S. citizens themselves should be given driver’s licenses. It is a nonsensical argument, of course, but then again, so is so much of the subhumanizing talk that “illegal” people are forced to tolerate.

Trump also boasted of how “his” military is getting “bigger” and “stronger.” Neither is true. The total number of people in regular service is down to historic lows since before World War II, and the current arsenal of “big ticket” hardware has decreased dramatically since the 1980s. The major components of the U.S. Army’s field hardware (save for the Stryker) were developed back in the Jimmy Carter administration, and the M109 howitzer—the only true artillery hardware in the U.S. arsenal—is almost 60 years old, give or take subsequent enhancements. Not only is the number of Air Force and Marine aircraft down significantly, each plane is on average almost three decades old, and a large percentage are “unflyable,” leading to the Air Force’s overall readiness listed as being “marginal” to “weak.” U.S. naval strength is down to less than 300 ships, and the high number of “accidents” leading to deaths in recent years points to poor training (in the case of Navy Seals, poor leadership is an issue). The large majority of military expenditure goes to personnel costs—with healthcare costs a particular “hit” to the military budget.

Of course Trump took full credit for an economy which has not seen an increase in growth that can be tied to his business tax cut, which has been shown not to be used for “investment” but for increasing the largesse of the very wealthiest and in dividends for stockholders. Even Trump’s claim that wages for low income people has risen by 14 percent isn’t as “impressive” as that of those with more impressive means; a wage increase from $10-an-hour to $11.40 isn’t much compared to a ten percent increase for someone taking in a salary of $150,000 a year (which would amount to an increase of $7.50-an-hour). The stats Trump uses doesn’t bother to “estimate” the increase of income of people making a $1 million or more, but we can assume it is more in one week than the pay increase of low-income person over an entire year, at least. While Trump boasts of an increase in manufacturing jobs, the number is still relatively miniscule and has not had any effect on creating living wage jobs. Ditto for his “trade” policies, for which we have yet to see the true long-term impact of the changes he claims to have made. As noted before, the USMCA “deal” only puts a cap on the percentage of Mexican-made parts from being installed on U.S. manufactured products like automobiles; it does not stop U.S. companies from forgoing more expensive U.S.-made parts and purchasing them from Asian countries—thus weakening the Mexican economy to no purpose except increasingly the likelihood for northern migration.

And then there was one of Trump’s campaign “props,” a black child who he said was receiving an “opportunity scholarship,” mainly a sop for “Education” Secretary Betsy DeVos’ pet project—defunding public education in favor of privatized “choice” schools. Yes, we are talking about the same man who made racist attacks on black NFL players who “took the knee” during the National Anthem to protest police violence—the same man who a viral video showed during his Super Bowl “watch party” fidgeting around, pretending to be “orchestrating” the anthem while his wife and son stood at attention with their hands over their hearts.

And then there was Trump’s claim that he was “protecting” Medicare, when not a month ago he announced that if reelected he would target Medicare as a way to take care of the ballooning budget deficit. Obviously his handlers quickly pulled him aside and persuaded him to make a “corrective” statement before it became campaign fodder for Democrats, but that doesn’t mean he won’t do something if he is elected; we ought to know by now that with Trump, his mind is like the “Wheel of Fortune,” with his decisions depending on where the needle happens to stop after his mind stops spinning around. Trump only needs an excuse—like “illegal immigrants are getting free healthcare”—to justify reducing Medicare payouts. Trump’s claim that he is protecting people with pre-existing conditions is undercut not just by his Justice Department’s support for court cases ending the ACA, but by allowing what used to be called “mini-medical” insurance, which do not require health insurance companies to insure those with pre-existing conditions. Take it from me: these “mini-medical” insurance policies are a scam, paying out a small lump sum that is tiny fraction of the total cost of a medical procedure and forcing the insured to pay the rest—the “practical” effect of which is like  having  no insurance at all.

Naturally, as USA Today’s Raul Reyes noted, Trump wasn’t so boastful enough to take credit for some real things that he is responsible for: “No mention of voting rights, the threat of foreign interference in our election or income inequality. No mention of the earthquakes in Puerto Rico, the dangers of white supremacist violence or the ballooning federal deficit. And forget about climate change or the Dreamers. Instead, the President who has repeatedly shown disrespect for American institutions, values and norms has now debased the State of the Union address itself.” Well said; he could have also mentioned the country's near total loss of credibility on the international front. Too bad there are those who are blinded by their own uninformed, dehumanized bigotry to see the truth.