By Josh Moon
Alabama Political Reporter
I have a question.
I’m sitting here admiring my extra $1.50 and my new Costco membership, as the stock market makes that slide-whistle sound effect it used to make when ol’ W was in charge, and I just can’t help but wonder …
The winning, when does it start?
You know what I’m talking about. The winning we were promised. There was not only going to be some winning, there was going to be so much winning we were going to get tired of it.
It’s been a year now.
So, where’s the winning?
Because from where I sit, here’s what we’ve got: We have a president and most of his senior campaign staff, including his children, under investigation for collusion with a hostile foreign government; Mexico just keeps saying “hola” over and over and then hanging up whenever we call about them paying for the big, beautiful wall; that economy-killing Obama had better jobs, wage and overall economic numbers pretty much his entire last four years than Trump had this year; we’ve gone from eight years of zero presidential scandals to scandals every eight minutes; the stock market just had its worse fall in history; the president allegedly paid a porn star to cover up an affair; did I mention the Russia thing; and the president has openly attacked our FBI, CIA, NSA and most of our elected officials, alleging that all of them, at some point, were corrupt whenever they, in some way, criticized him or had the nerve to investigate his (likely) illegal dealings or unconstitutional acts.
So, I have to ask, when does the winning start?
Remember what we were promised by this reality TV star before you suckers elected him the leader of the free world? There were roughly 8,000 different “On day one I will …” promises made by him.
Day one: we were going to get that wall started.
There’s no wall.
Day one: we were going to get new health care that was cheaper and better and covered more people for a lower overall cost to the government.
We have Obamacare. Except without the mandate, which was the thing that paid for Obamacare, which leaves us with a totally unworkable system that is guaranteed to crash and burn and cost us all much more in the very near future, but hey, did North Korea say something?
Day one: there were going to be numerous bans on lobbyists and former lawmakers lobbying.
There have been no bans on lobbying. There will be no bans on lobbying.
Day one: We were going to get an immigration fix.
We have shut down the government once and are days away from shutting it down again, and yet, more than a year after Day One, there is still no immigration fix.
That’s not a lot of winning.
As it turns out, governing a nation is harder than firing Gene Simmons in a fake boardroom.
Maybe someone with experience in policy and foreign relations would have been a better choice for President of the United States. We had someone like that, but she was a woman. Who had a private email server. And some people were REALLY concerned that she might accidentally slip up and allow Russia to jeopardize America’s democracy.
And they were in no way insincere about that concern, even as they explain now how none of us should be concerned about our current president’s entire family meeting with Russian government officials to receive op-research that influenced an election.
But, hey, water under the bridge … speaking of which — infrastructure.
That was another of those Day One promises. We were going to get the infrastructure projects going, get that clean coal to burning and cut out all of those wimpy “green” projects from Obama.
Yet, the first we’ve heard of an infrastructure plan was a week ago, when Trump announced a $1.5 trillion plan. There are few specifics, and even less funding after the ridiculous tax gift to the Koch Brothers and their pals, so be careful on those bridges. In the meantime, coal miners are still waiting on a callback to work and the green industry, despite a scale back in funding, is growing like crazy.
But never mind. The president is playing more golf than Tiger Woods, much less Obama, and we’ve already paid more for his trips than the entire last four years of the Obamas (two things that some Americans apparently stopped caring about when the president became not black).
Companies are still laying people off and shipping jobs overseas. And the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow at an alarming rate, having all but eliminated the middle class.
And Americans, according to polling, are considerably unhappy with the performance of this president and this Republican-led Congress.
Which, you know what, never mind. I think I found the winning that I’m looking for.
It’s coming in November.
