What Would Trumptopia Look Like?

The consequences of having a mentally unbalanced narcissist in the White House whose penchant for betraying even his own voters and nation causes one explosive outrage after another…is that the latest or largest outrage can distract from the many others that are also severe.

Not only does it challenge our ability to keep a focus on the wide variety of assaults on Americans but it can keep us from seeing the big picture of what all these devastating efforts add up to.

There is a series on Amazon based on a Phillip K. Dick story called, “The Man in the High Castle” (the graphic above is a parody of their show’s artwork) which portrays an alternate reality where the Nazis and Japanese won World War II and took over America. With that in mind, imagine an alternate reality, if Trump could be the dictator-type president he yearns to be, having his way on everything. What if Trump was able to reshape America without Congress or the courts being able to check his power, what would this country look like?

Let’s call it Trumptopia, a regime that would resemble Russia in many ways but with a Trumpian twist.

WELCOME TO TRUMPTOPIA!

The primary feature of Trumptopia would be a dictatorial President who would revamp elections to allow for him and supportive Republicans to retain their offices despite opposition by a majority of Americans. Democrats and independents would see their right to vote either disqualified by aggressive new policies “protecting our elections from voter fraud” or thwarted due to actual election fraud in altered vote counts. Powerful entities, both wealthy/corporate types and foreign adversaries such as Russia would have unfettered freedom to manipulate and deceive voters in elections, receiving economic and political payoffs from the Trump Admin in exchange for their help in re-electing him and other Republicans.

Safety net programs would be chopped down to reduce the taxes that the wealthy pay. Social Security and Medicare would be slashed and privatized and Welfare and Medicaid would be hugely cut. The resulting indigent, starving, ill, elderly, neglected Americans will be demagogued as lazy and “takers” who are themselves the true cause of their own suffering. The ranks of the poor would soar, starvation and outbreaks of disease will follow. The minimum wage would be ended, income and health and safety protections for Americans would decline along with the economy.

The disintegrating Middle Class would end up shouldering the burden of financing government while their wages declined. Air, water and land would become increasingly polluted, healthcare would become too expensive for any but the young and healthy or wealthy to afford, unwanted pregnancies would rise and safe abortions would only be available to the few who could afford to travel out of the country while dangerous back alley abortions would make a big comeback.

Civil rights would be harshly scaled back, government policies would affirm the open practice of bigotry both in government services and in daily society. Muslims in particular would be the target of oppression and harassment, possibly including national registration of Muslims, blocking Muslims from entering or re-entering the country and even picking up and locking up Muslim Americans in internment camps in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Latinos would be demonized and painted as the Jews were in Nazi Germany, as the cause for all the ills of poor, white Americans (even though Trump would be the cause of much of their suffering).

International alliances between the U.S. and western democracies will be damaged while dictators like Putin, Sisi, Erdogan and Duterte would be presented as America’s most valued allies. Without America standing up for human rights around the world, greater oppression and suffering would grow especially in countries with dictatorial leaders.

Inflation would rise greatly as trade wars and import taxes multiplied. The U.S. economy would stagnate as its driving force, consumer activity, would plummet due to inflation, the decline of income and the growing tax burden on the Middle Class, becoming a vicious circle that sends the economy into a massive recession.

The press would be under constant attack and excluded from covering presidential and governmental actions. Violence against and the imprisoning of journalists would become more frequent as they are further demonized as “the enemy”.  Americans would lose having any transparency in their government, only propaganda provided through Fox News would be provided, purporting to share that only wonderful things were going on in Trump’s admin while secretly, the wealth of the nation and other nations would be plundered.

Fortunately for Americans and unfortunately for Trump, in the real world, the ongoing Russian-collusion investigation into Trump and his cronies will hobble his ability to fight successfully to have much of this come to fruition…though bits and pieces are. Also, since checks and balances remain in place as do stalwart journalists, Trump can’t realize as much of this maniacal agenda.

It has only been four months since he was inaugurated and it seems like four years. Even so, he is his own worst enemy and the apparently traitorous actions of his campaign to get him into this position are ironically what are preventing him from having the authority and legitimacy to use the power he craved.

There will be a long trail of destruction left behind Trump’s term that will need to be cleaned up by the Democrat who beats him in 2020 but it would seem to be a fraction of what could have happened if Trump wasn’t also destroying himself among the majority of Americans in the process.