In 2016, Donald Trump said, “The country wasn’t based on executive orders. Right now, Obama goes around signing executive orders. He can’t even get along with the Democrats, and he goes around signing all these executive orders. It’s a basic disaster. You can’t do it.”
As we all know, the first thing Trump did was unleash a tsunami of executive orders that will begin his scheduled four year assault on women’s rights, desperately needed environmental protections, and the capacity of our democracy to place any limits on corporate greed.
This day belongs to the rich and unaccountable but they lack any ethical DNA for a sustainable future. Trump is tying America’s future to non-renewable energy sources which will give a time date to what he is calling our “greatness.” These self seeking oligarchs will destroy the American Empire just as British oligarchs destroyed England’s empire by tying its future to coal power because that’s what made THEM rich.
Do not despair. What we are seeing is the painful sundown of old systems of hoarded wealth and power. Old systems of colonialism, patriarchy, sectarian theocracy and unregulated capitalism are dying.
Oligarchs are cashing in their chips because at some level they realize a new day is coming. Eventually, this current devastation may very well become the birth of an age based on the values of human happiness and environmental sustainability. This is not a pipe dream, this is our only alternative to disaster.
Until then, remember a confederacy of bullies will eventually be torn apart simply for its lack of principle. Remember that those who build their empire on lies will eventually be destroyed by truth. And, in Lin Yutang’s words: “When small personalities begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set”.