It’s the end of
the year, and this will be the second post I’ve done in 2016.
Yeah, life took over again. However, with this year being an
election year, I made a conscious decision to keep my thoughts and
opinions to myself because it was just getting too messy and there
were a lot of angry and upset people. I’m not going to quit being
someone’s friend simply because I don’t ascribe to their
political viewpoint. While I believe my vote is my business, I have
no illusion my vote is secret. My county knows which ballot is mine
and I’m sure it would take them less than an hour to find it. At the same time, I don’t believe in screaming from the rooftops who I voted
for. If who I voted for is going to be a point of contention between
us, then for your sake I’ll say I voted for your favorite
candidate. And we’ll leave it at that. In my estimation, life is
far too short to have something so transient come between me and
someone I like.
So: In about a
month, we will have a new President. Someone who has held no prior
elected office, and in some respects appears to be a blank slate
(perhaps he’s kept his true opinions to himself, but I think
Twitter shows otherwise). His choices for different cabinet posts
run the gamut from political professionals to business leaders.
There’s one thing I’ve noticed though. If you look at some of
his choices (we’ll take the EPA and Education in particular) you
see an interesting phenomenon. Allow me to give some information on
those people, and then discuss what I see.
His choice for
the EPA is Scott Pruitt. Mr. Pruitt made his mark as the
Oklahoma Attorney General fighting the EPA on its regulations,
particularly in regards to oil and gas drilling. On the surface,
this looks like a ‘fox in the henhouse’ type of choice. And
this same observation could also be applied to Trump’s pick for
Education, Betsy DeVos. She is an education activist from Michigan.
Her perspective on education is one of ‘school choice’, providing
vouchers for parents to send their children to private education, if
they so choose. Which could result in a mass exodus from public
education, and/or significant defunding of school districts.
In thinking about
these, and some other choices (I’m thinking Housing and Urban
Development and Labor in particular), I’ve come to a conclusion. Using business as a baseline of understanding instead of government,
these people were nominated for these positions not as a ‘fox in the
henhouse’ but rather to reduce the size of that department, or
perhaps to even shut them down.
There are
examples of businesses sending people into problematic organizations
or departments for this purpose. Whether it’s simply to ‘trim
the fat’ or to close it down, they have no other purpose. Those
people tend to be categorized as ‘hatchet men’, since they're doing
a lot of cutting.
Something else to
keep in mind is, when you look at these two departments, they are fairly
recent cabinet creations. The EPA was created in 1970 by President
Richard Nixon (it was originally put in place by Executive Order, but
the order was ratified by Congress). The Department of Education was
created in 1979 by law and signed by President Jimmy Carter. Neither
of these departments have a long history, and both tend to be
controversial in their activities. This makes them preferred targets
for elimination by those who do not like government departments and the like.
Looking at this a
little further, this fits well into Conservative views on government.
For those in the Republican Party who ascribe to the quote by
President Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address: “Government
is not the solution to our problem, it is the problem.” These
choices match well with this view. Get rid of the bureaucracy and
overreach by the Federal Government by cleaning out the bureaucrats
and closing down the unnecessary departments.
Whether or not
this is what Trump is trying to do has yet to be seen, as well as
what the result will be. I am not ‘cautiously optimistic’ at
this point. I am simply cautious. I cannot remember there ever
being this much acrimony and divisiveness in the changing of
administrations. I’m not talking about just the Republicans and
what they potentially are implementing, but also the Democrats and
their reactions. The election is over, and if we believe in our
system of government, then, in a paraphrase of the late Leonard
Nimoy’s Mr. Spock in ‘The Undiscovered Country’ “we must have
faith that things will unfold as they should.” I say this for
myself first and foremost.
There is one
other darker element to this, and it is a concern for the country at
large regarding the acrimony and divisiveness: If things do not
significantly change, and if both sides continue to refuse to discuss
and work together to solve the problems and issues our country has,
and resolve to do only those things you want to do, the resulting
polarization may leave us in an ungovernable situation. Now please
keep in mind, I would hope that I’ve proven throughout all of this
that I’m not one of those screaming Trump is not my President, or
otherwise having a meltdown over the election result. I’m someone
who has some serious concerns that the person we elected is going to
do more harm than good in the long run. Now, what does that make me?
A liberal? A ‘loony leftist’? No. That makes me someone who
is more concerned about my country than about what half-baked
political party is in charge of the government.
