Idiot In Chief

Bill,


I've been a missing partner in our ongoing conversation for a long time and I offer my apologies. Like many Americans of my political sensibility, I've witnessed the last year and a half with increasing dismay, and have had to work hard to overcome that dismay and continue to oppose the policies  I disagree with.  Much of what has occurred (deregulation, tax reduction, half hearted and unsuccessful attempts to reduce the size of the welfare state, repeated attempts to inject Christian religious preference into public policy etc) would be expected of any contemporary Republican administration, so I may not like it, but can I can hardly be surprised it or view it as something novel. And I can continue to take the long view that the much of the nativism and bigotry on display is also nothing new; from the Chinese Exclusion Act (in force for 60 years)  to the Immigration Law of 1924 (not repealed until 1965) to the general disdain and prejudice exhibited against your ancestors and mine, resistance to the arrival of new Americans is bred into the country's DNA.


What I can't absorb(along with every major economist and the Chamber of Commerce)  is the raw stupidity of so much of what passes for policy coming from the White House. So much of what is touted as economic wisdom seems to violate every principle of how to grow an economy. A trade war looms. Trumps coal obsession is the ultimate picking winners and losers.


Meanwhile, while the longest expansion in modern US economic history continues, storm clouds are gathering. I don't think this ends well. And when the consequence of Administration policy finally unfold, the Idiot-in-Chief will blame everyone else but himself.


Eli