By now everyone's seen Meryl Streep's heartfelt words using, once again, an entertainment platform to insert politics. At the Golden Globes, Meryl Streep said, "This instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everyone's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing…When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose…We need the principled press to call power on the carpet, to hold them accountable for every outrage."
Sure, nice words, but where was Meryl Streep when Hillary Clinton poked fun at the "deplorables," (eg Trump voters) to the raucous laughter of an LGBT group? Where was Ms. Streep when Hillary Clinton attempted to humiliate white American males by referring to the "six Steves"? Where was Ms. Streep when in 2012 the President untruthfully dismissed the economic hardships of our citizenry with the glib statement that "The private sector is doing fine," immediately pushing for Obama's preferred class of public employees by adding, "Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy…state and local government"? Where was Ms. Streep when Obama's Administration cut food stamps, cut long-term unemployment, and at the same time he was dismissing the private sector youth unemployment was at a stunning 16+ percent? Where was Ms. Streep when CMS decided to pay doctors to counsel those facing dire medical illness that maybe pursuing treatment wasn't worth it, including financially?
Like Ms. Streep, there's no doubt that President Obama talked the talk of "kindness," even as our country's middle class was gutted by his policies, even as the President favored, padded and protected public employees and created a middle class of public employees that boasted better pay, benefits and job security than the citizens who pay for those public employees. The President talked "kindness" even as our stature on the world front collapsed, as our participation in the labor market dropped to near record lows, as social security recipients watched their cost of living adjustments drop or evaporate and as those of us newly forced to purchase health insurance watched our bills skyrocket with the added insult of governmental increases in out-of-pocket maximums that impossibly rest at $7,150 for individuals and $14,300 for families. Apparently all THIS does not break Ms. Streep's heart.
For many Americans, like me, at best Obama's "talk" was empty, soothing words like a temporary lullaby before awakening to the harsh realities of Obama's America and at worst revealed a petty tyrannical ideologue oblivious to both the reality and the conditions on the ground for everyday citizens. And so, maybe a Donald Trump Administration, already painted by CNN as unkind based on language will in fact be KINDER to the citizens who put Trump in office.
I want to believe that from his tweeting to his priority of protecting our country and its citizens Donald Trump is acknowledging that he is in office because of citizens and that we count--a refreshing change from the bullying President Obama who lectured, cajoled, lied, but ultimately ignored both our population and even our system of government, whining about checks and balances and whining about the Supreme Court's decisions that did not go his way.
But, there are no angels in Washington, DC, on either side and the disapproval of a Congress with petty tyrannical public employees entrenched away from the population is worrisome as both Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan retain their status in Congress. And when it comes to Obamacare, it's Ryancare that looms as a threat to citizens.
We haven't heard a plan to make sure that public employees are bound by the plan they come up with for the rest of us--Obamacare let them separate themselves from the citizens and Ryancare promises to let public employees keep their plans. This is not only UNKIND but dangerous to the American people. Our key protection is making sure that public employees live by the rules they're making.
We haven't heard that Ryancare provides for going after the rampant and wasteful fraud that results in both government and private insurer overpayments with the government, "forgiving" those overpayments, because after all, those overpayments were made with our money. That's where cuts should come in, not Medicare and Medicaid.
We haven't heard any pushback about the Ryancare/insurance lobby's proposal to continue to penalize consumers for choosing not to purchase the consumer financial product of health insurance if it doesn't meet their needs which would encourage the development of products that DO meet our needs, but instead are hearing about an individual mandate Republican style--continuous coverage which allows insurers to penalize individuals instead of the government.
This is where Democrats SHOULD be focusing their attention, not on Russian "hacks" which the report concluded did not TAMPER with our elections, did not make up LIES, but instead revealed information that was anti Hillary Clinton--in other words, their campaign was more effective than Hillary Clinton's campaign, their "reporting" was more thorough than our press which instead focused on misguided polls to convince everyone Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in.
Yes, the Democratic speakers are often more artful than the Republicans, but their words don't reflect their actions or the reality on the ground of citizen experience and therefore, for President Trump, it's ACTIONS not words that will determine whether his instincts and goals are KIND for US citizens.
