By Donald A. Collins | 23 October 2021
Church and State
How can the fealty for Trump and the felonious behavior of the GOP leadership have been sustained with all we know about his despicable character and the failure of moral Leadership by the GOP?
From the recent testimony before Congress by the former Facebook employee who had taken irrefutable evidence from Facebook’s own files, Congress showed bi-partisan fury at how Facebook allowed false hate invoking material to be broadcast. We all now know that’s where Facebook’s most profits were made.
"Facebook has us behind a walled garden, to where nobody knows, except anybody inside Facebook, exactly how they determine what types of content to show you," said @mrrickjordan on Tuesday's "American Agenda" after a Facebook whistleblower's testimony before Congress. pic.twitter.com/1sr9RMO03p
— Newsmax (@newsmax) October 5, 2021
Regulation may follow, but that’s not in my view what got Trump his votes in the first place and what is keeping their loyalty now.
The explanation to which I briefly referred in my last Op Ed was masterfully explained by Fiona Hill in her new book, THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU HERE: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century.
Her book which covers her attacks from Trump, is not primarily about Trump but about what she believes led to the destruction of millions of jobs and communities when technology changed and created pockets of poverty like the community she grew up in in England where her father told her, “There is nothing for you here” and she tells the remarkable story of how she ended as a policy advisor in the Trump White House.
In "There Is Nothing for You Here," Fiona Hill warns of the dangers to democracy and opportunity in America and beyond, @CarlosLozadaWP writes https://t.co/keYoFtp7aY
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) October 1, 2021
Seeing the terrible effect in Russia where she learned Russian and became an expert policy analyst then further gained an extensive education including a Harvard Ph.D., she continued her fascinating climb up the career ladder.
Primary point: she compares the Russian experience that gave Putin his path to dictatorial power to what she sees possible in the US, as many more Americans feel themselves in these pockets of poverty that she grew up in.
As we know such pockets of poverty also determine poorer health and resentment which was in her view a key basis for Trump support in 2016. Only his aberrant behavior saved us from his second term in which bad voting rights legislation could have been cemented and that would be again if he gets another chance.
The poor often don’t have internet connections so they are perfect targets for false information from the Trumps of this world.
Let me partly repeat what I argued before:
Americans, in the opinion of many experts, are at a crossroads which is so clearly and ominously described in Fiona Hill’s new book, “There Is Nothing For You Here—Finding Opportunity In The 21st Century”. She describes the wide spreading absence of educational opportunity, as the traditional heavy industries in many countries vanished, with those left behind in pockets of unemployment or low paying jobs became willing to embrace the lying mouthings of Trump and causing the most disaffected among them ultimately to storm our Capitol on January 6th and to continue to be told and believe his lies thereafter.
You can read Fiona Hill’s story and her ominous contention that populism as offered by Trump—absent educational and reasonable employment opportunity for all will allow the continuing increase in that present 30 percent of our citizens who will continue to buy the lies and fantasies that the Trump types offer.
This positive course is what Biden is hoping to achieve. Hill depicts a really dangerous and little understood trend in the USA.
Biden also noted this educational need as it is so needed to help improve conditions not only here but in places for example such as Central America to help reduce their citizens impetus to migrate.
As Biden told his Town Hall audience “Just K though 12 education is not enough”.
President Biden Talks To Us In Person And Straight In His Town Meeting https://t.co/p7jJSuPPsr via @ChurchAndStateN
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) October 23, 2021
While the education part of Biden’s final package may be lighter, passing the two pending bills will be crucial to keep the Democrats in power after the midterms.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013, Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive? and We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?."From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013": https://t.co/lkC2t3E1A9
"Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?": https://t.co/tl3zSD7whn
"We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?": https://t.co/TA4j7cp1tE pic.twitter.com/mH1PSnoh17— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) July 1, 2021
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