It was inevitable, like the movement of planets circling the sun. We knew with utter certainty that someone, sooner or later, would announce the obvious: the emperor has no clothes. But the identity of the messenger proved remarkable; not “someone” affiliated with the political opposition or the purveyors of “fake news”. Rather, it was someone up close and personal, who knew the man inside out. A senior administration official portrayed the president as an unruly, dangerous child, whose unpredictable and odious character rendered him a modern-day Caligula occupying the world’s most powerful political office. The message was clear and disturbing: those occupying the highest echelons of power were protecting the nation’s welfare from their elected leader.

For someone used to getting his way and doing whatever he pleases away from the glare of public awareness, living in the world’s largest fish bowl represents the ultimate nightmare, like a cruel and unusual punishment meted out on an hourly basis. One can almost hear the bellowing rage against the nameless accuser, who could be virtually anyone, as if he were a mafia boss betrayed by a highly trusted lieutenant.

The recent New York Times op-ed and the Bob Woodward book will prompt the president to channel his inner Roy Cohn. He will become an even more ferocious street fighter like a wounded and trapped animal. He will excoriate his opponents even more. But his hateful vitriol will not eclipse the truth of what was written. We must remember the underlying dilemma of all narcissists: to proclaim to be the center of the universe while believing they are worthless. Seen this way, the president’s desperate, even frenzied attempt to trumpet his brilliant achievements make sense, while his pathetic hyperbole renders each of us spectators to an unrelenting effort to prove his worthiness when he, like the rest of us, know otherwise.

The fallout from the recent op-ed accentuates what is already true: the president’s time in the White House is an exquisite torture. As this becomes increasingly intolerable, he will resign from office. But he will not leave as a humiliated victim because he remains incapable of feeling shame. Rather, he will leave as a self-proclaimed political martyr. Depicting himself to be the target of the greatest witch hunt in American history that drove him from office, he will detonate a political dirty bomb: inciting long-term paranoia and hatred in the alt right and its fellow travelers, anti-democratic forces who would vote for the man even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, as he liked to boast.

This president understands his appeal is sustained not in spite of his awful behavior but because of it. As he revels in defining himself as a wrecking ball lashing out against elites, to score points with fervent supporters even as his behavior confirms his utter unworthiness, the tragedy of this presidency has not reached its climax. Rather, we are merely heading into a tumultuous second act. We should all shudder at the prospect of what lies ahead. This president is determined to destroy himself like Nixon. And the health of our democracy will become collateral damage in this American tragedy’s horrific denouement.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

As our beleaguered nation lurches from one sensational episode to the next, each rife with corruption, scandal or innuendo, a compelling and disturbing question remains: how does Donald Trump get away with it? So many events during the course of his public life would have destroyed the careers of other politicians, from his racist slur questioning his predecessor’s birthplace that jumpstarted his candidacy, to defrauding enrollees of his eponymous university and boasting about sexually assaulting women, to recent allegations of marital infidelity and the payment of hush money, to say nothing about the continual stream of half-truth and outright falsehood he generates. Yet he remains relatively unscathed. What is it about Trump that confirms his boast that he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave. and people would still vote for him?

First, let’s pay tribute again to Michael Moore, who called the presidential election during the summer and even named the states Trump would carry to secure his victory. This came at a time when no one, not even Republican guru Karl Rove, gave Trump any chance of winning. Moore was prescient: rage against both Republican and Democratic elites was simmering in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, where shuttered factories devastated individuals, families and entire communities. While many voters there believed both parties ignored them for several decades, this election featured a political maverick who appeared to raise his middle finger against existing elites when he threatened to “drain the swamp” in Washington and recognized the rage and trepidation of working men and women. His candidacy seemed to offer the chance for political payback or, as Moore put it, to hurl a Molotov cocktail at the political system and blow it up. Even as many supporters questioned the suitability of his temperament and/or his qualification to hold office, they wanted to deliver a clear message: the major parties could no longer afford to ignore them. When Trump scored a remarkable victory not even he anticipated, the message was received loud and clear.

Trump never ran an ordinary campaign. From the start, he became the leader of an insurgent movement that captured the Republican party and then the presidency. The dirty secret about Trump’s candidacy involved globalization and its discontents. The marketplace has always produced winners and losers. For most of its history, the US enjoyed being an ascendant and then a dominant global superpower. This changed dramatically with the emergence of Japan, Inc. and OPEC in the 1970’s, a derided yet pivotal decade. Suddenly, factories closed, industries faded and whole communities began to die. Suddenly, the American century was over after twenty-five years. But let us be clear: trade deals did not darken steel and auto plants. For the first time in our history, the chickens came home to roost. American industrial workers fell victim to the ceaseless and ruthless economic battle that defines the global market economy.

In this context, Trump’s crass behavior is viewed by those marginalized and left behind by globalization as a thumb in the eye of political and cultural elites who failed to address their suffering. Even as many believe his comments and actions are inappropriate, Trump receives a pass after being anointed to become a lightning rod to voice the pent-up frustration and anger of those who feel powerless to change an unresponsive political system. Trump maintains his relative strength not in spite of his outrageous behavior, but as a direct consequence of the discomfort he generates.

If Trump is the Teflon politician, to whom nothing awful ever seems to stick, Bill and Hillary Clinton are Velcro politicians, to whom every misstep sticks forever. It is my belief that our reactions to Trump and the Clintons are intimately connected.

When the history of the 1990’s gets written in the future, Bill Clinton will be remembered as the first Republican president who masqueraded as a Democrat. Remember his triumphant assertion that he ended “big government” as we knew it when he engineered welfare reform as part of his “triangulation” strategy, whereby he adopted Republican policy initiatives to outflank Newt Gingrich to secure reelection. Furthermore, Clinton unleashed a tidal wave of corporate profits and stock market gains with massive economic deregulation that devastated the economy a decade later. While there was some trickle-down benefit, the resentment of “losers” in the globalization battle continued to simmer.

The Clintons came to embody the hypocrisy of political elites because they branded themselves as “Third Way” Democrats while endorsing policies that smelled distinctly Republican. And as if he were the second coming of Herbert Hoover, Al Gore gushed during one of his presidential debates that he proposed to render the federal government debt free for the first time since the early 19th century, espousing a political goal anathema to liberal Democrats like Hubert Humphrey or FDR. This is not to deny that certain Clinton initiatives were progressive, like the attempted overhaul of health care. But this fell victim to personal arrogance and a penchant for secrecy that ultimately doomed any chance of adoption and increased political and personal resentment against Bill and Hillary.

In effect, the Clintons maneuvered themselves to become political scapegoats before there was any personal scandal. So it is quite instructive to note the very different response to Clinton’s affair with his intern and Trump’s sexual boasting. Bill Clinton was impeached while Trump’s disclosure failed to register with voters. In their non-response to the Access Hollywood tape, Americans were not sanctioning the sexual assault of women. But any judgment of his deplorable personal behavior was trumped by his role as political lightning rod. This has enabled him to remain relatively unscathed, even as the stench of corruption and scandal intensifies around him.

If Robert Mueller concludes Trump engaged in an obstruction of justice, or discovers evidence of money laundering in his private business, the teflon politician may have to face the music as his fate will no longer be determined by the court of public opinion alone. However, the more interesting and important issue is: what happens when Trump supporters realize he has sold them a bill of goods? Who will they turn to and how will their smoldering resentment, disillusionment and anger get expressed? We could find out sooner rather than later.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

Given the unremitting barrage of angry tweets, vulgar language and outright lies, not to mention recent incendiary revelations from interviews with White House insiders, “Pin the Psychological Diagnosis on the President” has become a national parlor game. The president’s incessant need to boast, whether about the size of his genitals or inauguration day crowd, his intellectual acuity or achievements during the first year in office, and his volcanic eruption of temper and mean-spirited vindictiveness when confronted with critical or negative feedback, suggest someone who requires constant admiration from others as he labors to convince everyone, including or especially himself, that he is worthy of praise. But no affirmation is ever enough for someone who feels they are both the center of the universe and absolutely worthless. This is the narcissist’s central dilemma. No amount of positive regard is sufficient to extinguish the underlying fear about being unworthy, so any negative feedback evokes threatening and intolerable feelings of worthlessness that must be resisted at all costs.

It is difficult enough to be personally involved with such a person, say, a boss at work or an intimate partner. It is another thing entirely when that person is the president and the leader of the free world. There is no escaping his needy and volatile presence on a daily basis. As a result, many citizens feel physically and emotionally exhausted, both bullied and beleaguered, by our current president as we bide our time until he leaves office. Unfortunately, we should expect his petulant behavior, his brittle defensiveness and angry Twitter outbursts, to intensify as his approval ratings continue to dwindle.

But as the nation tires of the president, the president tires of his job. For someone who desperately needs continual approval for his performance, the experience of being challenged directly in the give and take of political life is infuriating. He takes everything personally and rails whenever he does not get his way or when anyone portrays him in a less than flattering light. So, of course, the president would interpret Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s attempt to meddle in our presidential election as an attack on the legitimacy of his election victory. If everything is about him, what other explanation could there be for Mueller’s persistence? And as it remains unthinkable to contemplate how he could have lost the popular vote without widespread fraud, the president would have to convene a commission to prove it.

Mueller’s ongoing investigation represents a clear political threat to the president. While it remains unclear if he will identify an impeachable offense, namely, the president’s attempt to obstruct justice, I believe his work poses an even more serious danger. I suspect, as many do, that the president’s tax filings reveal a long history of financial shenanigans, including laundering money for Russian friends. This is the reason why he vehemently opposes the release of his tax records. I believe Mueller will connect the dots. And when the president and his lawyers learn what Mueller has discovered, the political noose will tighten considerably.

When Mueller presents his findings to the White House, the president will portray himself as the victim of the greatest political witch hunt in American history. He will characterize this witch hunt as a partisan effort to overturn the last election, one that distracted his administration and the entire nation while undermining his effort to make America great again. And he will state that the nation’s health and well-being requires an end to this “partisan circus”. Therefore, for the greater good of the country, he will resign immediately so his vice president can pursue his policy agenda with alacrity. Upon assuming office, the new president will thank his predecessor for rendering a great service to the nation and pardon him, without any admission of guilt. Our current president will experience great relief when he leaves office and after a long vacation, will resume his life as a celebrity businessman, while the nation is spared the further indignity of his leadership. The president’s resignation will occur before the next election.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

All of us deplore the recent act of violence against cyclists and pedestrians on the streets of New York. How does a society prevent a lone wolf terrorist determined to use a rental truck or even a car as a lethal weapon? And how do we prevent people from becoming so radicalized that they commit acts of terrorist violence? There are no easy answers.

The latest lone wolf attacker is an Uzbek national who has lived in the US for several years with his family. He is a licensed truck driver and a former Uber driver. It seems obvious that there should be social service programs available to help recent immigrants from totalitarian states like Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic now ruled by a corrupt despot, make the cultural and psychological adjustment to life in an open society like the US and a difficult place like New York. But there aren’t any. One can readily understand how significant economic and financial stress, which this attacker may have experienced, generates emotional, psychological and even religious/spiritual turmoil. The ensuing vulnerability, involving a search for easy answers, that the world is black and white, and a way to imbue life with meaning and importance, provides fertile soil for extremist propaganda. Does this explain why someone would commit murder? Of course not. But It does indicate the enormity of the problem we face. The issue is not merely preventing would be terrorists from entering the country, but preventing people who are here from becoming terrorists.

Predictably, our president focuses on closing borders and attacking his political opponents. This response is not only a disgrace, it is narrow-minded and misguided. All of his empty rhetoric about keeping the country safe and moving beyond political correctness is cynical. If he meant what he said, he would acknowledge the war being waged on the streets of our towns and cities, the cold-blooded acts of terror being committed each and every day in our country. Americans are killing other Americans at an alarming rate. The number of gun related homicides from 2011 to 2015, the last year of reliable statistics, nearly equaled the total number of American soldiers killed during the Vietnam war.

If the president were serious about forsaking expediency to take effective measures to keep us safe, he would confront and defy the powerful gun lobby and support anti-gun legislation. Even if one concedes the right to own a handgun to promote the illusion of safety in one’s home or the right of hunters and sportsmen to purchase rifles, what is the rationale for anyone to have a semi-automatic rifle or hardware that converts such guns into fully automatic weapons? It is beyond shameful that we remain hostage to a powerful political lobby determined to undermine any meaningful anti-gun legislation.

Our president’s words are designed to score political points and fulfill campaign promises because he remains committed, no matter what the circumstance, to secure a personal advantage. That is who he is. He imagines that talking tough on immigration is going to solve the problem of terrorist violence, when the reality is far more complex. Meanwhile, the war on our streets continues unabated. All of us are vulnerable to acts of gun related violence while our president and the Republican party refuse to take, or even consider, any action to address the other source of terrorist violcence that claims the lives of so many Americans.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

Recently we have been stunned and frightened by Trump’s hyperbolic rhetoric threatening to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea, a thinly veiled reference to using nuclear weapons. Coming several days after an important diplomatic victory, involving a rare unanimous UN Security Council vote to intensify sanctions against North Korea, there was no justification to escalate the public rhetoric at this particular moment. And given the fact that Trump unleashed his initial verbal assault at a scheduled event about the opioid epidemic, it appears his hostile remarks were improvised. Or were they?

While everyone agrees North Korea should not become a nuclear power, let’s remember why its regime expends precious economic resources to develop a nuclear arsenal at great sacrifice to its people, including widespread famine. The North Korean leadership believes the only way to stave off the existential threat of an American invasion is by developing nuclear weapons. In their view, history supports this claim. Both Iraq and Libya gave up nuclear weapons programs and Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi were eventually overthrown and killed. While regime change in Iraq and Libya was not linked to the termination of WMD programs, the North Koreans believe otherwise. Their leaders remain convinced that the only way to avoid a similar fate is by developing atomic weapons.

So how should we respond to North Korea’s provocative ballistic tests and aggressive statements? In the minds of many, all reasonable diplomatic efforts have reached an impasse, leaving us to contemplate taking military action against North Korea, even as most experts concluded long ago this would entail a catastrophic loss of life in both South and North Korea and perhaps elsewhere too. Given the unimaginable stakes, we must never conclude there are no diplomatic solutions. It is imperative that American and North Korean foreign ministers meet immediately to pave the way for direct contact between the leaders of these two countries. It is nothing short of remarkable that neither the foreign ministers nor the leaders of these two countries have ever met. Even at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the US pointed thousands of nuclear warheads at one another, we made an effort to maintain strong diplomatic contact and engaged in disarmament talks and ratified treaties reducing the nuclear arsenal of both sides.

What could a meeting between North Korea and the US achieve? First, the United States must unconditionally renounce any and all interest in launching a preemptive military strike against North Korea and/or engaging in regime change. Second, the US should pledge its support to modernize the North Korea economy. This would involve a detailed list of concrete proposals regarding international private and governmental investment. Its current leader, educated in Switzerland, appears willing to engage in some level of privatization to enhance his country’s economic prospects. If we believe in the superiority of capitalist markets, the only successful strategy to engineer regime change in North Korea involves transforming its economy to improve the standard of living of its citizens. In this way, we could gradually bring North Korea into the international community and alleviate its fear of American “imperialism”. Giving North Korean citizens a place in the world economy is the best enduring strategy to diffuse the current conflict over its nuclear weapons program.

Of course, this valuable assistance can only occur if North Korea agrees to freeze, rather than dismantle, their nuclear weapons program, with UN inspectors empowered to be the sole judge verifying they have honored their commitment. A freeze would allow the regime to save face with its people after decades of propaganda describing the importance of a nuclear weapons stockpile, while defusing current tensions. The ball would be in North Korea’s court: to seize the opportunity offered by American “capitalists” and the rest of the world or to remain an economically desperate and pariah nation. Concurrently, we must scale back the public hostility and redouble our effort to engage in behind the scenes diplomacy, like the US accomplished with China during the Nixon administration.

Donald Trump’s aggressive pronouncements validate the North Korean government’s fear of America’s intentions. It also indicates he is temperamentally ill suited, as widely assumed, to resolve a major international crisis. Finally, it suggests a powerful ulterior motive: to launch a preemptive strike against the scent of a major presidential scandal, embodied by Robert Mueller’s Trump/Russia investigation, and to bolster his beleaguered political leadership. Since the war of words between Donald Trump and the North Korean regime began, Mueller’s decision to convene a second grand jury to facilitate his investigation, the FBI’s decision to secure records from Mike Flynn, Mueller’s desire to interview White House staffers, including recently departed chief of staff Reince Priebus, and perhaps most remarkably, the unannounced predawn FBI raid of Paul Manafort’s home in July, has been shunted aside as the day’s major news story. In the Hollywood movie Wag the Dog, a trumped up war distracts attention away from a sex scandal. Donald Trump’s menacing rhetoric, a sobering example of life imitating art, represents a dangerous instance of wagging the dog.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

The story involving Donald Trump’s associates and Russian intelligence officials keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. And it begins well before the 2016 presidential election. In December, 2015, Gen. Mike Flynn traveled to Russia to celebrate the 10th anniversary of a television channel called Russia Today, an unabashed mouthpiece for the Kremlin. Flynn received money to be interviewed on air and to attend a gala dinner highlighted by a speech given by Vladimir Putin. But why would the ex-chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency accept money from a propaganda tool of the Russian government as tensions mounted between Russia and the US? Can you imagine a retired FSB director being paid to appear on Fox News?

American intelligence agencies established last year that the Russian government launched a concerted effort to interfere with our presidential campaign. The Obama administration responded by imposing new sanctions against Russia. Under ordinary circumstances, the Russians would have retaliated in kind. But Putin failed to do so. At the time, his reaction puzzled most observers. Now we know when sanctions were announced, Flynn discussed them with the Russian ambassador, perhaps conveying they would be rescinded by the Trump administration. This could explain why Putin dismissed Obama’s pronouncement.

Of course, Trump denied he instructed Flynn about what to say to the Russian ambassador. But Trump’s baffling comment at the time, that Russia’s mild response confirmed that Putin was “very, very smart”, suggests Flynn was not acting on his own, that a coordinated effort to disparage Obama’s course of action involved Trump himself. How else to explain why Trump praised Putin at the very moment Obama punished the Russian government for interfering in the election? At best, Trump allowed an underling to freelance on a sensitive issue of national security. At worst, he concealed his role in the whole affair. And a possible presidential cover-up might explain why Trump did not fire Flynn immediately when he lied to the vice-president.

Aside from the Flynn scandal and the possibility of a cover-up, the most astonishing part of this evolving story involves frequent and ongoing conversations between Trump campaign officials and/or other associates and Russian intelligence officials during the presidential campaign. And this begs a very simple and pivotal question: why would Trump associates have any contact with Russian officials during a presidential campaign, especially since it was reported Putin wanted to interfere with the election? During the campaign, they had frequent conversations with intelligence personnel working for a dangerous political adversary. What were they talking about? What did Trump associates want?

While American intelligence sources have not confirmed any outright collusion between Trump supporters and Russian officials to undermine the Clinton campaign, the fact these conversations occurred is mind-boggling. Do these contacts indicate a secret relationship or understanding between Trump and Putin and does this explain Trump’s reluctance to criticize Putin, even after his aggressive behavior in Crimea and Ukraine? Given events in Eastern Europe and developments in Russia over the last several years, it is surprising any major American politician would compliment Putin. But it is astounding when a presidential candidate and a standing president praise a political leader who remains committed to policies that threaten our national security. No wonder many in Eastern Europe and throughout NATO remain worried about Trump’s political resolve to contain Russian ambitions.

How are we to understand Trump’s behavior vis-à-vis Putin? Does he admire and envy the way Putin governs? Recall that in a remarkable tweet message during the campaign, he appreciated the way the Russian leader controlled his people. Some have suggested Trump views Putin as an important ally in the battle against Islamic extremists. But Russian policy in Syria, for instance, has bolstered Assad rather than target terrorists. Moreover, Russia’s air force committed war crimes against a civilian population in Aleppo. Why hasn’t Trump spoken out about Russia’s horrific role in Syria? The more sinister explanation for Trump’s reticence to confront Putin involves unconfirmed reports the Russians have compromising personal information. In this regard, the Russian general who supplied pivotal intelligence to Christopher Steele, who compiled the report indicating the Russians had “kompromat” against Trump, was found dead in a car on a Moscow street in January. Russian media reported his death as suspicious. That seems obvious. But why was he killed? For collaborating with Steele or because he knew too much?

How ironic that candidate Trump vilified Hillary Clinton and threatened to “lock her up” for using a private email server that never endangered the nation. Now there is real concern that a pivotal relationship with a menacing political adversary may be gravely compromised. There is more than a whiff of scandal here. So six weeks into Trump’s presidency, it is time to establish an independent prosecutor to get to the bottom of it. Will congressional Republicans, who spent millions to fund several investigations of Clinton’s e-mails, address a serious challenge to our national security? Or will they engage in partisan politics and refuse to allow Republicans to investigate Republicans, as Rand Paul recently put it?

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

If the recent press conference is any guide, the hope Donald Trump would magically become more “presidential” appears utterly doomed. The Donald will remain the Donald. One of the most explosive aspects of the meeting with journalists involved a tense standoff between the president elect and a CNN reporter, with Trump refusing to call on the latter and condemning his cable network as a purveyor of “fake news”. He was angered by CNN’s coverage of a controversial story. Trump’s behavior was disturbing but not surprising. It confirmed what we know about his personality: he is remarkably thin skinned and will viciously attack anyone who challenges or threatens him in any way. This is not a reassuring quality for someone about to occupy the most powerful political office in the world.

So what triggered Trump’s emotional outburst? As CNN reported, Trump and Obama were briefed by US intelligence recently that the Russians (I was tempted to write “the Soviets”) might have personal and financial information embarrassing to the president-elect. In a remarkable plot twist out of a Le Carre novel, Russian intelligence operatives, according to a retired MI6 officer deemed to be a credible source, obtained damaging personal information on Trump during visits to Moscow. Being an old KGB operative himself, one can imagine how Vladimir Putin would be delighted to have such “kompromat” or compromising information, allowing him to become a de facto handler of a US president and capable of exercising leverage over his behavior.

We should remember that Putin leads a regime eager to reestablish its central position on the world stage after a humiliating loss in Afghanistan, a devastating defeat in the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and, perhaps even more significantly, being left in the dust in the global marketplace by their erstwhile communist comrades, the Chinese. And when coupled with ongoing sanctions from the West and the collapse of oil revenues that plunged the economy into crisis, one can readily understand Putin’s desperate attempt to restore Russia’s rightful place as an international force to be reckoned with.

This is the principle underlying his aggressive military action in Syria and Eastern Europe. While most Russian citizens remain unaware of their military’s action in Syria, Putin enjoys wide popularity at home because of his brazen incursions in Crimea and Ukraine to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence at its western border. Putin needs international adventures to distract attention from ongoing economic problems and to repair the wounded national psyche. And what better way to flex personal and national political muscle than by obtaining humiliating information about an American president? If such compromising evidence exists, Putin would use it to neutralize US opposition to Russian overtures in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Democrats and Republicans alike have been puzzled by Trump’s curious lack of interest in condemning or even acknowledging Russian aggression, his suggestion to lift sanctions imposed after Putin’s invasion of the Crimea and his turning a blind eye to probable war crimes committed by the Russian Air Force in Aleppo as he remains determined to align with Putin to defeat ISIS. Many have been baffled if not alarmed by Trump’s war of words with the intelligence community, as he remained dubious of its conclusion that the Russians hacked DNC computers and directed a disinformation campaign against Hillary Clinton, coupled with his defense of Putin’s leadership style. In fact, Trump has been consistently more critical of Obama and US intelligence officials than of Putin. Has the president elect’s curious behavior reflected the presence of damaging information obtained by the Russians? At this time, we do not know. Of course, Trump condemns the allegation as fake news. How ironic coming from a politician who resurrected his political career questioning if Obama was an American citizen and who referred to the National Enquirer as a credible news source.

But even more ominous is the extraordinary rumor about contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials to coordinate efforts against Clinton. While it is simply stunning to contemplate this, it should be noted that Ron Wyden, a US senator from Oregon, pushed FBI director Comey about this allegation in a public hearing and that the latter refused to even acknowledge if the agency was pursuing an investigation. Of course, if there is any shred of truth to the story, it is grounds for immediate impeachment. And it would place our entire political system into House of Cards territory. For now, this is putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps none of it will amount to anything. Perhaps the Russian ambassador, who called the story about Russian hacking “pulp fiction”, will be proven right. But does anyone believe the Russian denial is credible? And given Trump’s shaky relationship with the truth, is it unreasonable to harbor doubts or fears about his vehement denials? To quote a TV news anchor about an emerging story about the Watergate break in: I believe we will be hearing more about this story. Let us hope the intelligence community will conclude that allegations about colluding with the Russians belong to the pages of a Cold War potboiler rather than the headlines of today’s newspapers.

However, even if there was no collaboration between the Trump campaign and the Russians, Trump’s attack on the American intelligence community signals another red flag about his personal temperament. Trump objected to their conclusion that the Russian government tried to influence the outcome of the recent presidential election because he interpreted it as a challenge to the legitimacy of his electoral victory. Trump’s belief that their intelligence finding was simply a personal attack rendered him unwilling or unable to register any concern about a hostile foreign power trying to undermine a hallmark of our democracy, the integrity of our electoral process. Quick to take offense and prone to take offense often, the president elect seems intent on denigrating anyone he perceives as personally challenging or threatening. His vindictiveness could make the Nixon White House and its infamous enemies list appear to be a model of relative tolerance.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano

During the campaign, Donald Trump promised to become the greatest jobs president God ever gave to America. He railed against unfair trade deals that, in his view, prompted a mass exodus of jobs to countries like Mexico and China and condemned governmental regulations that ruined industries such as coal. While his xenophobic populist speeches crossed rhetorical boundaries adhered to by major party candidates, they highlighted a theme familiar to Republican voters. Ever since Reagan, conservative politicians have characterized government as the sworn enemy of prosperity: its policies undermined economic growth and squeezed middle and working class incomes. Trump vowed to reverse this pernicious trend.

If the president elect negotiates tougher bilateral trade deals and cuts corporate taxes, will shuttered coal plants and steel mills flicker back to life, allowing him to restore these declining industries? The historical record suggests otherwise. The coal industry was decimated by cheaper and cleaner natural gas, while steel mills closed because their plant and equipment was old and inefficient and labor costs were high. As steel from China became cheaper to make, increased demand for its products resulted in greater market share. Accordingly, more favorable trade deals and/or lower taxes will not return lost jobs to American coal and steel workers.

Every player in the free enterprise economy engages in cutthroat competition that distributes winners and losers across the globe. Many refer to globalization as if it were a recent development. In fact it’s very old news. The capitalist economy has always been a worldwide phenomenon. An early 19th century example of globalization involved the destruction of the Indian textile industry by Britain’s East India Trade Company. Cheaper British textiles slashed demand for Indian products, just as Chinese producers succeeded at the expense of American manufacturers. How will private companies and government respond to the continuous evolution of the global marketplace? Will we seek to revive dying industries, as Trump promised, or identify emerging ones, like the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines, as Bill McKibben proposed, to employ American workers at good wages, revitalize hard hit areas of the country and renew macroeconomic growth?

One recent Oxford study found that nearly half of all American jobs could disappear over the coming decades due to automation. Better trade deals and lower taxes will not reverse this trend. Democrats must address this burgeoning economic problem by ensuring that workers who lose their jobs due to technological change and/or the migration of companies elsewhere, receive every opportunity to get retrained. Moreover, public education should provide curriculums for young people to find good jobs in rising, not declining, industries. Government must assist workers as they adapt to technological innovation and ruthless competition in the global marketplace. And this effort must be highlighted as an important example of how government is a friend to working and middle class families, not their enemy as Republicans contend. Levying tariffs and taxes to protect jobs, industries and markets against foreign competition, as Trump threatened, characterizes nations that cannot successfully compete globally. Protecting jobs from automation or more efficient production elsewhere, is surely a losing strategy for American workers.

A key part of the effort to strengthen America’s place in the global marketplace involves modernizing America’s rail lines, ports, bridges, tunnels and roads. Given Trump’s promise to rebuild the nation’s decaying infrastructure, Democrats should hold his feet to the fire and insist that he honor his campaign pledge. Perhaps the Keynesian prescription of putting more money in the hands of more people, as opposed to cutting taxes for the wealthy, as the key to generate renewed economic growth, will provide an opportunity for Trump and congressional Democrats to work together.

But what happens if Trump proposes massive infrastructure spending and runs into conservative opposition in Congress? How will he square his promise to rebuild with the Republican effort to reduce the federal debt and balance the budget? Will Republicans seek to cut money for other social programs to compensate for increased infrastructure spending? There is a potential for serious conflict between Trump and congressional Republicans. One can even imagine a scenario where Trump seeks Democratic support for increased outlays over the opposition of the Republican leadership. Much stranger things have happened recently.

Trump’s compelling promise to put America back to work and enhance levels of macroeconomic growth, underscores a critical failure of the first Obama administration. Obama’s stimulus package to revive the economy was far too small. While the economy rebounded, sluggish growth coupled with the loss of jobs over a long period of time, provided an opening for Trump’s angry populist appeal. He assailed Obama’s economic program as a failure, even as the economy crawled back from the edge of an abyss. But the sad fact is that Obama’s policies did not allow more working families to improve their economic condition. And this proved fatal to the Clinton campaign.

But what if Trump fails to deliver on his promise to be a “jobs” president? What will happen to Rust Belt voters who ultimately swung the election in his favor or to all those who harbored misgivings about his qualifications and temperament but voted for him anyway because he promised jobs? How will they react when the stock market rallies and his economic policies produce an even greater concentration of wealth at the top while factories in their communities remain closed? Will white working class voters become more cynical and apathetic? Or will their smoldering anger create a potential opening for more sinister demagogues to emerge?

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.
Editor of Delano