Who's Interests

Now you see it, now he says you didn't.

Not much of a trick, unless of course the first part was really an illusion.

However, it was broadcast to the entire world and we all saw our leader act subservient and obsequious, not his usual behavior.

Of course his record isn't very good against people who he can't bully, or at least think he can.

Being a vindictive small minded person himself, he was probably deathly afraid that his business interests or those of his relatives in Russia could be hurt.

He may have also been afraid of what they might reveal, except at this point most of us except the dossier as probably true.

He could easily have been bribed with promise of future opportunities once he was out of office.

He equates himself with America so if he doe well, well that's his version of America first.

He has no real concern for workers or anybody who can't help him succeed personally.

His promises were all really aimed at his cronies, hey great health care for you rich people and less crowds as I strip everyone else's.

Revive mining and steel, well if you own a mine or a steel plant maybe.

He is being outwitted and outmatched on the world stage and his rants in NATO are tolerated because its pretty much a shattered alliance without us.

I'm sure they are simply grinning and bearing it for the next few years.

You just have to remember that to him America first has always meant:

Look Out For Number One.

Trust Them

As a slogan it seemed to resonate with people who felt that the changes they had seen in their lifetime were somehow not so good.

These changes included improved diversity, more creature comforts, tremendous increases in technology but along with that there was a loss of certain jobs that used to pay well because they were outsourced, eliminated by technology or simply obsolete.

Opportunity in America has become something that you have to earn.  It was always so, but for a time, a period in history where nostalgia (not reality) tells us we all were living in Mayberry RFD or in Springfield with a father who knew best and a mother who cooked best.

Generally reality wasn't much like that but people forget the drudgery of the factories where the first thing a lot of workers did when they got paid was hit the bar, with a decent chance they would hit the wife later if she asked where his paycheck was.

Yes more women stayed home, some happily, many not.

This glorious period supposedly existed in the 50s, 60s and 70s when we of course had a country torn by civil rights protests and Vietnam war protests assassinations and presidential corruption which led to a resignation.

The idea that America was greater than rests upon a nostalgic view of men earning a decent wage and a cookie cutter family in a little pink house.

It ignores the racism, bigotry, sexual predation and rampant growth in drug use that was going on.

Why did so many of these idyllic children flee to the big cities as soon as they were old enough?

The progress in America has been steady and for most Americans things generally got better, unless of course you lost a high paying low skill job to a robot or a foreigner.

Instead of learning some skills or becoming an entrepreneur, it was easier to turn to opioids, Fox and Trump who told you it wasn't your fault, you should blame anyone who did well in the new economy.

Trust them, they will make the rich richer but something might roll your way, maybe, although probably not.  Just trust them.