Miner Queries | Cherie Miner

On Wednesday after the election, one of my son’s friends posted on Facebook: “I just had someone come through my teller line and say ‘I voted for him, but I didn’t think he would win.’ Welcome to America’s Brexit.”
I, on the other hand, am experiencing election déjà vu.     
With a 48-48 popular vote split narrowly favoring Clinton, and an Electoral College win for Trump, the obvious parallel is the 2000 election. Remember how that worked out?
First, under George W. Bush, a budget surplus was quickly spent to award tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Next came 9-11, for which counterintelligence officers had warnings. Unfortunately, because these officers were Clinton-era employees, their warnings were ignored.
This led to two unbudgeted wars, made costlier by awarding numerous no-bid contracts to companies with ties to Bush administration officials and in some cases, under indictment for serious crimes. Wasn’t it Republican President Eisenhower who warned us to beware the military industrial complex?
Additionally, these wars led to serious erosion of civil liberties in the name of national security and to dangerous expansion of executive powers.
Finally, years of financial deregulation, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, contributed to the financial crisis in 2007.
For the last eight years, we’ve made some modest gains to undo the damage; however, corporate-owned major media has worked studiously to suppress that information. Instead, they’ve covered social wedge issues and political personalities and promoted faulty both-sides-do-it logic. Oh, yes, and appealed to all our worst biases.
Frankly, I’ve been watching that tactic since the 1980 election. Reagan was a master of blowing the dog whistle and telling jokes while gutting policies that helped Americans much like those Trump voters. Too many Americans remember only Reagan’s one-liners and not the economic damage from his corporate-friendly policies. And the Republican Party has continued using that playbook.
Finally, the Democratic Party has contributed to this mess by adopting the Republican Party’s funding and leadership models. As Bernie Sanders supporters will tell you, successful campaigns don’t need corporate funding.
Robert Reich said it best in an article shortly before the election: “The unsurprising result has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. That created an opening for demagoguery, in the form of Trump.
“Donald Trump has poisoned America, but he didn’t do it alone. He had help from opportunists in the GOP, the media and at the highest reaches of the Democratic Party.”
I’m hoping to be surprised by President Trump. But frankly, as someone who read both Bush and Trump’s resumes, I’m not optimistic. Bush had little success as a businessman and limited experience as a governor. Most of Trump’s businesses have failed, and he has no experience governing.
To me, that’s not a recommendation to hire. And the legacy of the last Republican president isn’t either.
So I think my young friend had it right, and like Brexit, it will be a while before we know just what kind of damage this election has done. But if the past is prescient, it won’t be pretty.

Cherie Miner is a local parent, community volunteer, freelance writer and artist. In a former life, she was a corporate writer and public relations professional. Contact her at news@redoakexpress.com or on Facebook.