President Trump - Day 2

I can't believe he is blind enough not to notice that millions of people were out protesting against him yesterday.  I do believe that he thinks they are a bunch of malcontents who are upset that they lost.  However so far there have been no tweets that I have seen that indicate what response he has.  maybe he figures if he ignores them they will go away, a tactic that he probably uses when he stiffs contractors.  I am hoping that the protests do not go away.  However we need to make sure they don't go the way of the Occupy Movement and not really accomplish anything although had Bernie won we might have seen some positive results from even that movement.

My feeling is that this needs to progress to general strikes, something that the Europeans use on occasion to make a point.  Trump supporters are defensive about the lower numbers at his inauguration than Obama's and the much greater numbers of protesters yesterday than he had listen to his speech.  One theme they use to explain the discrepancy in the numbers is that Trump supporters are all working.  A general strike by those who do not support him will emphasize the fact that his detractors work too.  Nobody I personally know that was at the women's march is unemployed.  I am guessing but I will bet that many Trump supporters are in fact out of work as he did better in states with high unemployment and as Bill Maher pointed out also very well in states with high opioid use.  I think that Maher's tongue-in-cheek assumption that the opioid users are Trump's constituency and that they are using the drugs to overcome their sadness at having Obama as President is as funny as it is inaccurate.  It does point to a breakdown of society in those states and that certainly will fuel the kind of anger that Trump was able to harness.  The problem is that his policies will only make things worse as they are not middle class friendly and will result in the continuing shrinkage of the core of America.   Starting with Jefferson's yeomen farmers and progressing through the industrial workers that replaced them the middle class has always driven the core of the economy.  When the upper class gets too much power and there is not middle class bad things happen like the Civil War where one class of worker were slaves and the Great Depressions caused in part by the bankers and investors getting too much of the pie.

In any case if the Donald is going to make good on his inaugural address he will have to take into account that the rallies yesterday were bigger than his and if the people are now going to have a voice he has to listen to them not just the voices in his head.  As thin skinned as he is and as sure of himself as he is I suspect that nothing will change and we will have to keep ratcheting up the pressure.  The Republicans in Congress have no backbone and will probably not listen either but a sizable minority of the country gathered yesterday and from all reports were energized by the experience.  These are the Americans I respect.  Lets keep moving. .