An Effort at Compromise”

This article is dedicated to my sister, Laura, who is a lovely Christian woman, with no faults of which I am aware, whom I love dearly, but who to my great surprise actually supports President Donald Trump.  Since I personally find this to be almost incomprehensible, as it defies rational logic that she should do so, I have endeavored, in order to be fair to her and others like her, to re-evaluate my own dislike for our President, to see if I might better understand her support for this man and thereby perhaps build some bridges between Christians and Christians.

Many conservative Christians, as my sister, Laura, support President Trump over Democrats for several obvious reasons.  First, and foremost, almost none of my conservative sisters and brothers found much to support in the democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.  They considered her as a clone of President Obama, except with many serious flaws of character.  One person I know even went so far as to call Hillary “a godless woman.”  Now this is a serious charge from one woman toward another.  Many people vilified Hillary, yet despite all that she actually won more of the popular vote than President Trump.  Trump took more electoral votes, which is why he is now President.

Laura tells me she likes our President because he is good at making deals.  She quotes his book, “The Art of the Deal” as a prime example.  Particularly, the deal Trump has made with the North Korean dictator is recent example.  It is important to note, as a matter of historical fact that the actual author of The Art of the Deal , Tony Scwartz has admitted he regrets writing this book and found the thought of a Trump presidency “terrifying.” (ABC new report, Morgan Winson, July 18, 2016).  It is also known that Kim Jong Un has never kept any agreement he has made so far, so the jury is still out on this one he made with our President.  Perhaps this will yet bear fruit.  I hope so.

More recently, President Trump has made a secret deal(s) of some kind with President Putin of Russia.  This is an odd relationship, of the President of the Free World with Putin, as Putin is another dictator of Russia.  Any who oppose Putin in Russia either end up in prison, or poisoned with nerve agents.  At the last news report, not even President Trumps Secretary of State nor his National Security advisor has been briefed as to what President Trump said to Putin as the representative of the American people.  All we know for sure is that Putin has been invited to come to the White House in the fall to continue “the art of the deal.”  My suspicion is that Putin and Trump are working on a comprehensive plan to make peace in the Middle East without involving the United Nations, and making still other arrangements on North Korea, but this is only a guess.  It is odd, however, that Trump has refused to involve the leadership of either the House or the Senate, even though both are Republicans.  I feel Putin is leading our President down a path he will later regret.  Do you share my concerns?

Even if new things come out of this meeting between Putin and Trump, why are his advisors not involved in this process?  In any case Trumps support among his base is still at 46% and has not wavered despite all the odd things coming out of the White House.  In today’s news, President Trump has promised billions of dollars in aid to the American farmers to help them weather the effect of the tariffs he has imposed on China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union.  This is an obvious way to prevent farmers defecting from the Republicans in November elections.  Surprisingly, he has not found money to rebuild our roads nor help our schools.  Some Republican senators are calling this “welfare” and say the farmers want to sell their products in new markets, not be placed on “welfare” from the federal coffers.

Second, several conservative persons says President Trump is bringing back jobs.  That is partially true, but the foundation for this recovery was laid back in 2007-2008 by President Obama.  Had he not brought the country back from economic meltdown, there would be no current recovery.  The unemployment rate was already falling while Obama was still in office.  Trump’s appeal to the conservatives has been to remove a lot of so-called “government red tape.”  Until Pruitt’s excesses got him booted out of his job, he was taking apart the EPA and other organizations designed to protect workers and the environment.  Obama increased the total numbers of acres under government protection for wildlife and heritage sites for American Indians.  Trump and his secretaries have reversed this and are removing protections on endangered species to allow development of protected lands.  A report this week said if these protections had been removed in the 1970s, neither the bald eagle nor the grey wolf would be present with us today.  How much is a bald eagle worth?  It is hard to say.  I think it is worth at least as much as a new hotel, a new golf course, or a new mine to unearth coal.

An interesting development of the new job growth has been the type of job growth.  According to most recent reports, while unemployment is the lowest in decades, the real growth of wages has not changed since 2008.  Employers are offered “perks”, as health insurance or free coffee to workers.  They are not offered any growth in real wages.  So even with full employment in the US, wages have not risen.  The cost of living has not decreased.  Where are all the profits going?  Apparently these are going to raise the value of stocks and going into pockets of the wealthy in this country. The Middle Class is shrinking.  The gap between the wealthy 3% and the other 97%, which include middle class workers has widened, not shrunk.  I have not heard President Trump speak about this real problem.  I guess he has been busy talking with Putin.  He has, so far, done nothing to raise the real wages of his constituents.

President Trump promised that he was going to repair roads and bridges all across the country.  He gave a plan for this, but no money.  His plan has state money investing in the infrastructures of the states.  Of course, for states to do this will require higher gasoline taxes and other use taxes.  The jury is still out on this.  I understand our bridges, our roads, our sewers are at least 60 years old since their last repair and that we are billions of dollars behind on the cost of repairs.  This should be one of our national priorities, to repair our infrastructure.  A downtown street in Manhattan collapsed the other day, when an underground sewer gave way, in NYC.  I wonder how many more sewers are in need of repair.  How about the roads in your community?

A great deal was made by the Republicans as to tax reform.  The only major legislation to pass both the House and Senate since Trump took office is the Tax Reform Act of 2018.  The jury is still out as to how much it will finally help the Middle Class. Those in the higher tax brackets will certainly be helped and those investing in stocks that yield dividends.  The Middle class will be helped, but this help does not last as long as the changes to taxes on dividends.  Are the rich still getting richer?  You do the math and let me know.  We do know that our national debt will increase because of this new legislation.

The larger question is whether the illegal tariffs being placed on Canada, Mexico and the European Union and China will serve any purpose other than raising the prices of consumer goods.  President Trump declared a “national crisis” in order to waive the World Trade Organization rules in order to institute these tariffs.  There is no “national emergency,” in the USA, so the rest of the world looks askance at these tariffs.  They are in fact illegal under current trading rules.  These same concerns could have been addressed in round table discussions with our trading partners.  Instead, President Trump has chosen as usual to go his own way and has angered many of our allies.  He has also withdrawn from the Asian Pacific Trade agreement, which was developed to enhance trade among nations in that region, and counterbalance the dominance of China.  Without the US involvement, China is free to wreak havoc on the world stage. China plans to dominate the world!  In countries as small and insignificant as Samoa China is building international airports and buying property on which to raise food.  They are taking fish away from the indigenous populations and taking it all back to China.  I recently witnessed this with my own eyes when doing a mission for medical care in that area of the world.  Can anyone tell me how much money China is investing in the rest of the world?  How much of the debt of the USA do the Chinese own?  This makes me kind of nervous about our future.  How about you?

In Israel, China is making agreements to buy intellectual property for their own economic development.  Israel, always in need of friends, is becoming a friend of China.  Trump focuses not on putting the capital investment of the Jewish state but moves the US embassy into Jerusalem.  China focuses on buying rights to Israel’s newest innovations.  I wonder which will prove to be most significant in the next twenty years, a political investment or an economic one.  If Africa, China has vast tracts of land to grow food for the Chinese.  How much of this food, grown on African soil feeds African children?  I have not been able to find out.  Yet I still receive letters every week from groups describing hungry children in the Sudan.

President Trump has promised to secure our borders by completing the wall along the border with Mexico.  Yet a wall with electronic surveillance is more effective and less costly than one made of concrete and steel.  Its real effect must be psychological, saying effectively to immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, we don’t want your kind!  This is in fact what President Trump has said.  In order to dissuade immigrants from cross the border, he started by calling many Hispanics “rapists and criminals.”  Trump separated immigrant parents from their children until the court intervened and stopped him.  There is a process for vetting immigrants which is actually working, but the immigrant courts proved too slow for Trump, so he started this new process instead.  Is it right to turn away immigrants who are fleeing murderous gangs in Honduras?  All of us want immigration to be legal.  Has there been any attempt to address the root cause of why people leave their own country to come to the USA?

I present this short article to try and advance the discussion between Christians who support President Trump and those like myself who do not. I invite your thoughtful response.  Our UN ambassador, Nicky Haley told a group of young Republicans is it better to persuade your opponent than to shout at them.  Don’t you agree?  I would vote for someone like her for President.  I wonder if we can persuade her to run against President Trump….

Bill Wilson, MD