2017 Reflections: The Dystopian Review

It is customary to welcome the New Year with optimism:

Our future pregnant with promise, potential and possibilities. 

We reflect on the past year and make resolutions to do better in the upcoming year.

Even as we embrace the NY 2018, let's reflect on the remarkably bizarre past year -- and yes it felt like a decade.

The fall from grace of the Evangelical movement. 


Stick a fork in them, they are so done.

Evangelicals have taken hits in the past. Think:  Jim Jones , Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and the father of the Moral Majority movement Jerry Falwell.

But by enthusiastically endorsing and supporting hugely morally flawed leaders like Donald Trump and Ray Moore -- they represent the antithesis of Christian values -- this quasi religious movement has abdicated any moral high ground they proclaim to have.

As the Brandon Robertson writes in the Huffington Post:

To the general public, abusive, arrogant, and misogynistic men such as these are radically incongruent with the values of the Jesus they claim to worship. And yet evangelicals across the country continue to come out in droves to support and defend these and many other like-minded leaders.

And honorable mentions to Televangelist pastor Joel Osteen for being shamed into opening his arena size church for Hurricane Harvey flood victims.

GOP: The party of law and order:

This myth has been severely debunked in 2017. Remember: During the height of the BLM movement, Trump and his acolytes remained steadfast in unequivocal support for law enforcement. Their mantra absent of nuance has been: Police/law enforcers good, People of color bad.

However, when Trump and company are cast as people of interests in crimes against the American electorate, Trump and his cohorts (co-conspirators?) in congress and Fox have ostentatiously trashed the Department of Justice and FBI -- the highest level of law enforcement in the country.

NY Times:

Now some Republican lawmakers are speaking out, worried that Trump loyalists, hoping for short-term gain, could wind up staining the party, dampening morale at the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and potentially recasting Democrats as the true friends of law enforcement for years to come.

The Death of Deficit Hawks:

To quote from Edgar Poe's "The Raven" poem: Nevermore, nevermore. 

With the Trumponomic tax cut -- the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom up to the top 1% in USA history -- our deficit spending will explode. And the deficit hawks are conspicuously mum. After loudly preaching that deficits threaten our children's and grandchildren's economic future, these hawks are MIA.

Desmond Lachman writes in The Hill:

As Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have correctly noted, the present tax reform bill is likely to result in an increase in the public debt over the next decade from anywhere between $1.5 and $2.2 trillion. This would result in the nation’s public debt-to-GDP ratio rising from its current, already high level of 75 percent to around 100 percent by 2027.

And:

With so many reasons to be concerned about an increase in the country’s budget deficit, one must be highly disappointed in Congress’ erstwhile budget deficit hawks now seeming to abandon their principles.

I am sure they will resurrect if the D's take over congress in 2018.

Welcome 2018. Godspeed Mr. Mueller.