by David Mark Greaves

President-elect Donald Trump is talking about “not ruling out” military force to regain control of the Panama Canal or annexing Greenland, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and using economic muscle to force Canada to become the 51st state. It feels as though we are approaching the top of the Coney Island Cyclone, and we’ll be cresting on January 20th and from there on down, we can only pray and work to see that the infrastructure holds through the twists and turns and come to the end in one piece.

And then we have the media oligarchs to deal with: Elon Musk, with influence purchased with his X platform and $250 million on behalf of Trump’s campaign, and Mark Zuckerberg, who visited Trump and decided that Facebook no longer requires fact-checkers.
Between the two, they can allow the social media environment to descend further into an algorithmically organized chaos where knowing truth from fiction will become increasingly difficult and beneficial to those in power.

With tax cuts, contracts, and side deals, this administration and its friends are going to slit our pockets and the pockets of coming generations, leaving the country poorer, less healthy, and emotionally disturbed.

But leave it they will because the voters will soon be on to them, because like a junkie who always wants to be a little bit higher, the lust for power and their addiction to money will cause an overreach, and they will start to be driven back in the midterm elections.
Or maybe not. Maybe the fate of the United States of America is to become an oligarchic, kleptocratic, kakistocracy. A nation ruled by the rich, the thieving, and the worst among us. I never thought that would happen.

So now we’ll watch as Hakeem Jeffries, Leader of the Democrats in the House, works with the Republican majority to split off just a couple of their votes to thwart the worst and arrive at compromises in the legislative battles to come.

As the new administration comes to power and the rhetoric becomes real, we will have to alternate between holding on tightly and relaxing when we can for this next four-year ride.