Collectively, the GOP is the personification of Robin Hood’s Evil Twin with Trump as the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham. With each threat, lie, fake news snippet, exaggeration, obfuscation, profanity, and recurring promise from the White House that” it’s going to be beautiful,” underscores Trump and his GOP collaborators as molesters of America’s moral code.
Every day seems to establish a new norm for debauched standards among our top politicians who walk shamelessly along the same sacred hallways of leadership, as did Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. Further, let me add Barack Obama, the 44th President, to this list of esteemed national leadership who was indisputably twice-elected by both popular vote and by the Electoral College, our first African American undeniably noted for his legitimate birth certificate, law degree from Harvard, 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, for his measured voice during our national discussion about universal health-care and for his creation of the largest protected place on the planet. No president has been perfect nor have we witnessed one as reckless, mean-spirited, and unapologetic as Trump.
Consequently, the current President seems beleaguered by his Obama-envy to the point of dark madness. Under his short reign, the Sheriff of Nottingham has begun the erasure of long-standing regulations to protect the environment and consumers from unbridled corporate greed, from bloated industry, and from the super-rich.
Take for example, ongoing tax reform and the FCC’s recent decision about net neutrality. Similarly, we have the GOP leadership calling health care, Medicare, Medicaid, and social security entitlement programs. This double standard appears to be a purposeful deception by our Congressional representatives many of whom elected to their office on platforms to preserve and protect. These representatives have the most extensive entitlement program in the history of the Republic!
The GOP has been drooling for years over the long-term successes of these social programs. Name one substantial and irrefutable social program and policy that Trump and the GOP have successfully authored on behalf of the poor and suffering in America. The President and Congress have a boundless “golden opportunity” during the next several years to demonstrate their commitment to our many voiceless citizens.
On some alarming deep-seated level, Trump, the GOP, and their evangelical supporters seem prepared to compromise decency, liberty and their relationship with the love of G-d for an obtuse, chaotic political agenda that favors Mammon and equivocates about deeply offensive issues such as pedophilia, alt-right racism, misogyny, anti-science, dirty energy, and sexism, biased business practices, and abuse of minorities. They emphasize over and over what divides rather than unites us in our plurality. If we must have a wall, then let us build one to protect minorities, the poor, the abused and the suffering throughout our great Nation. Disingenuous arguments from Trump and the GOP that anti-regulation will make America great again. In response, I ask, when was America NOT great?
In large part, Robin Hood’s successes were due to the broad support he earned from the poor and suffering. This President is no Robin Hood; he is instead a petty politician who has exhibited dissolute behavior at every crossroad for him to do good for his Fellow-Americans.
H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D., is a forest ecologist, science-educator, and conservationist living in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. He is also the founder of Bioquest Solutions LLC, a multi-service environmental consultancy at home and abroad. [email protected]
