2017 Year In Review: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Apocalyptical

Everything about the political year of 2017 stems from one thing - the thin electoral college majority put together by the popular vote loser in the 2016 Presidential election.

The good?

There has been a resistance formed that has been more effective than anyone imagined.  Beginning with the women's march right after the inauguration, those opposed to the Trump agenda have spoken loud and clear.  Much of the proposed legislation by the Republican majority has not materialized.  The travel ban and other executives have been successfully challenged, or modified, by courts that believe some of the actions of the administration are unconstitutional.   The impossible has occurred also, in that now that the American people see more clearly what the alternative is, Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) has achieved record popularity.  At the same time, tax reform bill, normally a surefire thing, polled as the most unpopular tax bill in American history.

Thanks to the efforts of some extraordinary and brave women, sexual harassment in the workplace is finally a front and center concern.  Executives. television personalities, and even a few politicians, have all paid the price for their terrible behavior.  Alabama rejected an alleged pedophile in favor of a prosecutor of those who would bomb children (although by a very slim margin - still, a win is a win).

We have seen many people volunteer and help other Americans hit by severe weather and misfortune.  Whenever we get outside of our fierce tribalism, we can be a kind, generous and understanding people.

The bad?

The tax reform bill will not accomplish much in the way of simplification, or in relief to the middle class and working poor.  It will reduce the revenues coming into the government, and it will cause a sharp rise in deficit spending.  The only suggestions to balance this is to sharply cut programs benefitting the middle class, including Medicare and Social Security.

The judiciary nominees coming in are of a very ideological bent, not even especially experienced jurists.  They will help ensure that even when Progressives take over, that much of their legislation will be overturned and rejected.  The idea from the Christian right is that they will overturn Roe V. Wade, and impose Christianity as a sort of national religion.  The reality is that they will consolidate corporate power and wealth.

Regulations are being attacked indiscriminately, disregarding whether it is warranted or not.  Things that help protect us are being jettisoned with as equal vigor as nuisance regulations.  They just have to be called Obama-Era regulations, and that is supposed to be sufficient. This is how something like net neutrality gets abolished, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans want to keep it.

The ugly?

Our whole culture and civic responsibility are being threatened and challenged.  We have become coarser by a President who rules by tweet, insulting and demeaning our institutions and private citizens.  Things we would not tolerate from any other President have become commonplace, and have been accepted by far too many of us.

We are also becoming increasingly divisive, with racism and prejudice not fading but growing.  We have a President who thinks there may be good Nazis, a President who wants to treat urban areas like foreign war zones, who behaved as if Puerto Ricans were second-class citizens who did not deserve the help that places like Florida and Texas got.

The apocalyptical?

We are careening towards greater conflict, as we have abandoned diplomacy, reason, our own intelligence services, in favor of getting in schoolyard language fights, and acting like we are going to resort to military options first.  And it is so easy to trick this President.  He is susceptible to flattery and can be buttered up by anybody, even those who have no commitment to democracy.  China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the Philippines - his favorites are a who's who of the world's most tyrannical leaders.  I swear, all North Korea has to do to get on his good side, is slap Trump's image on the side of a building and start composing praise songs in his name.

And worst of all, we have turned our back on global warming, denying its existence, even adopting policies that will accelerate it.  We have little time to reverse it.  It is already affecting the world, with the average global temperature rising, with extreme weather events increasing in frequency, with chunks of the Arctic and Antarctica and Greenland all falling away and causing the sea levels to rise.  As parts of the planet become uninhabitable, the future refugee crisis will make our current refugee situation look like pretty small potatoes.


Will 2018 be a better year?  I don't know.  Can we become a nation that bridges the divisions between us and works to make it a better country and planet for all of us?  Probably not.

But I'm not ready to give up hope.