Trump’s Chickens Come Home to Roost

“Sow the wind,” says the Good Book, “and reap the whirlwind.”

For four years, Donald Trump lied, cheated, sucked up to tyrants, played golf, lied some more, cheated some more, deconstructed environmental and social protections, played more golf, watched TV, incited violence, sucked up to more tyrants, and just generally acted as one would expect a narcissistic brat to behave if given the keys to the White House.

Now, I know that a number of readers are going to respond (1) “But whatabout Hillary?”, or (2) “But whatabout Hunter Biden?”, or (3) “Well, at least he wasn’t a Communist.” And that’s fine, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the putrefying garbage that piled up during Trump’s forty eight months of malevolent incompetence.

America will be decades before there is a full recovery from the blood-poisoning in its democratic institutions, and Americans will never recapture the capital sucked out of the economy by the ultra-wealthy who feasted at Trump’s chocolate fountain of tax goodies.

But it is the damage to our planet which harms us all, not just Americans. Most obvious is the price we are all paying because of his hatred of the environmental brief. Only the wilfully blind or political true believers have any doubt that four years of environmental regression on the part of America not only got us deeper into the soup, but in the absence of robust leadership, allowed the rest of the world, including Canada, to take a holiday. Now we are all paying dearly, and the worst is yet to come.

There is, however, a more sinister and tragic planetary result from Trump’s four years of coddling tyrants and his rich man’s disdain of the lowly of the earth. As democracy and accountability have slowly smothered around the globe, autocracy and bureaucratic incompetence took their places. All over the planet, but particularly in countries whose poor and middle class were already living on the edge, the masses are sliding back into poverty, servitude, and chaos.

Not that long ago, Emerging Markets were the darling of investors, the BRIC nations and others posting economic growth greater than that of the west. A rising tide lifted all the boats, not only to lift billions out of poverty, but to line our pockets in the process. Pretty good deal, except that it no longer seems to be working.

In places all over the planet– Mexico, Ethiopia, Yemen, Myanmar, Tunisia, to name but a few– civil war, warlordism, and economic meltdown are the direct result of the pandemic, climate change, and a vacuum of democratic leadership. Living standards and economic growth in the Third World are actually in decline, with dictators and their families living in splendid isolation, propped up by sycophantic and incompetent bureaucrats. This mess is infinitely worse than it was four years ago.

There will be a price to pay for all of this, not only by the suffering huddled masses, but by you and me and our investment accounts.

Is it fair to lay all of this at the feet of the 45th Golfer in Chief? Of course not, but if anyone on the planet can be singled out for poisoning our communal well, it would be him, with his toady lackeys in runner up position. Although Trump’s chickens are coming home to roost, it is us who are left to deal with them.