BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK

I have been shunning cable news since the House vote yesterday on the Republican health bill.  I simply could not stomach endless replays of the gloating and celebrating by Trump and the Republicans.  There is not the slightest chance of anything remotely like it passing the Senate, and there is good reason to hope that the vote will cost the Republicans some House seats in 2018, but the mere passage of the bill will apparently so roil the insurance markets that large numbers of people will lose coverage or experience unaffordable increase in their insurance costs.  In short, people will die as a consequence of the vote.

I fear some on the left have allowed themselves to be buoyed by the inability of the Republicans to pass major pieces of legislation.  Even in that absence, Trump has managed to do an extraordinary amount of harm.  People have been bemused and misled by the scattering of unexpectedly liberal things that come from his mouth or from his Twitter fingers.  In fact, every single domestic appointment of this administration, without exception, has been appallingly, unimaginably bad.  Department after department has been put in the control of someone who is publicly, on record, opposed to its core purpose.  The only saving grace is the fact that Trump has filled virtually no positions below the top, thus depriving the departments of the ability to carry out the ugly policies of the man or woman in charge.

We must continue to organize from below, putting forward progressive candidates and supporting everyone who is an improvement over the existing office holder.  The truth is that America is, for many different reasons, a morally and politically ugly country, and I honestly do not know how much we can do to change that, but this is where I live, so I have to try.

Now, that is as much air time as I am willing to give to the little Eeyore struggling to push his way past my inner Tigger.