A commission targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse” may be a fine idea, but rather than cutting social spending to elderly retirees, families on food assistance and veterans, why not start with large defense contractors and corporate welfare queens — including Elon Musk? Credit: Shutterstock / Zack Frank

As the new administration experiences “the tinglings of a merited shame,” to quote novelist George Eliot (she/her), perhaps we’d do well to remember the constancy of pendulum swings in US politics.

Only President Richard M. Nixon, it was said in 1972, “could go to China.” In other words, only a zealous McCarthyite could strike a trade deal with Mao Zedong without getting blacklisted as a commie-lover.

On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps only President Bill Clinton, in 1996, could “end welfare as we know it.” Meaning only a staunch Democrat could scrap the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, one of the hard-won achievements of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to help alleviate child poverty.

Against the grain of chaos and outrage inspired by the current Republican administration, it might be worth asking what reforms the GOP may have a shot at achieving and would be worth keeping. Assuming the country plows through any looming constitutional crises or historical atrocities, what might we say, in retrospect, “only Trump” could have accomplished?

Fox News blasted First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, which encouraged daily exercise and healthier eating, as Nanny Statism. But after falsely victim-blaming the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths on unhealthy lifestyle choices, much of the right-wing seems unusually willing to countenance greater transparency and regulation regarding potentially toxic food additives.

“We now have around 10,000 chemicals in our food, while Europe only has 400,” new head of Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a Facebook video. Unlike spreading misinformation about the vital importance of the measles vaccine, Kennedy’s statement above is accurate.

Whether Democrat or Republican, “If it weren’t safe, why would they sell it?” is no longer logic most Americans find convincing. So maybe President Donald Trump’s eloquent marching orders delivered last October for RFK to “go wild on the food” may breach the two-party neoliberal deference that’s traditionally been paid to grocery monopolies. You know the old saying about broken clocks with brain worms.

First Lady Melania Trump’s much-less-maligned campaign against revenge porn and AI-generated deepfake technology promises bipartisan support as well. According to a 2019 report by cybersecurity firm Deeptrace Labs, 96% of deepfakes on the internet involve simulating pornography of female celebrities without their consent.

Back in 2023, the Deepfakes Accountability Act introduced by U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-New York, never escaped committee in the Republican-controlled House. With Orange Napoleon’s seal of approval and the GOP’s recently-discovered pseudo-feminism, there may be some long-overdue progress on this problem.

In Trump’s first presidential address to Congress on March 4, he announced this laudable sentiment: ”We have to take care of our law enforcement.” Too bad he didn’t hold to it when he instigated an insurrectionary riot at the Capitol that resulted in the injury of more than 100 officers.

And if the so-called party of “law and order” is truly sincere about keeping police safe, something substantially game-changing needs to be done about the prevalence of guns in our society. Normalizing that arms race doesn’t “back the blue,” it cowers before the National Rifle Association and assorted cosplaying vigilantes.

Although Trump has called for a “common sense revolution,” to this day recreational cannabis remains lumped into the same legal category of federally prohibited substances as heroin — above both methamphetamine and fentanyl. Focusing limited law enforcement attention on murderers and thieves ought to rank as a higher priority than busting pot-smokers. A century of reefer madness is enough and defies the common sense the president keeps going on about.

In his hour-and-40-minute one-sided clap-fest, Trump pledged to “renew the unlimited promise of the American dream.” Again, a worthy goal. But then why tout the 2017 tax cuts, which went disproportionately to the already well-to-do, as a success? And why is Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022, aka the CHIPS Act, which incentivized more production of semiconductors on U.S. shores, “a horrible, horrible thing,” according to the president?

Trump spoke admiringly of our pioneer ancestors building “the mighty Hoover Dam” and “the towering Golden Gate Bridge.” “They lit the world with electricity, broke free of the force of gravity, fired up the engines of American industry and gave us countless modern wonders sculpted out of iron, glass and steel,” he said.

Except, state investment and industrial policy was a keystone to America’s greatness. The private sector didn’t put a human bootprint on the Moon or electrify rural communities or create the internet.

A commission targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse” may be a fine idea, but rather than cutting social spending to elderly retirees, families on food assistance and veterans, why not start with large defense contractors and corporate welfare queens — including Elon Musk?

Certainly seems like Republicans are stoking a budget crisis as an excuse to “starve the beast” and privatize everything the majority of the public relies on to get by. How does one attempt bipartisan compromise when one side doesn’t even want government to work? Because the American dream had far more to do with legislation like the GI Bill than jerking off billionaires.

“It’s time to end this senseless war,” Trump said, referring to Russia’s rebuffed annexation of Ukraine. Again, an admirable goal. But even conservative historian Niall Ferguson called Trump’s mischaracterization of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a dictator “bewildering.” However, the shameless mocking of war heroes such as late Sen. John McCain is kind of President Bone Spurs’ shtick.

And whether diplomacy could have ended the invasion earlier, under no reading of international law can a legit dictator like Vladimir Putin simply abolish the existence of a neighboring state. Nor are lies a sturdy foundation for a lasting peace.

To end on one final point of agreement — out of respect for the 77 million of my fellow citizens who voted for him — I concur with Trump that we could do without the penny. Leave ‘em for the coin collectors.

Now, let’s just pray the next four years do not render our nation similarly obsolete.

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This article appears in Mar 19 – Apr 1, 2025.