Ironically, Democrats may be moving in a political direction that will prove more beneficial to President Trump’s so-called base of “deplorables” than he is.

Although our superior, billionaire president purportedly has boundless love and affection for America’s alienated, marginalized and excluded folks, his policies so far are hurting everyone, including his most fervent, disenfranchised supporters.

What Trump has wrought

Tariffs promise to ravage farmer’s profits. Aggressive restrictions on immigrants is drying up the pool of incoming labor small business relies on. Assaults on “Obamacare” will take away the health insurance of millions of economically distressed Americans who can least adjust to such a fundamental loss. Purposeful cratering of manpower and resources at federal agencies is disappearing critical programs geared toward the poorest among us. Relentless attacks on essential government institutions, the rule of law and American ideals of truth and personal integrity are damaging the nation’s ability to keep citizens safe at home and abroad.

The Trump presidency, thus, instead of making America great again, is making it better only for Yankee oligarchs and well-connected parasites. It’s worse for everyone else but particularly those least prepared for extra degradations to their already tenuous lives.

Yet, almost unfathomably, Republicans — of whom so-called “deplorables” comprise an enormous subset — remain not only enthusiastic but slavish supplicants to our current commander in chief.

Paying the piper

But sometime, and likely very, soon, Mr. Trump will have to pay the piper and be held accountable for his many promises to his supporters that are in fact virtually untethered to reality.

As the Democratic party shifts noticeably leftward — read about this trend in Michelle Goldberg’s thoughtful column Monday in The New York Times — Trump and his minions are galloping to the far-right wing of authoritarianism.

Only socially liberal policies stand a chance of lifting tens of millions of Americans out the the deep pit of poverty and alienation that political disenfranchise creates. Republican politicians, those conservative, reactionary Scrooges, continue to believe what has not worked any time anywhere, that just dribbling out support and encouragement to the downtrodden will force them to make something great of their lives.

Yet, grinding poverty and abject human marginalization exists as it always has in virtually every society, large and small, on the planet, except perhaps in a few sterling democratic socialist countries in Scandanavia.

Always winners and losers

If we were to view human existence directly, rationally, common sense should lead us to conclude that in every society there are winners and losers, people whose DNA inexplicably propels them to work harder and achieve more than others, and people seemingly incapable of thriving or even surviving on anything much above a subsistence level. No matter what capitalist tack we take. Obviously, social scientists haven’t figured this out yet, and Republicans can never seem to be disabused of their beloved tough-love notions that remain barren theories.

Candidates are starting to talk about “Medicare for all” and a national guaranteed income, ideas that only a few years ago would have seemed almost nutty in a United States context. But today, polls show nearly two-thirds of the electorate favor a national health plan, and almost half have accepting attitudes toward a guaranteed income for everyone.

These are policy ideas that could actually help President Trump’s economically deprived underclass supporters, rather than aggressive requirements that they work full-time at minimum-wage jobs that can hardly support an individual in dignity much less a family.

The fault is in our genes

The problem is not laziness or stupidity or a genetically endowed lack of gumption or an underpowered will to succeed. It’s the vagaries of human nature, where some people can run 100 yards under 10 seconds while others have a hard time just dragging themselves out of bed in the morning. And they all operate astride the same enormous, gaping crevasse between haves and have-nots in America, an economic reality that represents a huge, perpetual advantage to the former and an almost insurmountable barrier to success for the latter.

The GOP, as we have seen since Trump’s election, is hellbent to make the divide wider, the economic inequalities steeper. How will that help anyone who needs help? Trickle-down? Give me a break.

GOP and neo-Nazis

Meanwhile, Republican political candidates are cuddling up to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, End Timers, authoritarian wannabes and other assorted rightist wing-nuts.

It’s a very strange time in America. A place where this week former FBI Director James Comey, a Republican who says he’d like to see a Democratic landslide in this year’s mid-term elections, is worried the donkey party may be leaning too far to the left. This week Comey tweeted:

“Democrats, please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left … “America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership.”

What’s going on here? Reasonable people know crazy when they see it, even in their own tribes.

Hang in there

But there’s no need for moderate voters to panic. Goldberg wrote:

“Democrats are not, in fact, rushing to the socialist left in great numbers. ‘Overall, it’s not really true that the insurgent leftist candidates, like the candidates who are affiliated with the D.S.A. or Bernie Sanders’s group, are doing all that well,’ said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who specializes in partisan polarization.”

The most economically at-risk Trump supporters should closely consider this question: What exactly has the president done so far to directly improve my life and my family’s?

The correct answer is: Beyond a lot of sound and fury and destruction of American institutions and values ostensibly on behalf of American left-behinds, nothing.

How’s that tax break working out for you? And saber rattling against North Korea and Iran?

Goldberg believes, as do I, that the nation is not hungering for a vision of past competitive, muscular glory but of future shared prosperity. She wrote:

“Democrats will not defeat Trump and his increasingly fanatical, revanchist party by promising the restoration of what came before him; the country is desperate for a vision of something better.”

Hint: racism, mendacity and bad faith won’t get us there.

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