IR
It was published on Sunday, January 5, 2020.
To the editor:
Remember the movie "The Sting," with Newman and
Redford, as "grifters," swindling their "mark," gangster
Doyle Lonnegan, out of a half million dollars? It wasn't a quick job: It was a
"long con," involving a hook, a bite, a switch and, pertinent to this
letter, the mark's ignorance he'd been swindled.
As presently relevant, the hook was Trump's 2016 campaign
promises and television appearances, spewed ceaselessly by an uncritical media
to a feckless public. The bite was the electoral college count. The switch has
been three years of trickery and lies, presidentially tweeted, spewed by
faithful Internet sources and broadcast daily by an allied television channel.
Some of Trump's most egregious switches: (1) Tax reform. Did
middle-class Americans see a break? Not one whit and certainly nothing near the
$4,000 tax reduction Trump promised. Meanwhile, stock market investors and
major corporations got rich and richer. (2) Withdrawal of US forces. Not one
whit, with forces still in Iraq and Afghanistan and being attacked there daily;
with new involvements in Africa and elsewhere; and – fueled by huge increases
in Pentagon spending – with a new theater, a Space Force. (3) A great again
America. Not at all. Indeed, Trump's made us a rogue nation, alienating traditional
allies, with its president a laughing-stock, viewed globally as a charlatan, a
swindler – which, at base, he is.
By November, will enough voters have awakened to the swindle
or will our grifter president succeed with his long con?
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