Age of the Geek

You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched
     This is it. It's happening.
     Friday will be a big day. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will become the leader of the free world as Donald Trump is sworn in as President of the United States.
     Instead of toning down his incendiary rhetoric and proving he can act like a rational adult since the election, Trump has continued to carry on with business as usual. This has included violating the longstanding One China policy and threatening a new nuclear arms race, both of which were worthy of columns on their own, but it was the holidays and who wants to write about what could be the start and end of World War III around Christmas time?
     This column is going to be long enough as it is, so let's just go over the things our incoming President has done since the New Year.
     "Improving my temperament" clearly was not among Trump's New Year's Resolutions as within days of the ball dropping he had already publicly called the new Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer a clown. Twice.
     Where President Obama endured a relentless campaign of insults over eight years with class and dignity, the President-elect's go-to response to opposition is to cry about it on the internet.
     This response is by no means limited to just political opponents of course. In the last three weeks Trump has also gone after Arnold Schwarzenegger, who replaced Trump as the host of "The Apprentice," and Meryl Streep, who reminded the world that yes, Donald Trump did in fact mock a disabled reporter.
     Trump's defenders have been quick to point out that the mannerisms Trump used when mimicking reporter Serge Kovaleski are the same mannerisms he has used when mocking Senator Ted Cruz and an unnamed United States General. Apparently it's okay for the future president of the United States to act like an immature middle school child (no offense to middle schoolers out there) so long as that's how he treats everybody he doesn't like.
     Of course the highlight of Trump's Twitter oafishness came last weekend when he called Representative John Lewis a failure who is all talk and no action. Lewis is a 76-year old congressman from Georgia who was instrumental in organizing the 1963 civil rights march on Washington. At the same time Trump was looking for ways to dodge the draft, Lewis was being beaten and arrested while working to end segregation.
     And because you could not make this stuff up if you tried, Trump's insult occurred three days before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
     What's amazing is that's not even the most inane thing the president-elect did last week.
     Last week Donald Trump held his first press conference since July 27, when he asked Russia to interfere in the presidential election by hacking the computers of his opponent. As it turned out, it seems he didn't have to ask. Intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia did in fact launch a campaign of cyber attacks against the DNC in an effort to tip the election in Trump's favor.
     Of course, now that Trump has secured the White House, the question has become "What else did Russia manage to dig up?"
     At last week's press conference Trump denied the validity of statements presented in a leaked intelligence report that claims Russia has embarrassing material that could be used to blackmail Trump into supporting Russia's agenda. After comparing our intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany, Trump assured the public that no such material exists, because Russia said so.
     Of course even if you believe that Russia isn't using blackmail to force Trump into publicly disparaging NATO and the EU and bring business partners with strong Russian ties into his administration, that just means Trump is doing these things of his own free will.
     Not that the press conference was entirely about Trump's relationship with Russia. Trump also addressed the ongoing question about the conflict of interest he has with his company while acting as President by displaying a table full of papers he claimed were all the legal forms he has filled out to divest himself from his company. In a display that could not more accurately represent his administration, the papers appear to be props. Empty pages put up for show while being completely devoid of substance.
     In fact, instead of his Twitter habit, the only thing Donald Trump appears to be dialing back on since the election are his campaign promises.
     "Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it," has now become "Build a wall and make U.S. tax payers pay for it with the slim hope that Mexico might reimburse us in the future." Meanwhile, for those wondering why Hillary's e-mails suddenly stopped being a federal crime on November 9, Trump has flat out told his supporters that "Lock her up" was just something he said because it played well for the crowd. It also seems like we're simply never going to get to see Donald Trump's tax returns, which would go a long way towards either dispelling or confirming a lot of concerns about his connection with Russia, depending on what the truth is.
     Unfortunately, one campaign promise Trump seems to be following through on is his support for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. With the house and senate under their control, Republicans have taken the first steps towards repealing the law. Not that they have anything to replace it with yet.
     One would think that after six years of nonstop attempts to "repeal and replace" Obamacare that they'd have come up with the "replace" part already, but like the dog that catches the car, the GOP never expected to be in a position where they would be expected to actually do anything.
     So far, the only Republican even talking about a replacement plan is Rand Paul, who wants to go back to the days of spending obscene amounts for insurance that will leave you bankrupt if you ever attempt to use it. That and kicking 21 million low income people out of Medicaid is apparently how you "fix healthcare."
     All of this is just the first two weeks of the year and I didn't even mention his cabinet picks.
     Buckle up. Barring impeachment, it's going to be a long 206 weeks.
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and at least will have no shortage of column material.