{"id":734,"date":"2017-01-02T18:07:09","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T23:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=734"},"modified":"2017-01-02T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T23:07:09","slug":"the-pause-before-the-plunge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/01\/02\/the-pause-before-the-plunge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pause before the Plunge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since December 22nd<\/sup> I have been in a veritable cocoon of self-imposed isolation from the world.\u00a0 I have left the grounds only three times and only once for more than an hour.\u00a0 I have spent this time, for the most part, reveling in the blissful sloth of a long holiday vacation.\u00a0 I have eaten delicious and unhealthy food until it is coming out of my ears.\u00a0 I sat around and watched so many holiday and \u201cclassic\u201d movies that I\u2019m tempted to nominate Bing Crosby for sainthood.\u00a0 And, of course I read so much political news that I feel sure that Trump will give me the nod for Veterans Administration head just on the merits.<\/p>\n

But now it\u2019s time to emerge from my cocoon.\u00a0 Tomorrow (shudder!), I will make the commute back to the office and reconnect with the real world.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what to expect.\u00a0 I know my desk will be covered with paperwork (actual and virtual) and it will be a week before I\u2019m dug out.\u00a0 In fact, the beginning of the year is a sprint of deliverables and meetings that will keep me hopping for weeks.\u00a0 Good, the status quo is restored.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not.\u00a0 The impending Trump presidency hangs over everyone like some alien spacecraft hovering over a large city in a sci fi thriller.\u00a0 Either it\u2019s going to be Independence Day and the hellfire is about to rain down or it\u2019s Star Trek IV and we\u2019re all gonna be bored by some sermon on saving the whales.\u00a0 But either way it\u2019s up there and until we know which it will be it\u2019s hard to pretend that finishing that power point presentation on quarterly highlights is the most important thing in the world.<\/p>\n

Of course, we have to wait another two and a half weeks until this Obama joker gets finished trashing the government and golfing on our nickel.\u00a0 I doubt there\u2019s a less welcome player on the world stage than BO.\u00a0 Not even his own party can stand him.\u00a0 But he\u2019s determined to cause the maximum annoyance until they pull the curtain down on this clown.\u00a0 Lord, give me patience.<\/p>\n

But regardless if you\u2019re Ann Coulter or Rosie O\u2019Donnell there\u2019s no denying that Donald Trump is the biggest story and none of us know for sure exactly what he\u2019ll do.\u00a0 Now, I\u2019m firmly ensconced on the right periphery of the political spectrum.\u00a0 I hope that Trump starts off his administration with a rapid reversal of all Obama\u2019s executive orders and moves on to appointing Torquemada to the Supreme Court and Genghis Khan to the Justice Department.\u00a0 Then they could take on a joint project of structuring a RICO prosecution that includes BLM and George Soros.\u00a0 But only someone who has been asleep for the last thirty years can be unaware of how badly reality can deviate from even the most reasonable forecasts.<\/p>\n

In early 1992 no one could have seen GHW Bush losing to Bill Clinton.\u00a0 During the Gulf War his poll numbers were stratospheric.\u00a0 Equally improbable was GW Bush\u2019s failure to reckon with the American people\u2019s dissatisfaction with his interminable wars in the Mid-East.\u00a0 These were political blunders that led to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama respectively.\u00a0 What they should teach us is that the president can\u2019t have a tin political ear.\u00a0 If you pull the levers of power and they cause pain to the people who vote, you\u2019d better be able to convince them that it\u2019s for something they want.\u00a0 So, there\u2019s the question, is Trump more like Reagan or more like a Bush.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m actually pretty certain that Donald Trump is closer to the former than the latter.\u00a0 And that gives me hope.\u00a0 I can see him striking deals with even some democrats that will satisfy voters and boost consumer confidence.\u00a0 Of course, the flip-side of this would be, Trump moving so far to the left that he would be indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton.\u00a0 This I find unlikely.\u00a0 Based on the people he\u2019s putting in place, I think he wants to make some big changes.\u00a0 His picks for Education, Energy and the EPA are affronts to the liberals.\u00a0 I can see how he intends to lighten the ship in those departments.\u00a0 Also his pick for Defense is a signal that fun and games are over for the Army.<\/p>\n

All in all, I find myself quite optimistic about 2017.\u00a0 The best part of having a character like Donald Trump in the White House is that his famously thin skin should allow for some truly memorable Twitter rants against some of my least favorite people.\u00a0 Can you imagine him disinviting the Kennedys and the Clintons from some state affair and broadcasting it on social media?\u00a0 And my favorite Trump fantasy is the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.\u00a0 Can you imagine the panic?\u00a0 All those completely talentless television and radio personalities vying to remain on the only viable shows (Sesame Street and other kids shows) or trying to find spots at the already beleaguered operations of the other networks.\u00a0 The beg-athons would have to become epic in scope and basically unending.\u00a0 Probably for the right size donation you could have Ken Burns as your butler for a couple of years (and a tote bag).<\/p>\n

Another way that Trump will probably excel past presidents is press conferences.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to imagine how it won\u2019t be entertaining and I just can\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that some of the reporters will challenge him from the start and I\u2019m guessing he\u2019ll ban them from the White House.\u00a0 And if he doesn\u2019t like the articles the White House beat reporters write I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if he starts trolling the comments sections of the NYT and WP.\u00a0 The best will be when he gives exclusive interviews to Ann Coulter and Breitbart\u2019s Milo Yiannopoulis.\u00a0 The rest of the media will rail against this favoritism and decry the softball questions (as if the Obama deference never happened).\u00a0 It will be fantastic.<\/p>\n

And finally, I look forward to the photo op where he sets the cornerstone for the wall.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I\u2019ll know we\u2019ve arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since December 22nd I have been in a veritable cocoon of self-imposed isolation from the world.\u00a0 I have left the grounds only three times and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[88,35,99,39,51,16],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-cabinet-picks","tag-future","tag-new-year","tag-populism","tag-presidential-election","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pause before the Plunge - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/01\/02\/the-pause-before-the-plunge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pause before the Plunge - 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