Donald Trump in Our Time Is Now: Power

On Corporations: OpEd: replaced scientific fact with profit-driven opinion

Convincing Americans not to trust the government was the first step. For decades, Congressional Republicans have executed the second step by stripping crucial bureaucracies of funding. The third step has been replacing scientific fact with profit- driven opinion. [For example, with] climate change deniers, modern conservative ideology has rejected research as a necessary ingredient for decision making.

The weakening of our public administration infrastructure has reached its pinnacle in the Trump administration. Trump and his cabinet have consistently derided the very institutions they lead. Americans have become inured to the churn of cabinet officials and staff officials and staff departures. Trump's steady stream lies has half of the country turning a deaf ear and the other half ingesting false information. Trump's actions have built on the GOP's intentional destruction of institutions, and has left America weakened in a time of international crisis.

Source: Our Time Is Now, by Stacey Abrams, p.256-7 Jun 9, 2020

On Free Trade: Trade battles with China, Germany, Britain, France, & Canada

During most of 2018-2019, the US president launched the largest trade war in a generation. Though played out through goods and services rather than bullets, a trade war has a real effect on everyday lives. The US consumer bears the majority of costs passed along to businesses and hidden in the prices we pay. Economically struggling Americans feel the results in daily life, especially those who face stagnant wages that have not grown despite having the lowest unemployment we've ever had. The average American cannot recover from a trade war with the same resilience that a corporation can. The only solution will be to actually engage in a trade policy that is not based on populist brinksmanship, which is what we've seen played out for the last few years. As Trump positions China front and center, our country is also embroiled in trade battles with historic allies such as Germany, Britain, France, and Canada. Source: Our Time Is Now, by Stacey Abrams, p.226 Jun 9, 2020

On Health Care: Dismantled global health security system before coronavirus

In 2018, Trump effectively dismantled the Obama-era global health insurance system. The objective--to understand how viruses move beyond borders and to prepare a communications and response strategy for transitional health crises-- had its genesis in the nation's multilateral engagement in the Ebola virus. Swift, worldwide action had not only accelerated treatments to countries facing infection, it slowed transmission to other nations, including the United States. Trump's shortsighted decision, while devastating in this current crisis, should galvanize restoration of the global health security system and prompt a deeper thinking of what constitutes genuine national security threats. COVID-19 demands immediate response to defeat an intercontinental enemy to our health, our economies and our future Source: Our Time Is Now, by Stacey Abrams, p.259-60 Jun 9, 2020

On Immigration: Citizenship question on census for many decades; use in 2020

In 2019, the Trump administration attempted to add a "citizenship question" to the census survey. The backlash was immediate, spurring accusations that Trump wanted to have an undercount of people of color, namely Latinos. Defenders of the citizenship question argued that the accuracy of the census depended on knowing the legal stats of every American resident--documented or undocumented. They self-righteously asserted that the census has been asking the question for years. In 1950, the census shifted to asking the question on the long-form version of the census, which only went out to a sampling of Americans [but prior to 1950, it was on the short-form]. No census had used the citizenship question on the ubiquitous short-form in fifty years. Trump announced his intention of putting the controversial question on the 2020 census. Organizations and a number of states filed suit against the Trump administration. Source: Our Time Is Now, by Stacey Abrams, p.170-1 Jun 9, 2020

The above quotations are from Our Time Is Now Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America by Stacey Abrams. Click here for other excerpts from Our Time Is Now Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America by Stacey Abrams. Click here for other excerpts by Donald Trump. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump.
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Page last updated: Oct 09, 2021