Readers’ opinions
Locals gather to talk politics
To the Editor:
I went to Louie’s again the other day. It was different: a bunch of the regulars were there, but they were sitting around a big table in the middle of the room, instead of at the bar.
“C’mon and join us,” said Eddie. As I sat down at the table, two cute waitresses, Carol and Suzie, came out of the kitchen.
“Louie,” I asked him, “What do we have here? A feminine touch to the place – a little class?”
“What can I tell you?” he laughed. “Business is good. People want a little lunch these days, and I need some help.”
Suzie smiled. “What can I get you?”
“Dewar’s and water, please.”
“Coming right up.” She winked at me, gave my shoulder a little squeeze, and went back to the bar; Carol put a sandwich in front of someone.
“How’ve you been?” asked Frank.
“Good. No problems. How about you?”
“Yeah, good.”
My Dewar’s appeared, along with another shoulder squeeze. My attention turned to the table. The whole atmosphere was different, and it was clearly because of the election. Six months ago, somebody would have come in for a drink, complained about something in politics, and then left, as though there was no point in staying. The people at the table now were thinking about problems getting solved. They were perhaps not excited, but certainly positive about what might be next. Everybody wanted to talk, and I lost track of who said what.
“I feel like somebody who has just bought a new boat, a powerful craft that can go anywhere. But, when I put it in the water, there will always be big storms, and who knows how far I will go with it.”
“Well, with Congress on board, your boat should go a lot farther.”
“Yeah, I know. But with Congress so close, all it takes is one or two people who want to make it difficult by objecting so they will be on TV. Even with this landslide, Trump knows that the country’s still about evenly split, making it hard to get things done.’
“Well, he’s started in the right direction.”
“That’s Trump: he’s throwing a lot of things against the wall to see what will stick. Look at the WHO: he cut off their funding and they immediately complained, and now he’s not sure about getting out of it.’
“He’s got a start on getting rid of these criminals, hasn’t he?”
“Do you read Drudge? He hates Trump. He moaned yesterday that it cost $852,000 to deport just 80 illegals on a plane.”
“So what? If, as Tom Homan says, there will be one of these flights every day, that would end up costing maybe $300 million a year, and that’s chump change in Washington.”
“He’ll never deport all of them, like he says he will.”
“He’ll never do anything he says all the way. He’s just negotiating, making deals. He just suspended all foreign aid. He’ll start it back up again, but I’ve got five bucks that says it won’t be as much as before. Same with the WHO.”
“What about Greenland? He said he would send in troops if necessary to get it.”
“Never happen. He wouldn’t try to conquer Greenland while Putin is trying to get Ukraine. When Reagan was in office, he sent troops into Grenada and nobody made much of a fuss about it, but with total media coverage of everything that happens now, Trump wouldn’t dare send in troops. What he will do is promise the Greenland people a lot of stuff, economic aid and so forth. He can outbid the Danes, and then probably the Greenland people will vote to go independent, and then he can treat them as an ally and put in missile systems and all that stuff that he wants. The interesting thing is that Biden never mentioned Greenland, and it’s like the first thing on Trump’s list.”
“That was Dewar’s and water, wasn’t it?” My shoulder felt another squeeze.
“Yes, please.”
“Well, he didn’t end the Ukraine on day one, like he said he would.”
“No. Everybody wants a deal, and they’re ready to start talking, but a deal will be difficult. Let’s say that a starting point would be a cease — fire in place. That would allow everyone a breather, but Putin would simply use that time to rearm. Putin’s in serious trouble economically, and any deal that Trump goes after cannot let him off that hook by canceling the sanctions. That whole thing is going to take a while to sort out.”
“I don’t know why Trump doesn’t just go and bomb all those nuclear sites in Iran. That would start to clear up the Middle East. Do you see where the top guy in Iran is wearing a flak jacket right now? What does that tell you?”
“I don’t care what Trump does overseas: if he wants to be an all-time great president, he’ll have to make a start on the debt crisis. With all the new initiatives he’s starting, there will be more money spent, just worsening the situation.”
“The big gorilla in the debt is Medicare. If there was anything that’s been causing inflation, that’s it. If you passed Economics in college, you know that injecting new money into a closed system will cause inflation. That’s why our medical costs as a country are so damn high. What he has to do is start weaning people off Medicare, by cutting back reimbursements a little, year after year. He might have to be sneaky about it so no one notices, but there’s no other option. If he can manage the debt, he’ll make Mt. Rushmore.”
“He’ll never get re-elected if he touches Medicare.”
This comment brought a pause and then laughter, as everyone looked around to see who had said it. Nobody owned up. Then, someone, “He’s the luckiest man in the world because he can’t be re-elected, There’s no downside for him. If I were he, I’d keep threatening everybody with everything. If he keeps his enemies on the defensive, as he does now, after a bit there will be a lot of different tunes being sung on the Left. The next four years are going to be very interesting.”
“Another Dewar’s, honey?”
“No, thanks, I’ve got to go.”
“Come back soon,” in a soft voice. I felt another squeeze on my shoulder.
John Brittain
Lewistown