Political Class Fear (originally published Spring 2019)

In the background yesterday watching the Robert Mueller testimony and watching Congressman Adam Schiff I became aware of a certain uneasiness of soul. I started to identify it listening to the line of questions and pontifications coming out of the Chairman and in his use of the two words “making money” when referring to then citizen Trump’s potential of making money on the Moscow Trump Tower project. What seemed disconcerting to me was the barely but nevertheless perceptible contempt the Congressman showed when speaking to this. I also will frankly admit that this was the first time I had ever listened to or seen Congressman Schiff speak and now I understand the President’s shifty comments.

Back to the hearing I will be honest my first reaction was so what? Donald Trump and his team were expanding their business and what is wrong with that? That is what business does and yes secrecy in business when expanding business is not unusual. In fact, it is a natural survival mechanism in the marketplace and so what if the Trump team was keeping this information quiet? Also, in order to move into Moscow, they obviously needed to meet the key political figures in a country ruled by a small elite oligarchic cabal. How many times has local news covered businessmen meeting local, state, and national leaders? Give me a break Congressmen.

So, before I go any further, I do not want to appear to be a Trump apologist by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, I would like this diatribe of irrelevant or relevant tripe, depending upon one’s point of view that I am typing, to just represent a stream of conscious dialog that occurred within my own cranial spaces over the course of the last twenty-four hours. Ok, now that I have dispensed with the disclaimer I will move along.

Back to being uneasy watching Congressman Schiff’s line of questioning he was saying with derision in his voice that Donald Trump’s team was about making money as if it were some sort of original sin. I became aware that the Congressman had palpable contempt of business as did, in antiquity that the nobility had of the merchant class. The sarcasm and contempt seemed to ooze through his demeanor and words. It then became clear to me that I should do some research because, though I had a strong emotional response to the congressman, I felt I should investigate if there was any basis for my response. Little to my surprise, upon a quick perusal of the Congressman’s biography, he has had no business experience and if he has had some experience, he certainly is not advertising it. He is a Harvard trained lawyer who has sucked off the teat of government his whole life. It is no wonder he has contempt of business. It is because he has no perspective and what I witnessed was fear. Fear of a man a man who represents those who do not suck off the teat of government. Fear of an outsider who is shaking the apple cart. Fear of the class of Americans who are hard, honest working, taxpaying, and want government to stay out of their way. Congressman Schiff represents a Congressional District in California that includes Hollywood. I would also say the congressman was also representing the political class of Americans who provide no value to our society and way of life and worst of all he was representing the class of Americans who has spent their entire lives living off the government and the American taxpayers. The class of Americans who really are nothing better than leaches.

I have one last thing to say and this goes out to the “esteemed” congressman from Hollywood, “Congressman, I trust President Trump more than you could ever imagine because in his quest to make money he and others like him have opened the business spaces for me to make a living. I intuitively know President Trump knows more about making money in the last digit on the pinkie of his non dominant hand than you know in your whole body. I know that you fear President Trump and the people he represents because they see you for what you are. I know that you want power and that you jealously desire what President Trump and other businessmen and “merchants” have earned through business. However, I know that you lack the courage and intestinal fortitude that it takes to create what President Trump and others have earned through business. You, congressman, yesterday in my mind represented the corrupt swamp denizens that would not last a week if you did not have the power to forcibly leach the productive economic blood created by the business “merchant class” of this country.

Lastly, it really is a sad state of affairs when the majority of lawmakers in the country are attorneys. I understand and know that attorneys are necessary but once again where is the perspective when one profession holds the majority of levers in government?