My fears about Trump, realized

You might remember going into the 2016 election I had three fears about the election of Donald Trump:

1. He will weaken insurance protections for people like me with pre-existing conditions and mess with Obamacare generally.

2. He’ll say anything and mean nothing.

3. He’s authoritarian.

I checked back last year and concluded that I was not wrong.

How do things look these days?

1. He continues to go after the ACA.Challenging it in court, allowing the sale of plans that can deny people coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and promised to make repealing the ACA a centerpiece of the 2020 election.

2. As for the president lying and wallowing in vacuous slogans… Well, he has 12 pages worth of false statements on politifacts and averaged 15 lies a day last year. He’s fought against windmill cancer, exaggerates his net worth,exaggerates about the benefits of his tax cuts, and there was the whole Kanye West thing… not to mention we had an embarrassing and costly ($11,000,000,000 costly, destruction of national parks costly, hungry people not fed, food not inspected, workers not paid for their work costly… etc) government shut-down because “We’re going to build a wall and Mexico will pay for it” turned into “We’re going to build a wall and I’m going to hold the country ransom to pay for it.”

3. Finally, there is the authoritarianism.
-I’d remind you that the “gloves off” “sometimes you have to break some eggs” approach to ICE enforcement has ruined the lives of a few folk I know personally. We’re now the country of baby jails and what look an awful lot like concentration camps.
-Neo-nazis are being called “very fine people” by the president, and he’s inspiring violence at home, and abroad.

-Speaking of abroad, Trump continues to be cozy with authoritarian leaders, Putin especially.

In conclusions, Trump endangers the health of people with pre-existing conditions, the empty words he planted are now being harvested in unforced errors with unforeseen consequences, and his authoritarian streak is curdling the soul of America and emboldening enemies of freedom everywhere.