FORGET STORMY, COMEY & MUELLER, TRUMP IS TRASHING AMERICA

President Trump should be grateful for the Mueller investigation. Thanks to the special counsel’s work, news producers and consumers are obsessed with the daily minutia of Russian collusion and obstruction of justice theories, not to mention the deeply profound question of who paid Stormy and why. Easily missed is the most important story of this administration: Donald Trump is making America terrible again.

Yes, Russia’s interference in our elections is a big deal. So are alleged presidential attempts to interfere in the investigation of that foreign intrusion. But the daily bombardment of speculation, Trump attorney churn and bizarre Rudy Giuliani proclamations seems to have crafted a useful, even if inadvertent, cover for the severe damage the 45th president is doing to our country.

We desperately need an end to this American nightmare. Yet, unless a Nixonian-like smoking gun tumbles out of Mueller’s shop, impeachment is a longshot. A two-thirds Senate vote is needed to remove a president. That’s never happened, and it’s unlikely to any time soon, absent blockbuster evidence that would pull Republican senators away from a president who remains dismayingly popular with his party. A shoot-and-miss runs the risk of burnishing Trump’s outside martyr credentials for a 2020 reelection campaign. Six-and-a-half more years of Trump shredding America’s values is unthinkable.

That’s why Democrats need to march into the midterm elections with a substantive agenda for truly turning this country around. That means quantifying the damage done these past 16 months and offering a plan to reverse it, not merely running on an impeachment promise.

Here’s just some of the ways Trump’s administration has reversed decades, if not centuries, of American progress:

BIGOTRY RUNS RAMPANT. Emboldened by their president, bigots have come out from under their rocks, openly spewing their hate at anyone who is not an American-born white male. Every published study shows dramatic increases in hate crimes against blacks, Latinos, Muslims, women, and the LGBTQ community. One source pegged such incidents at 250,000 a year. Another study showed that one in five hate crimes was committed by people using Trump’s name. For example, this letter sent to at least 10 mosques across the country in 2017: “To the children of Satan, you Muslims are vile and filthy people. . .There’s a new sheriff in town – President Donald Trump. He’s going to cleanse America and make it shine again. . .You Muslims would be wise to pack your bags and get out of Dodge.”

SEGREGATED NEIGHBORHOODS are encouraged. The Trump administration suspended a rule requiring communities receiving federal housing funds to assess patterns of segregation and barriers to fair housing and devise plans to combat them. HUD Secretary Ben Carson called such desegregation goals “failed socialist experiments”.

SICK CHILDREN are shortchanged. Just this week, Trump asked Congress to cut more than $7 billion out of already approved funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program in order to demonstrate fiscal constraint in the wake of huge budget deficits brought on by tax cuts for the rich.

MIGRANT CHILDREN are being separated from their parents. Trump’s Justice Department announced Monday that it will prosecute every migrant fleeing violence in Central America who crosses illegally into the United States. That means children will be taken away from their parents who will be immediately incarcerated. The previous practice was to treat such migrants as asylum seekers, not criminals, and allow the families to remain together in this country while their asylum request was considered.

HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS are soaring. Insurers say Trump’s successful push to end the individual mandate that required everyone to be insured has created a “death spiral” for the market. Insurance executives predict that premiums will increase by steep double-digits in 2019 as a result of healthy people stopping their coverage.

CONSUMER PROTECTION has been gutted. Trump has brought the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to a virtual standstill. Investigations into questionable business practices have ended. Hiring is frozen. No data is being collected and a database of consumer complaints is in the process of being dismantled. Existing cases against companies are being closed or put on indefinite hold. The department is expected to drop a major case against Navient, the student loan company accused of cheating borrowers.

The list of hits to the American people goes on and on. Trump’s much ballyhooed tax bill did zilch for the working class. Corporations, for the most part, used their enormous windfalls to repurchase about $800 billion of their own stock. Meanwhile, worker pay has barely moved. Close to a million immigrants, most with black or brown skin, are subject to deportation under Trump’s policies. This includes hundreds of thousands of young people brought here as children and who know no other home. The environment has been devastated by such Trumpian moves as eliminating regulations on carbon emissions from coal-based power plants, opening vast swaths of Alaskan wilderness to new oil and gas drilling and the reversal of another 29 environmental regulations.

Never has this country fallen so quickly from its core values. That’s why Democrats need to make the midterm elections all about truly restoring America’s greatness – without the red hats. As despicable as this president has been, this campaign cycle has to be about more than just Trump. We’ve been in an All-Trump-All-The-Time world since November 8, 2016. We need to focus now on the specific ways we can disengage from this dystopia and take our country back.

That means talking about true tax reform and a fair redistribution of wealth that will provide meaningful help to the poor and middle class. It means finding a way to let every kid who wants a college education to have one, without crippling student loans. It means having a sensible, fair and compassionate immigration policy, one that never closes our borders on the basis of race or religion. It means taking reasonable steps to protect our planet. It means renouncing every form of bigotry, and unabashedly protecting human rights whenever, and wherever, they may be endangered. This, after all, is what America is all about. As Trump mania blasts at us 24-7, let us never lose sight of that fact.

(Scheduling note: Due to a long-planned retirement trip in honor of my wife and editor, Melissa, this space will remain dark for a couple weeks. We will be back shortly after Memorial Day.)