JOHN FREEMAN ON THE PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP

John Freeman in Literary Hub:

ScreenHunter_2939 Jan. 20 17.48By the time you read this, what I am about to remind you of will be old news, but bear with me. The media moves at such velocity these days it is often useful to circle back to recent car wrecks and examine the smoking tangle of metal and human form. Here’s one of those incidents. Standing on the front lawn of the White House just before Christmas 2017, in his trademark blue wool car coat, yellowish hair unmoved by wind and cold, the President of the United States bragged that his party’s tax bill would “mostly benefit the middle class… This is going to be one of the great gifts to the middle-income people of this country that they’ve ever gotten for Christmas.”

This was a lie.

The tax cut Trump signed into law at the end of 2017 will benefit mostly the wealthy, and not just the wealthy, but the obscenely rich. The private jet and tax haven class. Many middle-class families will see almost no benefit at all.

The poor will actually see a tax increase.

Depending on who is counting, it was the 1,629th false or misleading statement made by Trump, and an especially cruel one in these times of bewildering inequality.

More here.