SIFTING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE

We are NOT better off than we were two years ago, and that cannot be said enough

After wiping the lack of sleep from my eyes, and pouring some midnight-black coffee into my overused mug, I fell into my office chair, flipped on my computer, and cautiously waded into my morning newsfeed.

It took me but three seconds to sadly realize that I hadn’t gotten the news I’d hoped for, so I sighed, and hit The New York Times front page to assess the overnight damage.

Here are the gruesome headlines that greeted me:

-Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline

-Extreme Water Shortages in the West

-Hegseth Strikes Female and Black Navy Officers From Promotion List

-Trump backs off Plan for $1.8 Billion Fund That Drew Political Backlash

-Israel Strikes Southern Lebanon

-Trump Announces Stricter Rule For Medicaid Work Requirement

There was no above-the-fold mention of the idiotic, dangerous war in Iran, our rocketing gas prices, or the millions of Americans who are being forced to use credit cards to feed their families or account for through-the-roof healthcare prices because there is only so much bad news that can be squeezed onto a screenshot.

There was nothing about out-of-control inflation, rising interest rates, or the crumbling value of the dollar.

There wasn't a thing about corporate America’s environmental terrorism, and steady assault on our clean air and water.

The endless assaults on our vote, and resurrection of the Jim Crow South were now an active crime scene to be treated with the occasional gory update.

If you are an American out looking for any good news at the moment, you better pack a lunch, and let your loved ones know you might not be returning for dinner.

Our White House and the once pristine grounds that surround it are a metaphor for the wreckage King Trump and his corrupt Republican court have inflicted on what was once the world’s premier democracy.

In just over 16 months, we have been reduced to a budding third-world country that is being crushed by out-of-control billionaires who are in our elections and our homes. They are being provided cover by a bought-off radical Right Supreme Court majority that has no notion of what law and order really means as it protects the insane whims of the convicted felon that appointed half its soulless members.

And here — RIGHT HERE — is where it’s worth reminding everybody that things did not have to be this way and were not this way under the previous administration, which offered a hand up to people in need, and provided millions and millions of good jobs while rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure in every state of the union — not just the red, purple, or blue ones.

Here’s where we must note for the record that while Joe Biden was not a perfect man, he was a patriotic one who spoke of all Americans — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — as being a part of the whole, and did not rip apart large segments of our colorful democratic fabric to ram through a dark agenda.

He was a man of deep faith and conviction, who actually went to church every Sunday.

He spearheaded the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in U.S. history. All it did among scores of other good things was fight climate change, cap out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients, and provided $2,000 per year of aid, while enabling Medicare to actually negotiate drug prices.

He pushed through the CHIPS and Science Act which chiefly provided billions in incentives to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing, reduced reliance on foreign supply chains, and celebrated science as a beacon of discovery instead of an enemy of the state.

He expanded minimum wage for federal workers, provided scores of other workers protections, including making good and sure they got the mandatory overtime they deserved for their efforts.

He ended the longest war in history in Afghanistan, after the previous slobbery president had surrendered to the odious Taliban. He stood firmly with Ukraine, and expanded and strengthened NATO to stand against Putin and Russia, not with them.

Our allies across the globe also stood with us back then, instead of turning their backs in disgust and dismay as they do now.

All of this was done during a four-year term that started with a lockdown following a terrible Republican attack on our Capitol, and under the sorrowful cloud of a once-in-a-century pandemic that killed more than one million Americans.

I did not start this piece intending to prosecute such an ardent defense of the Biden Administration, but I am glad that I arrived at this place.

An enormous amount of good was done during his four years, and I look back at them reverently, and with a sinking heart.

We were safe back then.

Were there warts and blemishes? Of course. The record will show a good-hearted, aging man in declining health, who was too stubborn to acknowledge the residue of Father Time, and the toll it had taken on him.

He should have served one term as he promised, and bowed out heroically, to let a younger crusader lead from the front to build on all his good work.

He also had a blind spot the size of Kansas for an attorney general, who simply refused to do the most important thing in his job description: protect America. Instead he dithered while the most dangerous man in the world — the man who had already violently attacked us once — rebuilt his army of Republican Orcs, and readied for another assault to finish us off for good.

In the end, the disgraceful Merrick Garland even refused to protect Biden himself ...

These things are simply unforgivable, because they left all of us exposed, and without protection. Armies are in our streets and masked government agents are shooting us dead.

We have a mad king who demands loyalty instead of earning it, and has no talent for governing and pushing tough legislation through our House and Senate that helps Americans like Biden did.

Trump is a petulant punk and a no-talent negotiator who has used that bought-off Supreme Court he built in his grotesque image, and Mike Johnson’s pathetic GOP House of used playing cards to steamroll his way toward the demolition of our White House, and the use of taxpayer dollars to compensate the lowlifes who attacked us on Jan. 6, 2021.

He’s breaking the backs of working folks in America in myriad ways to include all these damn MAGA farmers, who are currently getting screwed almost as badly as the people of color who tirelessly work their fields just for the privilege of pocketing some chump change, and a leaky roof over their heads.

Trump has proven beyond a shadow of any doubt that he could not only shoot one of his racist supporters in the middle of some street and not lose their vote, but could also swipe their family’s benefits and leave them destitute in that street just to really rub it in.

America is a leaking sewer, and crumbling under the bloated weight of all these hideous billionaires, who are squeezing the life out of us and our budgets.

As we stumble toward one of the most somber Independence Days in history, America is going it alone on the road to nowhere. We aren’t leading from the front, we are falling behind.

Even if you don’t completely share my assessment of America 2026, this much must be acknowledged if you have even a shred of decency and an honest heart: We are not better off now than we were two years ago.

Not even close.

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(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)

(That’s a photo from Getty Images of the wreckage of our White House and its surrounding grounds.)