With TPP, Trump pleasing some; mostly those who were already satisfied

TRUMP: First Asia, next Mexico?

I have heard from countless labor union locals who, in recent months, have been pushing a campaign to urge local governments across the nation to pass resolutions condemning the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That is a trade agreement between the nations of North America and Asia, and its pursuit was something strongly desired by now-former President Barack Obama.

SO NATURALLY, THE knee-jerk reaction of President Donald J. Trump is to want to do away with it.

And considering that this was a deal that had not yet been ratified by Congress (which was the point of all those local resolutions – to urge Congress not to support this), it was an easy move for Trump to be negative on.

Unlike the Affordable Care Act which will take significant legal steps in order to back away from because it was approved by Congress and signed into law by a president, this merely took a presidential signature on a document. Which is action he took on Monday.

Now it seems the Trans-Pacific Partnership does not include the United States, which is a major step toward causing it to wither away into irrelevance. It will become the historic similarity to the old League of Nations, which U.S. officials pushed for in the days following the end of the first World War to try to maintain peace, but then never formally joined because of the dominance of the isolationists who prevailed in this country.

NO ONE REALLY knows what will happen in coming years with regards to trade between North American and Asian nations. The agreement was meant to erase many of the issues that complicate business dealings – which often come from people who want their parochial concerns placed above all else.

OBAMA: All his accomplishments must go!

Which includes many of the labor unions that fear these trade deals are meant to further encourage the transition of physical labor jobs to countries where physical labor works cheap.

I get that labor unions are out to preserve existing jobs for their members. But I’ll have to admit to having always thought of the general concept of the TPP as being a sound one – we ought to be working together for our mutual benefits.

Now, it seems that Trump has followed through on his “Make America Great Again” pledge as being the equivalent of turning back time – literally trying to revert back to a sense of isolationism that will wind up dragging our nation into the gutter of the world’s society.

WHILE ALSO UNDERMINING our nation’s ability to assert its authority over the world. Asserting oneself also means making some sacrifices for the benefit of the global economy.

Will Bill Clinton get full NAFTA blame?

I’m sure the labor unions that were fighting the TPP are now pleased with Trump,

Of course, now they’ll move forward to a similar cause – the North American Free Trade Agreement that says Canada, Mexico and the United States work together as one entity on trade policy.

NAFTA has long been an opposition cause of the same labor officials, who resent that former President Bill Clinton approved it into law (stealing the idea from previous President George H.W. Bush who was unable to get it approved during his presidency). Which means revoking it will entail complicated talks almost as detailed as the mess it will take to erase the Obama healthcare reform initiatives that the people want – BUT the ideologues do not.

SO NATURALLY, TRUMP has already begun his efforts there – although there’s no saying how long it will take before anything can be accomplished. For what it’s worth, NAFTA revocation under Trump is likely to focus on the same xenophobic sentiments that Trump-backers express whenever Mexico is the subject of conversation, and Bloomberg News reported that Canada officials are largely focusing their efforts at trying to stay out of the crossfire likely to occur.

Will George Bush share NAFTA blame?

Dump NAFTA and “Build that Wall!!!” are likely to be the simple-minded slogans tossed about by Trump-ites with regards to U.S./Mexico foreign policy. One who tries thinking logically about this might wonder if it winds up hurting Trump with the growing Latino population that might take this cheap rhetoric as evidence they’re being singled out for Trump abuse.

Which, my guess, is something he doesn’t care about. Consider the Washington Post reported that Trump said some 3-5 million people who shouldn’t have been able to vote in last year’s elections did so against him. Meaning in his “alternate facts” mentality, he really won the popular vote.

Meaning he probably thinks becoming “President Xenophobe” will gain him politically. And yes, I strongly suspect that Trump himself would have to have the meaning of that label explained to him by one of his aides who, in his mind, spent too much time with “book-learnin’” and not enough using his methods of chasing girls.

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I’d rather see a rancorous debate about politics and presidents than glee over a sale

I’d like to think that all across the nation, the people who comprise our society are using Monday to ponder the greatness of the United States, specifically the role that individuals who devote their lives to public service can play in bolstering this country.

For Monday is the day we honor the individuals who have managed to get themselves elected Commander of Chief (and no, I’m not including Geena Davis, although maybe I’ll spend part of the day watching a DVD I own of episodes from that now-defunct television drama). Many of us think this is the day for George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and whichever other former president fits our ideological belief pattern.

IT OUGHT TO be. But the sad reality is that it really isn’t.

I get the sense that more people are thinking of Presidents’ Day, if at all, as a chance to go shopping.

James A. Garfield's assassination caused engraver J.A.J. Wilcox to elevate his presidency to the levels of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in this 1884 illustration. Some people were quick to try to elevate Barack Obama to that same level shortly after his 2008 election.

I see the advertising inserts in my Sunday newspapers telling me I can save up to 60 percent if I enjoy “the magic of Macy’s,” while the Carson Pirie Scott ads make it seem like a dueling holiday contest between Sunday’s Valentine’s Day and Monday’s Presidents’ Day sale.

Coupons for 25 percent off! Wow. Somehow, I doubt this was what the “founding fathers” had in mind when they devoted their lives to breaking the British colonies on the North American continent away into their own country.

I ALSO AM skeptical that all the immigrants who made their travels to this land for a better life did so so that we could enjoy a “free comforter” if we show up at a Serta store and buy a queen- or king-sized mattress.

Then again, maybe they would have appreciated a comfortable night’s sleep after a long 12-hour (or more) day of work?

Excuse me for saying that I don’t get it. Why should this holiday be any kind of excuse for shopping? The Last place I would ever want to spend any time at if I had a day off is at a shopping mall.

There will be people with days off aside from schoolchildren.

BANKS WILL BE closed (so you’d better have your credit cards in working order, or else!), along with libraries and many government offices. That includes the post office, which means no mail on Monday (which may be the one good thing, since it means no new bills arriving – at least not until Tuesday).

I feel like we’re being told that our “patriotic” duty is to go shopping, and that we’re letting our country down by not rushing out to the Staples sale of $200 off a Compaq laptop (only $349.98!). Too bad I broke down and bought my laptop two months ago.

With all the advertising fliers, I feel like this is a second round of Christmas – except that the prevailing colors are red, white and blue instead of red and green.

Part of it is a “guy” thing. I would rather not be told it is my duty to shop. The idea of people being pushed into commercial activity just strikes me as being trivial. And the part of me that was usually the only one in my elementary school classes who actually found history lessons to be interesting is a bit bothered at the thought that this particular holiday has gained trivial elements.

WE HAVE LOTS of holidays meant to pay tribute to the concept of the United States as an ideal of Democracy on Planet Earth. The big one is Independence Day, with some attention paid to Memorial Day (the soldiers who were killed while trying to defend the concept of Democracy).

I’d like to think that Presidents’ Day could be the civilian alternative to Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) – when we honor those officials who won their influence through the ballot box (ultimately, that means the people) rather than on a battlefield.

And yes, I know that Washington got to be President Number One for this nation because of his activity on the battlefield in winning this nation independence.

But it ought to be the day that we celebrate the men (someday, most likely in our lifetimes, there will be women as well) who devoted the time to get elected, then gave four (or eight, unless you’re Franklin D. Roosevelt) years of their lives to try to make this country a better place.

I’M SURE THAT kind of mental activity has the potential to stir up some serious arguments.

Because most people perceive Presidents’ Day as the federal holiday upon which we honor the birthdays of Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and usually try to come up with a third former chief executive to make the date a trio.

John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan? FDR or distant cousin Teddy? How many people will already want to start talking up Barack Obama? Or will want to be sarcastic and try to include Gerald Ford (would comedian Chevy Chase have had as much of a career without those Ford “impersonations” that caught the mood of the nation in the mid-1970s but now seem ever so pointless?) into the mix.

Somehow, such debate strikes me as much more encouraging for our society than the thought that many of us are headed shopping – even if Kmart has Fruit of the Loom “rugged collection” boxer shorts on sale for $8.99.

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ELECTION DAZE: Obama 952, Mac 250

That was the “vote” painted on the front window of a bakery in south suburban Homewood, a town I happened to pass through on mid-day Tuesday.

Nielsen’s Bakery is like a lot of other businesses, making an effort to sell its products with an Election Day theme. In the case of the bakery, it was cookies. They sold edibles touting both the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain, and kept track of how many of each were sold in an attempt to come up with a “winner.”

WHEN IT COMES to cookies, Barack beat McCain big time.

Now I’m not about to claim that cookie sales really mean much, no more so than all those 7-Eleven franchises that are selling drinks in special Obama and McCain cups (big surprise – in Chicago, Obama wins. In Arizona, it’s McCain).

But this neighborhood bakery is in an area that was once the heart of a strong Republican Party organization in the Chicago southern suburbs of Cook County. There was once a time when the idea of hinting that locals liked Democrats would have warranted a brick through the bakery’s window.

You want to know how Illinois went from being the ultimate bellwether state (siding with the winner in all but two of the presidential elections held in the 20th Century) to being such a hard-core Democratic state that the only reason any candidate pays attention to us is our proximity to Indiana?

IT IS THIS very suburban trend. The GOP that used to be seen as the mechanism by which suburbs were able to withstand the political might of Chicago Democrats is now the party that is so blatantly rural in its view of the world that those same suburbs now see they have more in common with Chicago than they do Cairo.

Hence, Obama’s campaign has been sending out e-mails to his Chicago-area supporters, asking if they could work phone banks to try to get the good people of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond to get off their Election Day duffs and vote.

And the closest Mayor Richard M. Daley came to appearing at a campaign rally is when he made a trip last week to Highland to speak to the Hoosier faithful to get them to want to back Barack. Gary Mayor Rudy Clay was on hand, which led to countless jokes about which one could provide the other with more examples of how to steal an election.

What other items were notable about activity taking place on Election Day?

EVERYBODY HAD AN “EXCLUSIVE” STORY: Insofar as I can tell, long-time Chicago newsperson Pam Zekman of WBBM-TV gets credit for “breaking” the story that some polling place workers were so lax about checking lists of early voters that those people could have voted again on Tuesday.

There were people in Chicago who showed up at their polling places, just to see if they would be given a second ballot to use. When they were, they high-tailed it for the telephones to call the local television stations.

I first heard the story reported by Zekman, only to see it reported about two minutes later on WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight” program. For all I know, every other Chicago television station also had the story shortly after 7 p.m.

Not to trivialize the seriousness of the issue, but I have but one question. If those people who felt the need to check on their ballots had the time to wait in line at the polling place on Tuesday, why didn’t they wait until today to cast their ballot?

JACKING UP THE PRICE, VS. GIVING A DISCOUNT: Downtown Chicago business interests reacted in differing ways to the proximity of Obama’s Election Night rally being held in their proximity.

While some parking garages are taking advantage of the street parking bans for the day by jacking up their fees (as much as $50, depending on the garage’s proximity to Grant Park), the Chicago Tribune notes that theatergoers are getting a break on tickets, if they choose to attend tonight’s shows.

Tickets that can go for as much as $90 apiece are being sold today for $44.

So for those of you who are too cheap to pay the usual rates but still want to catch a theatrical experience (http://www.broadwayinchicago.com/specialoffers.php), this was your chance. Of course, parking your car near the theater meant you got caught in the higher-than-usual rates caused by Obama. So it all balances out in the end.

NOT MUCH CONCERN FOR CON-CON: When I was handed the card that I needed to insert into the touch-screen device so I could cast my ballot Tuesday, I was also handed a blue sheet of paper telling – both in English and en Español – the proper wording for the portion of the ballot related to whether or not to hold a Constitutional Convention.

Not that many people around me were too concerned about the issue. Most of the people I witnessed in my polling place (which doubles as a Lutheran church the rest of the year) barely glanced at the sheet.

The man ahead of me in line to get a ballot literally crumpled his up and tossed it into a trashcan before voting – without even reading it.

So how does this lack of concern about the issue play out? Did people vote out of ignorance, moving on to the issue (U.S. president) they really care about? In short, this portion of the ballot has the potential to have less thought put into it than all those judges.

DID THEY EXPECT THE ‘TERRORIST’ FIST JAB?: My chuckles for the day came from the various accounts being published about how University of Illinois at Chicago education professor (and onetime Weatherman activist) Bill Ayers was seen voting at the same polling place where Barack Obama cast his ballot earlier in the morning.

Do people seriously expect Ayers to go into seclusion, or to be denied his vote at his polling place at Shoesmith Elementary School in the Hyde Park neighborhood.

Or perhaps they seriously expected the two to schedule simultaneous appearances so they could (http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/11/04/obama-ayers-cast-ballots-in-same-polling-station/) give each other an Election Day dap?

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