Last month, the Utah Legislature issued an honorary bullet list of congratulations to President Trump in the form of an “official citation.” This was obviously a sideswipe at Sen. Mitt Romney for his rogue “guilty” vote on the first article of impeachment of the president. Mitt’s valiant act aside, this citation was an infusion of flattery that lacked a dose of truth serum.
WHEREAS, the economy of the United States had been growing steadily since the Great Recession of 2009, and that President Donald J. Trump inherited the momentum of strong growth trends achieved by the preceding administration;
WHEREAS, the tax cuts of 2017 “championed” by President Trump have resulted in a significant decrease in real revenues to the federal Treasury, and a significant increase to the wallet size of the wealthiest individuals and corporations, and thus to the highest federal deficit in six years, now at one trillion dollars;
WHEREAS, record Defense Department budgets are heavily burdensome and inherently wasteful without proper accountability, and that the Space Command had its origins nearly 40 years ago and only was elevated to branch status because of President Trump’s self-aggrandizement;
WHEREAS, President Trump’s evisceration of perceived “onerous” regulatory policies across the federal bureaucracies — especially pertaining to air, water, and general environmental quality — has degraded and shall continue to degrade the public health and welfare;
WHEREAS, given the President Trump administration’s selective, political and willful ignorance and disregard of science as a core component of responsible and sensible governance;
WHEREAS, the shrinkage of Utah’s two largest national monuments — approximating the largest reduction in history of lands so designated — had much less to do with a desire to return public lands control to the state than with President Trump’s obsession with reversing or truncating his predecessors’ acts, and to facilitate the fossil fuel industry’s interests;
WHEREAS, the draconian approach that President Trump has taken to “secure our national borders” has resulted in unconstitutional transgressions, deplorable refugee encampments, sundered families, and has inflamed racist and xenophobic tendencies, all of which are antithetical to American inclusivity;
WHEREAS, the “fair and reciprocal trade agreements” — tariffs — that President Trump has implemented have resulted in higher costs of over a thousand dollars to the average American household and caused widespread uncertainties in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors;
WHEREAS, while President Trump’s relocation of the American embassy to, and in recognition of, Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel may placate and empower some influential factions, it serves only to perpetuate and deepen already abysmal divisions, ignores the legitimate travails of the Palestinian peoples, and is a tragic irony, given the president’s incongruously-dubbed Middle East “peace” plan recently put forward, with no Palestinian input;
WHEREAS, President Trump demands fealty to himself above all and any larger and higher concerns for the nation, having demonstrated a pattern of paranoid, mobster-like dominance, intimidation and scorn of professional and expert career public servants; further, whereas, this behavior has been sanctioned by a cowed and complacent cohort in our legislatures;
WHEREAS, it is incontrovertible that President Trump thrives on conflict, divisiveness, vilification and mendacity; that he has demonstrably violated his oath of office; and that his conduct has run starkly contrary to his own pronouncements in his 2016 election night victory speech: “I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country. Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division; have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people”;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, we the people demand leadership that aspires to a high civic purpose, truthfulness and wisdom at all levels, leadership that is empathetic, competent and, above all, trustworthy.
CITIZEN BEWARE. VOTER BEWARE.
Nye Thuesen
Nye Thuesen, Salt Lake City, is a recently retired public school educator and lifetime Utah resident.
