Commentary: The New MAGA ticket

J.D. Vance has only been in the Senate for 18 months and has no elected government experience prior to that. Donald Trump has no local government experience whatsoever either. Not a problem for the new MAGA political party though, because this ticket does not intend to govern according to American political tradition. It will be governing according to the will and whim of a single businessman using his businessman instincts and methods. The ticket will pay little respect to the 535 members of Congress, thousands of judicial department judges and tens of thousands of local and state legislative and executive officials across the country. Those folks are no longer needed, and who knows what their interests and concerns are anyway? America’s “federal” (local) system of government will bite the dust, except for maybe abortion policy (for the moment).

You see, Mr. Trump, as a real estate mogul, and Mr. Vance, as a venture capitalist, will represent the private interests of business and the budding new aristocratic class consisting of the rich and the super-rich. They will not govern, they will manipulate like a marketing department does in an advertising campaign. America swallows advertising up like ice cream, and Trump/Vance are betting the people are ready to swallow up Trump’s personally manufactured “public” policies as well. These two are skilled at making people believe what they want them to believe. Mr. Vance has demonstrated he is a capable clone, a Mini-Me puppet, an emasculated flip-flop artist, a squeaky-voiced minion, a slick propaganda chief who will put the proper words to the commander in chief’s every wish.

In fact, a central theme of the Republican National Convention is “Make America wealthy again.” This is revelatory, like a message from God. The MAGA party is dead-set focused on money, on increasing the wealth of the aristocracy — more tax relief for the rich and more tax burden for everybody else. Notice that motto does not say, “Make the middle class and the working poor wealthy again,” because that would make no sense. The middle class and the working poor have never been wealthy. The only thing the motto could possibly refer to is the poor, oppressed upper class. So, the platform committee tipped their hat big time with this motto. The MAGA political party is the first American political party prioritizing the interests of billionaires and wannabe billionaires everywhere, every time.

But wait — the MAGA ticket is also into traditional Republican politics and methods, at least a little bit, aren’t they? They have experience governing at the national level, with Trump’s first term, don’t they? Well, the campaign is already working hard to disguise the political method that will be utilized in a second term. After the assassination attempt, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “Calling my Dad a ‘dictator’ and a ‘threat to democracy’ is the main message of the Biden/Harris campaign and Democrats across the country.” One can almost taste the indignation and terrible injury caused by even the tiniest suggestion that his dad will be making all the big decisions, and not others, like elected members of Congress.

Trump Jr. clearly demonstrates his ignorance about what a dictator actually is. He does not seem to comprehend that financing the building of a wall without a specific appropriation from Congress is a program enacted unilaterally and unconstitutionally by an autocrat. Furthermore, when the senior Trump torpedoed a finalized, bipartisan congressional border bill so he could change not only the broad contours but every tiny little detail of the border policy all by his lonesome without the consent of the people once he got into office again, it was one of the clearest acts of dictatorship ever enacted in America politics.

A true Republican respects the exclusive law-making power of Congress. The Constitution specifies in Article 1 that “all laws” will be enacted by the legislative branch, not the executive branch. What Trump did was exactly how a dictatorship operates. He also sent a clear signal that dictatorship will be his governing method if elected. So, Don Jr., take a good look at what your dad has already become.

Kimball Shinkoskey lives in Woods Cross, Utah.