Column By John Young
“I will destroy you.”
When my kids were of cartoon age, this TV line often rang through the den on weekday mornings – a lower-than-low voice from an ever-booming, dominantly villainous robot.
I never knew which robot it was.
The other day, I asked a now-grown son to name that character and help me build an analogy to depict where our nation is headed. And so:
In TV terms, voters switched channels on Nov. 5 — from PBS’s Bob the Builder to the tyrannical Megatron of “The Transformers” (on Fox, surprise!).
Fans of the show will tell you Megatron was a bad dude. His ruthless gang: the Decepticons.
Build me a better metaphor.
Let me spell it out.
We are about to retire a president whose policies have built more useful things than any since Roosevelt, including innovations intended to extend the life of our planet.
We now reinstate in office a demolition man.
Look at the people he wants to tear down institutions:
Kash Patel, one of the Big Lie’s most shrill shills, to head the FBI? Lee Zeldin (climate change “a scam”) to run the Environmental Protection Agency? Pro wrestling matron Linda McMahon to put a headlock on the Department of Education?
All are in keeping with the ex-president under whom “Infrastructure Week” was a late-night gag in his first four years.
If he builds one viaduct, makes possible one key scientific breakthrough, or lays one brick facilitating community – as opposed to roping people off from one another – we’ll be left speechless.
Well, yes, he’ll make it easier for Elon Musk to poke holes in the sky, authorize whole detention center cities, and pave golden paths for the Tech Bros and Bitcoin buds who paid his legal bills.
But that whole FDR idea of “works in progress” for everyone will be shelved — until the Decepticons have been defeated.
Check back when we regain our sense of what government is supposed to do—you know, build highways and schools, save lives through medical science, and make us feel like one rather than as warring tribes.
We will have people like that again leading our nation.
We will have Roosevelts, Eisenhowers, and, yes, Joe Bidens again. You watch.
No need to peer into the misty future. Watch what blue-state governors are doing now. My governor, Jared Polis, is going hard to the hoop on a rapid rail line along Colorado’s increasingly jammed I-25 corridor — with much help from Biden’s Department of Transportation, I might add.
What Biden has accomplished in one term truly is astounding. The political problem: So much of it has absolutely zero sex appeal, so you barely heard about it.
Right now, cities like Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and several more are replacing unsafe lead pipes thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure bill he shepherded.
The same legislation made high-speed internet possible for 23 million households that were without it. Talk about a crucial education need in the 21st century.
That was just one of many accomplishments in a massive effort—more than a trillion dollars in spending on roads, bridges, airports, railroads, ports, and more. Other accomplishments include the technologies and new jobs created by the new-energy-boosting Inflation Reduction Act and legislation boosting the U.S. microchips industry.
Oh, and all this activity resulted in just about half the debt that MegaTrump piled up, cutting taxes unnecessarily and building almost nothing.
Nope, from his cartoon antics — not a hint of what presidents of both major parties have done across generations: building a more perfect union.
You may think Trump will be good for the economy. Whatever happens, he will inherit a good one thanks to Biden and the Federal Reserve (which he wants to blow up as well) — low unemployment, solid economic growth befitting the “soft landing” many didn’t expect after the pandemic, and tempering of inflation.
Let’s see what Trumpicons do to mess that up.
“I will destroy you.”
That’s going to be some legacy.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
