100 bucks a month

Ibelieve I, and others, were pretty darn accurate in predicting how Donald Trump would act as president.

That we were on the money about his future behavior is no great credit to us. After all, Trump is now 71 and probably more set in his ways and ideas than most people his age.

He’s had enough money and power to get away with whatever he wanted to do for his entire life, and he’s not going to change at this advanced stage.

So it’s no surprise that someone who has been serially lying for most of his life wouldn’t continue doing so after becoming the world’s most powerful person.

By the start of this month, Trump had lied publicly more than 3,000 times since taking office, according to PolitiFact.

It’s also no surprise that Trump would abuse his power, as this is a man who’s been verbally and otherwise abusing others, including many women, since he was a kid. It’s no shock that Trump has tried to demolish the vaunted separation of powers in our country and put all the powers in his hands. It’s not a stunner that he has tried to undermine Congress, the judiciary, law enforcement and other entities that might try to rein in his bullying and otherwise abusive behavior.

And it is not surprising that Trump has tried to profiteer from his presidency.

After all, this is a man who was notorious for not paying his bills or his contractors and for offering shoddy products to consumers.

So that he’s using his presidency to promote his properties and the businesses of family members is not exactly shocking, and it won’t be surprising if the Michael Cohen and ZTE scandals eventually track back to money going into Trump-associated accounts/businesses.

Tragically, though, many Americans don’t care much about the abusive behavior of our president. Trump helped engineer a tax cut that gave most of the money to corporations and his fellow rich folks, but a bit trickled down to the masses. And, frankly, people are happy that they have a little more than a hundred dollars more in their paycheck each month. (I think my income is close to the national average, and I’m taking home a little over a hundred dollars more than I did before the tax cut.)

I believe many people also like that we have a president who struts around like a big shot and tough guy, like their coaches, daddies and bosses did or do.

Some folks think swaggering and talking trash is what people truly in charge do, and few are better are at putting on a tough-guy-in-command performance than Trump.

Speaking of autocrats, I’ve spent time and talked extensively in Argentina, Spain and Italy, all countries that fell for long periods of time under autocracies/dictatorships. People in those countries told me there are people who, despite the abuses, still long for those times — or what they have heard of those times — because there was a sense of order and of someone in charge. There was less general tumult under the undisputed big boss or bosses, and repression — sometimes death — simply was an accepted byproduct by many. (As they say in Italy, for all his abuses, at least Mussolini made the trains run on time.)

And all three of those countries have elected leaders in recent years either associated with the autocracies and dictatorships or acted in ways similar to those earlier rulers.

As I write this column on Memorial Day, I wonder if we’re abandoning the ideals that so many Americans fought and died to protect.

And I wonder if a hundred bucks a month in our paychecks is enough to buy the American soul. Bret Kofford teaches writing at San Diego State University-Imperial Valley. His opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of SDSU or its employees. Kofford can be reached at Kofford@roadrunner.com