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We “rethink the week” with Dean Spiliotes, Professor and Civic Scholar at Southern NH University; David Levinthal, federal politics editor for the Center for Public Integrity; and Jeffrey Feingold, Editor at NH Business Review. We discuss Pres. Trump’s insinuation that he might refuse to leave the presidency even if he loses the election (in 2020 or 2024). We suspect that this is just another of Trump’s false & manipulative diversions, trying to divert the public’s (& the media’s) attention away from the very real horrific actions he is taking both domestically and internationally.
On the other hand, given Trump’s affinity for “strength,” violence, bullying, and violation of any law he doesn’t like, we wonder the extent to which Americans really have to worry about the threat to our democracy inherent in Trump’s autocratic and megalomaniacal tendencies.
We also discuss the U.S. census issue. (The Supreme Court is due, within the next 10 days, to decide whether census takers may ask if a person is a US citizen.) Trump and the Republicans appear not to trust democracy. They seem afraid that the only way they can win elections — as American demographics shift — is by suppressing the votes of others.
We turn to Medicaid expansion and we note that this issue — like so many other public policy issues we’ve dicussed — has a significant impact on most Americans (not simply on the groups that are the immediate beneficiaries affected by the policy). For example, a recent study shows that Medicaid expansion helps to prevent child neglect. It also reduces the scope of the opioid crisis. And of course, improvements in general health outcomes — especially among the poor and marginalized communities — have a ripple effect that improves many measures of societal well-being.
