Teapot Dome, second edition

It seems clear that the incoming Trump Administration has already figured out how to make the country “great again”. Key to its strategy is the sale or “gift” of public assets to private interests, mainly “friends” of Trump and his pals.

Certainly whatever token amount can be worked out for this fire sale of the heritage of our country will temporarily boost revenues, but in the long term (too late, of course) we will learn the consequences of the election of 2016.

The other part of this festival of greed will be what are called “usage charges” for literally everything essential to life and sustenance,  essentially the conversion of freely traveled highways to toll roads, escalating fees for privately owned frequency spectrum and both surface and subsurface water.

Actually we will see a replay of the scandals of the Harding Administration of the 1920s, such as the Teapot Dome bribery case involving the only Cabinet Officer (so far!) convicted of a crime in office, a character well known in New Mexico (and reviled by history!), Albert B. Fall.

Complicit in the Harding greed-fest was Republican lock on Congress, lasting from 1919 to 1930, during which the slide toward Depression and war was launched—another similarity to today.

Sadly, responsibility for this election result belongs with all the eligible voters who, by their indifference, failed to exercise their responsibilities by voting in the 2016 election (final total, 53.1% voted, 46.9 % stayed home). I hope they’re happy.