What can be done, can be undone, to a point. Trump, and his Koch administration and sponsor network have done a great job illegitimately arresting power and tricking a lot of people they are going to be better off.
However, their strategy is based on an ideology that government of the rich and selfish, by the rich and greedy, and for the rich, and shortsighted will be sustainable, even though nothing could be further from the truth.
It will only take a relatively short time until the wheels start wandering from the wagon. The Republicans stimulated a recovering and expanding economy, with about 4–5 Trillion dollars, while targeting benefits for the .01–1% and the 85% of corporate wealth they own. They did this through taxpayer, financed debt, with only an ideological belief that somehow this debt will pay for itself, and somehow it will “trickle down” and benefit all Americans.
In addition to the irresponsible tax cuts, heavily discounted repatriation of foreign corporate profits, privatization strategy, and incalculable costs of environmental deregulation were utilized. We do know , US domestic CC change costs will exceed one Trillion for 2017, and the Cal Fires alone will exceed more than a Trillion in 2018, even though the R Congressional 2018 budget only funded 90 B for disaster relief? Add a fictitious budget to their con, which history confirms has never worked in this manner, since Reagan. There are also elements in their rule, which restrict growth, and will exacerbate Fed Revenue shortfalls. These involve trade, immigration and travel policies.
The rest of the sham plan involves ignoring America’s greatest challenges like the Two Trillion and rising Infrastructure Repairs, CC Remediation Costs, including reversing all of Trump’s executive orders re: environment deregulation, and Fed investments and subsidies for Green Energy Investments. Taken for granted in their plan is the continued deterioration of our institutions and the services they perform. The last piece of the Republican plan is to attack America’s Safety Net, and their strategy is directed firstly at the 40% of Americans, who are barely getting by, and/or depend upon this part of the safety net to get by. R’s will work their way up from this group, and have already cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and undermined the ACA whenever possible. Tragically, the human health consequences in terms of cancer rates, respiratory diseases, and birth defects are skyrocketing, from environmental deregulation, at the same time Republicans want to push their sham health care plan, and do away with covering preexisting conditions? They are very nice people, who will also try to shape State governments, into their mold, of which their tax con is a part.
Just as the last R POTUS created a financial and political hole it took us 8 years to barely crawl out of, this group is following in G.W’s Bush’s footsteps, with a more catastrophic blueprint. They have exempted the very rich from the progressive income tax system, which helped make America a Great Empire (without a Southern wall, which Trump claimed was necessary, for us to be just a Nation). Progressive taxation has also helped to stabilize our democracy and allow the rise of a thriving Middle Class. In fact, this group sees no benefit to democracy, and has rallied together to suppress voting, and leave our democratic institutions and processes vulnerable to foreign influence and direct coordination. They are clearly anti-democratic, which is also part of their con. They know most Americans aren’t going to favor their policies once the consequences take hold.
It will take until next year, for everyone to acknowledge the R confiscation scam only worked for their sponsors. Fed shortfalls will exceed the 1 T CBO estimate, by the 1 T+ of deregulation, associated costs, and the 1 Trillion+ of additional revenue, from a reduced GNP. Higher interest rate costs will lower consumer demand, and the Fed will either borrow more, to cope with another Great Recession, or raise taxes on the rest of us, while stagnation becomes the norm. Whether we will continue to be ruled by the rich, and for the rich remains to be seen. There is no doubt however, the very rich will have a lot more money, and consolidated, corporate control, to influence the direction of elections ( if we still have meaningful ones) of the USA. It’s going to take a lot of resistance and change, to turn this anti-democratic, corporatocratic spiral around.