Matchstick man
Recessions are the swords of Damocles that hang over economists, voters, and Presidents. Recessions are like fog. When they roll in, it’s difficult to see anything else; they obscure, blind and punishes. When recessions come to town, people’s wallets snap shut, as items that were once normally priced often shoot up. Jobs become scarce, and many gainfully employed people lose their jobs. Disbelief sets in, and then, like listening to the squeaking and groans of an old house settling, people are immobile, clinging to their chairs, watching news reports, hoping desperately that the storm will soon pass.
I know about recessions. They cause a lot of pain and make one feel helpless. It’d be nice if this country could say goodbye to recessions, and never experience one again. Unfortunately, talks of a recession are ramping up. The other day, a clip of a prerecorded interview was shown. This interview was with “Meet The Press’s Kristen Welker. In the clip, Trump is seen and heard saying he’s perfectly fine with a recession.
Now, let us pause here. I ask you this: Have you ever seen a president who celebrates the kind of pain I just described above? Have you, have you, have you? Of course not! “This is a transitional period,” Trump can be heard saying, almost — almost jollily. Trump tried to pivot and talk about how we, the American people, are going to have “the greatest economic boom in history.”
If his lips are moving, he’s lying. Do you know something? I wish he were telling the truth. I do. I wish Trump was telling the truth. Because recessions cause pain and I do not want to see a new one born in my country, in your country, in the country of the free and the brave. I don’t.
If it does come to that, we’ll have plenty of time to talk to people, to explain to people, and to educate people. In the meantime, I do think with irony of this uncaring person, this stick figure, a person whom, if the most talented and brilliant artist were to draw, they’d have to draw a simplified portrait, leaving out the contours of the face, creating only a matchstick man. They’d have to do it that way because how else would one be expected to draw an image of a person with nothing inside him to sculpt?
