Often Stubborn; Often Wrong.

Over the past few days, I’ve been brooding over the Trump regime’s efforts to eliminate Amtrak’s long-distance service. And that led me to wonder what it is about the American mentality that says, “I don’t care if they do things differently in the rest of the world. Our way is better.”
 
Currently, the Trump Administration is grappling with several major issues. When it comes to long-distance trains, the “return on investment” isn’t sufficiently Republican enough, so let’s just eliminate those trains and too bad if that hurts people for whom Amtrak is the only available public transportation.
 
Pretty cold blooded.
 

 By the way, what do you suppose is the most common argument I get from ordinary people who are opposed to building high-speed rail in the U.S.? They say this country is too big for those fast trains. Really? In terms of land area, China is actually a little larger than the continental U.S. and they now have 12,500 miles of high-speed rail lines, with another 10,000 miles planned. And we have zero…zip…nada.
 
Makes you wonder: do advisors to Trump or McConnell or Ryan look around and say, “Wow! These other countries in the world are doing some really innovative things. If it’s working for them, maybe we should seriously look into it.” Evidently not.
 
I’ve long ago forgotten what the incident was that prompted her, but I remember my mother telling me about a woman watching as a large company of soldiers marched past, flags flying and band playing. ”Oh, look,” she said, “All of those young men are out of step except my Johnny!”