But, as his popularity seemed to grow, it became alarming to some, those who know him well, those who know he has the conscience of a serial killer. Psychotherapists sounded the alarm, as did his niece, Mary Trump, whom herself is a psychiatric professional.
When Trump's "hot mic" moment from Access Hollywood was leaked, I thought that surely he was done now. I was so tired of the ignorance and bullying style he showed without remorse at every event.
It seemed like a million days of the same speech:
"Lock her up", and "windmills cause cancer", and Trump groping and kissing the American flag on stage-it all sickened me and led me to believe he would never get elected. Americans wouldn't buy into this, I thought.
However, Trump did get elected and the next four years were a bloody nightmare!
How did this happen?
And why on earth would people dismiss his craziness now?
He, along with the Heritage Foundation's PROJECT 2025, have put in writing their fascist plans, on nearly a thousand pages that are free to download from their website.
Their agenda includes taking apart many of the departments we rely on in our daily lives, such as the Energy department, the Department of Education, the EPA, and even our military! What seems uppermost in their minds is to fight all this "wokeness", and to establish a Christian theocratic government, concentrating most of its power in the Executive branch.
They want organized school prayer, though Trump obviously has not read a Bible, ever. They DON'T want their kids to get vaccines or wear masks during a pandemic. Hell, they don't want ANY child doing that and they loudly let it be known.
Fast forward to present day...
After losing the 2020 Presidential election, and after having some SIXTY court cases about the election dismissed for lacking sufficient evidence of fraud, Trump carried on with the Big Lie, which he repeats to this day. As a matter of fact, very recently Trump said in more than one interview, he will NOT guarantee he will accept the 2024 election results unless he wins. He set up the 2020 election lie fiasco months in advance, predicting it would be "rigged", before the conventions were even completed. On January 6th , 2021, Trump told a mob to march to the Capitol, where electoral votes were to be counted, and "fight like hell or you won't have a country!"
Adding more fuel, Rudy Giuliani shouted "How about trial by combat?!!" He was most enthusiastic that day and his ardent MAGA fans/cult members were too! Were they ALL drinking like Rudy?! I have to wonder...sigh.
OK. On to Dobbs!
Today, women do not have a guaranteed right to reproductive healthcare in the Constitution's right to privacy clauses (4th and 5th Amendments) or in the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, regarding their own bodies according to Samuel "I Hate Our Flag" Alito's written majority opinion. What this ultra-right wing Supreme Court did was to take away rights from our daughters that our GRANDMOTHERS had! Until Congress codifies abortion rights, women and girls will continue to suffer at the hands of the orange tinted man who appointed THREE of the most right wing justices sitting, out of the six Conservatives on the bench! How did this happen?!
The "how" of it will be a case study in political science classes for years to come. But, what to do to stop it is the immediate, more urgent concern.
Now, it is up to US to hold the MAGA right wing and frankly, the news media, accountable for the misinformation they spread on a daily basis.
It is beyond frustrating to hear the speculation on right wing news and now, even historically liberal media sources such as the New York Times, about Biden being slow, old, and ineffective. Any eighty-one year old who can fly all over the world,, participating in meetings and summits with other world leaders, is on top of his game! His CNN debate performance is far less important, in my opinion, than how he performs the functions of the job he is tasked with. (So far, he has accomplished much more than his opponent had in his four years.)
Meanwhile, just watch Trump's rallies and listen to him speak. Electric boats and sharks, Hannibal Lector, rappers with felonies, January 6th "heroes and patriots", and on and on. It's the same speech everywhere he goes. He never talks about actual issues and policies. He still does not understand that those importing goods pay tariffs, not the country the goods come from! Those tariff costs are passed on to the consumer, thus, you and I pay tariffs-and Trump wants ten percent on every imported product!
When he met with business leaders recently, they were baffled by his confusion and scattered thoughts. When he proposed the corporate tax rate should be lowered from 21% down to 20%, they asked why 20 and Trump answered it is a " round number". Huh?!
But, the worst part of the Trump agenda, as well as Project 2025, is the stripping of established civil rights they suggest we need. No, we don't!
We need good public schools, not an end to the Department of Education. We need ready access to women's reproductive healthcare, including contraception and abortion services. We need for every citizen to be able to marry whomever they want among consenting adults. We need workers' rights to be respected and for liveable wages to be paid. We need affordable, quality childcare and preschool. We need to protect Social Security and Medicare.
MAGA offers nothing like this. Their emphasis is on creating a Judeo+Christian form of government that excludes more of us than it includes. Emphasis will be on religion and ideology, not civil rights nor finding answers based on science and reall data. It may have 2025 in its title but they want an America from 1950, when bashing gays and lynching blacks was not unusual or concerning to many people, and was not discussed at the kitchen table. At least one MAGA candidate recently said he'd like to go back to when women couldn't vote!
To think this is not a threat is to be naive about just how wicked the MAGA agenda is. If you think it can't happen here, think of Hitler and Mousolinni, both democratically elected but once in office, they took over their governments completely. Victor Orban in Hungary was elected, then changed their laws to allow him a lifelong dictatorship. Xi in China isn't as surprising but he has made himself dictator for life, as well.
Do you honestly think with our current Supreme Court and the MAGA wing of the GOP ( most who still call themselves Republicans have embraced MAGA) that this could never happen here?!
Think again. It can and eventually will, if we do not remain vigilante in protecting our democratic institutions. The answer to our problems is not to burn this experiment to the ground and replace it with a fascist "strongman", especially one as uneducated and frankly, malevolent as Donald Trump.
Personally, I'll take Biden, the slow version or the "jacked up Joe" FOX news tries to spin. At least he doesn't want to be the next dictator in the world!
President Biden has been known to fall now and then, but he has never failed to rise again. He is more experienced and wiser, with better qualifications than any other candidate for 2024. Looking domestically, and on the world stage, having been decades in the Senate, two terms as Vice President and nearly one complete term in the Oval office, no one should be thinking of tossing Joe Biden.
If anyone should be thrown out, it is those who promote and protect the felon and authoritarian dictator wannabe, Donald J. Trump. Toss him, the Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025.
You'll be glad you did.
