Daily, millions of our fellow citizens enter that condition.
As the absurdity of supporting this quasar of toddler self-indulgent nonsense begins to roost in bank accounts, a day of clarity presents itself.
It isn’t that right wing media begins to crack, or even Congressional fanaticos suddenly skulking for self-preservation, it is The People, whose roots lock back in and the human desire for justice and fair play is renourished.
Yes, he wants to end democracy, and YES, his being elected is a compelling argument to do so, but look at who might replace him:
JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kristi Noem, etc. all sycophants, all MAGA, all who either once opposed him or have suckled on the tit of obedience from birth.
Perhaps more important isn’t the MAGA party but the media powers with enormous followings, who will attempt to chisel a new Trump out of his droppings:
FOX, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Laura Lommer, Kevin Roberts, Laura Trump etc.
Kill Trump and you will have crucified him in the eyes of his zealots. Let him live into his onsetting incapacity and his disciples will devour each other.
Went to Alice’s funeral yesterday, a remarkable woman. She retired after 22 years as a captain in the Airforce and then committed the rest of her life fighting for world peace.
At her end, dozens said goodbye with the sweetest stories of her struggles to bring calm to an angry world.
Even Secretary of Defense Hegseth and President Trump celebrated her goodness by sending a military guard to send her off with volleys of rifle fire and a slow dramatic folding of the Stars and Stripes.
Which they had presented to Alice’s wife, Cara, from a grateful nation with these quiet words, “On behalf of the President of the United States.”
Corrupting the Justice Department to end those opposing him?
Appointing toadies, suckling on the poison of power?
Cuddling with the man’s most despicable dictators?
CERTIANLY NOT WHEN HE SUGGESTS:
We ingest disinfectants to manage what ails us.
That it’s OK to grab someone’s genitals.
That “we could use a big fat dose of global warming.”
That his pennis is long and beautiful.
That breast feeding babies is “disgusting.”
That conviction of sexual abuse is abuse.
IT ISN’T THE PRESIDENT WHO IS ANTI-PROGRESS, SCIENCE, EDUCATION DEMOCRACY AND DECENCY THAT IS YOUR ENEMY, IT IS THAT FAMILY MEMBER OR NEIGHBOR THAT MONOTONOUSLY PARDON THEMSELVES WITH THE WORDS, “OH, I DON’T LIKE EVERYTHIG HE DOES!”
Billionaire Elon Musk is not to blame for the firings of thousands of federal workers, including veterans (without bone spur excuses) he privately tells Republicans. It is the heads of federal agencies who are to blame, he claims.
Why? Well because Putin’s opponents are murdered, opposition is arrested and frozen in Siberia, minority rights squashed, foreign territory forcefully annexed, brutal dictators slaughtering thousands of their own citizens are enabled…
In 2023, when American’s still fought for the free, 64% thought this newfound “friend” an enemy, now only 34% do, while 50% want Ukraine to stop fighting and let Russia have the territory, they’ve massacred tens-of-thousands to obtain.
When those betraying that 249-year-old, uniquely American cause of freedom are asked, why? They simply mimic their leader who said, “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too.”
A legion of inexperienced juvenile toadies now locked in place at the head of your Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Trade, Office of Management and Budget, Energy, Labor, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, FBI, Health and Human Services, Secretary of State, CIA, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Environmental Protection Agency.
All parasites suckling on the poisonous tit of a megalomaniac.
All happening, while your protection from Inspector Generals, whistle-blowers and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are deceased.
You are on your own. Caveat Emptor, in all things – good luck!
Wake me up in 20 years when it is all over, the wicked are dead and I can know that somehow democracy pulled through.
List all the human advances you can, for all human time up to 1776.
It was 229 years ago that Thomas Jefferson wrote “All men are created equal…” and enterprise by the free was unleashed on a global scale. With little thought, there is not a one of us that would not marvel at what came of it.
Compare your list of what came under every imaginable despot those first 250,000 years of human existence, with what you can list the last 000.01% of it. Any comparative list would make those first 250,000 years seem devoid of advance in either human comfort, health, convenience, or nourishment. Almost regardless of your circumstance, your life today is with benefits and comforts beyond the imaginations of any ruler in history claiming to be above the law. This relationship between freedom and despotism is no coincidence.
Pride in our forebearers should ooze from every American pore while the return of a despotism boil everyone’s blood.
I’m going to doze off now, but with a hacksaw, on the chance I wake up in a prison.
America represented stability in the world, because our institutions were stable, our rule of law was stable, and our separation of powers was able to mute extremists. I believe that is how America provided the safest haven for secure investment and fertile ground for prosperity.
Now with our institutions, the rule of law, the separation of powers being dismantled and a tariff wars kicker, I wonder if the coming pain will root in time for a sleepy self-governing people, charged with running this show, to wake up and save their primacy?
He does whatever he can to do, what he said he would do, legal, illegal, everything and anything that can be done to do what he promised. Can you name a single other President willing to do so much for what he said he believed?
What a different world it would be if Obama, Bush or even Clinton had the mind set to be so craven and committed to their cause as is Trump.
If precedent, the rule of law, decency and conscience is going to be so thoroughly trashed, I wish it had been trashed by a President concerned with issues like global warming, an educated citizenry, health care, insurance companies, or just a love of people struggling to become part of this glorious achievement we call America, just as my ancestors and yours likely did.
It is as if a nincompoop stumbled into the Pitt of Endless Disenchantment where eons of candidate elected promises have gone withered and died and came out still simple and with a simpleton’s idea: I am going to bust ass, on my absurdities, right or wrong and see if we (or I) get traction.
He will find great success, his number of supporters will continue to grow as “America First” takes root and finds purchase, up and until Americans discover they aren’t part of his America.
His Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson: “His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of US history was really limited.”.
His Chief of Staff, John Kelly: “A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law… God help us.”
LIKE TITANIC WE CALMLY SET SAIL WITHOUT BINOCULARS
Good people with thoughtful hearts seldom recognize how horrible an event can be and when they do, most sit frozen, drop jawed, as their heart is slowly eaten.
Titanic, The Gulf war, Deep Water Horizon, Pearl Harbor, Challenger, Chernobyl are amongst the many sufferings that could have been avoided if our better angels were heeded.
Now the most odious flight of all is about to take wing. As it has slimmed its way above to lord over us all, those saddened, thoughtful hearts hide in the cracks dreaming that lucidity and sanity will magically reappear.
No massive demonstrations planned, no public outrage evident, “Brownshirts” have won the day and there will be Hell to pay.
When former Texas governor John Connally took a private jet in 1980 to convince Iran not to release the hostages, the Carter Presidency was done. Such was the underhanded ugly, in old time politics.
Carter, the antithesis of what is to come, thought we should not only be the top military power but also “the champion of peace, champion of human rights, champion of the environment and the most generous nation on earth.”
Carter knew that knowledge was the only real source of human success and thus created the Department of Education.
Carter knew that bringing adversaries to the table and convincing them peace was a mutual advantage, might bare fruit and thus the Camp David Accords, which won for Begin and Sadat the Noble Prize.
Even out of the Presidency Carter spoke truth to power as when he was amongst the first to say, “There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq,” or when he suggested we cannot be peacemakers if American government leaders are seen as knee-jerk supporters of every action or policy of whatever Israeli government happens to be in power at the moment. That is the essential fact that must be faced.”
But mostly I loved Jimmy Carter for his devotion to us after his Presidency, his tireless journeys all over the globe to promote peace, health and justice and his passion for the less fortunate here at home.
All former Presidents retire, comfortably cocooning in their former glories. Not Jimmy Carter, my hero!
Twice my boss, first as my boss’s boss when I worked for Walter Mondale and second as a founder of an organization called Vote Smart where I was dogged on his example for 35 years as its President.
I know it is an odd thing when I say Jesus talks to me. But somehow, he finds a way.
If I do good, I am kind, thoughtful and giving, he inflates my senses of self-worth and joy.
If I do bad, he loads me with self-doubt and roils my brain in the darkness of a sleepless night.
It is because of him, I never think of harassing, bullying, abusing or grabbing a woman by the pussy.
He talks to me about supporting the poor and needy, not judging or condemning others, or seeking revenge or retribution, or promoting conflict and division. All spot on with what he said and exampled in his life.
He also talks to me of the modern-day temple profiters pointing to their new leader who warps his every example into the most grotesque deformities persuading acceptance of a smothering of all he lived for.
SELFISH: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself
Long, long ago in a world now far, far away, I was reading of an eighteenth-century Scottish historian who suggested democracy would always eat itself. A people starting in bondage would develop great courage, he said. That would lead to liberty, in turn liberty would lead to abundance, abundance to selfishness, selfishness to complacency, complacency to apathy, apathy to dependence and thus back to bondage.
I had thought him wrong then and gave much of my life to prove him so, but I would not now. Age has given me clarity; a clarity I wish I did not have. Selfishness takes primacy in all beings and is particularly evident amongst human beings. How else could it be that we have ended the existence of so many other species and now stand on the precipice of ending our own.
Or as H. L Mencken, a devout conservative wrote, “As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissist moron.”
