Why would anyone want Donald Trump to be our president, much less our dictator/king? Just consider the very recent stuff he has done.
He has openly murdered at least 37 South Americans in nine strikes on boats that he suspects – he suspects! — were carrying drugs and gang members, knowing he can’t be charged with murder because the Supreme Court gave him the right to commit any crime he wants to as long as he can connect it with his duties as president..
He is hiring unqualified people – convicted criminals, underage boys, people who failed to pass basic physical or mental tests — to be his ICE agents, his Gestapo.
He is trying to weaken elections security by defunding the federal agency that secures elections nationwide (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), meaning states could lose access to information on emerging threats, and election officials may be left without funding for key security services.
He broadcast on Truth Social that vile, disgusting, tasteless AI-generated video of himself dressed as a king flying an airplane over a No Kings rally and bombing the participants with feces.
He shamelessly allows Russian President Vladimir Putin to walk on his face.
He’s threatening to invade Venezuela. Venezuela!
He is seeking $230 million of taxpayers’ money from the Justice Department to compensate him for legitimate investigations and charges brought against him before he returned to the White House. The complaints focus on the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 and the classified documents case that involved an FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The people who will decide if he gets the money are his former defense attorneys.
He refuses to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) any of the approximately $6 billion it holds in reserve to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)..He is thus denying food to 42 million Americans, mostly children and elderly people, so the money can be used to help support huge tax breaks for the super-wealthy.
And that’s just the recent stuff. Don’t forget the the possibility (probability?) that he raped young girls, and the certainty that he at least knew who raped them and didn’t report it. He’s already been convicted of sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll in a case the judge said was rape, and he’s been recorded as bragging about “grabbing women by the pussy” and getting away with it. “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
He has been convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records and paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, and he is credibly charged with 54 more felonies involving attempts to steal the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden.
He is pressuring state legislatures to ignore what the people want and gerrymander their states to guarantee Republicans will be elected.
His tariffs are causing prices to rise, although he promised to reduce prices on everything. The soybeans fiascos involving Argentina. It gets boring and flabbergasting at the same time to write or read about it. And I’ve just scratched the surface.
Which brings us back to my original question: Why would anyone want Donald Trump to be our president, much less our dictator/king? I can only think of three reasons.
One, many people pay no attention to current events whatsoever and have no idea what is going on in the world, but they’ve heard that Trump sticks it to the man and that’s good enough for them.
Two, many people who do pay attention to current events get all or most of their news through such rightwing sources as Fox News and Newsmax and think they are getting the whole picture. Those folks would be surprised to learn there is a non-MAGA side to some or all the events mentioned above, so they could not have a full grasp of what is happening in our world. (Incidentally, Trump also gets most of his news from Fox. He rarely reads the daily news summaries provided to him.)
Three, some people who do pay close attention to current events, and who get their news from various sources on the left and on the right and give serious thought to the arguments on both sides, conclude that a Trump dictatorship is better than staying with our democracy. However, people who have lived under dictators are unanimous in their opinion that the only people who think that living under a dictator is better than living in a democracy are those who have never lived under a dictator.
And then there are the politicians who cower shamelessly before Trump’s throne in fear. Many appear frightened of losing his support come elections (although surely that’s an ever-weakening fear). Or maybe some were Epstein customers, and they know Trump knows it. Or maybe they fear losing jobs Trump has promised them if they keep letting him rum rampant over the Constitution.
Most important, perhaps, do not forget the 2017 book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”, in which essays from 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals describe the “clear and present danger” that Trump is “criminally mentally ill” and that he poses a threat to ”the nation and individual wellbeing.”
The solution to all this, of course, is to impeach Trump on any of the numerous impeachable offenses he has committed – and that is becoming more likely every day as more and more of his followers are beginning to wobble in their unquestioning support for him. It will only take a small handful of thhem to get the job done.
As Michael Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has said, no other American president “has come close to Trump’s corruption, and the level of his corruption—on a daily basis—is unmatched in our history.”
Gerhardt said Trump “has committed more impeachable offenses in the first few months of his second term than all previous presidents combined. They include lying to the American people on numerous matters and violating the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process for both citizens and noncitizens, the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the emoluments clause, numerous abuses of power, complicity in eroding public health protections and violating federal laws governing civil service and many other
matters.”
The problem is that the MAGA-led Congress and the MAGA-owned Supreme Court have fallen in line behind Trump and are not likely to do anything to stop him unless they are forced to do so.
And so that leaves it up to We the People. If we stay together, and remain loud but peaceful as we have been, we can force it.
But now more than ever we need all hands on desk, for if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Wearing a paperclip on your lapel or shirt collar, or wherever, is a subtle way anyone can express their support for the resistance. It’s a simple gesture that appears to be catching on
We are winning. We can win. Let’s finish the job.
- PROTECT VOTING RIGHTS: Pass the Redistricting Reform Act!
- SPEAK UP: Denounce the Companies Bribing Trump with Ballroom Funding
- TELL CONGRESS: Rein in the Insurrection Act and End Trump’s War on Cities
- SIGN PETITION: No federal militarized takeover of our nation’s cities!
