It has become impossible for me to understand why any American would want Donald Trump to be president again.
The Republicans who know him best, those who worked for him in the White House, are turning against him in droves.
At least 25 former Trump officials — his vice president, five cabinet members, eight White House officials and 11 persons who held other executive branch jobs —
have warned us that he is dangerous.
But that’s just those who worked with Trump. At least 39 officials who worked in previous GOP administrations have openly warned us about him. They include a former president, a vice president, 13 cabinet members, five White House officials and 29 persons who held other executive branch offices.
But don’t stop there. Among other Republicans who now publicly oppose Trump are five sitting senators, 12 former senators, three current House members, 41 former House members, two current governors, 18 former governors, and a dizzying flock of GOP state and local officials, judges, party officials, public figures, right-leaning news outlets and other organizations.
That’s well more than 200 Republican officials who have stated publicly that they fear another Trump White House. You can be sure that not one of them wants a Democrat there, but they’ll vote for Harris anyway because a Democrat is preferable to a fascist – and after that infamous Trump rally Sunday, there can be no doubt he is a fascist.
He has become the spitting image of Adolf Hitler, who America declared war on in 1941. And now all the polls show about half of Americans want him to be our president? Again I ask: How is it possible that any American could want someone to be president who we fought World War II to stop?
The New York Times recently listed six major ways Trump’s promises could weaken American democracy if he is elected .
One. He would use the Justice Department to punish people who opposed him, including “long term prison sentences.”
Two. He would revoke the licenses of broadcast outlets that have criticized him, specifically NBC, MSNBC and CBS.
Three. He would reward his allies and campaign donors by reducing taxes on wealthy people and corporations and replacing the lost money by circling the U.S. with tariffs, which would sharply increase costs for the middle and lower classes.
Four. He would fire tens of thousands of federal workers and replace them with people who would swear their loyalty to him, not to the Constitution.
Five. He would ignore laws he opposes, such as laws that provide money for clean energy.
Six. He can absolutely be trusted to claim without any evidence that the election was rigged and he actually won, just like he did in 2020. (More on that in a moment.)
But it’s not just his anti-democracy, pro-Nazi ways that make me wonder why anybody would want him to be president. There’s also the mounting evidence and growing realization that Trump is physically and mentally falling apart, and if he is elected he will not be able to serve.
Earlier this month, 230 doctors publicly called on Trump to release his medical records, which he absolutely will not do. They wrote, “Trump is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office and displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity.”
And just a few days ago 233 mental health professionals warned that Trump “appears to be showing signs of cognitive decline that urgently cry out for a full neurological work-up.” They also said that his malignant narcissism makes him “grossly unfit for leadership.”
All that comes on top of that 2017 book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” in which 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health experts revealed him as being criminally mentally ill.
Toss in his 34 felony convictions, the 54 other felony charges against him, the adjudication that he is a rapist, etc., etc., etc., and it should be clear to everyone that Trump is unfit to be president of the United States.
But let’s consider for a moment that the unthinkable happens, that Trump legitimately wins the election and, once in office, it quickly becomes clear he is incapable of performing. What then?
He nominally would remain president, but J.D. Vance would become president-in-fact. So, what could we expect from Vance?
Think Trump on steroids.
Vance and his financier Peter Thiel (Thiel first employed him, then invested in his venture capital firm, then contributed an unprecedented $15 million to his Senate campaign) are determined to dismantle the federal government. They argue that America’s democratic institutions have created a society that is, as James Pogue wrote in a 2022 Vanity Fair article, “at once tyrannical, chaotic, and devoid of the systems of value and morality that give human life richness and meaning.” Thiel has expressed his belief that the modern government stifles innovation by enforcing social values like equality and anti-monopoly, limits that have caused society to stagnate and could lead to an apocalypse.
Vance agrees with all that. He has spoken extensively about the need to destroy the U.S. government. He emphasizes what he sees as the decadence of today’s America and the need to address that decadence by purging the government of secular leaders – in short, by establishing a government of Christian nationalists.
He says he would terminate immigration, end LGBTQ+ rights, ban abortions and support the establishment of a patriarchy in which women would function as wives and mothers even if it meant they had to stay in abusive marriages. He insists that that would be more fulfilling for women than becoming “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.”
Vance also would support the implication of – shudder — Project 2025. After all, he wrote the introduction to it that includes these words: “We are now all realizing that it is time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”
In essence, Trump would be a disaster and Vance would be a catastrophe.
Frankly, I don’t believe Trump expects to win or even cares if he wins. He just wants to keep the election close enough so that he can claim it was rigged.
Here’s what we can expect on election night. Republicans will take an early lead and Trump will declare victory, probably in time for the 11 p.m. news shows. But then Democrats will start catching up, Trump will declare fraud, and his ignorant, Fox News-believing lackeys will believe him.
But it’s not fraud. It’s natural. Votes are counted by precinct, and Democrats tend to live in densely populated urban precincts while Republicans tend to live in sparsely populated rural ones. Since it takes longer to count the votes in a precinct with many people than in a precinct with fewer people, it will appear Republicans are winning or have even won. It’s called the red mirage. Then, when Democrats’ votes are counted and that lead shrinks throughout the night, it’s called the blue shift. It happens every year.
Nevertheless, Trump will file enough lawsuits to eventually involve the Supreme Court, which he effectively controls. That could turn the election over to the House of Representatives, which would elect him president.
By that point the civil war, which already is underway, will have erupted into the violence that Trump and Vance have been seeking for many, many months. Millions of their puppets are promising violence if he loses again, and everything Trump and Vance do encourages them.
Well, the good guys won the last civil war and we’ll win this one, too. It’s sad it must be this way but this is just how it is today .
Only a blue tsunami will prevent that, and that will happen only if freedom-loving Americans vote. So please, freedom-loving Americans, vote. If we do, we win.
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