Donald Trump is an angry man. He doesn’t laugh and he doesn’t smile. Why? He came from wealth and despite bankruptcies, he has maintained wealth and lives in a mansion by the sea with his immigrant Lithuanian wife. Yet, Trump is no normal American politician. His anger translates into vindictiveness, and he threatens to upend the American system of law and order if he is elected.
Let’s start with his threats to use the US military against his “enemies” inside the United States. He has floated this idea repeatedly to his crowds in recent days. Imagine this clearly. The US Army, in his fantasy world, would be deployed to deal with democratic politicians, and liberals nationwide. Democrats everywhere would wait to see if soldiers arrived at their homes or workplaces. And what would he instruct those soldiers to do with us? Put us in camps? Kill us? He doesn’t say. Has any American politician ever said anything like this before? No.
Never mind that this fantasy would be a gross violation of the US Constitution and a violation of scores of laws. Would the military agree to participate? Probably not and even conservative courts would disagree because this is not a conservative idea, it is the sort of idea that comes from dictatorships like Cuba, Russia, North Korea or Venezuela.
Remember George Floyd and nationwide demonstrations against police brutality? Trump doesn’t. He has repeatedly suggested that police should use violence against suspects in shoplifting or other crimes. He says if people are bloodied by police, they will stop committing crimes. This fantasy is a rejection of America’s rule of law. In America criminals are arrested and they enter the courts for punishment or exoneration. The police are not allowed to mete out punishment, such as the death penalty, on the streets. Of course, this is the ideal and sometimes not the reality.
Never mind that many of the suspects he wants to brutalize are black and brown people, just like the immigrants who he villainizes as criminals and insane people. It boils down to Trump’s obvious contempt for people of color, especially those who speak Spanish. He learned this from his father who only rented his apartments to whites. Trump surrounds himself with open racists like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and Alex Jones. They craft his policies like permanently separating children from their parents at our border.
Trump is confused about other large problems. He and his friends at the Heritage Foundation believe climate change is a “natural cycle” which will go away on its own. For Trump, climate change is another front on his culture wars. The scientists who expose and explain the air pollution problem are “disloyal” to Trump. The FEMA workers helping clean up and compensate victims after ever more extreme hurricanes are leftist government agents with nefarious goals. The floods in Roswell and North Carolina, the fires in Mora and Paradise and Los Alamos are invisible to Trump and the far right. They rationalize the problem away to help the carbon industry maintain its death grip on our economy.
Alarmingly, millions of Trump voters either agree with these Trump visions or haven’t heard about them. Are they the “great” he wants to make America “again”? Do we want the nightmare world Donald projects? Our long climb toward economic, racial and environmental equality is incomplete, and his effort to turn back the clock to the 1930s is something we should all urgently reject, at the polls.
Trump has transformed our political process with his constant lying and extreme statements that have little basis in fact. He is extremely popular among people who don’t follow the news or who only follow right wing propaganda channels like FOX. Trump and his friends have purged the republican party of “moderate” republicans in favor of people who make extreme statements, refuse to govern, and vilify anyone who disagrees with them.
The 2024 election is going to be a mess, regardless of who wins. If Donald wins, our country will rapidly fall into disarray with ignorance and reactionary ideas running the show. Our federal workforce likely will face mass firing by Donald after he changes civil service rules. Anti science garbage and overt climate denialism would lead to massive destruction of the environment and the loss of professionals dedicated to protecting land and wildlife.
In short Trump has imposed the rule of trash culture in America. He has degraded all our institutions for purely personal reasons. His psychological damage from growing up in a highly dysfunctional family detailed by Mary Trump has turned him into a monster with lots of money and armies of working-class fans ready for violence and confrontation. His little culture wars have serious consequences for innocent people and for animals. An American news media that ignores his crimes and normalizes the most heinous things he says has created a national emergency that people like Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney are working desperately to remedy.
Don Trump is a convicted tax cheat and rapist. He came to Albuquerque in 2020 to campaign, ran up a $500,000 bill with the city and never paid it. He must be leaving unpaid bills among local governments across America as he rants and raves and spreads hate and violence from his rallies. The local taxpayer will have to pay these bills. And this follows his pattern of not paying lawyers or workers at his resorts and casinos. He doesn’t pay his bills and shields himself with lawyers (probably paid). In short Trump is a criminal.
Tomorrow, we find out who the American people really are. Do we fall for the filth that Trump and his friend Elon Musk pedal? Or do we turn toward decency and community to hold our country together with the rule of law. We are on the edge. Let’s continue to work for a just and free society ruled by true democracy.
