Recent Days
In the face of three recent Trump-supporter and Trump
hate-speech inspired terrorist acts of violence, he blames the news media and refuses
to acknowledge his central role and culpability for the divisiveness, hate, and
violence. In the final days of the run-up to the midterms, Trump decries an ‘invasion’
by ‘thousands’ of Central Americans seeking legal asylum and tweets the most
patently racist fear-mongering anti-immigrant video in recent history to his 55
million “followers”. He sends 5,000 military troops to our southern border and
threatens to send another 10,000 troops, to stop a ‘wave’ of at most hundreds of immigrants that will
not reach our border for over a
month, if ever. Trump even proposes
to alter birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,
with an executive order.
Last month, Trump and
his morally bankrupt Republican majority Senate rammed through the nomination
of Brett Kavanaugh—a partisan Right-Wing ideologue who never saw a presidential
power he didn’t love—and put him on the Supreme Court.
What America Stands For
With a lunatic
demagogue assaulting our sacred values and institutions, it’s a good time
to remember what our Nation was at its birth.
In the Declaration of
Independence, Thomas Jefferson changed “Life, Liberty, and Property” to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. What a
difference that has made throughout our history as a Nation, especially for the
90% Have Nots majority of Americans in
general and renters like me in particular. The phrase comes from the Enlightenment. It did not mean the materialistic pursuit of things,
conspicuous consumption, consumerism, selfishness, or hedonism. It meant the
pursuit of a meaningful and purposeful good
life. For a Nation founded by the rich and powerful few, for the benefit of the many,
in opposition to a despotic King, it
was a stunning and unprecedented guiding principle.
With the Constitution,
the Founders—over two-hundred and forty years ago—knew they were writing a living document they optimistically
assumed would be read and amended by enlightened and honorable men, for as long
as the Republic endured. At the time, women couldn't vote, most African
Americans were slaves, Senators were appointed by State governments, and
property owners and the Rich ruled and dominated public life. Our Founders optimistically
assumed that enlightened and honorable men would serve as elected
representative of The People, serving
in good faith to preserve the Union, protect the Common Good, and continue to
secure the blessings of liberty for all Americans.
In 1790, the first
year the Census was conducted, the US population was close to four million.
Almost all of the 3,172,000 Whites were White
Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), former British citizens. Almost all of the
757,208 Blacks were slaves. A bloody Civil War ended slavery. Large numbers of Irish,
Italians, and Germans, including all four of my grandparents, immigrated to America
in the 1800s and early 1900s and mostly settled in urban ethnic enclaves in the North \East and Midwest. At the same time, large numbers of Asians immigrated to
America, settling in California and the West. With lower birthrates and the
significant immigration of non-WASPs,
by the early 1900s WASPs were no
longer a majority of Americans. They embraced the same Irish, Italian, and
German immigrants they despised, demonized, and exploited as their lessors as “Caucasians”
for Census purposes, honorary “Whites”, to mask the loss of their majority
status. Now, WASPs and the people they
convinced were also White face the reality that they, in aggregate, will become
a minority sometime in the 2040s,
Trump’s racist attempts to prevent this demographic inevitability notwithstanding.
The diverse, inclusive, and welcoming Nation we became over
the intervening centuries could not
have been imagined by our Founders. But they would recognize that we became the
Nation they made possible. A Civil War was waged to end slavery. Women and
African Americans became full citizens; their rights guaranteed by the same
Constitution that once excluded them. In recent decades, Hispanics, like all
immigrants before them, have flocked to America, taken the lowest rung jobs,
followed the rules, and worked their way into the American mainstream. Their
children and grandchildren will become the plurality
that displaces non-Hispanic Whites and makes Whites a minority for the first
time in America.
The Founders could not
have anticipated: (1) the current poisonous political environment; (2) a
lunatic demagogue 'President' exploiting the fear, hate, and willful ignorance
of a significant minority of Americans; or (3) a morally bankrupt Republican
Party majority Congress providing no check or balance on that demagogue's
power.
What's Going On?
Trump has been unprecedented
and outrageous since he declared his
candidacy. After almost two years in office, any fantasies that he would ‘pivot’
and become presidential in any sense of the word once in office are now untenable.
Mental health professionals have repeatedly publicly warned that far from
getting better, as a malignant narcissist,
he would become more unstable, irrational, and erratic under the strain of
office. As the midterms loom and loss of his Republican majority in the House
is all but certain, Trump’s final desperate strategy becomes clear.
The Mueller Investigation will conclude and inevitably become
public soon thereafter. With the loss of his Republican majority apologists and
protectors in the House of Representatives in the midterms, at best Trump will face real oversight and
endless hearings into his and his administration's wrong doing. At worst, he will face impeachment hearings
and the ratification of Articles of Impeachment.
The only way Trump can cling to power until 2021, and keep
the self-delusion that his fluke electoral college ‘election’ in 2016 can be
repeated in 2020, is if: (1) a 5 – 4 Supreme Court backs him up as he opposes
Congressional attempts to force the release of his tax returns and other damaging
documents, and interrogate members of his administration under oath; and (2) a Republican Senate refuses to confirm his
impeachment in the House of Representatives.
President Obama tried to explain to this mental and emotional cripple, before Trump took office, that a president has no power or moral authority except that derived from the consent of the governed. Trump’s 2.9 million vote plurality defeat to Hillary Clinton denied him any mandate to govern. His inauguration address made clear that he had no intention of governing with the consent of the majority. His actions since have only made more obvious that the only thing Trump values is winning and power. He sees no legitimate interest or need except his own interests and needs.
Only We the People Can Stop this Demagogue
Trump will cling to power, by whatever means and at any cost
to the Nation, as long as he can. There is no bottom to the madness and chaos
he will bring, no outrage beyond his imagination, no standard of conduct or
moral code he will not deliberately violate.
A presumed anthropomorphic patriarchal
God did not bring Trump to power and
will not deliver us from this demagogue’s
reign. Only We the People can begin
the end of this insanity by voting his Republican enablers out of office on
November 6.
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