Trump at One Year

When I started this blog in January 2017, and first published it a day before the Inauguration, I would not have imagined that Donald Trump could last in Office a year. It is a testament to the greed, opportunism, and moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party that they continue to tolerate and enable this lunatic demagogue.

THE GOOD NEWS

There is some good news. My and others’ assertions that there would be no pivot to Presidential behavior, a regular claim of Trump’s apologists during the campaign, have been confirmed. Except for his Supreme Court nominee and the ‘Tax Reform’ fraud just enacted, Trump and his Republican enablers have had few legislative victories. The Republican attempt to ‘Repeal and Replace’ the ACA with a fraudulent bill failed. Many of Trump’s executive orders have been successfully challenged by an independent Judiciary. Mueller’s investigation is methodically closing in on Trump, as people around him plead guilty and co-operate. Although Trump ‘won’ an electoral college that over-represents mostly Red low-population States, he lost the popular vote by a 2.9 million vote plurality. He never received the support of most Americans, and within weeks of taking office had lost the support of all but the 30-something percent mostly lunatic base that won him the Republican nomination. [See Figure 1.] Finally, people inside his Administration and across the Civil Service continue to resist, contradict, and countermand Trump’s statements and actions, not to mention leak damning information to a still independent and free Fourth Estate.

THE BAD NEWS

But there is plenty of bad news. Fear of Trump’s base has kept Republicans in Congress from moving to Impeach him, despite his obvious mental illness and unfitness to serve as President. The continued warnings of many mental health professionals, that Trump is profoundly mentally disturbed and would become more erratic and impulsive as the pressures of the Office, Special Counsel and Congressional investigations, close in on him, has proven correct. And, of course, Trump is doing real damage to the Nation, ignoring Russian interference in the 2016 election, eliminating needed regulations, ignoring science-based concerns like Climate Change, threatening our international allies and enemies, demonizing scapegoats, undermining the ACA, destabilizing the Health Care system, and dividing the County to the brink of Civil War...

Figure 1. Trump Actual and Predicted Approval/Disapproval for First Year in Office

[Please read the full 1,845 word formatted document, with footnotes and links: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wfeb00e2c0ar2n7/Trump%20at%201%20Year%20v-1.60.pdf?dl=0]

[Excerpts from the rest of the document, Trump at One Year:]

UNFIT BUT HERE TO STAY FOR A WHILE 

Trump is still unfit to serve as President and a Clear and Present Danger to the Nation and planet. He still suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He is still incapable of becoming Presidential and/or appealing to most Americans. He will continue to tweet, speak, and act like the mental and emotional cripple he is. He will keep playing to and feeding his lunatic minority base and dividing the Nation, to stay in power at least until the Republican majority in Congress is removed by the voters in the 2018 midterms, and a Democratic Majority Impeaches, Convicts, and removes him from Office in 2019; or failing that, the voters vote Trump out in 2020. As my Trump Impeachment Clock of January 7, 2018 indicated, Trump won’t be leaving Office anytime soon. [See Figure 2.] ...

Figure 2. Trump Impeachment Clock

FINAL COMMENTS

I’m as surprised and disappointed as anyone, but barring an Act of God—unlikely since there is no God, we and the Republic will have to endure this madman for at least another eighteen months.

Putin's Gambit Paid Off, Hugely and Bigly

Trump is a mental and emotional cripple, unfit to serve, and a Clear and Present Danger to the Nation and Planet. His words and deeds render him illegitimate. We the People can still stop this madman and usher in a new American Renaissance. See The End of the So-Called Era of Trump: An American Renaissance.

How a Minority Party Dominates America in 2017

The framers of our Constitution, representing thirteen Colonies in the 18^th Century, could not have imagined that 240 years later in the 21^st Century, in a Nation of over 326.5 million citizens: one quarter would be living in the three most populous States, represented by only 6 Senators; one quarter would be living in the six next most populous States, represented by only 12 Senators, one quarter would be living in the eleven second to least populous States, represented by 22 Senators, and one quarter would be living in the 32 least populous States, represented by 64 Senators. Many of these almost exclusively Republican Senators represent entire States with a total population smaller than many Cities in the other 20 States. This is not representative democracy. The fifty-two Republican Senators today represent only 129.8 million citizens (40%), the 48 Democratic and Independent Senators represent 196.8 million citizens (60%).

This disproportionate over-representation of Republicans in the United States Senate is not as flagrant in the House of Representatives, but due to systematic Congressional District gerrymandering by Republican-dominated Statehouses, again, Republican Congresspersons, like their Senate counterparts, represent a minority of voters.

This is how a minority political party can dominate the Congress in a divided Nation. It is also how a lunatic demagogue can be ‘elected’ by an electoral college that over-represents low-population, mostly Red States, while losing the popular vote by a 2.9 million vote plurality. Only with massive voter turnouts, in every election, starting now, can We the People re-establish a government at the Federal, State, and Local levels that is representative of the majority.

When the two major Political Parties represented an overlapping spectrum of the electorate, from Left to Right, and moderates in both parties worked to craft bipartisan solutions to the Nation's challenges for decades following WW II, the non-representative flaws and quirks in our political system were tolerable. But with the current poisonous political environment, begun in the 1980s with the Republican Culture Wars and accelerated in the 1990s with the Republican framing of Politics as War by Other Means, and now an opportunistic minority Republican Party willing to abide a lunatic demagogue unfit so-called 'President' to attempt to push through their Right-Wing and pro-Filthy Rich agenda, the flaws in our political system are not sustainable. Obama's naive assertion, that we are one United States, is no longer tenable.

After we elect a Democratic majority in the House in the 2018 midterms and our elected representatives in the House and both Parties in the Senate remove Trump and Pence from office in disgrace in 2019, for their High Crimes and Misdemeanors, we must face an indisputable fact: We are not one Nation. We didn't create the current breach in the body politic. We didn't expose and embolden the lunatic minority malignant cancer, irreconcilable and incompatible with our values and future as a Nation. Trump did this. This is not just unprecedented; Trump has rendered the Nation ungovernable. His profound mental illness precludes him from stopping this, and renders him illegitimate and unfit to serve in office. 

We didn't force the Republican Party to embrace Donald Trump. Many opposed him as unfit during the primaries and general election campaign. But after his unexpected electoral college 'win,' they opportunistically decided to tolerate and cravenly support Trump, hoping to further their own agenda. In so doing, they have revealed their rapacious greed, disregard for the common good, disdain for most Americans, and moral bankruptcy. This must and will end. We the People will put a stop to this.  The Republican Party has forfeited any legitimate claim to govern, PERIOD!

This is why, while or after Trump is removed from office, if these Trump base lunatics force us to re-litigate the Civil War, there will be no premature peace. Lincoln should have let his Generals, Grant and Sherman, and their mighty Union armies--their ranks swelled by self-liberated African-American slaves--finish the job in 1865--killing every Rebel man, woman, and child, and every Rebel sympathizer. This time, the Blue versus the Red, instead of the Grey, will be a war of total annihilation. And when we have killed them all, we will rebuild and repopulate the devastated secessionist former Red States with a diverse and inclusive population of Whites, Hispanics and African-Americans, and make America truly great, for the first time. Trump, the Republican Party that embraced him, and the malignant cancer he has brought into the light, will Reap the Whirlwind…

Or, as their “Pro-Life” posters say, they can ‘Choose Life’, aggregate in the ten to fifteen reddest States, and vote to voluntarily secede from the Union. Either way, this ends.

[See my “The End of the So-Called Era of Trump: An American Renaissance” – https://www.dropbox.com/s/0u7h50kc7adtohq/The%20End%20of%20the%20So-Called%20Era%20of%20Trump%20v-1.15.pdf?dl=0 ]

Trump is Finished

I've been waging The Trump Resistance from this blog, and on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, since the day before Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. I've spent hours on LinkedIn, a hotbed of Trumpian True Believers, refuting absurd posts and claims, for ten months. But now, finally, the end is at hand.

As mental health professionals have publicly warned, starting when Trump announced his candidacy and continuing to this day, Trump is a mental and emotional cripple, incapable of executing the duties of the Office of President. This illegitimate lunatic demagogue has only become more obsessed with feeding his irreconcilable and willfully ignorant base, which stabilized at 30-something percent of Americans within weeks of his taking office. There has been, and will be, no "pivot" to Presidential temperament or behavior, as his apologists insisted would happen during the campaign. He has no intention, inclination, or capacity to reach out to most Americans, who reject him, his Administration, and agenda. He has become more unstable, irrational, delusional, petty, spiteful, and hateful over time.

The madness that began when Trump declared he was seeking the Republican nomination for President, continued through a long primary season, and unprecedented and outrageous Presidential campaign, culminating in Trump's electoral college “election”--thanks to an archaic undemocratic system that over-represents low-population Red States, in which Trump lost the popular vote by a 2.9 million vote plurality in November 2016--and only escalating in the months since he was sworn in in January 2017, is coming to its inevitable conclusion with Trump’s removal from office in disgrace. The "why" is obvious. The "how" and exactly "when" are all that are in doubt. Not soon enough, but better late than never. 

Keith Olbermann: “I am retiring from political commentary in all media venues.”

https://www.facebook.com/gq/videos/10156813392863098/

It seems we both have come to the same conclusion: Trump is doomed! Further back and forth with his lunatic 30-something percent irreconcilable and willfully ignorant base, and/or continuing to beat a soon to be dead horse, is unnecessary. I retired from my back and forth with Trumpians on LinkedIn yesterday!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/groc3lcc1x2vpcs/The%20Trump%20Problem%20-%20An%20Epiphany%20v-1.15.pdf?dl=0

After Trump is gone, we will turn our attention to the malignant cancer he has revealed, his core base: 15 to 20 percent of our fellow citizens, irreconcilable, hateful, willfully ignorant and incompatible with the values and future of our Nation. One way or another, they will be removed from our midst, so that America can continue its march into the diverse, inclusive, non-WASP, non-Filthy Rich dominated future that is our destiny. 

[See my “The End of the So-Called Era of Trump: An American Renaissance” -
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0u7h50kc7adtohq/The%20End%20of%20the%20So-Called%20Era%20of%20Trump%20v-1.15.pdf?dl=0]

Since my Democratic Party seems to have some difficulty understanding the sentiments of We the People, and crafting a "message," I've created a meme to help them out: 

Here I Stand

First, an Admission

It is impossible to keep up with every Trump outrage: every abuse of power; every impeachable offense; outright lie; and/or misinformation/propaganda assertion by him and his enablers. In light of this, I've written a detailed document addressing the profound problem we face as a Nation. Trump is an unprecedented threat to our way of life. This is not a threat than can be addressed in a catchy meme or 500 word statement. Consider reading my document. You can always bail out at any time.

Here I Stand

Why and what I think the danger is, and how I believe we must address it: Hear I Stand v-1.70.

The Coming Revolution--Bloodless or Bloody; Their Choice

We are approaching the 100^th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, (aka the Great October Socialist Revolution in Trump’s dear friend—and 2016 campaign co-chair, Putin’s Russia), when The Masses in Russia rose up, overthrew, and killed their Filthy Rich 1%ers. Hopefully, the Filthy Rich in America—their unlikely campion, our spiteful, petty, and hateful lunatic demagogue ‘President,’ crashing and burning like the Hindenburg—are feeling the hair rise on the back of their necks!

Relax, mostly White Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) top 5-percenter Haves. We have a Constitutional Republic, where revolutions can be bloodless. Your idiot has awakened the sleeping masses in America, exposing the rapacious greed and moral bankruptcy of your Social Class, and your Lackeys, the Republican Party. His lunatic shrinking minority base is no protection. We the People, 67% and growing daily, in open resistance and opposition to Trump and his Republican enablers in the Congress, will precipitate the needed Revolution, first in the 2018 midterm elections and every election thereafter. Spend all you want, in unlimited and anonymous contributions, to attempt to buy the election, exploiting the fear, hate, and willful ignorance of less educated Americans. It isn’t working, and will not work. Your upward mobility myth is exposed; your unwarranted and unjust dominance and privilege are coming to an end. You had to push it too far: now Reap the Whirlwind. It will feel like oppression, but We the People will simply vote your protectors and enablers out of office, and then deal first with Trump, and then with you and your obscene wealth. Not with clubs and torches, but with steep, progressive, and just, new inheritance and income taxation laws. And not forever, only as long as it takes to restore levels of wealth and income distributions to sustainable levels in a functional and viable democracy.

As you ponder your options, keep in mind that those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. Give it up, voluntarily. You know it is past time. You had a great run, but in this Universe, all things end…

The End of the So-Called Era of Trump: An American Renaissance

Russian Revolution – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution

Friday News Roundup – Domestic: https://the1a.org/shows/2017-10-13/friday-news-roundup-domestic

He Cray Cray, PERIOD!

Donald Trump is not just a willfully ignorant, racist, misogynist, hate-monger, demagogue. His agenda and policies are wrong. But these are dead in the Senate, with a handful of courageous Republican patriots blocking his bullshit legislative agenda. His Executive Orders are unconstitutional. But an independent Federal Judiciary consistently blocks these. His Crony Capitalist Cabinet and our Military Leaders openly defy and rebuke his insane comments and tweets, and senior appointees are leaking the most damning information and documents to a Free Press. His 35% minority lunatic "base" provides no basis to govern, with 60% of Americans, and most Federal Civil Servants in open opposition and resistance to his Administration. But why do we need to depend on these people to stop this lunatic from destroying our Nation and threatening all life on our Home World?

Trump is profoundly mentally disturbed. He is 'illegitimate' by words and deeds, having 'won' a bullshit electoral college that over-represents low-population Red States, while losing the popular vote by an almost 3,000,000 vote plurality. If Speaker Ryan continues to refuse to do his duty and start Impeachment proceedings in the House, we may not be able to wait until the Republican majorities in Congress are defeated in the 2018 mid-terms. In that case, our Military will have to remove this monster from office, in a coup, for the first time in our history, correcting the error of a White racist Whitelash against 8 years of Barack Obama and a visceral hatred toward Hillary Clinton, that put a dangerous demagogue in Office.

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President Hardcover – October 3, 2017

https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-Donald-Trump-Psychiatrists/dp/1250179459

“The consensus view of two dozen psychiatrists and psychologists that Trump is dangerously mentally ill and that he presents a clear and present danger to the nation and our own mental health.

This is not normal.

Since the start of Donald Trump’s presidential run, one question has quietly but urgently permeated the observations of concerned citizens: What is wrong with him? Constrained by the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater rule,” which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to answer this question have shied away from discussing the issue at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both.

In THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP, twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trump’s symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man…”