As Trump lies, democracy dies

 

 

“The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might” - Mark Twain

Trump’s farcical display televised on July 16th, spewed previously debunked claims regarding his Big Lie and his current willingness to cancel the results of the 2026 elections that his Party’s majority will likely lose.  Knowing that he’ll face legal scrutiny for all of his violations of laws and enriching himself at tax payer expense, he wants to offset results that could lead to a third impeachment.   

His narrative that night pulled a page out of the McCarthy era where Movement conservatives championed by Barry Goldwater in the 1950’s and 1960’s called all Democrats Communists, with a capital “C”, to identify it with the Chinese communist threat at that time, as Heather Cox Richardson notes in her book, “DEMOCRACY AWAKENING: Notes on the State of America”.  

The “red scare”, as it was referred to, energized Conservatives to replace the fact-based liberalism of FDR, Truman and JFK, with Christian spirituality and free market capitalism: concepts that empowered wealthy businesses to form government policy they benefitted from. This plays in well with Trump’s support of the billionaire class.

It’s troublesome too that Trump has recently scheduled Kash Patel as FBI Director to visit Moscow a week before the mid-terms this year, for unfathomable reasons that suggests the pro-Putin Trump administration may conspire with the Kremlin to once again, intervene in our elections to favor a GOP victory

Trump has already attempted to silence the fourth estate through purchases of large entertainment venues that own media stations that call out his corruption.  His second administration has replaced the previous guard rails in his first presidency with mostly unqualified people in another attempt to overthrow our constitutional republic.    Todd Blanche vying for the Attorney-General seat and Jay Clayton for the Director of National intelligence are positioned to circumvent elections outcomes in congressional districts that don’t favor the GOP

His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has been firing and demoting generals who aren’t willing to sign on to Trump’s grand delusions of Republican/MAGA power for a hundred years.  Hegseth would be a willing dupe to establish a formidable  paramilitary group to carry out assignments that would follow an autocratic ruling, imprisoning political dissenters without due process of the law.  And as an apparent fan of Rambo-style movies, Hegseth wants to build a more muscular, manly military that could be indoctrinated to carry out Trump’s strong-man rule.

If Republicans leaders fail to oppose illegal attempts to harass voters and cancel votes that favor the Democratic candidates, we could be faced with a fascist autocracy that would rival his autocratic heroes around the world.

Our political representatives need to hear from us loudly and often to have any chance of stopping this mad man’s fantasy.  If you’re not already, please get registered and vote this November.

Are we edging towards a theocracy

 

                                                                                

"the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations." - C.S. Lewis

 

Are evangelical churches in Texas failing to adequately indoctrinate the children of the state where they have to rely of legislation that allows them to push their religious views into our public school systems? It has been my experience that faith is best served up to those willing to consensually assimilate religious scripture into their hearts and minds rather than making their case in the form of restrictive codes, such as the Ten Commandments

The Texas state school board has opened its public school classrooms for a curriculum, that consists of “teachings by Jesus, stories such as the parable of the prodigal son, readings from the Psalms, and a unit on the Golden Rule.”  Though not mandated for all public schools, those often strapped for funds will likely jump on this wagon that offers up to a $60 incentive per pupil in the program.

A religious non-profit recently paid for and distributed some 1200 posters of the 10 commandments to Denton ISD.  Texas Senate Bill 10 “requires public schools to accept privately donated posters of the Ten Commandments …  and to display them in each classroom that does not already have one”.   The commandments are all about forbidding specific behaviors, intended to mold each generation in how not to behave, assuming proper behavior was a given.  

But we know that not all Christians practice what they preach and thus pass such misgivings on to their own children.  This becomes even more egregious if such people are cultural and political leaders, for they have domain over the narratives that are spread throughout our private and public institutions.  

Jesus the Nazarene, upon which the Christian faith is based, expressed his desire for his followers to follow the law of the Prophets in Matthew 5:17,  but throughout that parable, that is more popularly known as the sermon on the mount, he also wanted them to go beyond the negative expressions of Mosaic laws, putting love and compassion in the forefront.

However, once the institution of the Church began cherry-picking  scripture that served their political agendas, the example they set no longer encouraged exclusively the exuberance Jesus presented to the crowd that gathered on that Mount.  Religious leaders demanded obedience to rigid rules like the Ten Commandments that were used as a cudgel to keep followers in line.

This appeals to those who search for solace in familial terms as Frank Rich laid out following the horrors of 9/11.    It follows Plato’s parent-child analogy in his Crito. “In this formulation, the state is to the subject as the parent is to the child: as the child must obey the parent, so must the subject obey” (5)

This then is the appeal of Trump to evangelicals.  But they failed to see where this egomaniac would lead them.  He demands loyalty above all else as do the Christian nationalists and works to punish those who oppose him.  He’s become a comical creature they are now forced to stay aligned with, lest they look weak to those whom they have drawn into this dysfunctional family.

Imposing their religious views into our schools sets the stage for a fundamentalist drive to convert our democracy into a theocracy where cruel punishments not unlike those the Church imposed in middle ages, which in turn led to the notorious Inquisition  It’s hard to image our historical culture would fall for this, but where information for some relies more on feelings than facts, societies easily acquiesce for fear of public shame and ostracizing. 

When is enough enough?

 

If you still have any reservations as to the Trump administration’s corruption and incompetence, one only needs to look at the current bevy of Trump appointees who are guilty of some if not all of the Seven Social Sins.  

There was dog killer Kristi Noem’s extravagant and illegal expenses, squandered by her and her improper companion, Corey Lewandowski.  She was followed by Greg Bovino, Trump’s  inhumane ICE “commander-at-large”.  Then came the dismissal of Pam Bondi, with her apparent attempts to protect Trump from the remaining Epstein files and her virulent testimony before Congressional oversight committees, displaying some of the most unprofessional behavior ever as an unelected official.

And now there’s Trump’s Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez DeRemer, who can’t control her husband’s sexual proclivities toward her female staff, and who herself had “an affair with a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job” along with four others in her Department.

Next on the cutting block should be the FBI’s feckless Director for his excessive drinking and unexplained absences.  In an Atlantic story on the boozing Kash Patel, we learn that he would often “drink to the point of obvious intoxication” needing at times to be awakened out of his drunken stupors to attended scheduled meetings.

Many more have replaced qualified people with mostly unqualified wealthy corporate interests, selected by the Project 2025 contributors.  Actions that have eliminated many of the guard rails in place during Trump’s first administration to stop this petulant sociopath.

The silliness of Trump and his MAGA loyalists

 

 

In all of my comments about Trump and his loyal MAGA base, I never expected to win over the died-in-the-wool adherents of Trump’s autocratic moves.  These are treac erous people who frequently lack feelings of shame and guilt for their capitulation to undermine 250 years of constitutional democracy.  

They take pleasure in agitating what they refer to as the “woke” crowd and some may in fact relish the opportunity to have an autocratic strongman in power, though Trump in his ever debilitated state, is far from a strong man, physically and mentally.  You will find many of them who have lifted up the proclaimed man of God, Charlie Kirk, for his small-minded and hateful words expressed before his senseless assassination in September. (1) 

What I’m left with is akin to Gavin Newsome’s mockery style (2) of people who seek only to gain more power and enrich themselves at the expense of millions of low and middle income families, in red states as well as blue ones, conservatives as well as independents and liberals.  They are as much silly as they are threatening.  So hereafter I will point out how silly these wanna be authoritarians are and hope that the threat they pose to the rule of law will become self-evident.  

They started silly with declaring that the 2020 elections were stolen from them, in light of all the hard evidence to the contrary (3).  And even though Marjorie Taylor Green, aka MTG, recently sided with Democrats about keeping insurance prices stable, she will forever be remembered as the looney-toon that claimed “'Jewish Space Lasers' Caused California Wildfires”. (4)

That’s as far as I want to go in the near past on this subject.  The pages that such silliness would consume would be voluminous, and would merely serve as a non-narcotic sleep aid. So let’s just have ourselves a good laugh with the most recent absurdities.

Trump’s insane deportation policy has been randomly deporting people who do not fit his “worst criminals” scenario. (5)  Recently , after railing against Biden’s end to the Afghanistan war and leaving behind those Afghans who were U.S. assets, Trump’s administration is now dismantling programs created to assist Afghan allies, where American-friendly Afghan’s seeking asylum are now being deported back to a government that will surely execute them on their return (6)  Your first inclination may be to laugh before shaking your head in outraged bewilderment.

Then there’s the wild-eyed claims made about Independent candidate for New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who has been accused of “wanting to enforce Shariah law” by MTG and Laura Loomer who said Mamdani is “literally supported by terrorists. NYC is about to see 9/11 2.0.” (7)

We can’t leave the vice-president out of this joke circus.  J.D. Vance thinks the Democrats shouldn’t be so easily offended by his words (8) but doesn’t think this applies to his angry, vengeful boss, who says Democrats are evil and enemies of the state. (9)

Lastly there was Pete Hegseth’s embarrassing diatribe before the military’s highest ranking officers, many who faced combat conditions over their decades of service, arrogantly presuming they lacked a true “warrior ethos”. (10)  As a combat Marine Corps veteran, I couldn’t help but chuckle at his attempt to disparage other warriors as if they were less than he was.  He showed a lack of esprit de corps who apparently held higher esteem for the draft dodger and man who once said that those who died in service were losers and suckers. (11)

This ludicrous behavior is that of the loser/bully type who when finally bested with facts over their inane assertions resort to words that are only meant to distract from their failure with truth such as "your mother wears army boots."  Childish in nature, it is the only reaction left to people who have yet to mature mentally and who desperately gravitate towards their loser peers.

Stay tuned for more silliness from those who assure us that the convicted felon and rapist was anointed by God, despite the fact that he is the antithesis of Jesus. (12)

*************************************************************************************

(1) https://www.snopes.com/collections/charlie-kirks-quotes-investigated/?_bhlid=0f3cd06438de94f83f005efe227202ae5cafee24
(2) https://www.thedailybeast.com/california-governor-gavin-newsom-mocks-donald-trump-and-benjamin-netanyahu-with-dumb-and-dumber-reference/ 
(3) https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/2020-election-fraud-investigation-fe9b53
(4) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mtg-space-lasers/
(5)https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/migrants-in-u-s-legally-and-with-no-criminal-history-caught-up-in-trump-crackdown
(6) https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2025/10/14/trump-immigratio-afghanistan-asylum-deportation/
(7) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/opinion/zohran-mamdani-muslim-america-new-york.html
(8) https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jd-vance-just-said-democrats-220358980.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
(9) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tells-the-navy-to-view-half-the-country-as-the-enemy/ar-AA1NXrU0
 (10) https://www.msnbc.com/the-briefing-with-jen-psaki/watch/trump-hegseth-put-on-embarrassing-show-before-a-distinguished-military-audience-248800325877 
(11)  https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/04/donald-trump-call-troops-suckers-losers/ 
(12) https://www.closertotheedge.net/p/the-gospel-according-to-trump-100

The Audacity of Hubris

                                                

 

If Trump supporters really believe in their campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”, then are any of them willing to speak out against republican members of  the Judiciary Committee, who sat through a humiliating session with Trump’s pick for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who refused to answer questions requiring a simple or yes or no response.(1)

She couldn’t give a simple yes or no when asked if Trump’s Border Czar took money from an undercover FBI agent last year, which was caught on video tape.  She couldn’t answer yes or no to Senator Sheldon’s question if there were pictures of Trump in the Epstein files she claimed to have of him sitting with partially naked girls, and failed to answer the simple query whether Trump ordered her to indict and prosecute two Democratic politicians and a former Republican Assistant AG.

All responses to Democratic members of the committee were often vile, unfounded accusations meant to shame them while holding Trump blameless for contempt for his contempt of the Constitution.
South Carolina candidate, Brandon Brown recently stated the obvious, declaring that “the Justice Department is being transformed into a political weapon.” (2)

We are now being ruled by a fascist autocrat who demands loyalty from every single member of his administration. (3)  He puts these people on display routinely as they engage in hyperbolic praise of the then dear leader. (4)  He speaks in the third person about himself because he believes his ideal of himself is without fault, while knowing full well he is the corrupt president ever that engages in deals using his position as president to enrich himself, family members and cronies wealthier. (5)

How does any of this make America great again?

**************************************************

(1) https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/pam-bondi-senate-judiciary-hearing/

(2) https://brandonbrownforsc.substack.com/p/how-we-stop-pam-bondi-and-roll-back?publication_id=5600100&post_id=175624775&isFreemail=true&r=8pb8r&triedRedirect=true 

(3) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-white-house-loyalty-b2625363.html

(4) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-cabinet-members-lavish-praise-1235416119/

(5) https://dennispcrawford.medium.com/trumps-culture-of-corruption-f6c0634f8053

Liberals are losing their first amendment rights

 

 

As one who holds liberal views, should I worry that I may be arrested for expressing views that conservatives feel are not protected under the 1st amendment to our Constitution?  as we have all recently witnessed , this became a reality after CBS fired Stephen Colbert and ABC just recently fired Jimmy Kimmel, both as a result of underlying threats from Trump and crony at the FCC. (1)

President Trump and his VP recently gave the green light for “right-wing extremists [to declare] open season on liberals and the left.” (2)  This has been an ongoing effort by Trump’s authoritarian edicts since his 2nd inauguration.  This includes many state and local governments, with Texas often in the forefront of violating the 1st amendment rights of millions who vote Democratic.  Liberal-leaning groups like MOVEON.org and the national INDIVISABLE organizations could be targeted for this assault.

It’s been a pattern of conservative commentators to suggest “that liberalism is tied to higher education because learning more about how the world works leads to a better understanding of political policy.”  (3)  That’s probably true but not in all cases, though I confess,  it was for me.  Liberals started finding their voices during the Vietnam era days where university campuses rallied students and staff to advocate for changes in foreign and domestic policies and the excesses of Presidential executive power.

Here in my hometown of Denton, Texas, DISD Education Commissioner Mike Morath “warned last week that educators who “posted and/or shared reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media” regarding the killing of conservative Charlie Kirk, “could face suspension or revocation of their teaching certificates.”   Though nothing has shown that these comments are “inappropriate”, it would likely be no different from the “hateful speech” of conservatives who viscerally call women who seek an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy, “BABY KILLERS”
and accuse  “liberal leftist” of hating God and “his word”, with their support to keep church and state separated and out of our public schools.

This follows on the heels of Gov. Abbot’s support for House Bill 4211 that masks the attempt to limit religious dwellings that are not  Christian.  The goal of this bill Abbot said was “to prevent ‘bad actors’ from using religious freedom to impose “segregation,” as he singled out an Islamic mosque in McKinney. (3)

Those alleged hateful words liberals are saying about Charlie Kirk are not ignoring that his violent death by an assassin, being the extreme version off quashing one’s free speech. But it is, none-the-less, speech that even CK himself said (4) was protected under the Constitution.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a French diplomat, political philosopher and historian, was in awe of Americans playing out their 1st amendment rights as he toured the relatively new nation in 1831, highlighting their “unlimited freedom to associate for political goals that prevents tyranny of the majority.”(5)  But it was the sentiment that was erroneously credited to Voltaire, a French writer and philosopher during the 18th century Enlightenment movement, who said “‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. (6)  
Hate speech does not kill, maim or destroy property.  It’s the actions taken by people, like 22-year old Tyler Robinson, who read such words that now threaten a liberal’s right to exercise his or her 1st amendment right. (7)   These are the actions of an autocratic state of mind that will eventually destroy our constitutional republic and leave our children and grand children oppressed by the will of a single narcissistic demagogue. 

***********************************************************************************************
(1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/09/19/trumps-media-enforcer-is-relishing-his-jimmy-kimmel-moment/ 
(2) https://dentonrc.com/education/higher_education/university_of_north_texas/unt-system-will-keep-faculty-senates-with-tweaks-to-comply-with-new-state-law-limiting/article_fefba570-299c-4ec5-a9f1-4d3f3d8ebb0f.html#tncms-source=login  
(3) https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/13/higher-education-leads-to-liberalism/
(4) https://www.fastcompany.com/91403774/charlie-kirk-believed-in-free-speech-his-fans-are-getting-people-fired-for-exercising-theirs
(5) https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/alexis-de-tocqueville/
(6) https://checkyourfact.com/2019/09/17/fact-check-voltaire-disapprove-defend-death-right-freedom-speech/
(7) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/19/charlie-kirk-death-free-speech/

Another page out of the autocrat’s playbook

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” - Hermann Goring

Adolph Hitler’s success was derived from his control of the public narrative. (1)  Similarly, Trump imitates this by deploying the National Guard in Democratically-controlled cities, based on bogus claims that these cities are experiencing out-of-control crime rates.  He’s lambasted the media as an “enemy of the state” and threatened traditional public and private institutions  who do not line up with his authoritarian inclinations.

Like Hitler’s Brown Shirts, Trump uses the military to intimidate any who oppose his imperial motives.  He ignores the courts and is puppeteer to Republicans in Congress and Red State legislatures.  His cruelty towards immigrants is becoming legend. (2)

Renaming the Defense Department as the War Department, along with an unlawful bombing of a suspected drug boat in international waters, is intended to display a macho image.  He ludicrously illustrates this with an “AI re-imagining of the war movie ‘Apocalypse Now,’ which he rebranded as ‘Chipocalypse Now’.” (3)

Many of his dogmatic supporters see him in a paternalistic fashion who will bring discipline to their fear of a chaotic world. (4)  They could be easily characterized as having “daddy issues” by some. (45  Trump’s own upbringing under a domineering father did little to help him establish any positive self-esteem.

But his own actions may be his undoing.  His relationships with pedophiles Epstein and Maxwell destroys any positive fatherly image, even by some of his strongest MAGA-ites.  The fate of our democratic republic waits to see if Trump’s supporters will remain loyal to the dubious father figure he so desperately needs them to see.

****************************************************************************************

(1)- https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zgtyvcw/revision/5 

(2) - https://immigrantjustice.org/blog/leading-with-cruelty-eight-impacts-of-trumps-first-day-executive-orders/
(3) - https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/unhinged-and-anti-american-critics-erupt-over-trumps-ai-generated-threat/
(4) - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-a-new-home/202407/what-donald-trumps-most-loyal-followers-may-have-in-common
(5) - https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/11/americas-daddy-issues-trump/680566/

The culture of gun violence in America

 

 

 

My daughter was 38 when she passed away from Covid-related Pneumonia  in 2020 and as tough as that loss was I don’t think I could bare the loss of an 8-year old from a senseless, violent act like that which happened in Minneapolis recently.  That mass shooting was just one of some 90 mass shootings in August and one of nearly 300 this year alone.

Mass shooters are deemed mentally unstable which has some validity to that claim but the lax laws in most states make the purchase of these weapons fairly easy by those who have no record of mental instability. Even if there was, guns could still be purchased illegally but in most cases, more difficult than purchasing them openly from a licensed dealer.  Data shows that the highest rates of gun crimes, including suicides, tend to occur in the states with lax laws.

The old argument that claims car accidents cause more deaths than guns hasn’t been true since 2015.(3)  Efforts to legislate sane gun control measures is always met with opposition from the powerful gun lobbyists and their advocates in Congress and state legislatures.  They put profits over the gun epidemic in the U.S. that has one of the highest rate of gun deaths per capita and where they rate #1 in gun ownership.

We can make our schools and neighborhoods safer without denying sane, reasonable people their 2nd amendment rights.  We just lack the will and leadership to make it happen.

Ignore Climate Change at your own risk

 

 

The recent destructive flooding that happened in Central Texas this past week is one more warning about the ramifications of ignoring climate change.

Climate change skeptics are quick to dispute how flooding, like the recent Kerrville, Texas tragedy, has anything to do with man-made climate change.  What many are dismissively calling “acts of God” are more realistically abuses of God’s creation.  

We pump tons of God’s earth bound carbon and methane into the atmosphere every second of every day (1) through our extraction of those elements to meet our ever expanding energy needs.  Our attempts to mitigate this abuse is  constantly being hampered by those who profit from fossil fuel production.

The National Weather Service, that provides more accurate weather forecasts than they were able to in the past, warned citizens in Central Texas about the potential for such devastating floods, but way too late to prevent the deaths for many who got caught up in this severe storm, including many of the young girls who were camping at the popular Camp Mystic, that sat nearly 200 yards from the Guadalupe River’s edge. (2)   This river saw as much as a 36 feet incise in just 5 hours.

This was a tragedy that could have been avoided had the Kerr County officials not decided a few years earlier to forego “their … ability to warn people, including a delayed flood risk alert from Kerr County and stalled development of a flood monitoring system.” (3)  And how ironic too that Kerr County state Rep. Wes Virdell, voted three weeks earlier to prevent the passage of HB 13 that would "have established a grant program for counties to build new emergency communication infrastructure." (4)

Then there’s the Trump administration’s plan to diminish the effectiveness of the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (5)  Along with their plans “to eliminate [FEMA] ‘as it exists today’ and to dole out less money to states that are hit by disasters”, (6) communities become much more vulnerable to these disastrous events.

Trump’s Big Ugly Bill (BUB), that was recently signed into law, is ending all clean energy efforts so they can regenerate the coal and oil production which has brought us to the threshold of catastrophic weather changes.  Changes that will kill innocent and vulnerable men, women and children who sit along coastal waters or near designated flood plains.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) gave solar development a more certain timeline (10 years) of which they could depend on federal tax credits that incentivized solar developers and consumers.  This assurance created demand which in turn created jobs and lower prices for solar engineered products.  Trump’s BUB would completely eliminate developer tax credits by 2028 (7)

The climate science is now showing us that these destructive events will happen far more quickly than they have been.(8)  

The leaders of countries like ours, who ignore the threatening consequences of climate change, are in affect deciding the deadly fate of this unstoppable force, by failing to mitigate the human contribution of green house gases. In so doing, we are coming ever closer through our non-action of even being able to preserve life on this planet as we know it. (9)


****************************************************************************************
(1) https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/climate-science/how-much-carbon-dioxide-are-we-emitting/
(2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/07/06/texas-flood-risks-warnings-alerts-preparation/?location=alert
(3)https://www.axios.com/2025/04/11/trump-eyes-huge-climate-research-cuts-at-noaa
(4) https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5343144-trump-noem-fema-dhs-hurricane-season/
(5) https://www.douglewin.com/p/the-end-of-solar-and-battery-manufacturing?publication_id=1180283&post_id=166762725&isFreemail=true&r=8pb8r&triedRedirect=true
(6)  https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/climate-change/Climate-change-QA/how-fast-is-climate-changing
(7  https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-are-best-and-worst-case-scenarios-sea-level-rise 

(8) https://www.csiro.au/.../Cli.../how-fast-is-climate-changing

(9)  https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-are-best-and-worst-case-scenarios-sea-level-rise 

Sustain No Kings Day

"The bedrock of autocracy is laid with the abdication of vigilance" - Sarah Kendzior 

On a day when the nation could have united to salute the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, it was over-shadowed by a man-child, craving attention, who in the past has exhibited “flagrant animosity and disrespect toward the military,” says author and activist Camillo Mac Bica.  Likely the crowd size to honor the men and women who serve in today’s Army would not only have been larger,  but perhaps more exuberant out of respect for their service.

Like everything else Trump inserts himself into, reality gets obstructed by his hyperbole and the fantasy world he creates for those too willing to bend the knee.

His mere presence at that parade diminished what this nation is capable of expressing towards our soldiers.  He cast a pall over this salutary event, just like he sucks the air out of every room he walks into.  He and only he is all that matters in the self-absorbed mind of a monarchical autocrat.

To a day that should have been focused on the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, which we will have for years to come, the nation instead  participated in something far more patriotic that we could easily lose in this generation.  June 14th, 2025 will be written down in the history books as the day this country started to take back their constitutional moorings and stood up to the cowards who hide behind their wealth and power grabs.

May “No Kings Day” be sustained by us all in the days and weeks to come.

"The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes."   - Abraham Lincoln

 

Freedom for who?

"The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people 

the end of all legitimate government upon earth" - John Quincy Adams

 

Some thoughts on Denton City Council’s repeal of the low-level marijuana decriminalization ordinance.

I made the argument years ago as a member of the Frack Free movement in Denton that sought to ban fracking in our city, that the Texas Legislature was becoming the nanny state they so much protested against when federal legislation was trying to curb the corporate excesses that put profit over people.  An effort to make our air cleaner and by default reduce medical costs for Denton citizens that suffered respiratory ailments was being blocked then by a mindset that still puts self-serving interest over the legitimate will of the people .  The state then, as it’s doing now with the effort to decriminalize the use of marijuana, is guilty of over riding the judgement of a local municipality, based on some ideal that a smaller but more powerful group have the abusive power to force on others.

It not just citizens in Denton who favor legislation that decriminalizes the use of marijuana in small amounts.  A recent poll found that significant majorities in the state of Texas want such legislation.  But the governor and his coterie of like-minded legislators think they know what’s best for Texans.  This behavior demonstrates the hypocrisy that emanates from those who use the “nanny state” label when it serves them best.

About ten years ago, former Texas state senator Don Huffines bemoaned the efforts of federal, state and municipal legislation that dictated what could and couldn’t be in various areas of our daily lives.  But it wasn’t the fact that citizens of this country and state sought legislative changes that essentially wanted the government our of their lives in all things.  It was, as Don Huffines fashioned it in a March 29th, 2015 Op-ed piece, the legislation that came from “insidious … liberal local political subdivisions.”

Breathing cleaner air and indulging in the use of the “devil weed” as it’s adversaries see it,     were things that Huffines saw as an affront to his Tea Party conservative values then, those “rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model”, Huffines claimed.  Liberal local political subdivisions that were forming in the urban areas of the state like Denton as part of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex served as counter-forces to oft restrictive legislation that was either out of date for the times or represented pseudo-religious, capitalist views that didn’t want to see a future that was slowly changing by newer generations of Texans.

At 76 years old, I’m watching our world changing as a result of modern technology that has the unexpected result of isolating us rather than opening up the general narrative that includes a diverse cultural population.  It pains me to see people ignore evidence-based reality and justify their actions as supporting traditional norms but whose sole purpose is to keep their socio-political views as the prominent, and yes, the only, voice that needs to be considered.

We got to where we are today by gradually allowing those cultural changes that were more  inclusive.  “Freedom” may have been the catch word for Tea Party zealots a little over a decade ago, much as it is for the Trump-driven MAGA crowd today, but only if you are a 2nd generation or better, white, laisse- faire Christian and predominantly male.  All others need not apply.

Don Huffines lost his state senate seat 4 years later to Nathan Johnson, the first Democrat to represent his district 16 in over three decades.  Huffiness failed to read the signs that said people in his district at least were tired of the status quo, which too often excluded anyone who didn’t look and sound like him.

The four Denton City Council members, including Mayor Hudspeth, who failed to support the choice their constituents made 2 years ago does not represent a true sense of freedom but a fear that the future is too uncertain for them and that opposing the powers that be is not a risk they are willing to take.  

Any voter remorse yet?

Will our national motto become "In the Generalissimo Trump we trust"?

 

“America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” — Alexis de Tocqueville

How satisfied are Trump voters with his chaotic performance thus far?  His destabilizing tariffs enable inflation rates to remain as high or higher than when he took office.  His budget bill, approved by Republican sycophants in Congress, increases the deficit by billions.  Our cost of living is becoming unbearable for millions.

How about Trump’s cavalier attitude towards the rule of law?  Legal immigrants have been deported without any due process, disregarding SCOTUS’ affirmation that these constitutional violations must stop.  

Private institutions like Harvard and any law office that represents Trump’s perceived enemies are now being threatened with financial loss by his White House

Freedom of the press is being threatened as Trump goes after TV and newspaper sources that addressed the facts which exposed Trump’s ongoing lie about the 2020 election, stolen government secrets and his relationship with dictators, especially Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Trump protégé,Elon Musk, has wreaked havoc with our federal system, threatening funding cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.  Critical agencies like the DOJ, HHS and Homeland Security, are now headed by unqualified flunkies who’ll focus more on his revenge efforts over policies that benefit Main street Americans

And lastly!  If you think you’re safe from Trump’s authoritarian behavior because you’re a conservative white christian, you might want to read what Robert P. Jones,  the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute, said about Trump’s vision for extremist Christian Nationalist groups.   

Our constitutional republic will die through our complacency and silence, not a bloody revolution.

 

 *********************************************************************************

 link to the comments above in blue

higher than when he took office   -   https://theconversation.com/us-inflation-has-increased-since-trump-took-office-why-prices-are-unlikely-to-come-down-soon-249956

cavalier attitude towards the rule of law  -    https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-04-16/kilmar-abrego-garcia-donald-trump-el-salvador-nayib-bukele

any law office that represents Trump’s perceived enemies   -    https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/trumps-executive-orders-against-law-firms/

financial loss by his White House   -  https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5364829/trump-administration-freezes-funds-after-harvard-rejects-dei-demands

Freedom of the press is being threatened   -    https://freedom.press/issues/three-press-freedom-threats-during-trump-20/


threatening funding cuts to Social Security,    -  https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2025/03/05/four-trump-threats-to-social-security/

Medicare & Medicaid. -  https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5000935-medicaid-cuts-potential-next-congress/

focus more on his revenge efforts   -   https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/trump-retaliation-revenge-biden-security-clearance
 

extremist Christian Nationalist groups.  -  https://baptistnews.com/article/trumps-dangerous-closing-message-to-his-white-christian-followers/

In search of our lost humanity

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire


Illegal immigration in America exists primarily because millions are forced to seek relief from physical and economic abuses in their homelands.  Climate change is now interactive also with these abuses as a warming earth deprives people of basic comforts and a means to provide for the essentials of life.

It’s absurd to think then of these people as criminals in the same vein as rapists and murderers.  They’ve risked everything to protect their families from those abuses and now find themselves treated by insensitive and sometimes brutal people here the U.S.; behavior not totally dissimilar to those who drove them from their native countries initially.  This is a notion however, that is apparently too complex for some people to grasp.

In an essay  entitled “On Hostile Coexistence with China” in May of 2019, during Donald Trump’s first presidential term, Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.), noted a view of immigrants that Trump held then remains unchanged today.

“Trump’s presidency has been built on lower middle-class fears of displacement by immigrants and outsourcing of jobs to foreigners.  His campaign found a footing in the anger of ordinary Americans – especially religious Americans – at the apparent contempt for them and indifference to their welfare of the country’s managerial and political elites.”

This strained narrative seems to have altered the thinking of many “ordinary Americans” to see freedom as something not meant for those who don’t look and think like them. They’ve become, it seems, what Isaac Asimov referred to as “a cult of ignorance”  who’ve been “nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that [their] ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”

In a conversation with C.J. Polychroniou, a political scientist/political economist, author and journalist, culture critic Henry A. Giroux noted that “Life is now a war zone and as such the number of people considered disposable has grown exponentially and this includes low income whites, poor minorities, immigrants, the unemployed, the homeless and a range of people who are viewed as a liability to capital and its endless predatory quest for power and profits.”   

Trump has ignored the rule of law and the due process that it guaranties all who stand before it.  He has found willing accomplices in Congress and right wing organizations to diminish the American character we have come to believe in - honorable, hard-working and champions of justice.  We have innocent people here legally, on student visas and green cards, who believed in our 1st amendment right to speak freely, without recourse from government.  They have now become victims of the merging authoritarianism prevalent in most every word and deed Trump falls back  on to appease those who seem to have “put no importance to the way they are governed” and have gambled, as Albert Camus noted, “with a whole part of their life and their so called 'vital interests’. ”

America’s destiny has once again come face to face with the grim reality that power and greed are attempting to delude the virtues we have embodied in leaders like Washington, Lincoln and FDR who put public service before personal gain.  Without it, we become unwary  victims of “free market" capitalists, influencing how we think and behave through captivating ads that project happiness and economic success in material ownership of mostly nonessential products.  Thus, an image that affects personal gains for them and their investors.

“Freedom belongs only to people, Timothy Snyder asserts in his WaPo op-ed. “It does not belong to institutions or abstractions -- and least of all to non-existent institutions or abstractions. The moment that we yield the word "free" to something besides a person, we are yielding our freedom.”    

Trump attempts to run this country much like he did as an evocative entertainer on his TV show, The Apprentice.  Acting tough in a vulgar way and demeaning people openly may get you higher TV ratings, but it becomes a divisive force when applied in our multi-cultural society.  And nothing generates hate more in the MAGAsphere than believing you’re being displaced by “those people who aren’t real Americans”.

On the precipice

 

 

 

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne

In a recent essay by Bill Kristol, he shares his fears that many of us have as we watch the formation of a fascist autocracy in the nation’s capital.  He hopes that we’re not on the precipice of “going … the way of Germany in the last century.  The slope toward lawlessness is a slippery one, and we have an administration that is eagerly leading us down it.”

In just a matter of a few days, Trump has demonstrated that the rule of law will not apply to him or his coterie of devotees who have willingly acquiesced to the cult of one man.  An American citizen of Palestinian origins was arrested “[for helping} lead Columbia’s student protest movement demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.”  He was then cuffed and deported to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, without any sign of due process.

Last Friday, March 14th, Trump gathered a crowd of Justice Department staff who were favorable to him and let them know, in no uncertain terms, that he is “the chief law enforcement officer in our country” – a title traditionally used to refer to the attorney general.  In his ramblings he threatened retribution not only against his political enemies but all the networks that didn’t emulate FOX’s presentation of him.

These two instances reflect on how dictators begin their process that removes constitutional restraints and limitations and gives control of the narrative to deceive the voters, always portraying themselves as righteous and his political enemies as evil. He demeaned members of the Biden-era Justice Department as  “scum,” judges “corrupt” and the prosecutors who investigated him “deranged.”  His unfounded claims that the “radical liberal press” is corrupt and illegal sets the stage for suppression of our free press’s 1st amendment rights.

In 1926, Joseph Goebbels, after being elected to the Reichstag as one of the first 12 National Socialist delegates, said that “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the means to its own destruction.”  Goebbels would go on to become Hitler’s Minister of propaganda.  

At his 1946 trial in Nuremberg, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring cynically observed that “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

These observations by two of Hitler’s top lieutenants are at play today with the Trump administration.  Those who still deny this are either beyond seeing Trump as anything other than second coming or those who lack the spine to denounce behavior that is leading us down that lawless slippery slope Bill Kristol alluded to.

Many are being transformed by what Anne Applebaym referred to in her book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism:  “Authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity.  There is nothing intrinsically ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’ about this instinct at all.  It is allergic to fierce debates.  Whether those who have it ultimately derive their politics from Marxism or nationalism is irrelevant.  It is a frame of mind.”

We are indeed standing at the precipice of a significant cultural change where billionaires will have sway over government policies and citizens will no longer be able to choose who should lead us. Nor will we be able to be critical of those who align themselves with Trump, without fear of being swept by what will become Trump’s Schutzstaffel, better known  as Hitler’s SS

A Fool and His Money

 

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” - Mahatma Gandhi


The duel presidency of Trump/Musk is making alarmingly unfounded claims that there is waste and fraud within the Social Security system.  They claim millions of people older than 100 (some as old as 200 or 300) are collecting Social Security benefits.  The fact is there are just 89,106 people aged 99 or over who are collecting benefits as of December, 2024.  This scare tactic is being used to set the stage for wealthy people like Trump and Musk to get their greedy hands on this money for their own self-interest.

The idea of privatizing Social Security (SS) has been around for years by conservatives in our financial markets, but these efforts have always been met with failure.  Mainly because Democrats have put up roadblocks to prevent this and also because most Social Security recipients do not want the government to alter what it’s been doing for nearly 90 years unless it’s to insure that benefits keep pace with inflation and that the fund doesn’t dry up.  


Musk has called it a great Ponzi scheme which only shows he knows not what a Ponzi scheme is.  What is a scheme on Trump and Musk’s part is to see this money flow into unstable markets leaving recipients uncertain of their financial future

Large random cuts to personnel or SS funds by Musk will inevitably “make it harder for people to access Social Security services, apply for benefits and resolve issues. If these cuts continue, long wait times and service disruptions are expected to grow.”  Depending on which report you use, anywhere between 20% and 40%  of Americans 65 and over received at least 90% of their total incomes from Social Security.  What percentage of their income is a combination of SS and other sources such as savings, with their SS benefit being the larger of all other sources, could have a significant economic impact that would likely lead to a recession

The image seen by millions of Elon Musk gleefully swinging a chainsaw in the air to represent his out-of-control federal employee cuts demonstrates that Trump has put a thoughtless incompetent in charge of his reform plans for the federal government.  But that really doesn’t worry the wanna be dictator because as he previously stated “I'm not a schmuck. Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I won't lose a penny.”

Strongman or Bully: Will our fear be what leads to a fate that almost everyone doesn’t want.

We’re all familiar with the schoolyard bully.  We either grew up knowing one, willingly or not, or we’ve seen their characters played out in films like Back to the Future I, II & III, Carrie, Bad Reputation, Accepted and hundreds more with bullying themes.  Many of them terrifying.

If, after watching Trump’s meltdown in the Oval office scolding the democratically-elected leader of Ukraine and his follow up State of Union name-shaming everyone he’s ever disliked in his political career, you find yourself convinced that he was the “political colossus of our time and our nation” as Trump’s Rapid Response videos cast him as, then stop and take a closer look.  

Trump has all the earmarks of the school yard bully-type and has been for most of his life.  It’s no coincidence either that all authoritarian leaders are bullies and Trump has a special relationship with one of the worst in Vladimir Putin. The State of the Union Speech was very short on fact or serious policy initiatives and more of a cavalcade of Trump’s wildest codswallop ideas of which Joe Biden more mercifully referred to them as, “malarkey".  

What leads me to view Trump is farthest thing from a serious leader that has the best interest of the voters at heart?  If one cannot seriously see the forest for the trees, let’s just cite one recent example to give legs to this claim.  Great leaders (which trump wants so desperately for us to see him as) are level headed and don’t allow critics to rattle them in public.  They don’t engage in petty slurs that are meant to demean and dehumanize people.  They unite people under common causes as opposed to divisive tactics meant to find commonality with only those who  also may suffer from low self-esteem.  

Trump is the antitheses of great leadership.  He constantly demonstrates publicly four of the five most common personality traits of bullies, as noted by the staff expertise  at Neurolaunach, the website that provides “high-quality information about all things related to psychology, human brain function, and behavior.”  The one that isn’t so obvious but records show likely exist, is his low self-esteem.  A condition rendered out of his father’s assessment of “losers”, that drove Donald to act out in every way to show he was no loser.

In her Book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,”  Mary Trump, Donald’s niece, who grew up around the man that essentially ignored his youngest son most of his early life.  “When he [did] receive his father’s attention, his father constantly yelled at, criticized or punished him.”

Dictators thrive when there is chaos, which often they deliberately effect and claim “Only I can fix it”.  To claim that the Biden Economic policies were “an economic nightmare” at his SOTU speech, was not only ludicrous but an excellent example of how dictators lie to create doubt among those earnestly looking for a father figure/strongman to ease their own fears that they have cultivated over the years.

The threat of fear and chaos are tools of fascists authoritarians that lead poorly informed people to make choices, that when fulfilled, are hard to come back from.  If we could go back in time to 1945 and ask those people in Germany and Italy if their choices for leadership were a tragic mistake, odds are that most of them would  shamefully concede   

Voters remorse can be partially resolved by ensuring that when we go to the ballot box, future candidates for public office will not be fans of Trump’s Big Lie, which helped display him as a victim, a card he plays frequently.  There was time when Uncle Sam fit the image of a strong leader who would protect us, for better or worse.  It is the “worse” aspect of this image that now confronts us.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” -  Mark Twain

J.D. Vance’s lack of true courage

 

 

 

“A coward's courage is in his tongue.”  Edmund Burke

In political campaigns, I’ve observed, when one Party has no real platform or tangible strengths to rally voters, their go-to approach is to disparage and undermine the character of their opponents in ways that suggest they are superior.  These often baseless assaults are small-minded, petty and insulting to people who want more than the hollow leadership that spreads fear and ignorance.

In J.D. Vance’s attempt to marginalize Tim Walz’s service to his country as a member of the National Guard, he has demeaned not only himself, but other service members, past and present, who’ve served faithfully in U.S. military. Vance has falsely accused Walz “of ducking service in Iraq when he left the Army National Guard and ran for Congress in 2005.” 

Not only does the factual record show the despicable fallacy of Vance’s maligned accusation it shines a light on his own own mediocre record as a war corespondent in Afghanistan for six months of his 4-year enlistment in the Marine Corps.  An accomplishment that deserves some respect for his enlistment, but is less distinguishable than Walz's 24-year tour of duty that included a deployment with “the Minnesota National Guard in August 2003 to Vicenza, Italy, as part of support for the US war in Afghanistan.”

As I’ve recently discovered, Vance served in the same aviation unit that I was trained by, the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (2ndMAW), in Cherry Point, N.C., making me just a little ashamed at this time that we share this distinction.  In 1967, I was deployed to Vietnam, where I served as a member of the 1st MAWs Light Anti-aircraft battalion, seeing combat action when the Tet offensive occurred, January of 1968

For Vance or any other veteran to demean another’s services to their country is callous and dishonorable.  Vance himself saw no combat action and is supporting a candidate for President who cowardly avoided military service during the Vietnam war where his wealthy status aided him in getting him a deferment based on an alleged bone spur condition in one of his feet, of which when asked later by a reporter which one, he said he couldn’t remember.

Vance’s Trump-like glorification of himself at the expense of others is further evidence of someone with low moral character.  Trump disparaged John McCain as a “loser” in June of 2015 as Trump considered running for President.  McCain, as most will recall, was shot down flying a combat mission over North Vietnam during that war and was held prisoner for 5 and 1/2 years where he was tortured, starved, and beaten to the brink of suicidal yearnings.  This “loser” was offered a chance to go home early because of his famous name, but refused to before those who had been held captive longer.

During his administration, Trump allowed himself to get caught up in the trial of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher whose own team members turned him in for his ruthless and deadly behavior towards Iraqi civilians where he was deployed in 2017.  FOX news pundit Pete Hegseth encouraged Trump to weigh in on this, where some members of the military warned against such Executive intervention, fearing it undermine military justice.

While Walz has enriched many of his constituents in Minnesota with his political service since leaving the National Guard, Vance has enriched himself in the field of investment capital.  Declaring himself as a ‘never Trumper” in 2016 and calling the former President "reprehensible" and "America's Hitler”, Vance flipped this view to accommodate his desire to align himself with Trump’s ambitions to ban all abortions and alter our constitutional institutions to establish a Trump autocracy, via the 2025 Project.

Vance’s attempt to portray himself more of a patriot than his Democratic counterpart is itself a cowardly act to promote his own power interests along with Trump’s.  It insults the intelligence of voters and plays on less informed voter fears.  This is not leadership.  It most certainly does not make America great.

Keep Biden on 2024 ticket

Like many of those who want to see Biden defeat Trump in November but are now seriously concerned that his last debate performance will be an obstacle to that goal, let me suggest a few points that should negate such a notion.

In defense of a Biden candidacy is the fact that he has presided over one of the most successful administrations since FDR in terms of bringing the nation back to a stable state, economically and constitutionally sound, following the nightmare of the Trump administration.  Facts don’t dispute this.  Despite being hamstrung by the pandemic and it’s latent causations, Biden’s overall performance in the critical areas that include immigration, health, jobs and wages, household wealth and serious crimes have risen to and exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

But one could ask, will Biden be able to prevail in these and other areas like foreign policy in his next 4-year term.  A legitimate concern but when looking at all factors related to another term, there are reasons to believe that his poor showing in a single 90-minutes debate is not demonstrative that calamity and chaos will ensue.

Biden has always put this country and the constitution above his own self-interests, unlike the self-serving game show host that preceded him.  Right now, Biden and those closest to him feel that he is up to the challenge.  I’ve yet to see enough that would prevent him from achieving this.  The seemingly knee-jerk reaction by many to his poor debate performance last week has, I believe, been in part due to the low expectations tHat right-wing media pundits have wasted time on, declaring “BREAKING NEWS” every time Biden stuttered or stumbled, often ignoring Trump’s own miscalculations and incoherency and his ambulatory issues


Unlike Trump who inserts himself in all matters, foreign and domestic, often overriding more competent and experienced people, Biden relies on such support from his staff, Cabinet members and agency heads to perform at a level that ensures sound policies will be carried out to prevent any imagined calamities that Right-wing alarmists have wrongly presumed would happen under a Biden administration.

However, in the event Biden’s mental and/or physical health diminishes to a level that poses a threat to the governance of this nation, I am convinced that with the help of his wife Jill, he would acknowledge such a deficiency and step down, allowing his capable VP, Kamala Harris, to step in and keep our ship of state afloat trough 2028.

Then there is the reality that a Trump presidency will outshine his previous one with greater insanity and autocratic tendencies.  His hyperbolic claims and blatant lies he exposed on that debate awoke many to the threat his presidency would present to our democracy.  He has vowed to prosecute his political enemies without due process, will undermine our freedom of the press and now, through the complicity of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court and the guidance of the Heritage Foundation’s radical 2025 Plan that eviscerates constitutional safeguards, a Trump victory this November will reduce this country to a unhinged and despotic monarchy.

The disbelief by many who remain poorly informed of what a Trump presidency will look like and those who seem gleeful of such an autocratic regime, threatens to reduce the one last hope this nation has to defend itself against fascist totalitarianism  - our vote.

Without a Supreme Court who seems inclined to support Trump’s spurious claims to total immunity from all crimes committed as President and a feckless Republican Party that pays obeisance to a cult figure rather  than to the U.S. Constitution, our choices at the polls this November are all that separates us from the traditional core values the Founders fought and died for and those vicious attempts to wrest control from the electorate to satisfy the whims of a few who stand to gain financially, standing in judgement of all who don’t share their small-minded, self-serving convictions.

Don’t let  a single 90-minutes debate overrule the better judgement of our angels that has so fundamentally served as our guide to a life where freedom and equality are the cornerstones by which each and everyone of us are allowed to prosper and grow.

VOTE IN 2024 FOR DEMOCRACY.  NOT AUTOCRACY

Their mindless audacity and spineless mendacity

 

“Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man. Any man who is afraid to have his doctrine investigated is not only a coward but a hypocrite.” ― Robert G. Ingersoll

Though it’s easy for me to chortle at conservative critics now tripping all over themselves to blame Trump for the utter failure of the Republican Party to produce what they were sure was going to be a  red wave of victories for them in this mid-term election, I find it disturbing that these same people in the right-wing media and uber-conservative politics are still not willing to recognize that it was their mindless audacity and spineless mendacity that backed this egotistical blowhard that brought them to this reckoning. 

A reckoning long overdue that could have kept us from the brink of an autocratic rule, of which we have historically championed our opposition to around the world and led the way for others to aspire to our American-style of a constitutional democracy.

The lazy, often absent defiance of GOP leaders to call out Trump as the toxic element that would bring down the once respectable Grand Old Party, feared more the angry hatred of white supremacist and many faux evangelical Christians, thinking some how this degenerate element within our society would achieve for them what they apparently wanted more than respect and loyalty to the rule of law - political power.

And for many of us watching from the other side, it seemed like this MAGA movement was going to succeed in dragging our great experiment of a democratic republic to the ash pile of history where other despotic regimes ultimately lay, mired with the blood of innocent people caught up in the madness that such misguided insanity sweeps them into.

So, lest those who found themselves caught up in Trump’s assault on the guard rails of our constitutional democracy realize that they are as guilty, if not greater so, than the once popular media charlatan, this reckoning that’s confronted their own failure to prevent its creation and allowed it to metastasize to a point where chaos could have spun out of control, some other version of Trump-ism will rear its ugly head again. 

And when it does it will once again be the result of fear and ignorance by those preyed upon by one  person or a small handful of people seeking power and their enablers positioned to influence individuals who too quickly ignore their first instincts, or who are either unable or unwilling to challenge ideas that are devoid of human decency.

It’s a flawed condition as old as humanity itself and has been memorialized in the tale of naive young woman who picks up a snake pleading to be aided from freezing to death, ignoring her better judgment about the deadly threat a snake can pose, only to realize too late, that her initial instincts were true. 

History is replete with such snakes that societies fail to recognize in time to the detriment of millions.  To those cowards who now want to scapegoat Trump for the failures of their Party, I say, “you knew he was a snake when you nominated him and supported him for four long years.”