My life is being endangered by DJ Trump--along with hundreds of thousands of others.
My anger is growing at the wanton disregard for my life by this president and his allies. And he doesn't even know me--we've never met and never will. He is endangering my life, that of my wife, my neighbors (in their 70s and 80s, respectively), my children-in-laws' parents, and millions of others who have never met him. Many voted for him. Many support him. Many seem to fear him and kowtow to him.
He is doing it passively, by refusing to cooperate with the incoming administration. So plans for dealing with the Covid-19 plague are tied up in his childlike opposition to the election results. The longer it takes to initiate a transition, the slower and more complex the distribution of the two candidate vaccines will be. Every day of delay means that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people will get the infection. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, will die needlessly. The image I have is of an army deprived of its weapons, helpless in the face of an unforgiving enemy. All the while Trump twits out lies, bullies, pouts, and plays golf. Everything except what the people of this country pay him to do: to govern. And to govern effectively during the twilight of his administration, he needs to initiate an orderly process of transition--which he absolutely has refused to do. And the silence from other Republicans is deafening.
He is doing it actively. By trying undermine the election results, to tear up the fabric of this society, making a mockery of our democratic republic. His satraps make as baseless charges as he does: Giuiiani claimed the election was rigged in Venezuela; a lawyer named Powell says the election should be overturned because it is filled with fraud, and so. His administration is pressuring Republican state officials to hold up or overturn the certification process, and so it goes. He is setting a precedent that will be hard to eradicate, dividing our country along political, racial and ethnic lines--or at least enhancing the fault lines that were already there. He continues on his course to be remembered by history as a terrible trifecta: a criminal, a pariah, and a laughingstock. If I weren't so angered and fearful of his effect on our lives, I would be laughing at his attempts to override history, to put the genie back in the bottle. And along with him, the masters of deceit, who somehow persuaded 73,000,000 Americans to vote for him.
Wife Eileen said the other day that when he dies, she hopes he goes straight to Hell. My attitude is somewhat different. He is very likely to be indicted when he leaves office, and probably convicted of criminal offenses. I think the punishment should be to make him work in a hospital's ER or ICU (an orderly would be fine) tending to the needs of Corona Virus patients. Perhaps after a few months, something about this scourge will sink into his pea-brain.
That 73 million number will stick with me for the rest of my life. I don't think I will ever think about this country the same way. I am absolutely horrified, not just that people voted for him, but that the social systems/culture in our country allowed for right wing propaganda to spread so widely. Because those systems really are to blame for convincing American citizens to vote against their own interests for Trump.
ReplyDeleteTrump's day will come. His position as president will no longer protect him from the wrath of those he has cheated. How can we not smile when Matthew Braun, a federal judge and a REPUBLICAN appointed by Obama, threw out the PA challenge with a 37-page scathing opinion. So will the Supreme Court be willing to listen to Trump's pleas? I suspect that once we have a mensch in the White House and we have true government, even the Trump supporters will begin to breathe more easily - as will the rest of us. From my mouth to God's ears.
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