The Insanity of a Second Trump Administration

Washington Post opinion writer Robert Kagan wrote an interesting — maybe even frightening — piece titled, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.” All of us should read the entire column because in several places you might recognize yourself, in other words I saw myself in his words.

Kagan has a number of posts with bleak topics, like “Our constitutional crisis is already here.” Click here to see all of his latest columns.

It’s easy and less frightening to say people like Kagan, learned people with decades of experience and scholarship, are just doomsayers who see calamity at every turn. The truth is, yes, they see the impending doom because it is staring all of us in the face and most of us choose to look the other way or keep our eyes shut tight.

Which brings to mind the three wise monkeys, from the old Buddhist tradition: “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” There are actually two interpretations of that. The first being the actual Buddhist definition: “Not to dwell on evil thoughts.” The second, which is more of a pop culture reading, is about a lack of moral responsibility by the people that refuse to point out impropriety by looking the other way or acting ignorant to the facts.

So which am I? Looking the other way or acting ignorant? I’m damn sure not viewing it in the Buddhist tradition because I often dwell on evil, or negative, thoughts.

Those negative thoughts are here, staring us in the face, loudly creeping around the fringes of our hearing, almost daring us to do or say something about it.

There are some voices in the media that are speaking up about the possibility of a Trump dictatorship. Just now I have MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle’s voice in my head repeating the Maya Angelou quote, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Reminding us once again, what we’ve heard and seen from Trump’s own words and actions, the truth about Donald J. Trump, former president and reality TV huckster, he is a wannabe dictator.

Because of that unreal “reality TV” show Americans were told A) Donald J. Trump is a billionaire and B) He is a fabulously successful business man. Of course neither is true … unless we look at the way he scammed banks and vendors as good business practices, then sure, he was successful.

Then there are all the bankruptcies. Trump said it was good business to use the bankruptcy laws to screw over his vendors and creditors with so many of them. I suppose that people with corrupted morals would agree with that. He had six of them, although Trump said he considered three of them to be that same bankruptcy.

Whatever you may think of Hillary Clinton, she pointed out in one of their debates, Trump was/is living in his own reality, which, in other words, is a fantasy.

The American electorate knew this going into the 2016 elections. As a result Clinton won a pyrrhic victory, getting a majority of the popular vote but losing the Electoral College tally. Just enough voters in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in particular bought Trump’s BS — and still do , for the most part —  to swing those states to Trump.

There still is a large percentage of voters that prefer the anti-American values of Trump and his ass-kissers, like the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana. He was one of the architects of the fake electors conspiracy, which means he is guilty of insurrection. That, plus his vote to not certify the elections violates the 14 Amendment.

The sick part of this situation is that leaders of the insurrection are serving in Congress, like Mike Johnson. Seven who are accused of planning the January 6 violence with the men and women who did storm the capitol  include: Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona and former representative from North Carolina. Madison Cawthorn. Oh yeah, eight when we include Mike Johnson.

Eight Republican members of the U.S. Senate voted not to certify the election and 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives did the same.

They call themselves the “Freedom Caucus” which is a rich lie because they want to ban books, ban certain education curriculums, make voting extremely hard for poor people, people of color, students and the elderly, take away a woman’s dominion over her own body and they side with Russian President Vladimir Putin in his vicious war against Ukraine. Former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney said that anyone that voted to not certify the 2020 election, that helped plan the January 6 insurrection, should be disqualified from running for president — or any other elective office, per the 14^th Amendment. The media, in its collective wisdom, gave the so-called Freedom Caucus a more accurate moniker: the Sedition Caucus.

There’s too much information to sift through and talk about, I’ve forgotten why I started writing – oh yeah, WaPo columnist Robert Kagan telling us a Trump dictatorship is becoming inevitable. In his column Kagan likens our current condition to a riverboat getting closer to a waterfall. “Like people on a riverboat, we have long known there is a waterfall ahead but assume we will somehow find our way to shore before we go over the edge. But now the actions required to get us to shore are looking harder and harder, if not downright impossible.”

We can act shocked and offended by Chicken Little proclaiming the sky is falling … but if the sky is falling we are screwed.

Everyone who warns us — every day — about what will happen in a second Trump Administration, are telling us not to get numb to the messages from Trump and his acolytes. If he wins Trump said he will use the DoJ to go after his political foes, he will pardon all the people that have been convicted in the January 6 insurrection. Trump wants to send the U.S. military to the border and use deadly force to stop the men, woman and children who just want a new life in the United States of America. Trump has even suggested shooting missiles into Mexico to stop the drug cartels … What could go wrong?

Those old enough will remember November 27, 1989 when Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cocaine cartel ordered Avianca flight 203 be bombed out of the sky because there was going to be an anti-cartel politician on board. The politician, César Gaviria, missed the flight and lived to win the 1990 Colombian presidential elections.

Why bring that ancient history up? It’s an example of what drug cartels are willing to do to maintain their power and profit points. Anyone who thinks sending a couple of missiles into Mexico — which would be an act of war — will have the leaders of the drug cartels surrendering to Mexican officials, begging for mercy — or, pure lunatic reasoning, the surrender to U.S. officials — is terribly delusional.

The military-industrial complex would love it. Shoot off one missile, build three more to take its place. Then send a quarter million members of the military over the border to get into firefights with the cartels … And that’s just one of the insane things Trump has said he would do if elected to another term.

The border with Mexico, Tijuana in particular, is just 30 miles south of where I am sitting, a 40 minute car ride. The idea of being at war with Mexico, it’s insane.

Anyone who wants to read Robert Kagan’s column, you can sign up for a free account and read it.

Currently, right wing, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming has been making the rounds on television to talk about her new book, Oath and Honor A Memoir and a Warning, which details what she went through when she stood up to the ex-president, with former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, to hold Donald J. Trump and his co-conspirators accountable for the crimes they are “alleged” to have committed … good grief! We saw it unfold on live TV. Alleged? Please …

Kinzinger has a book as well, Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country. I have ordered both books and will read them intently.

To quote Maya Angelou once again, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”