Not all change is for the good. We have had a HUGE change recently. In fact, things have changed from bad to worse with each passing nano-second of the news cycle.
The things we have experienced (and endured) as a people in the course of this change include a loss of national dignity.
We have gone from a nation of law to a nation in which the P-E flaunts all law. DJT has stated his belief that what a president does cannot be illegal because of who he is, the position he has attained. But in truth, Trump seems to have felt he was always above the law. (Look at how he handled the issue of revealing his tax returns before the election, and how he actually evaded paying taxes all these years.)
The failure of rule of law leads irrevocably to a failure of institutions. Our government is made of a group of institutions established to protect our freedoms and to keep the infrastucture of our daily lives working for the benefit of all.
The smartest guy in the room?
Trump believes likewise that not only can nothing he does be deemed illegal, but also that he is entitled to use his position as P-E for his own enrichment. He will use the United States of America as his personal playpen and for networking globally. During an introductory tour of the world, he asked heads of states he visited to help further his business interests in their countries.While Trump has money, he lacks class which might explain his workingman appeal. He’s just like the guys out there shouting for him.
A press interview after his election win was occassion for a QVC-like opportunity for his daughter’s business. Lines are being blurred.
Although, technically, Trump may be correct about the issues of conflicts of interest, there are many other things he has flung out haphazardly that may be less correct. Among the many lines blurred is those between truth and fictions perpetrated by the President Elect. Trump routinely uses hearsay as evidence in sharing his views of the world.
Trump has a slippery hold on facts. (Some of his rants have a slightly surreal crazy man quality, like the one about illegal votes in CA, NH, and VA.) He often tailors his “message” to his audience. He was able to make nice with the NYTimes, for instance, after excoriating the newspaper in his tweets a little before visiting the Times’ offices.
Why does DJT think he is the smartest man in the room? Part of the answer is his raging ego, but it is that he follows only his own rules. And then there’s the fact that he’s gaming everyone. He does not understand democracy, nor understand how government runs, but he will shape this democracy in his own image.
His familiarity with the 2nd Amendment is highly quotable from many occasions, none more so than his veiled threat on Hillary Clinton if she were to win. He likes to wave the 2nd Amendment like a flag in front of a bull, but once he starts his power grab, even that Constitutional guarantee is not a certainty.2nd Amendment folks, don’t expect him to leave you your guns. There may be militias in support of him, but not everyone will be granted their freedoms.
Discriminating taste
Trump has managed to wrest security and tranquility from the jaws of liberty. He turned a great nation petty and hateful.
He has said he wants to “investigate” how the alt-Right (aka White Supremacists, if we call them as they truly are) got the idea that he was their champion. In fact, his Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon has been an editor of the “alt-Right” platform, the Breitbart
News Network. Bannon’s racist and anti-Semitic positions have been documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and by the Anti-Defamation League, among others. The connection with the racist groups goes back to Trump’s accepting endorsement from the
KKK.
Bannon was just icing on the cake, an anti-everything conservative, who is also anti-government, but also especially anti-Semitic and hatefully bigotted. Recently a white supremacist group “Heiled” the new prospective leader.
How does that old story about dictatorship and fascist takeovers go? (With sincere apologies to Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller)
They signalled out Mexicans, talked of investigating all Muslims, answered #BlackLivesMatter with White Lives Matter, targetted women in the proxy of Megan Kelly. mocked a disabled reporter.
I didn’t care. I’m not Latino nor Islamist. I’m not black, and Kelly is one of their own. I’m not handicapped nor a member of the working press. Then their chief was greeted with the Nazi salute, and suddenly I took notice.
Wake up, Americans, we are none of us safe in this space that the USA is transforming into under Trump. The P-E loves controversy and scares up storms in teacups everywhere. The big stuff, like fighting in the streets, and mobs cheering his name, just flatter that big ego more.
If the mobs turn democracy fascist, so be it. DJT doesn’t care for any of us, nor for the US of A.
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