Three Years on
Been exhausting, hasn't it? While my absolute worst fear, that Trump would say "screw it" and launch a nuclear weapon, hasn't come true, everything else pretty much has.
We've got a Supreme Court with a conservative majority, that seems disinclined to put a check on the administration's worst excesses. We've got a majority Republican Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, who flat out said he isn't even going to bother with the pretense of an objective trial, and looks to exonerate Trump of his corrupt actions against Ukraine and his political opponents.
We have unrepentant white nationalists directing US immigration policy, and concentration camps full of refugees and their children, a separation policy designed for no other purpose than to inflect fear and despair.
We have Trump, who whenever he is confronted on his actions, lashes out like an angry child, and who's defense is barely more than a eight year old's taunt of "I know you are, but what am?" A wanna be dictator who trusts Vladimir Putin over his own advisers. A draft dodger who wanted his own military review up Pennsylvania Ave. A man who defends his innocence from impeachment charges by blocking testimony and refusing to turn over documents. A man who views the Presidency only in terms of ratings, wanting the prestige of the position without doing any of the work.
This year we face what is perhaps the most important election in the history of the United States since the Civil War. Where we must choose between four more years of an angry, unhinged administration completely disconnected from reality, or a massive course correction that will hopefully begin the slow work of repairing American democracy after all Republican attempts to subvert it. If Trump is indeed reelected it will be a dark time for American indeed.
And yet...
If there's one silver lining in Trump presidency, it's been demonstrating the complete moral hypocrisy of the conservative movement. A movement that has always been ready to pounce on Democrats for being less patriotic than True Blue (ie: White Christian Conservative) Americans has meekly gone along with Trump's near daily fountain of lies and incompetence. And those raised conservative in the past decade, who may not have been as hardened as their parents, have noticed.
The Evangelical movement has been particularly hit hard. After eight years of attacking a black president who has been happily married to his wife for the past 28 years for his supposed moral failings, they have twisted themselves into rhetorical knots supporting Trump. A man who cheated on his first wife with this second wife, who cheated on his second wife with his third wife, and who cheated on her with a prostitute, who makes sexual comments about his daughter, and can't remember a Bible verse to save his life. But he at least gave them what they wanted, support destroying abortion rights and attacking the LGBT community. In response, Evangelicals have been bleeding younger members, who seek a more tolerant path, further weakening their leaders' place as the self-appointed guardians of American morality.
The one undisputed fact is that the demographics of the United States have been going against the Republicans for decades, and under Trump the change has been accelerating. America is becoming less white, less straight, less religious. The Republican Party on the other hand have become even whiter and older, and in consequence smaller. They only means they have to win national office office now is engage in massive voter suppression, from gerrymandered districts to mass purging of voter rolls, and witch hunts for supposed voter fraud when there is none to be had.
If the worst happens, and Trump is reelected in November, things are going to go from bad to worse for the United States. But I believe we will come out for it stronger, because there is going to be generation of children coming of age under Trump's leadership, who will look at all he has done and say firmly, "Never again."
We've got a Supreme Court with a conservative majority, that seems disinclined to put a check on the administration's worst excesses. We've got a majority Republican Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, who flat out said he isn't even going to bother with the pretense of an objective trial, and looks to exonerate Trump of his corrupt actions against Ukraine and his political opponents.
We have unrepentant white nationalists directing US immigration policy, and concentration camps full of refugees and their children, a separation policy designed for no other purpose than to inflect fear and despair.
We have Trump, who whenever he is confronted on his actions, lashes out like an angry child, and who's defense is barely more than a eight year old's taunt of "I know you are, but what am?" A wanna be dictator who trusts Vladimir Putin over his own advisers. A draft dodger who wanted his own military review up Pennsylvania Ave. A man who defends his innocence from impeachment charges by blocking testimony and refusing to turn over documents. A man who views the Presidency only in terms of ratings, wanting the prestige of the position without doing any of the work.
This year we face what is perhaps the most important election in the history of the United States since the Civil War. Where we must choose between four more years of an angry, unhinged administration completely disconnected from reality, or a massive course correction that will hopefully begin the slow work of repairing American democracy after all Republican attempts to subvert it. If Trump is indeed reelected it will be a dark time for American indeed.
And yet...
If there's one silver lining in Trump presidency, it's been demonstrating the complete moral hypocrisy of the conservative movement. A movement that has always been ready to pounce on Democrats for being less patriotic than True Blue (ie: White Christian Conservative) Americans has meekly gone along with Trump's near daily fountain of lies and incompetence. And those raised conservative in the past decade, who may not have been as hardened as their parents, have noticed.
The Evangelical movement has been particularly hit hard. After eight years of attacking a black president who has been happily married to his wife for the past 28 years for his supposed moral failings, they have twisted themselves into rhetorical knots supporting Trump. A man who cheated on his first wife with this second wife, who cheated on his second wife with his third wife, and who cheated on her with a prostitute, who makes sexual comments about his daughter, and can't remember a Bible verse to save his life. But he at least gave them what they wanted, support destroying abortion rights and attacking the LGBT community. In response, Evangelicals have been bleeding younger members, who seek a more tolerant path, further weakening their leaders' place as the self-appointed guardians of American morality.
The one undisputed fact is that the demographics of the United States have been going against the Republicans for decades, and under Trump the change has been accelerating. America is becoming less white, less straight, less religious. The Republican Party on the other hand have become even whiter and older, and in consequence smaller. They only means they have to win national office office now is engage in massive voter suppression, from gerrymandered districts to mass purging of voter rolls, and witch hunts for supposed voter fraud when there is none to be had.
If the worst happens, and Trump is reelected in November, things are going to go from bad to worse for the United States. But I believe we will come out for it stronger, because there is going to be generation of children coming of age under Trump's leadership, who will look at all he has done and say firmly, "Never again."