Gangsterism. Unimaginable corruption. Blanket pardons for insurrectionists. Mass deportations. Government agency shutdowns. Mass layoffs, firings and forced resignations. Egregious thefts of privacy data. Political revenge. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Protectionism and the isolation of America from population. Threatened trade war. Silencing of the media. Betrayal of the nation’s allies.
Adolph Hitler’s playbook has been reopened. I never thought it would happen again. And I certainly never thought it would happen here.
by Rev. Dr. Kevin Seraaj, J.D., M.Div., OrlandoAdvocate.com
The benefit of hindsight is that it eliminates the need for guesswork or predictive analysis. Seeing is believing– for all except those blinded by hate. If the true patriots do not wake up, stand up and challenge what’s coming, the United States of America will find itself the embodiment of the second coming of the Third Reich.
The thought of living under the overreach of an American Gestapo is more than nightmarish. The imbecilic people who celebrate the mass termination of American citizens across the nation by a South African transplant who is clearly intent upon running the nation by proxy cannot possibly represent the majority of Americans. There was no “mandate” of any kind to destroy the institutions that make this country what it has always been. The people who still support him are simply too stubborn to admit they were tricked by an old, almost senile con man.
Trump campaigned on making Ameria great again– not an ally of the forces and political ideologies America has always stood against. When you piss on this nation’s veterans, you piss on us one and all.
Stunts like renaming the Gulf of Mexico will not stop rising inflation nor bring down the price of eggs. But it might create enough of a distraction to pit Americans against one another yet again and take focus away from the ongoing attempts to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) framed it correctly: Republicans are focused on whittling away at your grandparents’ $65/day payment from Social Security, while ignoring the $8 million/day Elon Musk rakes in from the federal government. And that’s just the money he takes in from his $2.9 billion SpaceX contract. Factor in the $3 billion he was awarded last week and the insanity of giving him the authority to gut federal agencies and protect his self-interest is overwhelmingly clear.
But the real question here is “Whose money is this after all?” Whose tax dollars fund the federal government? Not these billionaires Trump has brought on to strip the rest of us of money and jobs. On average, they only pay about 3.4% of what they earn. How much, Mr. and Mrs. MAGA, do YOU pay? These super-rich Trump sycophants just eat off the plates of the American people and give almost nothing back.
“Not true. They give us jobs,” one commenter says. But too many Americans of all hues don’t even earn a livable wage. If you suggest that the billionaire employers pay the people who work for them a livable wage– just to be able to pay rent and buy food and gas– they move their operation to some foreign country where they can pay lower wages to produce the same products they turn around and sell to now-unemployed Americans. Wake up.
The very right to think differently is at stake– the Oval Office recently barred the Associated Press from White House press briefings because AP believes the Gulf of Mexico should be called the Gulf of Mexico. Like that’s going to put groceries on your table.
This right to think for yourself is only one of the many fundamental rights that America has always stood for. Even during the Not Great Days of America, when slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, lynching, segregation, and disenfranchisement of blacks and women were sanctioned by the government, we knew that underneath all the wrong was a blanket of high moral underpinning that was worth fighting to uncover. And so we marched and sang We Shall Overcome; we were blasted with water cannons, bitten by police dogs, locked up in jails and sometimes killed, and then it happened: the promise of America, which we saw in its founding documents, finally shone through. It wasn’t “hallelujah time” by any stretch of the imagination, but one thing is clear: we can’t go back.
Electing Donald Trump to a second term was an egregious mistake. Scores of people who worked with him during his first term in office ran away from him. They were appalled by his lack of knowledge, his contempt for the constitution and lack of respect for the rule of law. He saw himself even then as a would-be king– and we were warned. But supporters elected him anyway– and so he believes he has a mandate to be a king. But America was never meant to be ruled by a king.
These days, as rural America begins to feel the brunt of Trump-Musk policies, the true intentions of the billionaire oligarchs have become clear. But so have those of the American public. In town hall after town hall, Republicans who voted for Trump are letting their representatives know they want immediate change. True Americans will not sell their birthrights– freedom of speech (and thought), and a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people– for the latest failed experiment of a Trump in the White House.
The promised tax cuts are never coming. And Republican lawmakers will continue to abdicate their responsibility to represent the people who elected them– instead of Donald Trump.
