Which of These Reptiles is More Dangerous?
...I think the orange one.
I watched the latest desultory episode of the Trump Show from a vacation rental at Litchfield-by-the-Sea on Pawley’s Island, SC.
There’s dangerous reptiles in the brackish bodies of water there, as you can see from my photo below.
There was also a dangerous reptile slithering into Atlanta Thursday.
Compare the two species. Look at their expressions…into their eyes…uncanny resemblance, no? While I kept a close eye on that gator while taking his mug shot, I have a lot more concern about the orange reptile that flew into Atlanta.
The one who claimed to be a ripped 6’3” and 215 lbs.
THAT reptile is clearly bent on revenge and score-settling.
Which is really perverse if you think about it. If anyone has scores to settle, it’s not him. It’s us…we the people.
HE lied constantly to us (and many of us hideously ate it up). HE seemed to be in cahoots with Vladimir Putin and admired other authoritarian rulers in Turkey, the Philippines, Hungary, and China — even as he insulted and alienated NATO allies. HE violated his oath to uphold the Constitution and employed a multi-pronged criminal enterprise to try to remain in power after losing an election.
He has relentlessly attacked the pillars of our system questioning the legitimacy of law enforcement and the courts, which are finally, very belatedly, attempting to hold him accountable for his many and egregious violations.
He’s dangerous not because of his own strength or abilities; despite posing as a tough guy, he’s really a soft, incompetent, bumbling idiot. But this extremely insecure, sociopathic bully has become dangerous because of the cowards in his party who early on bent the knee to him, and because of the sycophants he’s placed around him who will shamelessly carry out his will because it enables them to rise to positions of power and influence they could never aspire to in any place other than in Trumpworld.
So who and what would be endangered if this reptile should again gain power? Here’s a partial list:
Government officials who do their job without fear or favor, especially if that job involved gathering or prosecuting facts harmful to Trump….and those officials who follow the law and legitimately established policy instead of Trumpists’ right wing agenda. Their jobs would end and Trumpist sycophants would replace them.
Democratic politicians who investigated Trump in his impeachments, or who simply will be targeted for “payback” with no solid rationale except revenge.
The free press, which was labeled “The Enemy of the People” by Trump’s consigliere Steve Bannon in the opening days of Trump’s administration…and which played such a tremendous role in exposing Trump’s corruption and mendacity. Without them and the January 6 Committee…where would we be?
Our access to clean water and clean air…and any chance of America leading the charge on restraining climate change.
The public’s access to facts and truth.
Students’ exposure to an accurate telling of history.
The liberal world order.
Anyone who is “different” from the Trumpist ideal — see 1930’s Germany for a preview and The Nuremburg Laws for a blueprint. If this is an exaggeration, it is only a slight one.
Who would “win” if Trump survives his misdeeds, is nominated by his party, and either wins or steals the next presidential election? Aforementioned sycophants who would be awarded with cabinet and other government roles they are wildly unqualified for; purveyors of fossil fuels; rich beneficiaries of tax cuts aimed at them.
Most of all, authoritarians around the world would win. Foisting Trump upon America — and the West — was Putin’s greatest KGB masterpiece. Make no mistake. Despite Bill Barr’s misdirection, the Mueller Report, as well as the Senate Intelligence Committee, “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” (Mueller) and “contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives” (Senate report). Trump is still doing Putin’s bidding in taking a battering ram to American institutions we had previously — and naively, I guess — thought to be impervious to attack…To remind you…
The Senate Intelligence Committee…[found] numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow [that] posed a "grave" counterintelligence threat.
"We found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement, directly refuting President Donald Trump's repeated assertions that Russian interference was a "hoax"….The committee, however, did not find any evidence of a coordinated scheme between the Trump campaign and Moscow, Rubio said.
The nearly 1,000-page report outlines the "breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. https://rollcall.com/2020/08/18/senate-intelligence-committee-russian-interference-2016-election-report/
Over and over we hear that the spineless politicians in his party need to step up and disrobe the would-be tyrant. And time and again they…disappear. Even those who have retired, and seemingly would not have a political career to lose by alienating “the base” — unlike six of the eight Republicans on Wednesday’s debate stage who raised their hand when asked who would support Trump if he were the nominee and was CONVICTED by a jury of his attempts at electoral fraud. Perhaps the most craven of all was the governor of Florida who looked around to see how everyone else was answering before he raised his hand. Not what you’d expect from someone who makes his Navy service — albeit as a Navy lawyer — part of his profile.
It’s gonna be up to us. In our social circles…in our neighborhoods... in our workplaces…to actively reject Trumpism and marginalize its adherents. Tell them “It’s NOT OK to support Trump because he supports your position on abortion…or gets you tax cuts…or conservative judges. IT’S NOT OK TO ACCEPT HIS TAKING A SLEDGEHAMMER TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN RETURN FOR SOMETHING YOU WANT.