[NOTE: The following is not a statement of my political views. I am neither Democrat nor Republican; neither liberal nor conservative; neither left-leaning nor right-leaning. I believe in moderation in all things (or nearly all things, chocolate and kindness to others excepted). This is simply a commentary on one individual who scares the hell out of me, and a statement of the reasons I feel as I do. I know there are those of you out there who will disagree with me, some perhaps vehemently. That is your absolute right — it’s what our First Amendment is all about — and I respect that. But be aware that I will not be responding to comments, pro or con. I do not engage in pissing contests. If you still want to read on, I invite you to do so, and I thank you.
- Brendochka]

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I rarely dabble in U.S. politics, at least not publicly. But an article by CNN’s Stephen Collinson on November 14, 2023, had such disturbing domestic and international implications, I simply could not ignore it.

I don’t know the history of the poster shown above (which I found online), but it perfectly depicts my thoughts and fears concerning the current U.S. presidential campaign.

In a perfect world, the blond guy on the right would not be in that lineup. He’s not a deceased European dictator; we all know the atrocities committed during the early to mid-20th Century by Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Benito Mussolini, and surely he’s not in that category. No, Donald Trump is an American, a former President of the United States, a would-be second-term President, and not a mass murderer. By all rights, he should never appear in a picture with those other three.

But . . .

But he is also an American who is currently defending 91 charges within four criminal cases in the U.S. Courts. Ninety-one charges that, if he were to be found guilty of all of them, could bring him combined maximum sentences of up to 712 years in prison, or so I have read. Not even Methuselah could still run a campaign after that much hard time!

But wait . . . there’s more. Donald Trump idolizes strongmen; Vladimir Putin comes immediately to mind. We’ve all known about that little bromance for some time now. And Trump believed when he was in the White House — and still believes, despite having been proven wrong time after time — that as President he possessed, and would again possess if he were to be re-elected, absolute power. He still operates under the illusion — or delusion — that he would be above the authority of all laws, including the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Department of Justice, rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court . . . and probably God Himself. Because he is Donald Trump. And in his parallel universe, Donald Trump reigns supreme.

And he doesn’t hesitate to say so . . . loudly, clearly, and repeatedly. And he does so in a rhetoric that daily becomes more and more frightening to those of us Americans who value our hard-won freedoms. On Saturday, November 11th — Veterans Day — he spoke at a rally in the small town of Claremont, New Hampshire, where he offered up the following promise to his potential constituents:

“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

“Root out”?!! . . . “Thugs”?!! . . . “Vermin”??!!! . . . From which of Hitler’s speeches did he plagiarize that sentence? And he went on, further warning that “the real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left, and it’s growing every day.” Personally, I feel threatened by the “radical” anything, but apparently he’s okay with the ones from his side.

With wars continuing to rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, and with Russia and China joining forces to establish a “new world order” of their own imagining, Trump — rather than focusing on unity at home — instead chose to push his favorite theme: divisiveness. In his words, “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.” He sounds as though he’ll be satisfied with nothing less than another all-out civil war. Way to go, Donnie — that’ll sure solve all our troubles!

I don’t mean to minimize our internal problems; we do have plenty, and they do need to be dealt with. He’s right about that. But not his way. He would have us forget Russia; forget China; forget North Korea; forget Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran and . . . oh, what the hell — let’s just forget them all. And while we’re at it, let’s drop out of NATO, thus ridding ourselves of the need ever again to worry about our allies, because we wouldn’t freakin’ have any allies left! He would have us believe we just need to focus on getting rid of the liberal left — and anyone who opposes Donald Trump’s beliefs — in our own country, and all will be well, forever and ever, amen. The triumph of 21st-Century American isolationism: The Gospel According to Trump.

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Donald Trump has also continued to zero in on “outsiders” and immigrants as juicy targets for his proposed feast of vengeance and — well, let’s just call it what it is — ethnic cleansing. He told the right-leaning National Pulse website that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease.” Another idea borrowed right out of Der Fuhrer’s playbook . . . remember that episode called “the Holocaust”?

I seem to recall Trump’s similar statement, either during his 2016 campaign or early in his presidency, to the effect that the “Mexicans” (his all-inclusive term for Latin American immigrants entering the U.S. across our southwestern borders) were “. . . bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Wow . . . how magnanimous of him!

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Luckily for my nervous system, Mr. Collinson’s article goes on to point out the differences between the world of the 1930s and ‘40s and the world of today, as well as the protections existing in our U.S. legal system that would hold Donald Trump in check if he were to be elected to a second term. But imagine, if you can, the cost in terms of time and money, and the inattention to domestic and world affairs that would result from our need to be focused constantly on his every spoken and tweeted word.

(Off the subject for just a moment: can we still “tweet” when “Twitter” is gone? Don’t we have to “X-pel” or something? Just a thought.)

But back on topic: Another four years of that sort of nightmare scenario would, I fear, do us in, individually and as a nation. And what would the domino effect be like throughout the rest of the world? To paraphrase the irrepressible Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I can only say . . .

“Quelle nightmare!”

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/19/23

[Again, credit and thanks to Stephen Collinson of CNN, for his article of Nov. 14, 2023, which saved me the time and trouble of searching elsewhere for the Trump quotations.]