True, all true, but it scants the most important question: How did Donald Trump get the "right," or permission, or mandate (hah!), to do all this? Short version: He didn't come out of nowhere. The Republican Party has been becoming less and less democratic -- less committed to the Constitution and what we like to call "the rule of law" -- since Nixon's "Southern Strategy," a response to the civil rights advances of the 1960s. It had long been the party of the wealthy and the corporate, but it was the party of small towns, rural areas, and often suburbs. The Reagan "revolution" was actually a counter-revolution against a U.S. that was becoming ever more diverse and egalitarian. It brilliantly enlisted millions of white working people to vote against their own economic interests -- which they continued to do right up to the election of 2024. (Yes, the Supreme Court helped *a lot* with the Citizens United decision of 2010.)
This "personalist" regime didn't come out of nowhere either. How often have you heard voters say, rather proudly, that they vote for the candidate, not the party? Except at the most local levels, "no candidate is an island, entire of itself" (sorry, John Donne). Neither are countries in the modern world. Those currently in charge of the U.S. government seem to believe that we'll do fine as our own little island. I have my doubts. We'll see how it goes.
I look so forward to the day when he is committed to the memory unit, dies in office or is voted out of office. In my mind, that will become the second Independence Day and the removal of anything Trump will begin.
My deep concern is that ‘We the People’ are in the age of Trump-ism (aka the MAGA Republican Party) not just Trump. Trump is doing their will ~ re. Project 2025!
Imho, America 🇺🇸 is very, very, very… ill 🤒, the only real question 🙋♂️ is whether it’s terminal. When Ben Franklin said upon the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention ~ Madam you have "A republic, if you can keep it", he was issuing a stark warning. He meant that the delegates had designed a government "by and for the people", but its survival ultimately depended on the active civic engagement, vigilance, and virtue of everyday citizens.
‘We the People’ certainly have been in very dire straits before in our 250 year history and were able to recover. I hope 🤞 and pray 🙏, as I’m sure do you, that we do so yet again.
I deeply believe that we need to find and elect a POTUS who both understands and has the political capabilities to address the societal issues of this AI Revolution 🤖 Age as FDR did those of the Industrial Revolution Age.
True, all true, but it scants the most important question: How did Donald Trump get the "right," or permission, or mandate (hah!), to do all this? Short version: He didn't come out of nowhere. The Republican Party has been becoming less and less democratic -- less committed to the Constitution and what we like to call "the rule of law" -- since Nixon's "Southern Strategy," a response to the civil rights advances of the 1960s. It had long been the party of the wealthy and the corporate, but it was the party of small towns, rural areas, and often suburbs. The Reagan "revolution" was actually a counter-revolution against a U.S. that was becoming ever more diverse and egalitarian. It brilliantly enlisted millions of white working people to vote against their own economic interests -- which they continued to do right up to the election of 2024. (Yes, the Supreme Court helped *a lot* with the Citizens United decision of 2010.)
This "personalist" regime didn't come out of nowhere either. How often have you heard voters say, rather proudly, that they vote for the candidate, not the party? Except at the most local levels, "no candidate is an island, entire of itself" (sorry, John Donne). Neither are countries in the modern world. Those currently in charge of the U.S. government seem to believe that we'll do fine as our own little island. I have my doubts. We'll see how it goes.
I look so forward to the day when he is committed to the memory unit, dies in office or is voted out of office. In my mind, that will become the second Independence Day and the removal of anything Trump will begin.
Cheer up! Trump’s obituary has already been written
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley.
If it didn’t break the meter, I’d add ‘bleary’ before ‘sneer’, but otherwise the shoe fits rather well.
Well said Don!
My deep concern is that ‘We the People’ are in the age of Trump-ism (aka the MAGA Republican Party) not just Trump. Trump is doing their will ~ re. Project 2025!
Imho, America 🇺🇸 is very, very, very… ill 🤒, the only real question 🙋♂️ is whether it’s terminal. When Ben Franklin said upon the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention ~ Madam you have "A republic, if you can keep it", he was issuing a stark warning. He meant that the delegates had designed a government "by and for the people", but its survival ultimately depended on the active civic engagement, vigilance, and virtue of everyday citizens.
‘We the People’ certainly have been in very dire straits before in our 250 year history and were able to recover. I hope 🤞 and pray 🙏, as I’m sure do you, that we do so yet again.
I deeply believe that we need to find and elect a POTUS who both understands and has the political capabilities to address the societal issues of this AI Revolution 🤖 Age as FDR did those of the Industrial Revolution Age.
🙏❤️🩹🇺🇸🌎🌍🌏
So so sad. 🙏🙏🙏💙
Trump's world? What an abysmal situation.