November 3 will be a tipping point for the United States.
If the unspeakable unpresident is re-elected, we are almost certainly doomed to fall into a tyrannical state that none of us will recognize as America.
If Joe Biden wins he will face the possibility of armed insurrection, the continuing spread of COVID-19, and the need to repair a government in shambles. Above all, he will have to rid the country of the stink of Donald Trump that lies over it like a pernicious pall.
I believe he will accomplish all those things, but it will be a struggle. It is imperative that he win, because his election will be necessary to save this democracy.
Trump's ultimate goal, in the unthinkable case he wins a second term
and has a friendly Congress, is to dismantle American government.
One
has to ask what his motivation to do so could possibly be. Some of you
may have better ideas, which I welcome you to share with me, but I can
come up with only two possibilities:
1) He is doing so in collusion with a foreign power, most likely Vladimir Putin, to make the United States a vassal state; or
2)
He wants to create a new nation from scratch, in the form of what he
believes an ideal state should be. Let's call it Trumptopia.
Everything I know, or think I know, about the Tyrant-in-Chief suggests the latter, because he doesn't like to share. Despite his fame and alleged wealth, Trump has consistently failed
upward. The presidency should be his last stop, the culmination of his
version of the Peter Principle. But he wants more, as he always has. And
more for him would mean a nation reconstructed in his own image.
If you think he couldn't possibly do such a thing, think again. Read this article, titled "How Did Hitler Happen," and consider the parallels: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-did-hitler-happen
The transformation has already started. He has
tried at least a couple of times to use the Supreme Court to reduce the power and authority of
Congress. As screwed up as it is, Congress is an institution we need to
protect because it has oversight of presidential powers, and the Bully-in-Chief doesn't like being overseen.
As
we've recently witnessed, one of the roles Congress plays is to vet
the president's candidates for the federal judiciary, including the
Supreme Court. At the present moment that power is largely symbolic, but
it still stands as a safeguard against unilateral action by the
president to make the federal bench a political tool. I know that sounds naive in the light of today's realpolitik, but if we lose faith in the spirit of the Constitution we have nothing.
That said, it must be pointed out that the tyrant's minions must also be turned out or diminished in their power. If there was true justice in the world, the Archdemon Mitch "Moscow" McConnell and his imp, the loathsome Lindsey Graham, would be voted out of office. If that doesn't happen, then we have to trust the voters to give Democrats a solid majority in both houses of Congress in order to keep them caged.
Trumptopia
would be an autocracy, with all
power vested in Trump alone. In order to make that happen the
Constitution would effectively have to disappear. Not the document
itself, which resides in the National Archives, but the idea of it and
the code of law that is established upon it.
Hitler and other tyrants have arisen by using parts of existing systems that could further their ends and by simply ignoring others. The wannabe autocrat has used the process of nominating justices to the Supreme Court to seat three conservative justices. With an insuperable conservative majority he has effectively guaranteed the rollback of civil and healthcare rights regardless of who wins this election--and several after it.
The Thug-in-Chief has shown that he has no compunction about ignoring laws he doesn't like, and that extends to elements of the Constitution. There is an orderly process to amend the Constitution; the Founders were aware that no system is eternal. But the Idiot Child-in-Chief has no patience with processes. Like Hitler and other dictators, Trump would prefer to rule by fiat: what he says is the law, period. That is the motivation behind all those Executive Orders he issues, that so far have been inconsequential.
With traitors like Graham and McConnell in his pocket, and with a spineless vice-president and Cabinet, Trumptopia could become reality almost overnight.
There are enough books exposing and deriding Trump in print to stock a small library. One that should be given attention is Rick Wilson's Everything Trump Touches Dies. Don't be fooled by Wilson's humor. It doesn't lighten the dire message of the title. We can't let the United States of America be one more corpse that the most corrupt and criminal of presidents leaves shriveled in his wake.
So be alert, be vigilant, and if you haven't done so yet, get out and vote for Joe Biden. Every vote counts and every voice must be heard. We are Americans, not Trumptopians. The monster in the White House must be extirpated.
Sic semper tyrannis!
--- Diogenes, 11/1/2020
