~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Donald Trump has never deigned to make amends for anything he’s ever done, and everyone who’s ever been in his inner circle has witnessed and/or paid for being close to his toxic scheming amid his violent, reactionary behavior (remember his throwing a hamburger against the wall?)
So, for voters this fall, the question has to be, “Do you want this country to continue the American experiment in democracy, or shall we call it quits?” This was a question asked by a Huntington Beach, CA, letter to the editor.
Appears to be a simple question.
The cognitive dissonance – holding two opposing views – in this case of living in a democratic republic with social justice and freedom of religion or practicing Trumpian Christianity and voting for a Trum – 42 percent to 46 percent of Americans (“Economist” 5-12-24, “New York Times” 5-5-24, “Fox News” 46 percent 5-10-24) are cognitive dissonant Trumpers.
Christianity, according to Britannica and other sources, is a belief in Jesus Christ to get one to heaven and to strive while here on earth to be a family committed to helping each other make a positive difference in the world.
Trumpism is a holy belief in Donald J. Trump to . . . save them from the devil Democrats, get rid of all Muslims, LGBTQs, people of color, a free Press and its reporters, the Department of Justice, Social Security, health care, clean air, the American Constitution . . . .
The dissonance bothers me because I don’t understand it. How does one live in a free republic and believe in Jesus and his kind, loving ways, encouraging humans to love one another and help each other while believing Trump in his hate, disparagement, “bloodbaths,” anger, revenge, lies? Lies about his income, his affairs, his genius, his golf scores?
The more I study him the more I understand that he believes everything is about him, not about a democracy, let alone Jesus; although he does mention now and then that he knows he has been chosen by God to be our president and therefore sells Bibles personally signed, like he wrote the book, right up there above Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who signed only their own letters.
We have been trained since 2016 by the media (Fox News thinks he’s the leader) or disruptor (left-leaning press) or the money-maker of media corporations (New York Times and other legacy new sources) of all politics. He is in fact not the leader but the front man for the plotting, educated, knowing-words-longer-than-one-syllable Far Right, power hungry, greedy, democracy-hating, mostly men plotters to get rid of democracy and freedom of religion and make this a white man’s “Christian” country.
He bleeds his followers dry crying poor because of his legal fines while Forbes estimates his wealth at $2.6 billion to $7.5 billion, his liquid cash at $413 million, on top of his presidential pension of $221,400 a year plus office space and staff at about $1 million a year. During his let’s-cut-taxes-to-the-wealthy-like-me years in office, he billed us U.S. taxpayers more than a million for renting his own property for offices and guests. And he can’t find the money to pay his legal fines?
The currently legally beleaguered ex-President is the foil of the Far Right: he is the out-front guy, the Carny entertainer, the rabble-rouser, the instigator of violence, the follow-my-example of loathing the “Other.” He auditioned perfectly for the misogynistic fool in a puerile TV show about losers, of which he is the biggest. And through as many machinations as he could employ, including allowing Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, he became our president.
What’s behind him for his hopeful future role as the once and future bad president is Project 2025, also called the Presidential Transition Project, a collection of policies to completely wipe out the U.S. federal government as we know it once he’s in again.
This wily, well, evil 2025 group said as early as 2022 “the “radical left hates families.” Does this mean that we on the left, whether radical or just plain left, do not belong to families, have no families? We are all orphans, spinsters and bachelors who want to “eliminate the family and replace it with the state”? This Republican minority that has long been more invasive in the private lives of citizens than the Left ever thought of wants to rule on who we marry, plus make sure our vaginas are obeying their laws?
The 2025ers also like totalitarian governments – North Korea, Russia, Hungary, Venezuela.
To delineate the goals of Project 2025, here is a smidgen of their view of America as it needs to be according to their democracy-denying souls:
1. Purpose: The project aims to thoroughly reshape the federal government to support the agenda of the Republican Party president.
2.Recruitment: Recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia. The goal is to replace existing federal civil servants (whom Republicans characterize as the “deep state”) and further the objectives of the next Republican president.
3.Maximalist Interpretation: Project 2025 adopts a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory, asserting that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration.
4.Widespread Changes: The blueprint envisions widespread changes across the entire government, particularly in economic and social policy. Proposed actions include:
-Slashing funding for the Department of Justice (DOJ).
-Dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
-Reducing environmental and climate change regulations in favor of fossil fuel production.
-Eliminating the Department of Commerce.
-Ending the independence of various federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
5.Tax Cuts: Project 2025 recommends instituting tax cuts.
6.Education: It suggests abolishing the Department of Education, transferring its programs to other government agencies or terminating them.
7.Scientific Research: Scientific research will receive federal funding only if it aligns with conservative principles.
8.Abortion and Contraception: The project urges the government explicitly to reject abortion as health care and restrict access to contraception.
9.Christian Faith: Project 2025 seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christian faith, stating that “freedom is defined by God, not man.”
To quote a couple of qualified Trump observers:
Michael C. Dorf, a U.S. Constitutional law scholar, author and legal expert for American news organizations describes Trump in media outlet “Irish Star” on March 12, 2024 as “a racist, sexist xenophobe who would undermine democracy at home and abroad, whose signal achievements as President were tax cuts for the wealthy and the packing of a reactionary Supreme Court, and who has been indicted on more criminal charges than years Biden has been alive . . . .”
As vital information for voters, Media Matters wrote about Trump’s promise to repeal climate action if he received more campaign donations from oil executives. Trump had a party at Mar-a-Lago for oilmen, offering them a $1 billion proposition if they would donate “a lot more” than the $6.4 million they’ve already given to his campaign fund.
This is a political quid pro quo of the most egregious kind. And other than Media News and MSNBC, national TV did not mention this outrageous proposition. When the Washington Post finally picked it up, they said that “Trump has promised to cater to its [the oil industry’s] every desire in a second term.”
Great. The United States already provides – and has for more than a century – a number of tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry as a means of encouraging domestic energy production. These include both direct subsidies to corporations as well as other tax benefits to the fossil fuel industry. And those gas companies raise gas prices at will.
For a change in outlook and an earnest consideration of whom to vote for:
President Joe Biden calls global warming an “existential threat,” and over his three years in office, his administration has finalized more than 100 environmental regulations to cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, restrict toxic chemicals and conserve public lands and waters.
In comparison, Trump calls climate change a “hoax,” (the word he uses for his criminal trials, his losing the presidency, the declarations of dozens of women accusing him of predatory sexual behavior, the free press, the Department of Justice; doesn’t it sound like his whole life is a hoax?); and his administration decapitated more than 125 environmental rules and policies over the four years of his first razor cuts to American democracy. (Media matters 5-17-24 )
