I try to avoid listening to anything ex-President Donald Trump says or does because, well, “consider the source” as my Dad used to say.
However, the narcissistic, gasbag who disgraced himself while President is running for the White House again (why/how the G.O.P. would let this happen again is anyone’s guess!) and is again, like in his previous campaigns, saying a lot of stupid and incendiary things just to get a rise out of his nationalistic M.A.G.A. base.
It’s working, to some extent… he’s the presumptive G.O.P. nominee.
At a recent convention of California Republicans, Trump excited the crowd by promising that, as President, he would authorize the police to shoot shoplifters on sight. The crowd erupted in cheers which, of course, was the purpose of the incendiary remarks: “I’m a tough guy, I love the cops, and we need to teach those urban thugs a lesson!”
(It is interesting that Trump, an individual who is currently under indictment for many crimes and who protests that the accused “are innocent until proven guilty”, would deny that right to others. Maybe it is because he believes that he is special, in some way? Possibly, in his mind, “equal justice under the law” doesn’t apply to billionaires or ex-Presidents?)
Well, of course, the President of the United States has no authority to authorize local police to do anything, so his “promise” was just fluff, similar to his campaign promise in 2016 that he would “make Mexico pay for an impenetrable border wall”. Whatever the crowd wants, candidate Trump will promise to accomplish that in spades. Let’s face it: he’s a salesman, bottom line.
Still, it is unnerving to listen to a candidate for public office in America, the shining example of democracy and a country which respects the “rule of law”, who would publicly support a police state governed by a “strong man”. I think back several years, when Donald Trump was President, when our Nation’s leader publicly fawned over dictators like Xi of China, Un of North Korea, Putin of Russia, and Duterte of the Philippines. He liked their style (absolute power) then and he apparently wants to emulate those tyrants in the U.S.A.
That is shameful for an American and scary, but what is more scary is that Trump seemingly has a headlock on the G.O.P. Presidential nomination for 2024. What are those idiot Republicans thinking?
Have any of you ever gone to the local supermarket, WalMart, or Costco, exited after paying for your goods at a “self check=out”, gone to the car to load it up with your purchases and realized that, OMG, there is an item in the cart that you failed to scan??? I’ve done it a few times. (Of course, I’ve also gotten home with my purchases and realized that I never loaded in my cart the bagged ICE that I paid for and failed to pick up on the way out of the store!)
Just think: if Trump’s Shoplifting Goon Squad was scrutinizing the action and realized that I had not paid for one of the items in my basket, those trigger-happy M.A.G.A. cowboys would be justified to shoot me dead without benefit of an explanation. That’s scary. What’s more scary is that, realistically, this kind of summary justice would probably be most often carried out against people of color because, let’s face it, those are the folk’s that are the target of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. “Poor people do bad things and they must be harshly punished” seems to be the billionaire’s message… right out of “Les Miserables”.
(Interestingly, in a 2014 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, research showed that almost 78 percent of shoplifters in America are WHITE, while 8 percent are Black and 8 percent are Latino.)
Of course, if you listen to any of Trump’s recent public pronouncements while on the campaign trail, it is quite evident that the ex-President’s intention, if elected, is to seek revenge/retribution against all of his “enemies”, much like one of Stalin’s purges in the old U.S.S.R. Democrats, teachers, the press, LBGQT individuals, public employees, non-Christians, intellectuals, environmentalists, gun-control activists, union members, poor people and residents of Blue states would be in serious jeopardy.
Recently, while on the campaign trail, Trump said that the retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 4-star General of the Army Mark Milley was a “traitor” and should “be shot”. What prompted this, you ask? In January 2021, Gen. Milley did not kowtow to the President when he tried to orchestrate a bloodless coup after the 2020 election that Trump lost by 7 million votes. So, in Donald’s warped mind, the General was “disloyal”.
Disloyal to whom?
All military men, officers and enlisted, swear an oath to defend Constitution of the United States from “all enemies foreign and domestic”. (Note: at his Presidential Inauguration, Donald Trump swore that same oath.) That would naturally include coup attempts. Neither General Milley, nor anyone else in the military, ever swore an oath of loyalty to Donald J. Trump, so the idea of “disloyalty” could only be ginned up in the mind of a narcissistic egomaniac/wannabe dictator who disdains our Constitution.
The ex-President, who has been indicted for about 90 civil and criminal charges, has also been publicly trashing President Biden, his son Hunter, Democrats in Congress, Governors, judges, prosecutors, and potential witnesses… seeking to intimidate them with not-to-subtle retaliation should these legal proceeding continue. Some of his M.A.G.A. cultists have followed up with harassment and death threats on folks who are just doing their jobs per State and Federal constitutions.
This reminds me of the last time something like this happened, in the final days of the Trump Presidency. Does anyone remember our President inciting an angry mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 because… Donald Trump had lost an election and he was unhappy. People lost their lives that day thanks to Trump’s crushed ego and disregard of the U. S. Constitution.
It is going to get ugly in the next several months, as the 2024 Presidential campaign heats up while, simultaneously, Donald Trump’s many legal struggles play out in State and Federal courts. Already, decisions are starting to come down against the former President and he is angry and becoming more desperate. His rabid fan base is, seemingly, waiting for instructions from a man whose chief talent is “selling ice cream to Eskimos”.
As French philosopher Voltaire once said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.
No truer words were ever spoken.