There is Too Much at Stake.
From The Guardian Opinion Board
It is hard to imagine a worse candidate for the American presidency in 2024 than Donald J Trump. His history of dishonesty, hypocrisy and greed makes him wholly unfit for the office. A second Trump term would erode the rule of law, diminish America’s global standing and deepen racial and cultural divides. Even if he loses, Mr. Trump has shown that he will undermine the election process, with allies preading unfounded conspiracy theories to delegitimize the results.
There are prominent Republicans – such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney – who refused to support Mr. Trump owing to the threat he poses. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr. Trump, calls his former boss a “fascist”. America was founded in opposition to absolute monarchy. The Republican nominee models himself after the leader he most admires: Russia’s autocratic president, Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Trump’s authoritarianism may finish US democracy. He has praised and promised to pardon those convicted in the January 6 insurrection. He has suggested bypassing legal norms to use potentially violent methods of repression, blurring the lines between vigilantism, law enforcement and military action, against groups – be they Democrats or undocumented immigrants – he views as enemies.
His team has tried to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its extreme proposals – such as mass firings of civil servants and erasing women’s rights – that poll poorly. But it is likely that, in office, Mr. Trump would adopt many of these intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory plans. He aims to dismantle the government to enrich himself and evade the law. If Republicans gain control of the Senate, House and White House, he will interpret it as a mandate to silence his critics and entrench his power.
Mr. Trump is a transactional and corrupting politician. His supporters see this as an advantage. Christian nationalists want an authoritarian regime to enforce religious edicts on Americans. Elon Musk wants to shape the future without regulatory oversight. Both put self-interest ahead of the American people. Democracy erodes slowly at first, then all at once. In office, Mr. Trump appointed three supreme court justices, who this summer blocked efforts to hold him accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election: their immunity ruling renders the president “a king above the law”, in the words of the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor….
The Trump agenda threatens to dismantle voting rights, women’s rights and minority rights – not just reversing decades of social progress but burying it. Mr. Trump was behind the shredding of reproductive rights. The conservative forces rallying to him are now intent on imposing a national abortion ban, with – should he win – dire implications for IVF and birth control. Republicans have been hurt in the polls by being associated with such unpopular policies – a weak spot that Ms. Harris should keep exploiting.
The vice-president has energized Democrats with savvy media appearances while appealing to swing voters. Progressives, determined to defeat Mr. Trump, remain committed to freedom and equality. But Ms. Harris has disappointed those who have urged her to take a stand on US complicity in Israel’s bombing of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. Downplaying war crimes, as arms flow to Israel, has already harmed Democratic chances in key swing states like Michigan.
In a political system where style often rivals substance, perception is crucial. While Ms. Harris hasn’t made her race and gender central to her campaign, her victory would be historic: she would be the first woman, and the first woman of color, to be president. Symbolism matters to her base. Her candidacy rallied key constituencies – the young, women, African Americans and Hispanics – who were cooling on Mr. Biden. This election is a leap of faith in Ms. Harris, who offers a sense of possibility for the future, while Mr. Trump clings to a reactionary past.
Despite his criminal conviction and being declared a rapist by a judge, Mr. Trump remains dangerously close to reclaiming the presidency. Many voters still back a man who was the worst US president ever. But probably not a majority of US voters. Republicans benefit from a skewed electoral system: Democrats have won the popular vote in all but one election since 1992 and secured the overall popular majority for the Senate in every six-year cycle since 1996. Yet the country has often been led by Republican presidents and a GOP-controlled Senate, and therefore a Republican-dominated supreme court. In a close race in November, that could mean Mr. Trump doesn’t need to win the election – just a court case.
Mr. Biden has been a transformational political figure, but he didn’t transform the country…. Ms. Harris’s plans aim to recapture the spirit of Mr. Biden’s insurgency.
The US economy is stronger than it has been in decades, yet Mr. Trump consistently outpolls Ms. Harris on economic issues. This perhaps reflects decades of neoliberalism.
Political hope fades when we settle for what is, instead of fighting for what could be. Ms. Harris embodies the conviction that it’s better to believe in democracy’s potential than to surrender to its imperfections. The Republican agenda is clear: voter suppression, book bans and tax cuts for billionaires. Democrats seek global engagement, the GOP favors isolation. The Biden-Harris administration laid the groundwork for a net zero America. A Trumpian comeback would undo it. A Harris win, with a Democratic Congress, means a chance to restore good governance, create good jobs and lead the entire planet’s climate efforts. Defeating Mr. Trump protects democracy from oligarchy and dictatorship. There is too much at stake not to back Ms. Harris for president.
What Is in It for Them?
I have never understood why the former president would call John McCain a loser because he was a POW. I never understood why he referred to POWs as losers. I never understood why he did not want his picture taken with injured veterans. I never understood why he would disrespect the sacred ground where those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country are buried. The following explains it.
From the Guardian interview with the former president’s longest-term chief of staff, Retired Four-Star Marine General, John Kelly
At Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day 2017, Mr. Trump toured the section where recently killed service members are buried, including Mr. Kelly’s son Robert, a Marine who was killed in 2010 while fighting in Afghanistan.
While walking through the cemetery, Mr. Kelly recounted, Mr. Trump asked what had been in it for those who had given their lives.
“And I thought he was asking one of these rhetorical kind of, you know, questions,” Mr. Kelly said. “But I didn’t realize he was serious — he just didn’t see what the point was. As I got to know him, again, this selflessness is something he just didn’t understand. What’s in it for them?”
Keep this in mind when you are voting. Everything, and I mean everything, he does is in response to the question he asks himself with every decision he makes. What is in it for me?
Bully of all Bullies
From Robert Reich, opinion columnist and former U.S. Secretary of Labor.
I’ve spent most of my life fighting bullies, from the grade-school bullies who teased and threatened and occasionally pummeled me, to the white supremacists of the 1960s who murdered my friend Mickey Schwerner when he was trying to register Black voters in Mississippi.
I’ve protested Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war and worked to get Richard Nixon – whose henchmen broke into the Watergate complex and who then tried to cover up his illegal acts – impeached.
I watched Ronald Reagan bully Americans into accepting the cruel hoax of “trickle-down” economics and legitimize corporate bashing of labor unions.
I witnessed George W Bush insist on invading Iraq based on a lie that Iraq contained “weapons of mass destruction”, invading Afghanistan because it contained terrorists, and establishing a gulag of torture chambers across the world.
When I was US secretary of labor, I fought Republican bullies who wanted to make it easier for CEOs and their major investors to become richer by shafting their workers. Later, I fought Wall Street bullies who gambled away other people’s money and then, when their bets turned bad, got bailed out by taxpayers.
But in all my years, I have never come across a bully more squalid than Donald Trump.
He is the bully of all bullies. He emits dangerous lies like most people breathe.
He has demeaned and degraded our system of self-government, attempted a coup against the United States, divided Americans with venomous bigotry, and rewarded his rich backers with tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks.
Trump created a supreme court that took away women’s rights over their own bodies and immunized presidents from criminal liability.,,,,
At this juncture – two weeks from election day, with the race virtually tied in battleground states – none of us who cares about the future of this country can any longer afford to be a mere spectator.
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. A five-alarm fire. A category 5 hurricane. Do whatever you can. This is my Quote of the Day.
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Quote of the Day: “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. A five-alarm fire. A category 5 hurricane. Do whatever you can”. Rober Reich.
Orchid of the Day: Former President Barack Obama for his quoting from Eminem’s Lose Yourself after the former president was introduced by Eminem at a Harris political rally in Detroit on Tuesday. See my Video of the Day
Onion of the Day: Former Taylor Mayor Rick Sollars was sentenced Tuesday to almost six years in federal prison for corruption involving a crooked businessman who won city contracts after renovating the downriver politician’s home with new hardwood floors, a garage door, stainless steel kitchen appliances and more.
Question of the Day: What was in it for Them? Former president Trump’s question as he was touring Arlington National Cemetery.
So sad. A commander in chief who does not understand loyalty to the country over loyalty to oneself.
Image of the Day: Former President Barack Obama quoting Eminem’s Lose Yourself.