election – Even A Broken Clock

Memories! It’s amazing how memories can be manipulated. They are actually claiming conditions were so much better under the past administration, and if we only grant them our vote again, they will institute nirvana once more. Well, I invite all who have short memories to look at the archives of this blog. I began the blog after the inauguration of Donald Trump, and have kept it ever since. It is a reflection of the chaos we all felt set down in real time. But what I now see is that the chaos does not matter to so many of today’s citizens who may vote in November for Trump. No, what matters is ignorance. A recent poll from NBC shows that people who use newspapers to learn about the world favor Biden over Trump by a 70%-29% margin, while people who don’t follow political news favor Trump over Biden by a 53%-27% margin. Hidden within these numbers is a belief that traditional media gives a more comprehensive understanding vs. reading T-shirt slogans. I know some reject that belief.

So we now understand the reason why so many people are supporting Donald Trump. They are ignorant of the real issues. At last, a real reason for why people are voting against their long-term interests. They believe politics are totally outside of their concern, and they have no need to understand issues or have any sort of political perspective. They are content just to skim the surface of culture, and are subject only to the loudest voice. That is why one party is able to claim the exact opposite of reality and get enough folks to buy into it that they are able to win elections.

I do understand that there are many who have bought into Trumpian principles. Some of them are true believers in the Republican mantra of lower taxes and smaller government, and they honestly believe other positions are evil and must be opposed. Bill Barr fits into this category, since he has come around to supporting Trump since the Biden / Democrat leftist thrust (according to him) is so evil, Trump is better by comparison. More than a few also share in the Trumpian racism which is reflected in so many of his positions, such as a vituperative distrust of any immigrants from what is called the Third World. These are the ones who believe in the great replacement theory, wherein whites are being deliberately forced into subservience and minority status, primarily by Jews who are pulling the strings of society. These are the hard core of Trump’s support, and no one will ever convince them otherwise.

No, what seems as if it is defining the election to come is the core of lazy and ignorant people who refuse to get involved. They may be convincible about the total unfitness of Donald Trump for presidential responsibilities. Somehow we must show these folks that the upcoming election is not an ordinary choice between opposing views of government. What we have instead, is a choice between reality, and a fantasy world of entrapment. Should we choose the latter, what might we expect?

For one, expect an attempt to be made to expel all who do not possess legal status inside of the US. Even if those who have a status of undocumented have lived within this country for decades, and have obeyed all other laws during that time, there will not be an exception made for good behavior. The mere act of illegal immigration will be enough to offset any subsequent behavior, and forced expatriation will be pursued throughout the second Trump administration. Expect scenes to be broadcast of crops rotting in neglected fields, followed by inflation in all prices agricultural. Remember that we no longer have a meat packing workforce that employs legal residents, so prices for all farm protein will also skyrocket. If we thought prices escalated during the Biden administration, you can expect many times that level of inflation to afflict US consumers during the next administration.

Restaurants will close down as the work force disappears. Schools will be in flux as some students abruptly leave in order to accompany their families across a border to a land totally alien to them. Television crews will focus on those left behind, some with family support, but others trying to tough it out having lost both parental figures. The GDP of the country will nosedive as the US attempts to compensate for the loss of a substantial portion of its labor force.

This all did not have to happen. Immigration policy has been verboten to resolution in our congress for decades. Now, it appears the issue will be forced upon us because of the threats coming from one of the two political parties in this nation.

Other consequences we can expect? How about the abandonment of the rule of law, both domestic and foreign. We can expect the commitments to international order to vanish in a flurry of Presidential decrees, and people will be surprised to see an expansion in international conflicts, instead of the peace promised by Republicans. An attempt will be made to seize the levers of control for the US justice department, and only court challenges will potentially stop that from happening. Expect the job market for attorneys to ramp up, while productivity in the US economy slows to a crawl.

Of course, food-borne illnesses will take a huge jump up, as we abandon any semblance of regulatory control. All of the guard rails set up to prevent financial players from gouging clueless consumers? Gone in a blink. The political group that wants to eliminate Darwin from the schools has no qualms about unleashing financial Darwinism on the hapless people who live on the margins of the economy.

The controls on women of reproductive age will tighten. Reproductive rights? Merely a mirage, nothing to see here, your duty is to produce a new generation of citizens. The right kind of citizens, that is. Remember the laws against miscegenation? They were big when America was Great. Those same laws will reappear to prevent our culture from homogenizing. You want your government to monitor the status of your pregnancy? Your wish will be fulfilled in many states.

Worst of all, we will see the continued crackdown on political expression. TDS will become a capital offense, Even the far corners of the internet, like this blog, will be searched and forbidden. Those who think this is all hyperbole? Just go ahead with the election of Donald Trump and see how many of these projections come to fruition. This is not my choice of societies to live in for my remaining years. Unfortunately, societal dystopia may be coming for us all.

I began this blog in early 2017. Thus the entire period that I’ve placed my words out into the ether have come during the Presidency of Donald Trump. I’ve used what wit I possess to attempt to persuade others of the utter vapidity and unsuitability of that man to hold the office of President of the United States. I’ve been accused of TDS, and of not accepting the results of the last election, and I can deal with that. I’ve also had the opportunity to share bits of life from West Virginia, and certain thoughts I’ve had on the sciences, sports, and reminiscences. But over everything hung the pall of Donald Trump.

Now we are within a day of the election where I hope there is a wholesale denunciation of the character and actions of this charlatan con-man. But even if the polls are to be believed, we still live in a country where over 40% of the inhabitants who bother to vote, still want a continuation of the abysmal results of the last four years. That alone bothers me. It concerns me that so many Americans know so little about their past that they think only the present matters. It concerns me that so many Americans are willing to throw away hard-earned bricks of freedom in exchange for the pabulum of reality television. I am concerned that we will not find it possible to re-emerge after the election with a national sense of purpose and identity, because the 40+% who favor Trump do not share any of the vision I have about this nation’s purpose and identity.

Assuming Biden wins, some of the actions of the last four years can be reversed almost immediately. The horrendous decision to pull out of the WHO will never take place, since it wouldn’t have taken place until next July, and the Biden administration will be certain that it never happens. Some will take time. If the Republican attorney generals who brought the misbegotten suit against the ACA have their way, the Supreme Court will eviscerate that legislative act. Hopefully they will provide an interim period before the act is inactivated. The new administration will need to use that time to come up with a new legislative solution, perhaps one that incorporates many of the proposals made during the campaign.

But what will remain is the imprint of the Trump administration on the judiciary. The Faustian bargain that Republicans made with Donald Trump was to have the Federalist Society provide the acceptable list of judicial candidates, and then the Republicans would overlook all of Trump’s failings in exchange for this wholesale remaking of the judiciary. I’m old enough to remember when the radical fringe of Republicans were clamoring for the impeachment of Earl Warren, since they viewed him as the avatar of all evil in the US. Imagine declaring that schools needed to be integrated! Imagine that someone believes the Constitution requires eliminating state sponsored prayer in school! Imagine that someone believes a person accused of a crime had a set of rights that had to be enunciated when they were arrested, and if those rights were not shared, the person could be released even if they were guilty of a crime! It was for these and other similar errors of judgment that the John Birch Society wing of the Republicans demanded the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. That smoldering fire finally re-ignited into a blaze during this current administration. The effect on the judiciary and the Supreme Court will be felt for decades to come, ensuring that the court falls further and further out of synch with the direction of the nation.

It will be interesting to see what realignment and renunciation of the previous administration occurs within the halls of Congress if Trump is defeated. Will it be possible for those Republicans who had surgically attached themselves to the generous hips of Donald Trump, to extract themselves from their current folly? Or will we see the splintering of the party into two factions: one, a populist wing based upon Trumpian concepts; and two, a wing of pragmatists who believe in conservative principles. Similarly, if the Democrats assume control of all three elective branches of the Federal government, will they be able to hold together the two factions in their party. The wing that believes, like the Trumpian wing, that the entire structure of government needs to be demolished and replaced with an idealistic new structure. Or, the wing that believes in incremental changes to the current structure, ensuring that change is more gradual.

I would not be surprised to see an eventual realignment into a three party system. One would be based upon the Trump position of isolation and America First, one would be the Democratic Socialists, and one would be the centrists who wish to tinker with the current structure. How those structural changes could be brought about remains to be seen. We’ve lived with the current two parties for over 150 years. Yet the events of the past four years has shown that it may not be possible to reconcile the disparate belief systems back into the previously defined containers.

First things first, though. If Trumpism is not repudiated on November 3, then the existential threat that is Donald Trump will have enough time to dismantle the structures and mores of our government so that we may not survive as a nation to have another election.

Even if Trump is defeated, I still worry about the damage he can do during the remaining time he has left in office. For those who are fans of Lord of the Rings, think Saruman and his deliberate attempt to spread evil in the Shire after he was thrown down. Doing destruction merely because it formed his only form of revenge. That is what I can foresee if Biden wins on November 3.

Tag: election

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