Looking Back At That Awful Day - Remembering How This Began

[bigtree]

..here's what I wrote to the temporary server when DU was hacked:

ON Tuesday, less than half of America declared war on their fellow Americans by sending a dangerously unstable demagogue, a obsessive compulsive megalomaniac, to lord over us in the White House. Prominent among those who voted for Donald Trump was a sizable bloc of people who share his racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and bigoted views.

As I sit here watching Pres.-elect Trump's plane land, as he makes his way to the White House after accepting the invitation of the man he insisted for years wasn't a U.S. citizen, and unqualified to be president, I'm absolutely overwhelmed with anxiety and foreboding for the futures of my fellow countryfolk.

I’m looking at the official reception of Trump’s presidency, and I’m witnessing a critical disconnect between the warnings Pres. Obama gave about a man with Trump's character and temperament assuming responsibility for our nuclear arsenal, as well as the rest of the myriad levers and hair-triggers of the presidency - mechanisms which can work to keep us safe and secure, or, conversely, plunge our lives into chaos and devastation - contrasted against the post-election politeness coming from him and Trump’s campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, urging us to 'keep an open mind,' and to give this man room to succeed.

So much of the Trump appeal in the campaign was directed at assuaging those forces which are actively working to limit or eliminate our government's protections, defenses, or aid to the vulnerable, imperiled, or afflicted among us. There was zero conciliation with the targets of his often vindictive agenda - no healthcare alternative offered, for example, to replace the Obamacare he pledged to repeal; no regard expressed for the innocent, productive, but undocumented residents who are now facing a very real threat of a major upheaval of their lives as Trump and his republican-dominated legislature threaten to muscle them out of the country, as he promised. Only his self-promoting insistence that whatever he devised would suit us all.

Trump supporters at the polls voted to effectively allow 100's of thousands of us to die unnecessarily every year for need of life sustaining medical care enabled through the ability to obtain or afford insurance.

Trump supporters voted to allow our planet to die, with the candidate promising to reverse and eliminate every vestige of the Obama administration's efforts to unilaterally move ahead of the republican Congress' obstinacy and resistance to efforts to confront and address climate change and global warming.

Trump supporters voted to re-institutionalize racism and bigotry - usher in a new era of 'Jim Crow' - rallying behind their candidate's promise to 'ban' Muslim immigrants and advancing the man who openly disparaged the character and reputation of Mexican immigrants and citizens, alike. Trump supporters voted to uproot the lives of 742,000 young DREAMers, and place Trump in charge of thousands granted refuge and protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Trump supporters voted allow a regression in women's rights, from their candidate’s threats to reproductive choices, to implicit disregard for, and pledged hostility toward, declared victims of sexual assault. They’ve advanced a man to the highest office in the land who has been recorded bragging about his ability to ‘grab’ women in the most private of places - bragging that he’s essentially entitled to the assault by the mere virtue of his position.

Trump supporters have voted to allow Russia a role in our government’s consideration which is as dismissive as their candidate has been of Putin’s government’s abuses and intrusions into our political process – not to mention the myriad other activities of the regime which run counter to the legitimate and vital interests of our nation and our allies. Not surprisingly, just this morning, news came that a Russian ambassador is bragging of coordination between the actual Trump campaign and the Politburo.

Trump supporters have voted to legitimize white supremacy, most notably, the Klan, advancing a man into the White House who hired an avowed white supremacist as a senior coordinator of his campaign for president. Indeed, the entire white supremacy network is openly celebrating the Trump presidency as validation of their own brand of bigotry, racism, and divisive hatred.

Trump supporters voted to allow, sight-unseen, any conflict-of-interest their candidate will almost certainly have as president between his office and his many business interests and debts. Whatever he’s been hiding in his tax returns will tell that sordid tale. Couple that with an upcoming court date in his Trump University fraud trial, and you have a presidency so mired in scandal that it will have zero authority to dictate anything from that high office.

One of the only believable rationalizations offered for the disturbing and consequential statements Trump has made in this campaign, and what he’s said in the past, is that, perhaps, he didn’t really mean any of it. It was all just self-serving patter designed to win an election. That would make some sense, looking at the contradictions, duplicity, and flip-flops which have marked any (rare) discussion from the candidate about policy. He’s just an opportunistic demagogue.

What I believe is that Trump supporters have elected a dangerous, life-threatening sociopath who will only tolerate the needs of Americans as far as his own narrow, often personal, interests are defended and enhanced. I really don’t need any more evidence of this. Trump’s entire campaign has been a stark and sobering preview of the horror-show ahead. I truly fear for our nation in a way that I don’t really believe I even fully comprehend the depths we will sink to before we have hope of recovering.

We need to prepare for what will be a long and grueling opposition. We need to prepare and organize.



...and again, a week after inauguration

We should consider Trump as more than just a threat to democratic institutions/principles
...but a threat to our democracy, itself.

Among the most troubling of Donald Trump's actions have to be the almost daily tweets and declarations from the Chief Executive denigrating the press for daring to criticize him, the majority of his statements opposing them proven demonstrably and unequivocally false.

There's also the, now rescinded, gag orders on several government agencies which would have effectively blocked the free flow of information about the actions and product of our government offices.

In addition, there has been a flurry of executive orders from Trump which has exceeded those issued during President Obama's first week., on track to far outpace the former president's reliance on EOs to overcome republican obstruction. There's no such barrier to legislative progress for Trump, so it's a curious and contradictory exercise considering his and other republicans' many criticisms of President's Obama's.

His behavior reeks of every pattern of the history of autocratic heads of state who fomented severe disruption and destruction of democratic institutions in their countries and ushered in dictatorships or other imperialistic rule.

That's not to suggest that our own democracy is so degraded to easily allow some sort of swift takeover. Yet, there's also a functionally compliant republican legislature in place, well prepared to manipulate our democratic process of law and elections to accommodate and perpetuate such an autocratic rule.

So, plainly speaking, we should be openly asking if Trump is dismantling our democracy in favor of autocratic rule, especially since many of his major actions are directed at taking away so many vestiges of our compacts between government and American citizens, like health care and other social and economic benefits; all the while enriching himself, personally, with unaccountable business interests conflicting with our nation's interests here and around the globe.

I believe, very reluctantly, but resolutely, that Donald Trump is proving himself to be a threat to our democracy. What's less sure to me is where we institutionally trigger that distinction or determination. What I fear is that the closer we allow ourselves to come to that point, the greater the risk that he succeeds.

Posted by bigtree | Sat Jan 28, 2017, 10:58 AM

How Most Of Us Feel Right Now


Leftfielder™ ?@DaleMoss2
“We feel the difference now. See, now, we're feeling what not having hope feels like" - Michelle Obama
Posted by bigtree | Fri Jan 20, 2017, 01:24 PM

[Frasier Balzov]

1. That certainly was prescient.

In defense of the 2016 Trump voter, most only knew him as that businessman from The Apprentice.

Everybody knows him a lot better now.

[still_one]

2. Trump did not hide his racism, bogotry, and sexism during his 2016 campaign. While Comey's

interference in the election was a major factor, the fact remains that anyone who voted for trump in 2016 either didn’t care that he was a racist, sexist, and bigot, or shared those values

[dalton99a]

5. +1. Republicans knew and denounced him during the primary

and then lined up to kiss his ass.

[betsuni]

3. A quibble about the post-election politeness of Obama and Clinton. Anything else would've been seen

as purely partisan. It was barely polite. They knew what Trump was and why he was "elected."

Not like some politicians who didn't understand that white identity was the appeal of Trump, the effect of Russian interference and the gutting of the voter's rights act and Republican voter suppression, but blamed Democrats for the imaginary sin of having the same economic policies as Republicans and ignoring the working class: "Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I disagree ... it wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election. We need a Democratic Party that is not of the liberal elite but of the working class of this country ... ."

[bigtree]

4. the observation at the time wasn't 'blaming Democrats' at all

...I understand the diplomatic words of support were for the office, not the man, part of a window of comity that most reasonable people would afford a new administration.

We now know that Donald Trump should have been shunned and denounced from day one. I don't think it would happen because we're not ruthless assholes, but he didn't deserve a second of understanding or room to move. He was as corrupt as he told us he was.

[llmart]

6. I can't wait until this coming January...

because I want to see the Clintons and the Obamas sitting front row at the inauguration of President Biden with huge, happy smiles on their faces AND a massive crowd even bigger than the faked picture the dump had made up for his inauguration.