I've
been avoiding all things political for weeks months!,
scrolling past everything that even smacked of politics, to the point
of staying off FB because even scrolling past I am still inundated
with the headlines and the meanness and fear and demonization and
hatefulness and the total lack of compassion or decency or even
politeness that has infiltrated this country, all of that seeps into
my consciousness and it's like a bad taste in my mouth, an oily tang.
I
rarely comment on news postings now and I have mostly stopped reading
the comments altogether. I have enough trouble finding good in human
beings as it is and if social media is the mirror of society that it
is purported to be, I'm not likely to change my opinion any time
soon. Few know how to be civil or even care about civility. It's a
race to the bottom to see who can be the most vile in their comments.
If they aren't insulting your integrity simply because you don't
agree with them then they are threatening you with violence and if
you are a woman, then it's double down in the most crude way
possible. This is America today.
The
Texas Republican party had their convention last May and voted on
their new state platform that consists of 266 items. Last
time one of the planks in their platform was being against teaching
critical thinking in the schools because it might cause children to
question their parents/authority for
real.
Some of the things they voted on to include this year
are the complete repeal of the Voting Rights Act; the phase out of
Social Security and, of course, the immediate repeal of the ACA;
abolishing
the IRS as well as the Departments of Education, Energy, Housing,
Commerce, Health, BLM, Transportation, and the ATF; the right to just
ignore federal laws they don't like; abolish the minimum wage; the
demand for a Constitutional Convention so as to gut the basic
principals of this country and allow them to hate on those icky other
gendered people and deny them equal rights cause their god says so
and run them out of town on a rail, so to speak, as well as chucking
the whole separation of church and state thing so that they can
impose their twisted form of religion on the government and through
the government; and of course being totally against abortion,
outlawing it completely as if that will stop it from happening. The
petition to secede did not make it on the list but only just barely.
Now
the national Republican convention is over and Trump has the
nomination. Every speech given was full of lies and full of fear and
finally Trump himself got up there and promised not to
lie and then stood up there and lied or if he actually had a raw fact
correct, it was presented in such a way as to be totally misleading.
I'm not going to analyze his speech. Plenty of people have done so
already pointing out the falsehoods and the inaccurate
extrapolations. That anyone would vote for this man is scary. That
he might actually become president of this country is a nightmare.
That one of my brothers-in-law is a Trump supporter leaves me
speechless on the one hand and aghast that I have been such a bad
judge of his character all this time on the other.
It's
not that Trump lies, which he does and mostly, or that he's
unrepentant about it. It's not that he hasn't floated one single bit
of policy or plan on how he would accomplish all his aggrandized
statements of 'making America great again' aren't
we still the richest biggest superpower? or
'getting America back'
code for 'making America white again',
which he hasn't. It's not that he hasn't any idea of what it takes
to govern having never been in any kind of public office rich
people don't govern, they give orders although
all that is certainly extremely important.
It's
that he is completely unsuited to hold the office of President.
This
is a man who in an interview before the 2008 crash said he HOPED the
bubble would burst because then he and people like him would make a
lot of money. He HOPED that thousands/millions of people would lose
their homes because of bad banking practices so that he, Donald
Trump, could make a lot of money. This is a man whose endeavor after
endeavor has failed and oftentimes filed bankruptcy, who always
managed to protect his money and so the fall was taken by everyone
else. This is a man who has built his empire and his fortune by
screwing over his contractors by not paying them or by paying them a
pittance of money owed. This is a man who imports foreign workers so
he can pay them less. This is a man who blames the opposition for
jobs and industry lost and who has his gear made anywhere but in
America. This is a man who is saddened because protestors can
protest without the police or paid 'enforcers' bashing in their
skulls so he encourages his followers to do it instead and then
offers to pay their legal bills. This is a man whose supporters give
him the Nazi salute. This is a man who lusts after his own daughter.
This is a man who sics his lawyer on anyone who disses him with the
orders to not just get even but to destroy the perpetrator. This is
a man who cannot talk about anything but how great he is. This is a
man who in his acceptance speech promised he would protect LGBTQ
citizens from FOREIGN ideology but said nothing about domestic
ideology and whose party platform calls for legalizing discrimination
against the LGBTQ community. This is a man who casts everyone who
isn't white and male as somehow deficient or evil or a criminal. This is a man who has chucked political correctness aside to 'say what he thinks' and in the process has legitimized hate, racism, and violence against those that are hated. This is a man who gained
political support from people by threatening to ruin their careers if
elected if they didn't support him. This is a man who has hinted
that he will hire someone to do the parts of being President that he
doesn't want to do.
He
is vindictive, a bigot, a sexist, a liar, a narcissist, he admires
totalitarian dictators for their 'control', he never apologizes only
attacks, he surrounds himself with yes-men, has not bothered to learn
anything about policy, he is, for all his wealth, incompetent, he is
a bully whose only response to any criticism is to demean in the
worst possible way the perpetrator, he incites and encourages
violence among his supporters.
He
painted a picture of this country that makes me wonder if we are
living in the same country.
Two
things have leaked out about what he plans if elected. First he will
seek to change the law so that he can purge (fire) from every corner
of government anyone who does not agree with him. The second thing
is that he has claimed that he will bring the 'lawlessness' rampant
in American society to it's knees on Jan. 20, 2017 as soon as he
is elected. Coming from a man who admires totalitarian dictators and
who thinks anyone who isn't white and christian to be a terrorist or
rapist or murderer, how do you think he plans to accomplish that and
who is he going to target first? Because there will be seconds and
thirds and whether you are a citizen or not won't matter one bit to him.
If
Trump is elected President, you can kiss your constitutional
protections goodbye.
But
it's not just the citizens of this country at risk, it is also our
position on the world stage. This is a man who has said he will use
torture without hesitation, he will authorize the use of deadly force
against the families of suspected and known terrorists, he will not
necessarily come to the aid of our NATO allies. He will have the
nuclear codes fer cryin' out loud. And wouldn't that feed his
colossal ego, pushing that button.
This
man is in no way intellectually or emotionally prepared to be the
President of the United States and he is making no effort whatsoever
to become so.
And an alarming amount of people are ready to vote him
into office.