on the eve of destruction

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.

I'm going to borrow from this essay: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12218136/donald-trump-nomination-afraid and I suggest you go read it and this is not the only essay I have read that has come to the same conclusion.

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.