Trump Hates Me (And Maybe You Too)

Posted: July 7, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“But I hate them, too. You know that? I really do, I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country, you want to know the truth.”

— Trump referring to Democrats at a “Salute to America” rally on 3 July 2025

I am still trying to figure out how I morphed from being a moderate, maybe slightly left of center on social issues, into a “lunatic” and a “radical left Democrat.” I don’t feel any different today than I did, say, a year ago. Maybe I am just not self aware. Or maybe the President of the United States does not care about half of the citizens of those same United States. Or worse. Perhaps he is radicalizing his followers into committing acts of political violence so that he can promote his own autocratic agenda.

Whether or not you believe this is “just Trump being Trump,” his increasingly violent language has consequences. He calls undocumented immigrants “scum” and “animals” and “people with bad genes” among many other, even worse, characterizations of other human beings. There is a long historical record of how words used to vilify “others” eventually always leads to violence. Increasingly, it is apparent that Trump has an agenda to depict our country as under attack from “within” by people that, as he says, “hate our country.” Apparently, eventually or tomorrow, I am one of those people. Imagine my surprise! He is only six months into his term. He has three and a half more years to continue to implement his autocratic plan. Am I fear mongering? I don’t think so — and I am certainly not doing it on purpose — but to me, the evidence is there.

Trump has figured out that all he has to do is demand that something happen and refuse to back off when dealing with our institutions. His cabinet, in my opinion, is filled primarily with sycophants that are too busy designing photo ops to impress the boss, rather than running their departments. There is no pushback. Other institutions seem to take the same approach, impress Trump by giving him what he wants and hopefully he will back off — which of course no bully ever does if they keep “winning.” Whether it is the party formerly known as the Republican Party, Congress, the Supreme Court, institutions of higher learning, corporations, tech bros, or countless other groups, they cave. If the guardrails are still there, they are hanging on by one slightly rusty bolt. Perhaps some state governors and legislatures continue to do the right thing and to follow the law, but it isn’t clear to me how long they can keep it up. When the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) goes to California for a photo op with the National Guard and combat Marines protecting Los Angeles from a non-existent threat, there are already warning signs. When she declares “We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country” as she did on 12 June 2025, there is an imminent threat to our democracy. Like them or not, the governor of a state and the mayor of a city are duly elected representatives of their constituents. The DHS cannot implement a coup d’etat just because they disagree with an elected official’s legal policies.

Mass deportations are underway. When will they stop? Who knows, but given the pace of things and impotence of the Congress and the willingness of the Supreme Court to do Trump’s bidding, I expect them to continue to expand. When due process is not enforced, and apparently it isn’t really being enforced except in a few publicized cases, and masked men without identification can whisk anyone away off the streets with no restraints, we are already living in a police state. What is to stop it from expanding to others that merely disagree with this administration? When the president declares that he hates half of the country, what he is really saying is “fall in line or else.” I worry about the “or else” for the citizens of our great country.

With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Trump has a para-military force (ICE) that is bigger than the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Agency, Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service combined. Add to that the use of the military in the form of federalized National Guard troops and combat Marines in Los Angeles. But why stop there? The Trump administration is deploying 200 Marines to Florida to “help” ICE and has approved plans for deploying up to 700 Marines in Florida, Texas and Louisiana. Think about that. They are gradually increasing the numbers and locations of combat Marines throughout the United States. I seriously doubt that that will be the end of it. Coming soon to a city near you! The U.S. Marines! We should be so thankful. Believe me when I tell you that the Marine Corps absolutely does not want to do this. It impedes their readiness and training for, you know, their actual duties (the Marines are an expeditionary force to, as they like to say, “kick open the door” for the other services in foreign combat — hopefully they will not soon be kicking open my door), not too mention it uses Department of Defense (DOD) money that could be better spent elsewhere and takes those Marines away from their families, when they already have precious little time to spend with them to begin with.

I do not have a good feeling about the 2026 elections when the president declares that Democrats are unpatriotic and hate their country, with increasing numbers of troops deployed around the country, with a Department of Justice (DOJ) that is Trump’s personal law firm, and other warning signs. Trump continually debases our country and rants about how dangerous it is. What assurances do we have that the 2028 election won’t include Trump? Here is my “canary in the coal mine” concern about upcoming elections. Neither Trump nor his MAGA supporters in Congress seem to care about the political damage the OBBBA and other policies are causing. In what might be considered normal elections, the “Republican” party would be likely to take heavy election losses turning Congress over to the Democrats. They seem totally unconcerned about that — especially Trump. Why?

As Trump and his cronies continue to dismantle the federal government, from the National Security Council to our health care institutions, to environmental agencies, to education agencies, to just about anything you can name, Trump and his fiercest loyalists are consolidating power under the Executive branch. He likes to say that he loves Article II (of the Constitution) because I have “the right to do whatever I want as president.” Constitutional experts would disagree, but let’s look at the evidence. The Supreme Court says the president is immune and only they can rule on whether what he does is Constitutional or not. His Project 2025 minders continually tell him that he is the ultimate decision maker on almost everything. Truthfully, who has stopped him?

Here is the kicker. The following is a peek into the future for us and the current mind set of this administration.

Remember Tik Tok? The scourge of the youth of America? The one that was banned by a bipartisan vote in Congress, signed into law by the president and upheld in a 9-0 decision by the Supreme Court? Trump continues to ignore the law. He continues to give Tik Tok extensions for its sale, even as he campaigned that it was a tool of the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans. Stay with me, yes, who cares about Tik Tok, but here is where it gets scary.

Attorney General Pam “Whatever You Say Boss Barbie” Bondi declared that the president can decide which laws to enforce and further more, she declared that the companies carrying Tik Tok can continue to do so “without incurring any legal liability” and that DOJ was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them for their actions.

How did she decide this? Quite simple actually. She declared that shutting down Tik Tok would impinge upon Trump’s “constitutional duties” because the law interfered with his “unique constitutional responsibility for the national security of the United States, the conduct of foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.” Hmm. If they will do this because Trump thinks Tik Tok helped him win the 2024 election, imagine what lawless lengths they will go to to do what they want, much less to interfere with any future elections.

I am sorry to be so negative. I see what is happening (and more) and worry greatly about the future of our democracy for our kids and grandkids. I see too many comments that “it can’t happen here.” It is already happening here and increasingly Trump and his loyalists are more and more brazen about it. I remember back in the fall when a voter focus group was asked if they were worried that we would lose our democracy under a Trump presidency. They all said “no.” Why? Because as long as we can vote we will have a democracy, they declared. To that I can only ask if they mean like in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), or like Russia, or like the People’s Republic of China (Communist China) or numerous other countries where the people vote, but they definitely do not have a democracy?

No one pays attention until they are impacted. By then it is too late.

The Rule Of Law Is Going, Going…

Posted: January 21, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Most of you were probably carrying out your daily routine, going to work, studying for classes or otherwise too busy to watch the coronation of our new president. By design, it was quite the show. Whatever else he may be, the new president is a showman (of the lowest common denominator) and salesman (not that I would buy anything that he sells). For many Americans, that seems to be enough.

Along with the show, he signed twenty six Executive Orders (E.O.) yesterday during and after the inauguration events. They fell into several general categories. Some were just silly, such as declaring that the “Gulf of Mexico” is now the “Gulf of America.” Some rescinded every meaningful E.O. issued by President Joe Biden, whether or not it was good for the country — if Biden signed it, it’s gone. Some enacted his wildest campaign promises. Some ended our participation in various international organizations. The list goes on.

To me there were three that stood out because they indicate that the current president intends to ignore the rule of law and the Constitution to do whatever his whims dictate — just because he thinks he can.

First, he overrode the suspension of Tik Tok in the United States. Personally, I’ve never knowingly seen a Tik Tok video and have certainly never posted on that platform. I cannot speak to its role in the lives of 175 million Americans. What I do know is that the president declared it a threat to American national security during his first term and pushed to have it banned. (The threat comes from the Chinese Communist Party as Tik Tok’s parent company is based in China. It collects massive amounts of information on every Tik Tok participant. Such knowledge and infiltration is a threat to our national security in times of conflict.) Congress went to work and passed an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill that banned the platform by a date certain (19 January 2025) unless it was bought by an American entity. President Biden signed it into law. The law was appealed to the Supreme Court that unanimously ruled that the law was Constitutional. (A rare 9-0 vote in these times.) To recount, the legislative, executive and judicial branches all duly considered the threat to national security and concluded that it was valid. They all agreed to ban the platform. The new president overrode all of that. Mainly because the tech-bros wanted it and the CEO of Tik Tok flattered the president as the savior for 175 million Americans (and who knows what else was promised or exchanged?) If the price is right, one wonders what other laws will he decide to ignore?

Second, he declared an end to birth right citizenship which is enshrined in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In case you missed your High School civics class, the president cannot do away with parts of the Constitution on impulse. This is a direct threat to all of us. Since 1868 the idea that those born in America are Americans has been foundational to who we are as a nation. It was a main driver to those that immigrated to our country during all of those years knowing that they and their children had a chance to be treated just like anyone else in this great land. Its foundation was the need to enforce the other elements of the Constitution protecting formerly enslaved people and to give them the same rights as their enslavers. Immigration policies or not, a president cannot just ignore the Constitution because he does not like what it says about all of us having equal rights under the law.

Third, in what to me is the most egregious of all of his E.O. actions, is the pardoning of roughly 1500 criminals and the commutation of the sentences of fourteen more involved in the violent attempt to over throw our government. Their actions led to the first time that our country did not have a peaceful transfer of power after an election. Most vile of all, the president’s inauguration speech contained passages that continued to push the Big Lie — that he won the 2020 election which was the cause of the violent attacks. He had the unmitigated gall to stand in the rotunda of our nation’s capital, which was defaced by his supporters, and spout out that the election was rigged and that these violent criminals were “J6 hostages.”

This was a giant double FU to American ideals, the American people, the Constitution, and the rule of law. So much for supporting the thin blue line and law and order.

The president of the United States gleefully and with malice of forethought put violent thugs and domestic terrorists back on the street. Some of those pardoned were convicted of seditious conspiracy. In other words, they got together to plan to violently over throw the government. 140 law enforcement officers were beaten, tased, sprayed with chemicals and otherwise nearly killed. The coup mob is now free and able to act again. Among those set free were Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers — two white nationalist groups loyal to the president. These individuals that were all unconditionally pardoned had been investigated, indicted, either pleaded guilty or were convicted by a jury of their peers and sentenced by judges of all political stripes, including by some appointed in the president’s first term. The President’s action was a clear “in your face” rebuke of FBI agents, multiple prosecutors and judges, the Capitol Police, the Washington Metropolitan Police and anyone that suffered at the hands of the mob.

I am afraid that this is only the beginning of a long and dark period in our history. Although there are already legal challenges underway to stay or over turn many of his most absurd E.O.s, what is clear is that on the first day of his Administration, the president set the tone that he is above the law, does not need to follow the Constitution and will protect those that commit crimes on his behalf. There is no limit to the danger he presents. In his mind, anything goes and he dares anyone to stop him. My worst fears are becoming real.