Where art thou, Democrats? Instead of sitting on the sidelines whimpering and whining about lost elections, how about standing up to Trump and fighting back?
Trump is no genius. His plan is simple: give tax cuts to the wealthy, punish those who oppose him, and wholesale cut spending to cripple the Federal government and give the appearance of finding money to pay for tax cuts.
Marco Rubio is the only Trump cabinet member fit to hold office. The rest of them have no business being around the levers of power.
Trump is not wrong about excessive government spending. He is, however, dead wrong about how to cut spending. A congress-mandated Department of Government Efficiency is a good idea; an autocratic DOGE operated by multibillionaire Elon Musk and his cronies is not.
All spending reductions must start with defense and security spending. Instead, Trump cuts insignificant spending while ignoring large ticket items such as defense and homeland security. It’s like cutting out Netflix to pay for your mortgage. It doesn’t work.
Trump is not wrong about our borders. He is, however, wrong about how to address the issue. Using ICE, the Border Patrol, and state/local law enforcement to terrorize undocumented immigrants is not the answer. We need immigrants for jobs Americans cannot or will not work.
ICE raided several restaurants not far from my home, deporting numerous gainfully employed Mexicans. I can’t wait to eat Mexican food made by Gringos. No more authentic Mexican food — Taco Bell for everyone.
Memo to Trump and his MAGA supporters: Ukraine did not start their war with Russia, Vladimir Putin did.
I hope the United States’ allies are paying attention. You can no longer count on America to stand with you when your adversaries threaten or attack you. Taiwan, for example, should not expect us to protect them if China invades them. All Trump cares about is making deals; deals that personally benefit him and his fellow oligarchs.
A democracy such as ours requires all citizens to agree to play according to the same rules. Once Trump ignores the law and lawful court orders and does what he wants without penalty, our democracy is gone.
Bonus: Elon Musk is the proverbial fox in the chicken house; the door of the coop swung wide open by Trump and his fellow Republicans. We shouldn’t be surprised by the bloodshed and slaughter that takes place as a result.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Good stuff, Bruce. For all the MAGA talk about freedom and less government, etc, they seem to overlook the fact that Trump is a classic tyrant. I personally think that is the correct term for him. He uses whatever ideology that gets him the power he craves. While he appears very much a Facist, he has no problem cozying up to people like Kim Jong Un, too. And you’re correct, that he will probably abandon Taiwan to ravages of the PRC, especially if Xi makes some flattering and symbolic “peace deal” with Trump, just like the “deal” Mao made with the Dalai Lama in the 1950’s for Tibet. We all saw how Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban worked out in Afghanistan. Of course it was all Joe Biden’s fault because of the Saigon-like evacuation of Kabul (I’m being sarcastic). No mention that Trump was the author of the deal that allowed the Taliban to gain control and also to give them a lot of our expensive abandoned military equipment to boot.
Trump is very much like his good friend Vladimir Putin, who can be a religious nationalist to certain Russians, and a good old days Soviet communist to others. It just depends on what the occasion calls for. The late Sen. John McCain remarked that three letters came to mind when he first met Putin- “KGB”. I think that we cannot downplay the influence that both Putin and to a lesser degree Kim Jong Un have on Trump. From what I recall, during his first term he remarked that he wished the US media loved him like the North Korean media loved Kim.
This is what trump envisions himself as- Big Brother, the leader of Oceania, to use a reference to the book 1984. It’s scary to think that he probably sees Putin as leader of “Eurasia” and Xi as leader of “East Asia”. There again, I doubt Trump has read this or any of George Orwell’s books (like Animal Farm). He doesn’t strike me as someone who could connect the dots when reading these two books. I read them as a teenager in the 1980’s and wondered how such fictional governments could ever happen in America. Looks like I may unfortunately find out in the next few years.
Point one. Trump has left himself open to being considered the first US President to kowtow to Russia. The MAGA crowd are obviously insane, but the thing they desire is returning to the good old days, when men were men and pansies were flowers, when blacks and women knew their place and when the US kept Russia in line. Now Trump is going to lose them every one of these ‘principles’.
Point two. No peace deal can be done without the agreement of Ukraine, and Ukraine is strongly backed by Europe. Already Europe is starting to realise that it must step up to the mark in assisting Ukraine, and in this stands to become militarily possibly the equal of the US. Putin was desperately hoping for a Trump victory, but it may yet be that Trump winning actually succeeds in bringing about a much fairer settlement in favour of Ukraine.
Point three. Whatever happens Trump will claim credit for the good bits and blame others for anything bad.