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Back in 2016 when he announced he was running for the Presidency, those of us who knew Donald Trump as a businessman and a person had a real sense that he was bad news. Incompetent and immoral, he was an egomaniacal disaster waiting to happen.
But way back then, there were others who wondered whether an outsider to politics, a multi-millionaire businessman who liked to tell it as it is might be a breath of fresh air, might be someone who wouldn’t simply conduct Presidential business as usual. About doing things differently they were absolutely right. About being a breath of fresh air—well, let’s just say that the word stench best describes the air about him.
When he won in 2016, we held our noses, we watched as he turned democracy upside down, and we looked to 2020 when we hoped that he would be gone. Even if his successor would be no more exciting than Joe Biden, at least life would be more or less back to normal. But during those four years and at the end of his term, several things happened that still leave us holding our breath.
First, when a Presidential candidate loses an election, the next thing that happens is simple: He concedes to the winner, and he moves out of the White House (usually without a treasure trove of secret documents). In extreme cases, such as when Al Gore got screwed out of the Presidency by Florida’s hanging chads, challenges may be made to the legitimacy of the results. Still, later if not sooner, every US President has recognized that the bedrock of democracy is that the losing candidate accepts the will of the people, concedes, and wishes the winner success . Every President but this schmuck, it turns out. And, oh my God, four years later, after so many challenges in the court of law and the court of public opinion have been decisively rebuffed, this buffoon continues to whine on about how he was cheated.
Ah, but that’s hardly the worst of it. Just the other day, the Trumpreme Court, loaded with sad holdovers like Clarence Thomas, and light-weight right wingers like Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, tossed away the concept of affirmative action—completing their unholy trinity of new precedents: anti-abortion, anti-loan forgiveness, and now anti-equal opportunity. So even if the Orange Man himself were to finally go away, the pollution he has brought through the legal system as well as the legislative system will not disappear for decades, if ever. He has released a form of toxic radioactivity on our existence in these United States that has a very very long half-life.
So is it possible that lemonade may come of the tart yellow fruit we have been served? Every Democratic candidate, from President to dog catcher, now has the ammunition to urge all voters who care about any or all of these the unholy trinity issues to cast their ballots. Trump, DeSantis, Greene, Boebert and all of their ilk.
Ask them about a woman’s rights. Ask them about equal rights. And make them defend their positions at the peril of your vote.
Then send them home. Send them back to the caves where they came from.
Although, for the Orange One, I’ll settle for a prison cell instead of a cave.
d’accord!