I can’t imagine a more important presidential election than this one. Elections all have their importance, but this one tops them all. This one is for all the marbles.
You want a life-long criminal to be our next President, I know you will be voting for Donald Trump, who carries a 34-felony conviction going into the election and is charged for other crimes that have been delayed for trial by various maneuvers by Trump and his slew of lawyers.
You want to preserve democracy I know you will be voting for Kamala Harris, who would be our first woman President and our first black woman President.
As I write this, experts say the race is close, it could go either way. I find that horrible because who would vote for a life-long criminal who has clearly stated his desire to be a dictator, which would end our nearly 250 years as a constitutional republic guided by unobstructed paths for various freedoms?
It is as if the dead Al Capone suddenly was revived and became a candidate for President. No way could anything like that happen. But it has.
So, what do I think has happened to thrust Trump forward as a serious candidate despite his very checkered past and present?
I mean, here is a guy who tried and failed to overthrow the government with an insurrection on the Capital, was convicted for a hush money scheme to silence a porn star, and another conviction for committing tax fraud against New York City and was fined $350 million, is charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia and has been investigated for mishandling classified documents (that case has been thrown out by a sympathetic judge appointed by Trump but is being appealed.
I think that Trump being still able to run, and possibly win is a farce. First of all he has never been a Republican, as he claims. He is running as a Republican in name only (RINO) because he thinks Republican voters are dumb (his words). He’s right. He has conned a large portion of American into believing he is with them, that their distaste for big government is his (it is not).
The fact is that under Republican administrations the national debt rises and under democratic administrations the national debt falls.
Under Trump’s administration (2016-2020), the nation’s debt rose by $7.2 trillion, a big chunk of it caused by a tax cut to the wealthy. After the text cut was passed, Trump proudly announced to a gathering of some of the wealthiest in the country, “I just made you richer.”
That should not have surprised us. Trump is a big-time failed businessman. He inherited $400 million from his dad and proceeded to lose it all, going bankrupt six times.
I have come to understand, though, that conservative Republicans want limited government and basically don’t believe in handouts like Social Security and national insurance like the Affordable Care Act.
They believe in making it through life by working hard without help from the government. Yet those same people don’t turn down Social Security when they become eligible for it.
So, when it comes to principles, they say they lift themselves up by their bootstraps and call people who accept government “handouts’ as lazy and unworthy.
Such Republicans are naturally attracted to a guy like Trump, who cons them into believing he is them and will protect them from the ills of government.
What they don’t see in this con is Trump is a con masked in a Republican suit. He wants their vote, so with his silver tongue lies to them that he is them, that he, like them, is a victim too, and will strongly stand between them and the government so they won’t be hurt.
The real fact is, if they look at how he lives in a grand mansion or two, and saddles up to the billionaire class, their beliefs might be crushed.
A second fact is, Trump could give a rat’s ass about these Republicans. He puts up with them, smiles with them, gladhands them, but only until they vote for him. Then he kicks them to the curb.
On the other hand, there is the Democratic candidate for President, Kamala Harris. She is everything deep-seated Republicans dislike.
Harris is for government to help out the needy and the middle class. Health care, especially for pregnant women, abortion, Social Security, Medicare, ACA, lower cost of medicines, lower inflation by halting the greed of corporations on food costs is just the beginning of what Harris wants the government to do.
The presidential battle really is over whether we want a dictatorship or continue the 250-year experiment with a Constitutional Republic.
But the battle is also over whether we want a bigger government involvement or a limited government involvement.
I will say this is something we should not even think about if Trump wins the election. Because if he wins, his mansions will get bigger, and our freedoms will get littler.
Our fate is in your hands.
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