If you are one of the approximately one-third of Americans who support and remain loyal to Donald Trump no matter what, then literally nothing he does is out of bounds. He can say and do blatantly racist things, from blanket statements about Mexicans to advocating a national registry for all people of a certain religious faith to having difficulty calling out Nazis in Charlottesville to labeling literally dozens of countries in Latin America and Africa as "shithole nations" to even briefly posting a video of one of his supporters at a Trump rally shouting "white power" before deleting it after a few hours. None of it ever seems to phase loyal Trump fans.
There are also the power grabs and naked desire to go beyond the limitations of law so that he could remain in the White House indefinitely. It started as what he described as just joking, but which felt more like he was testing the water. It began with his praising China for having a "president for life," and how the United States might want to look into that. Then he was talking about how his crowd might demand that he serve a third term, even though when he said it, he had not yet won a second term, and merely glossed over the fact that he had not won the majority of the popular votes for his first term. Then, he again joked about running again not just in 2020, but in 2024, 2028, and beyond. What kind of reasonable president who respects the law and term limits repeatedly "jokes" about such things?
And the thing with Trump is that every new "surprise" is even worse than the previous things. As bad as his presidency was - and it was literally historically bad - what has come to light since is even worse. The more we learn about his active role in what I still maintain was an actual attempted coup on January 6th was far worse than we previously had believed. And for once, I began to think that trying to derail the democratic process of government was surely the worst thing that Trump could have done.
Then came this past week, with the raid at Mar-a-Lago. Some conservatives insist that the FBI search was politically motivated. Their thinking seemed to be that there surely was nothing wrong with anything that Trump did or could ever do, and that the FBI is surely working under Biden's orders, just as some kind of political stunt.
Yet, Trump's own shifting defense of his actions casts so much doubt on his own innocence, that there really is no more room for reasonable doubt. If he stuck to one defense, I could perhaps not dismiss the skepticism by Trump loyalists towards these charges, and the seemingly over-the-top nature of the crimes - yes, I call them crimes and do not use that term lightly - that Trump has committed. But the fact that Trump's own knee-jerk defense betrays his guilt beyond reasonable doubt and, frankly, serves as all the proof for anyone with any measure of objectivity and intelligence.
Not to make light of the situation, but I thought that former Star Trek star George Takei actually summed it up very well, and in a comedic manner, to boot. Here is how he summed up the situation, and the shifting defense by Trump since the raid at Mar-a-Lago came to light:
George Takei @GeorgeTakei
WITCH HUNT!!
We asked you months ago to return them.
THEY’RE MY DOCS!!
They are the government’s property.
YOU PLANTED THESE!!
Sir, your fingerprints are on them.
I DECLASSIFIED THEM!!
You didn’t at the time, and that’s not how it works anyway.
OBAMA! HILLARY!!
Sigh.
6:43 AM · Aug 13, 2022·Twitter for iPhone 3,810 Retweets 149 Quote Tweets 26.7K Likes
https://twitter.com/GeorgeTakei/status/1558403940928167937?cxt=HHwWgoC9uZSIyKArAAAA
Indeed, if ever there was a person who needed to be held as an example to the country, and the entire world, that NO ONE is above the law in this country, then it is Donald Trump. And his loyal fans, who seem to match him in their ability to shift their rationale for supporting him no matter how bad and defenseless his conduct becomes, need to see this man taken down. They need to understand that there are indeed limits, because they sure as hell do not seem to get it right now.
Seriously, this man polarized the country like nobody else ever has. He expressed clearly racist viewpoints and catered to the most racists elements among his supporters. He outright flirted with going beyond term limits as prescribed by law and establish himself as ruler for life. Using both the terminology and logic of the most brutal dictators in history, he repeatedly labelled the press as "enemies of the people." He kept attacking the integrity of our elections and even tried to push back the 2020 election. Once he lost the election, and then lost every recount and 61 of the 62 court cases that his legal team challenged regarding the election (and it should be noted that they bent over backwards to make clear that they were NOT arguing "massive voter fraud"), he then urged that the metal detectors be removed on January 6th, knowing full well that many in the crowd were armed but comforted by the knowledge that they were not there to hurt him, and directed the unruly mob to the Capitol building after telling them to be strong and show no weakness in order to "take back your country."
And just when you thought you heard everything that you could possibly hear about how this man has no limits, and how he keeps pushing the envelope more and more to see how much more he can get away with, we find out that among the many boxes of files that he stole from the American people when he left the White House, there were some very sensitive files, including some about nuclear weapons!
Seriously, enough is enough! This man is, always was, and always will be a criminal. He poses an immediate and dire threat to the country, and indeed to the world. It could not be clearer that this man is even more of a menace to democracy and to common decency than even the most skeptical among us - and I was already pretty skeptical - could have imagined him to be. He needs to finally be held accountable for his crimes, and then LOCKED UP! Not for a few months, or even a few years. He needs to be locked up for the rest of his life. Throw away the keys.
There are clearly some people close to him - Roger Stone comes to mind, as does Rudy Giuliani, the American answer to Marshal Pétain, a former hero and "America's Mayor" turned villain- who were complicit in enabling Trump and his stunning abuses of power. They also need to be locked up.
Lastly, his most passionate and violent supporters also need to be held accountable and, yes, locked up. They are a tiny minority, even among his supporters. Some of them have been held to some account. But if, after all of this bullshit that Trump has now been proven to be responsible for, they still are Gung-ho, militantly behind this man, than they also need to be apprehended and removed from society for the clear and present danger that they pose to it. They too need to be locked up. And Trump's remaining supporters need to see all of this happen, lest they be tempted by another devil.
Sorry, but enough is fucking enough with this bullshit. It's time to drain the swamp of the most corrupting elements within the country. And it begins with King Con Don himself, then goes through the most obvious enablers who helped empower this pathetic, needy, almost mythically irresponsible man gets his greedy little hands on the levers of power in the first place. Then, it clearly goes to his most stupidly militant and violent supporters. Trumpism is nothing short of a mental disorder, a disease. And it needs to be rooted out, once and for all. The damage has been done to this country already. No more proof is needed. The threat is real, and needs to be neutralized, before it can threaten our fragile democracy and simple human decency again.
I am not a huge "law and order" kind of guy. It seems that often, the "law and order" advocates simply gloss over the clear abuses of power that such a system too often leads to. But that said, this is a civilized country, at least it is supposed to be. And as such, there are laws that govern over the country, and from which no one person is exempt. In other words, there are limits to things, like clear abuses of power. If this still is true, if the United States is still a civilized nation ruled by law and with some semblance of order, then it is time that we hold a criminal to account, regardless of how upset his supporters will be. "Donald Trump" should be the new "Benedict Arnold," frankly. It's time to show that nobody is above the law. The alternative, it seems to me, would be nothing less than giving up any pretense of being a civilized nation governed by the rule of law, and allowing this monster back into power so that he can complete the task of killing what remains of our democracy and, indeed, establishing himself as "ruler for life."
Donald Trump Is Not Above the Law by Matt Ford/August 9, 2022 LAW & ORDURE
Conservatives are complaining that the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago was an egregious abuse of power. But the former president is just a Florida Man now.
https://newrepublic.com/article/167364/trump-fbi-rule-of-law
Supreme Court Correctly Rules that Trump is Not Above the Law by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
Decisions on Trumps’ tax return uphold the system of checks and balances.
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/supreme-court-correctly-rules-that-trump-is-not-above-the-law
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