Perhaps I am sounding like a broken record to anyone who knows me or regularly reads this stuff on this blog page. But as a kid and into young adulthood, I kind of took the warnings about darker days to come, for both the United States and the larger world - more seriously than most. It felt like there were serious threats out there, which people seemed either oblivious about, or to wave off dismissively as not serious. For example, I remember people literally laughing at the idea of climate change/global warming, back in the 1980's. Few people are laughing these days.
As far as the threat to American democracy or even safety was concerned, I never took some things all that seriously. I remember my father scoffing at the idea of a "Red Dawn" scenario, and he made clear that with America's obvious military might, coupled with the distance between the United States and potential rivals and enemies (the oceans) as well as the staggering number of gun owners would combine to make it basically impossible for another nation to launch anything resembling a conventional military attack on the United States.
However, I was more worried about the very real threat of an enemy from within. Having watched Stephen King's "The Dead Zone" and read some books by George Orwell, and listening to some warnings from other sources (musicians Frank Zappa and Jello Biafra come to mind) who warned about the threat of an encroaching Christian theocracy, it felt to me like this was something that we should be on the look for. Also, George Carlin warned about some of the things which he felt were wrong with this country, including a largely invisible elite ruling class who made the real decisions regardless of what our so-called democracy had to say about it. So I always half expected some kind of a real threat to democracy to emerge, simply because power attracts corrupt people and - let's face it - the enormous power that this country has clearly has attracted (and I would argue, created) astonishingly and transparently power hungry people.
So I was expecting some kind of a threat like Trump eventually posed to come around. Hell, I thought that George W. Bush first posed a very serious threat to our democracy, although he wound up looking like a lightweight compared to what we see now under Trump.
Trump never really was good at hiding his intentions of grabbing as much power as he possibly could. Nor has he ever been good at hiding his intolerance and even hatred for those people who stand in his way of grabbing more power.
When you look into his eyes, you see something devoid of life behind those eyes. He does not have empathy, does not care who he has to hurt, or how many people have to get hurt, in order for him to get his way.
Hell, this guy did not even flinch or back away from concerns that he would be a dictator if and when he would become president again. He claimed that he would be a dictator on "day one" in order to get illegal immigrants back across the southern border and to get the drilling for oil ("Drill, baby, Drill!" as he put it) back started again.
This guy really does believe that he is above the law. He does not believe in having anyone monitor his activities, let alone having a system of checks and balances in place, which is, of course, how democracy is supposed to work. Since assuming power for the second time, Trump and his team have been not just busy, but relentless and tiresome in their attempt to effectively dismantle American democratic traditions as we know them. Sure, Trump said what he had to say to get elected, and that included putting distance between himself and the Project 2025 people. Obviously, that was a lie, as they are not in power and openly pursuing full implementation of Project 2025 ideas and turning them into official policies.
So yes, here we are. We have arrived at that moment that we were warned about for so long. Now, we have somebody in power who is quite blatant about his desire to grab all the power that he can, and to limit, if not outright extinguish, any kind of checks on his power. The Republican party, once an independent and respectable political party, has de facto become the Trump party, filled with bootlickers who bend over backwards to try and please Dear Leader. Trump outright shows admiration for other dictators, and clearly seems to have some jealousy or admiration even for some of the horrific dictators of the past, as he once described his longing for the kind of loyalty that Hitler's generals had, according to him (which is not actually historically accurate, although that is a discussion for another time).
Before anything, though, we need to understand that this is indeed the reality. We cannot afford pretending that the situation is better or more ideal than it is, or asking if he actually means what he says, or if he will go through with it, or if his Republican party will allow democracy to die, or even if the Democrats will find some backbone and stand up to all of this. This is something which we need to recognize and face head on. Only then will there be a chance to actually do something about it.
Take a look at the video below and see if you don't agree. The wolf really is at our door now. This is not a test, this is a real emergency. The real thing, if you will. How we respond is up to us.
The Wolf Is At The Door
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