The Feds moving into Portland in camouflage military gear and snatching people off the street into unmarked vans is the final straw for me. I can’t actually believe it’s happening, but it is, and Trump and his cronies are doubling down on this unconstitutional theft of the rights of American citizens to basically stand around in the street and be pissed about shit. The Bill of Rights in the Constitution is designed to prevent exactly this; the government taking away the rights of the people. I can’t recall a more flagrant violation of the Constitution in my adult life, and what’s more, because it’s Trump, it’s purely political. He has said he will do this in cities across the country that have Democratic Mayors! It’s the most jaw dropping aspect of Trump’s authoritarianism; he isn’t covert or subtle about it at all.
So far, he’s getting away with it, although it’s only been a few days. We’ll see what happens, but if this doesn’t scare the shit out of you, you are blinded by partisanship and political tribalism. It doesn’t matter that Trump claims to be a Republican. He could claim to be a banana or a pineapple. What he’s doing is un-American and no one, of any party, should be permitted to do it. Trump is basically one continuous impeachable offense after another. The GOP Senators who freed him from his responsibilities during the impeachment trial can now watch his reign of totalitarian terror and take partial credit. They could have removed him. They had the goods. But they didn’t, and the reaping of the sowing has begun in earnest.
I’m not sure what Trump thinks he wins here. I’ve written before that for him, it’s about picking a fight and winning. But even someone as clueless, narcissistic and deluded as Trump must know this isn’t going to be popular with the majority of the populace. Is he going to claim that he “won” over the Mayor of Portland? What did he win exactly?
I just finished “Will He Go: Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020.” The author does a pretty good job of outlining Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and how he can use the disjointed and quirky electoral system to wreak havoc and blow up our peaceful transition of power, which requires some respect for decency, integrity and justice among the participants, and I’m fairly certain there’s no evidence Donald Trump has the capacity for any of those attributes. My guess is, these next few months until the election will bring out the worst in the Orange Menace, and it’s hard to imagine there is worse, but if he thinks he may lose, he will do anything he thinks will prevent that most humiliating of all things in his mind.
When I say it’s the final straw for me, what I mean is I can’t watch this continue to unfold in real time anymore. I’m not an ACLU lawyer or an elected official, so unless I’m going to join the damn protest myself, all I’m doing by immersing myself in the blow-by-blow, play-by-play broadcasting of this mayhem is making myself ill. Unfortunately, that means I need to limit my Facebook and Twitter usage as there’s no escaping it once I log in. I’ll continue to read the NY Times and the Washington Post every day, or at least scan the home page to stay current, and I’ll listen to the podcasts I enjoy, but I need to step back from the madness and let the stress hormones normalize.
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