Our country is in a mess. I think the cause of this is that issues have been pushed beyond all reason. Take immigration, for example. I think that we have to control our southern border. It’s clear that our definition of asylum is creating a flood of people from Central America beyond our ability to manage. Most Americans, including me, think that we need to refuse entry until the asylum case can be adjudicated.
Sounds reasonable, right? Well, the backlog of cases is almost a decade long. That’s not going to work. Is the solution to let the people in anyway? That isn’t a great idea since those people have no status and can’t legally get jobs. Is the situation so dire in Central America that we should just open the doors? If so, then shouldn’t all of the people we let in get the ability to work?
This is just one of the huge problems that the far right wing of the Republican party has been using to capture traditionally Democratic voters. If given the insane choice of either shipping all illegals back to their countries or letting them all in, a lot of people will vote to ship them out.
Donald Trump may be crazy, but he isn’t stupid. His TV experience taught him that the key to popularity is giving the people what they want. Talk radio hosts figured this out too. It’s very easy to argue the status quo and get a lot of support. Keep America American. Close the borders. Ignore international treaties. Don’t spend money on hippie projects like wind and solar energy. You don’t need to graduate high school to get behind these ideas. And that’s the problem.
If you look at history, you will find that every successful dictator got into power through populist actions. We have avoided this fate because, up until 2016, our mainstream political parties took moderate positions and were able to work in a bipartisan way to solve difficult problems. Yes, there were always differences, but they came from reasoned positions that educated people could use to develop compromise.
The lunatic right has always been there (un-woke), but cooler heads prevailed. The same is true of the left. Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris border on socialism. Again, they have always been moderated by more centrist people. Then, along came talk radio. The hosts of these programs quickly lerned that they would garner the highest ratings if they took easy-to-understand, slogan-ridden, extreme right positions. It turned out that there are a lot of Americans who are ready to get behind that sort of thinking. Suddenly, the lunatic right had a voice.
It didn’t take politicians to get the message. The great unwashed were ready for leaders. Slogans, derogatory nicknames, and easy-t0-digest extremist positions became the order of the day.
The problem with all this isn’t so much the extreme positions these people hold; it’s the people themselves. Two kinds of people live on the far right and the far left. One kind are the true believers. They believe in our constitution and think their ideas are best for our country. The other kind are politicians who are willing to do anything to get power. They represent the greatest threat to our democracy.
Donald Trump has demonstrated that he doesn’t care about anything but winning. He said that he wanted to suspend the constitution. He is willing to do and say anything that will appeal to his base. He is dangerous. He’s also crazy. He constantly reminds us that he admires Vladimir Putin and other dictators. He’s made it clear that if he’s elected president, he will not leave office, ever.
Meanwhile, the White House is occupied by a political hack. Joe Biden has a long and undistinguished career in American government. Over the decades, he’s been on the wrong side of a lot of issues. The only reason he is president is that the Democratic party needed a candidate who would offend the least number of Americans. Kamala Harris is VP because she could capture the far left. Americans were left with a choice between two bad options.
If the Republican party could get past Trump and DeSantis and find a more moderate, sane candidate, people like me who cross party lines and vote for him. This isn’t the time for extremists. We have big problems that need sensible solutions. In 2024, we’re faced with a truly horrid set of options. We can vote for a populist dictator who will need the army to get him out of the White House or an aged boob with no fire in his belly. I’m voting for the boob. At least if he wins, we will be able to choose somone else in 2028.
First let me say, both parties are completely corrupt, don’t care about you and I, or the Constitution.
Trump is an obnoxious New Yorker but he is not a dictator. That is a corrupt media narrative. Fox news and CNN lie 24/7 and they do it in collaboration with each other at the behest of the corrupt machine. If we are divided and arguing amongst ourselves the machine can run unopposed. And that is where we are.
In fact, Trump is the only one not from that ilk.
The democrats scream about democracy at stake! while simultaneously destroying it. Once again with cover from the media. Only the democrats are jailing their political opponents. And the republicans do nothing because they approve.
Believe me, I am not happy about the fact that the institutions I was raised to appreciate (presidency, fbi, cia, nsa, department of justice, etc.) have proven to be completely corrupt and not a protector of freedom, but an actual enemy of the people. Heck, if Trump is excluded from Colorado’s ballot those people will lose the “freedom” to choose any candidate they like. The opposite of freedom is slavery and that crosses all political parties, men and women, black and white, young and old. The American people need realize the enemy is not your neighbor, it is the un-elected bureaucracy. It is a CIA that can kill a president because the peoples choice jeopardized their plans.
That said, I am voting for Trump because by EVERY measure our country, and my life and the lives of my loved ones were VASTLY better under Trump.
We need a leader like Argentina just elected.
Peace and brotherhood to all.
AF
Too bad you don’t have any strong opinions. If you vote for Trump it will be the last presidential election you will ever have a chance to participate in.
Amazing that after 4 years of President Trump, with a lot of great accomplishments and all the hoaxes now proven to be hoaxes, that some folks are still buying the mainstream media narrative that THIS time Trump will for sure be a dictator. That narrative seems to be the only talking point the Dems have left.
Trump would be fine, except he’s too old and because of almost a decade of media brainwashing there are too many never-Trumpers out there. I’d be happy with either Vivek or RFKJr. The DeSantis campaign was terrible, he’s too influenced by his donors. Haley seems to be a complete war-mongering Military-Industrial shill.
Nothing wrong with giving the people what they want. Isn’t that what democracy is all about? Trump says he’ll deport them all, but we know he won’t. He said that about Dreamers and never did. It’s hyperbolic and signals a stronger stance against illegal immigration, obviously. Most successful politicians take a more extreme stance in the primaries and tack back to the center after them. Trump has a track record of that.
Trump, himself, declared that he wanted to suspend the constitution .Here is a video from Fox (Link). So far, the only hoaxes to date have been the Trump schemes to steal the 2020 election.
Note how they don’t include the video of Trump saying that in context? Easiest thing to do, and the fact that they don’t is the tell. In context it was half joke, half frustration at how the legal system is currently being abused. No rational observer believes he will suspend the constitution for even a millisecond. It’s Trump generating the clicks and drawing the attention, like always, and you guys fall for it every time, hook, line, and sinker.
Trump did say that more than once. The report was from his friend Fox News. In the January 6 hearings, several of his aids also testified that Trump wanted to suspend the constitution.
I’m completely amazed that you and others want so badly to put him back in power. I just don’t see the appeal. I’m not trying to attack you. I am curious how much education you’ve had.