308 - The Fate of the Nation, and the World, is in Our Hands

            Many of you have voted already. If not, by all means vote tomorrow in person at your chosen polling place.  Ignore or evade any anti-democratic vigilantes who try to prevent you from casting your ballot or who spew totally false invective about the sanctity of the vote or the bias of election officials.  Most of all, answer those outside the polls who try to convey wildly misleading information about Vice-President Kamala Harris and the Democratic candidates in your district or state for the House of Representatives or the Senate.  Accomplishing a majority Democratic House and Senate, plus the presidency, is the culminating moral and freedom issue of our and all previous political eras.  No election since 1860 promises to ensure or destroy prosperity and meaningful probity for all Americans, and for all integrity and rule of law appreciative inhabitants across the very troubled and war-torn globe.

            The two presidential candidates diverge from each other in what benefits and pain they will bring to the world more than any other two opponents in American presidential history. Their belief systems, behavior, character, honesty, and likely approach to keeping our country well, strong, and focused on making the planet a better place, are starkly different.

            Harris has called out Trump's pronounced incipient fascism and his use of violent-provoking memes to arouse his followers to dangerously heated levels.  Certainly, as this Newsletter has pointed out repeatedly, Trump's inherent personal insecurities and crowd responses have, like those promoting Roman gladiatorial extravaganzas, purposely stoked repeated incitement of crowds with hate filled utterances, blatant mistruths about crime rates and criminalized immigrants, long Pinocchio-nosed lies about consuming pets, immigrants flooding towns, immigrants illicitly absorbing welfare benefits, jobs disappearing overseas, and so much more.

            Harris has said less than she might have about Trump's filth. What comes out of his mouth is rather disgusting. Even President Andrew Jackson would be shocked and dismayed. More than that, the filth joins prevarications and lies piling up on top of each other as mind-bending as the autos piled on top of each other in flood-torn Valencia. Trump is a convicted felon, but his supporters seem not to care. Trump is a sexual reprobate, a convicted serial offender, and a boastful predator. Why do his followers and his evangelical supporters ignore so many deficiencies?  If we want to return decency and integrity to the American political spectrum and to educate our young well, voters need to reject the profanity and abundant sleaze of an orange-tanned candidate who has no shame, and delights in offending. “I never should have left the White House,” he bleated yesterday!

            Trump once told Maureen Dowd that how he misbehaved was calculated: “Because of the fact that I immediately went to No. 1, and I said [to myself], ‘Why don’t I keep the same thing going?” Indeed, Trump is the total nasty manipulator, proud of his dangerous and destructive provocations. "Good presidents unite," as Harris reminds us. Trump's "genius is for turning people against each other," says this week's Economist.

            Trump is still a climate denier, promising once again to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change compact. He further promises to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, to permit big oil to drill on Alaska's North Slope and in national parks and national monuments, and to prioritize fossil fuels over renewable energy. His administration would stop licensing wind farms off our shores and repeal curbs meant to slow global warming. Despite his unholy alliance with Elon Musk, Trump will continue to promote gas-guzzling automobiles.

            Trump and his 2025 blueprint supporters intend to gut the famed U. S. civil service by withdrawing the kinds of protections against political manipulation that have since 1881 produced an estimable and capable bureaucracy that is the envy of the rest of the world. Trump wants to weaponize the Department of Justice against his personal enemies, what he threateningly calls "the enemy within" -- fascist rhetoric. Over and over, he has promised to "go after President Biden and Vice-President Harris just as he tried during his term as president to "lock up" Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. What Trump says and is trying to do is much more disturbing, and potentially disruptive and dangerous, even than the odious anti-Communist hate speech spewed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.  "Have you no shame, sir, " is much too mild a rebuke for these desperate times.

Looking Abroad

            This is a Newsletter focused more often on foreign affairs and international relations than on domestic matters and politics. If we turn outward, responding to our prime mission, a Trump presidency would be as terrible and thoroughly destructive for the nations of the free world as it would be for Americans at home.

            Trump clearly intends to finish off the war in Ukraine by letting Putin do what he mercilessly wants there. That seems to translate into withdrawing U.S. financial and military help so as to force President Volodymyr Zelensky and his courageous and exhausted compatriots to sue for peace on Putin's terms. That would give the despot with whom Trump is somehow in cahoots (possibly because of past and prospective financial personal enrichments -- emoluments) at least one-fifth of Ukrainian territory and a hold over Ukrainian continued independence and prosperity. Trump adores dictators and wants to be one himself, "from day one."

            Giving way to Putin would undermine NATO, which Trump dislikes as a powerful organization not under his control, and as an institution full of Europeans whom he distrusts.  Trump hates alliances. Instead, Trump expresses his affection for a hard-handed fascist, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, and for others in Europe who are corrupt but friendly to his own business enterprises.  Enrichment of self is a key theme.

            Trump has been hesitant to continue defending Taiwan's independence and integrity. "They don't pay us enough" to defend them is one line.  Trump needlessly cancelled the Iranian nuclear accord crafted by Kerry and others and hence plunged Israel and the free world into what is now nearly a decade of conflict within and with Iran. Trump's instincts have always been wrong, and self-serving rather than nation-serving.

            Just as Harris has warned us, Trump's proposed heavy tariff plans (even replacing the income tax!) would amount to a recession-inducing sales tax costing American consumers thousands of dollars yearly.  Such a sales tax would be heavily regressive, harm our poorest citizens, plunge not only the U. S. but the rest of the globe into economic turmoil, and definitely not deter or harm the Chinese economy as much as it would be a massive own goal against ourselves. Trump's ignorance is as extensive as his instincts are antediluvian.  After all, he is a multi-failed businessman.           

            Another oft-overlooked point is that the Biden presidency has been enormously successful for Americans. Some of those voting for Trump claim to be doing so because they were "better off" under his presidency. That is certainly a perception, but by every measure and in most instances, the Biden presidency has produced higher rates of economic growth, accelerated productivity, and - by now -- low inflation plus strikingly low unemployment. Trump's economic initiatives will do the opposite, big time.

            Biden also has kept our servicemen largely out of foreign wars while still greatly supporting freedom and Ukraine's massive defense of its sovereignty. Biden has yet to halt the immense losses of life in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in the West Ban -- but not for want of trying.  He and his team have been competing, however, with what the Israeli hard right thinks Trump could do for them if he is elected. For peace and a resumption of human development throughout the entire Middle East, that is yet another reason why a vote for Trump is a vote for chaos, death, and discombobulation. Yes, Virginia, there is evil, and it is near at hand in a Trump second presidency.

            As the Economist declared this weekend: "Trump poses an unacceptable risk to America and the world."  Moreover, the idea that Trump's worst instincts could be constrained is "recklessly complacent."  People are "deluding themselves" if they believe (or hope) otherwise.

            The fate of civilization will be decided by American voters tomorrow.  Do your part, wherever you are, to make sure that civilization survives!

s