Reinforcing the Need For Prosecution

 To ignore the criminal conduct of a politician is criminal.  Politicians don't get to do whatever they want, yet trump has gotten away with a wide array of un-American activity during his 4 years in power.  To ignore what he has done to this country will not make things better--it will enable another trumpist to return to finish off the job that donald trump couldn't complete.  The job of destroying all that is free, open, truthful and optimistic.  

It would be wrong to pardon any complicit persons involved in the forced separation and incarceration of small children.  The country and the world need to stand-up to these criminals who have sought to silence morality, altruism and free speech while the time is right.  Passing on the opportunity to prosecute these people will send the message that our democracy is not permanent and that there is no equal justice under the law.

Justice Department policy may have allowed the conduct to continue over 4 years, but that doesn't make it right.  The people of the USA, along with the people of the rest of the world, have suffered countless emotional traumas because of donald trump.  If he is not prosecuted, our emotional suffering will be worse when the next trumpist takes power, as we will be starting off at a worse place to begin with, scarred from what this time has done to us and scared at having been intimidated into silence by the thugs who wanted to suppress democracy in order to keep trump in power.  It's time to correct things.  The country can and will move on, but not by ignoring reality.  We need to come to terms with what has happened.  We can't own-up to what has happened in the USA until we prosecute those who lead and orchestrated it.  To recover and preserve our democracy, we must prosecute donald trump and associates.

Just A Few Words

 Just a few words is all it takes for any republican to stand up for freedom and stand up for democracy.  Despite that, surprisingly few of them have said anything in favor of traditional USA values.  Those that have said anything have limited their words.  How can so many people -- collectively quite powerful people -- be so terrified of being called names that they self-muzzle?

World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, The Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq.  These are wars in which Americans have fought and died to defend freedom and democracy.  The USA is currently living under the final days of donald trump's time in power.  A few words from republicans that echo the judicial rebukes that have been graciously handed out to trump's ever-shrinking legal team would go a long way to helping our democracy recover from the harm that has been committed against it by the trump family.  

We're not asking the republicans to go into battle.  We're not asking them to risk their lives.  We're asking them to remind their supporters what freedom and democracy mean.  We're asking them to tell the truth.

Those Who Harbor Them

 "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." --George W. Bush, September 11, 2001

These words are best used by the leadership of the free world to refer to the republican party in the USA or any person in power seeking to protect trump after he leaves office in January, 2021.  As donald j. trump has sought to destroy freedom, democracy and the rights of the individual for 4 years (culminating in his refusal to concede an election that he clearly lost and successfully coercing his subordinates into repeating his lies of voter fraud) we must remind the republicans what they once stood for.

For separating young children from their parents and subjecting both the children and the parents to psychological torture, donald j. trump should not be harbored.  The people deserve to see this man brought to justice.  The best forum for a fair trial is The Hague.  It's time for the republicans (and democrats) and all of the leaders of the USA to stop harboring the terrorist that is donald j. trump.

The USA is not a criminal state and the people of the USA do not want to be represented by or known for someone who consistently sought to abuse any person who he disagreed with.  To acknowledge our mistake in trusting this man with the awesome power of the presidency, he must stand trial.  To repent for the doubt that has been sowed amongst our allies, donald trump must stand trial.  To return to stability and ensure that another trump family member or other member of the alt-right does not seek the presidency in an attempt to repeat the sins of donald, he must stand trial.  To avoid a conundrum as Peru nearly experienced, where the child of an incarcerated former president then seeks the office in order to pardon the parent, the trial of donald j. trump must take place in The Hague.

Let us not forget the physical and psychological pain this man has inflicted on innocent people, but let us seek to set things right.  Let the trial happen quickly after trump leaves office and let it happen with humility, but let it happen.

Nothing Left But Inflection

 The Republican party has become a party that is completely defined and controlled by the inflection in their voices.  It's not that they say "mob rule", it's the way they say it.  It's not that they say "Nancy Pelosi", it's the way they say it.  It's not that they say "communists" or "socialists" or "radical left" or "antifa", it's all about the way they say it.  They seek to create and grow the hatred tenfold and they seek to create the feeling amongst those who don't follow politics that the republicans are inherently good and the democrats are inherently evil.  Although the speech they utter bears no resemblance to reality, what sways the unknowing is the inflection and the emotion.  The hatred has sold the GOP to millions.  Those millions adopt the same dislikes and triggers and they don't even know why, so don't ask them to explain it.

If you find yourself feeling anger and dislike when you hear a republican use one of these words with strong negative inflection, ask yourself some questions.  Do I really feel this way?  What is an alternative point of view?  Is it really worth harboring this anger, hatred and disgust because the party leaders want it that way?  Is it time to turn off the talk radio and Fox "News" and seek out moderate points of view?

We'll all get along better when we stop seeking to believe the worst.  Seek to believe the best and believe that those you disagree with are doing the same.  If they're not, then help them along, kindly.

Post-Election Choices

 Whatever will be with the republican party?  It's not going to disappear, as many of us had hoped.  Four years of cheering racism, fake news, fake ideas and general misinformation to build support for their hatred of the more than half of the country who don't support them has actually rewarded them with new supporters.  The reward appears to have been a loss if one only looks at the outcome of the popular vote.  But when one considers that the loss wasn't large enough to prove that the GOP was wrong to have done what they did, one realizes that the republicans have been incredibly successful in building an alternative narrative to describe the last 30 years.  The decision-makers in corporate America have effectively sold trump to the USA in order to cure the problems that they created in off-shoring thousands upon thousands of good jobs.  They've been rewarded with an enormous tax break that is bankrupting our country.  We have to learn to see past the smoke because the republicans will double-down on the smokescreen in 2024.  How do I know?  Because that's all they've done for the last 5 years.

The claims to pro-life give the republicans an effective base that doesn't believe it's significant to judge the GOP based on their "separate and torture" policy for small children on the border.  To these pro-life voters, anything is justifiable for those who claim to protect the un-born babies.

The GOP "campaign-by-shouting" strategy was always designed to bring people on the bandwagon through the addictive drug of hatred.  The republicans did a remarkable job of making people believe hatred was cool and that anyone who doesn't hate is a communist or a socialist.  Hatred isn't going to solve our problems.  We, as human beings are not each others' problems.  Be happy!

The Biden administration by themselves can't steer us away from the fraternity of hatred that the republicans have brought to a boil.  It's a huge risk for the USA to continue behaving in this fashion.  There is a better way of viewing things that actually takes history into account and doesn't seek to reimagine the past for the purpose of feeling better about supporting hatred.  We're all going to have to step up and do more to hug the haters.

When the pandemic is over, we'll be forced to address an old problem that has been displaced out of our daily conscience by the virus.  We'll be back to daily mass shootings again.  No doubt, the republicans will praise our gun laws after each shooting, as they always have.  We can't continue allowing mentally challenged people to have easy access to guns and all the bullets that they can dream of.

If shooting is your hobby, please consider another.  You could volunteer your time to tutor children, help out at a pet shelter or spend time with the elderly at a nursing home.  If you don't want to volunteer, then resolve to read more books or spend more time outside.  There is an infinite number of better ways to spend your time.  Whatever will be with the USA is up to all of us as citizens, as immigrants and as neighbors.  Helping someone else doesn't make you a communist or a socialist.  It makes life better, for all of us.

Beware The Electoral College

After painting a beautiful alternate reality for his supporters for 5 years (starting with his first campaign, beginning in 2015), trump doesn't want to disappoint them by letting them know that it wasn't real.  With the number of republicans supporting trump's fictions, no person can say where this is going.  Joe Biden won the popular vote on November 3rd and he won the Electoral College.  At least, he should win the Electoral College.  We're still waiting for them to meet.  It would be wrong to believe that trump isn't thinking of coercing enough members of the Electoral College that he would be able to maintain power after Inauguration Day 2021, despite having lost the election.  trump has proven to be savvy enough at finding the points of failure and attacking them.

It started with the republican party chairman, Reince Preibus, prior to the 2016 election.  Despite the then-distinguished republican statesmen criticizing trump for his bigotry, Mr. Preibus held the keys and trump knew it.  Preibus caved and trump was allowed to remain on the republican ballot.  Now, here we are.

Perhaps most surprising is the news that Mike Pompeo is amongst those republicans talking up the possibility that trump won't be leaving the white house any time within the foreseeable future.  Mike Pompeo seemed quite interested in removing Maduro from power in Venezuela not long ago.  Was he just going through the motions, pretending to support the policies that the USA officially held?  Or was Pompeo not at all interested in seeing Maduro removed from Venezuela after losing the election to Juan Guaidó?  In these times where republicans travel to Moscow on the 4th of July without shame, it seems that every republican could be on-board with trashing American history and American values.  They've done quite a bit of that over the last several years and they're just shredding the fragments that remain.