One good reason to vote in this year’s election is to prevent Trump’s MAGA nonsense from metastasizing into government policy.
For all their talk of freedom, Trump partisans are eager to weaponize government against everyone who doesn’t look and think like them. They claim the Department of Justice has been weaponized against Trump by the Biden administration, despite Biden having bent over backwards not to interfere with DOJ—either to harm Trump or to protect his own son.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right of peaceable assembly are enshrined in the First Amendment. Trump threatens all of them. He takes it for granted that the only person whose rights matter is himself—and by extension, those loyal to him. He treats the independent press as enemies of the people. He wants to use federal troops to suppress protesters he doesn’t like.
When he was president, Trump claimed that Article 2 of the Constitution “lets me do whatever I want.” Now the Supreme Court, with a far-right majority engineered by Sen. Mitch McConnell, has granted him immunity from prosecution for presidential acts. Trump claims this is necessary to prevent routine prosecution of former presidents, despite his being the first ever prosecuted.
A Trump supporter on social media proudly noted that Trump donated his salary as president. This ignores his shameless profiteering from the presidency. His grift included running up charges for the Secret Service when it protected him during stays at his resorts; profiting by foreign government representatives staying at his hotel when they were in Washington; daughter Ivanka Trump obtaining dozens of trademarks from the Chinese government; and son-in-law Jared Kushner receiving $2 billion from the Saudi government after leaving the White House.
Dear reader, if you believe Trump is a selfless patriot and humble servant of the people, I’d like to sell you Greenland. Did you know this modest man autographs Bibles?
The trouble with pointing out signs of the wannabe Glorious Leader’s pathology and corruption is that his core supporters cannot get enough of it. They treat him as a paragon of virtues he defiles.
On the other hand, Trump is bleeding support around the edges. Some Republicans who supported him before vow not to do so again. That won’t matter if MAGA Republicans succeed in their vote suppression, voter intimidation and shenanigans around certification. But voting rights defenders are battling back. The fight is not about votes only, but America’s soul.
If the 45th president were a “Star Wars” character, he would be Jabba the Hut. He recently claimed he was better looking than Kamala Harris. If he is entertaining Princess Leia fantasies about her, it could represent a new stage in his cognitive decline.
It is never smart to underestimate an opponent, much less give her free lodging in your head. Trump has flailed in response to the vice president’s campaign. He tries to pull her into his darkness; but she is a creature of the light, and offers voters a more uplifting alternative. A group called Professor Pride states that Harris would be the most pro-LGBTQ president in history based on her career so far.
Still, darkness appeals to some people. They may be damaged and afraid, but they tend to perpetuate the damage. As William Faulkner once wrote, they cling to that which has robbed them.
If darkness wins on Nov. 5, it will cost us a great deal of blood and treasure before it can be overcome.
Which brings me to the Resistance—the true patriots who would do all we could to thwart a Trump dictatorship.
We would not sit idly by as our beloved country was destroyed by a treasonous sociopath. How many millions of dissidents does Twitler plan to round up? And how long would the rest of the populace put up with him if he tanked the economy again by deporting millions of migrant workers?
We ourselves should not underestimate the capacity of brazen ignorance to prevail. It is amazing how far Trump’s know-nothingism has taken him. But how smart was it for the Heritage Foundation to publish Project 2025 so we could see what they were planning? It’s like a Bond villain speech that gives the hero time to turn the tables.
Americans have flirted with fascism before, but it was defeated. It does not sit well with us. Best to avert the Trumpian chaos by embracing a party whose experienced, forward-looking nominee embraces our country’s best aspirations. Vote Democratic up and down the ballot.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at [email protected].