At this point, there’s absolutely nothing Donald Trump can say to make people deter their decisions. Just this past week, he said he wanted Liz Cheney to face a firing squad, made sexually suggestive gestures and movements on a microphone and called the workers behind the stage “stupid” repeatedly.
This would be the type of three-strikes-and-you’re-out that would’ve ruined every other politician’s chance of being elected. Yet, people seem to like it, which is telling about them. Let’s face, the man obviously has a lot of mental health issues. He shouldn’t be in charge of the nuclear codes. He shouldn’t even be in charge of the remote control in the day room at the senior citizens center. Now, he’s 78, officially the oldest candidate to get a major political party’s nomination for President.
If you would take into account someone who made the comment during a debate that Haitian immigrants were “eating the dogs” after stealing people’s pets, even though this has been considered false with no evidence. At least Richard M. Nixon had the issue of plausible deniability quoted by the late Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) when he said, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Baker said this about during the Watergate hearings. It’s basically the same argument I used to deal with in the media. If I get information and it’s erroneous, did it come from a reliable official source when it was believed to be true.
Nothing Trump has said can be believed. The sad fact is Trump has always been lying. But his popularity is because a lot of people have always believed those lies. People believe conspiracy theories because they too believe in them. This is nothing new. Politicians have used ways to go after their opponents for centuries. I just heard how people campaigning for John Adams in the election of 1800 that Thomas Jefferson was going to come into their homes and take their Bibles.
Sound familiar?
There’s also the possibility that Trump will be sentenced this month in New York state for his 34 felony convictions earlier this year. Legal experts say it’s likely Trump won’t be sentenced if he wins the election but what does that say about our judicial system? Elected officials have gone to prison before. Why should Trump be any different?
It might be why the Republican Party chose J.D. Vance as the running mate. Given his mental status, I seriously doubt Trump will ever serve one year of his term. But it should give the Republicans enough time to start Project 2025. Vance is only 40 and he’s only been a Senator since January 2023. For the most part, this is the most inexperienced ticket for either political party since George Washington was elected. However, Vance, like Trump seems more willing to do whatever the movers and shakers say as long as they keep gradually giving him a bigger piece of the pie.
Making Vance a President for life is the goals of the Republican Party. They’re looked toward the East as India did the same thing about 50 years ago with “The Emergency.” It was a 21-month period when under the rule of Indira Gandhi, India’s democracy was put on hold for a more Fascist authoritarian government where elections were stopped and many civil liberties ceased. About 100,000 of India’s population was imprisoned some under draconian style laws. The media was also censored heavily.
And this was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, who served as prime minister for 16 years, and championed democracy and secularism as well as science and technology. It just goes to show how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t the only one who seems a far cry from what their parents championed. Who knows? Ron Reagan is an atheist who supports the current Democrat Party so we don’t know how Barron Trump will be in the next 10-15 years. Even Barbara Bush, the granddaughter of George H.W. Bush, has campaigned for and endorsed Kamala Harris.
I really think there are a lot of people who will vote to keep Trump from being elected. Cheney’s father, Dick, has said he was going to support Harris. That’s saying a lot. I don’t believe the polls one bit since most of them differ. And if they are conducting by cold-calling people, who still answers a phone number they don’t recognize? I don’t. Anything done at random is going to produced unfavorable and unlikely results. Remember how in 2016, most polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would win easily.
Clinton’s biggest mistake was that she didn’t campaign in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Also, many people didn’t vote at all. Over 155.5 million people voted in 2020 for either Trump or Joe Biden and that’s over 27.5 million of votes more from the 2016 election where it was nearly 128 million for either Clinton or Trump. But the 2020 election only was about 63 percent of the voting population.
How many people have changed their attitudes since 2020? How many people aren’t alive now to vote? How many more eligible voters have registered since 2020 and who all are they voting for? I tried to early vote on Thursday, Oct. 31 but there was a line around the corner of the Election Board meeting and I didn’t think I could stand in line that long. This is either a good sign or just a sign that people are voting early just to get it over and done with. In 2016, over 6.8 million cast their votes candidates other than Trump or Clinton. But less than 100,000 votes in a few states kept Clinton who got the popular vote from getting the majority of Electoral Votes.
Trump and his campaign have already started a lot of ugliness anticipating “a rigged election.” WNEP-TV in Pennsylvania ran made up results as a test graphic during the airing of a Formula 1 racing that has already drawn out the conspiracy theorists mainly because it put Harris ahead of Trump. At the same time, a ballot box in Washington state was set on fire. Caleb James Williams, 18, was arrested in Neptune Beach, Fla. for brandishing a machete and intimating voters outside a voting area.
Trump didn’t bring the ugliness out of politics. But he has built on the craziness that those before him used. Remember the Willie Horton ad? Or how about Karl Rove used a lie that Sen. John McCain had fathered an interracial child to get George W. Bush to win the primary in South Carolina? It’s been around for decades, centuries even. The problem is Trump is the only one truly advocating violence. And a lot of his supporters believe blood should be shed against people they don’t agree with.
Harrison Ford, a long-time Democrat, said he’s endorsing Harris adding she will fight for our rights to disagree with her. We’re not supposed to fully support an elected official. What kind of madness is that? I’ve seen community events where people have had “Impeach Biden” booths erected. That’s their right to criticize the President. Yet they don’t understand the irony of supporting a candidate who wants 110 percent of loyalty to him or else.
And as Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show on Oct. 28, people still support Trump because what they think will happen won’t affect them. But if you give someone absolute power and autonomy without question, they’re going to push it as far as they can.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 