Politics

America Won’t Survive Trump’s Second Act

Will the Biden administration finally stop him?

In the hellish last days of the Trump administration, as an unhinged president fought to cling to power despite being thrown out of office by the American people, America’s top military commander was desperately trying to prevent nuclear apocalypse. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley was so concerned Donald Trump might arbitrarily start a war via a nuclear first-strike on China to keep himself in power, that he warned America’s top generals that all nuclear launch commands must first go through him, and he made a secret phone call to calm his anxious Chinese counterpart. Twice.

This is one detail that has emerged about the nightmarish collapse of the Trump administration that couldn’t fail to considerably stir things up in Washington, despite the deep fatigue felt after the endless torrent of unbelievable and salacious revelations about those dark days inside the dying Trump White House.

Indeed, nuclear armageddon is hardly a partisan issue, and this exposure harkens back to the final days of Richard Nixon’s doomed presidency, when Secretary of Defense Richard Schlesinger ensured that all nuclear launch commands first went through him, as Nixon was both drunk and clearly unwell.

Still, Republicans conveniently seemed to miss the point of this startling revelation: their deranged president wasn’t just menacing American peace and stability, but the entire world’s. They immediately cried foul and accused General Milley of treason, calling for him to resign from the Biden administration where he continues to serve in the same role at the top of the uniformed military command structure.

President Biden responded by asserting his continuing confidence in General Milley, and Press Secretary Jen Psaki reminded journalists that in the context of an unstable president who had just instigated a violent attack against his own government, Milley’s actions were simply prudent.

Regardless, this discovery should be deeply unsettling for every rational American. That the outgoing American president, sitting atop the world’s most powerful army and the world’s most lethal weapons, was so obviously unhinged that his own hand-picked top military commander no longer trusted him with the national security apparatus he controlled is a profound and sinister testament to the depth of the crisis America faced.

The problem is that unlike Richard Nixon, Donald Trump has flatly refused to fade away into the sunset, and continues to rule the Republican Party from exile, running what many consider to be a shadow government. Likewise, the GOP remains utterly attached to Trump through its own moral and political inertia, despite the trail of wreckage and chaos his presidency left in its wake.

Republicans are entirely uninterested in reviewing their unqualified support for the most dangerous and sordid presidency in American history, to the point that literally nothing can shake loose their political allegiance to Trump. Even the specter of nuclear holocaust cannot separate Republicans from their beloved leader.

The larger question is what the rest of America does to protect itself from the violent demagogue still leading the Republican Party. The GOP is too venal, and too corrupt to do seemingly anything besides pander to their despot while repeating his lies. They made that nauseatingly clear in the days following January 6, as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the rest trekked down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring and pledge their loyalty to a man who had just sicced his rabid followers on their Capitol.

Republicans continue to make their deep and abiding corruption perfectly clear as they allow their misled constituents to die unnecessary deaths from Covid-19, resisting masks and vaccines in an empty political ploy borrowed from Trump himself. The level of hypocrisy and cynicism at the black heart of Republican politics is astonishing.

America cannot count on the Republican Party to do anything that isn’t in its own narrow short-term self interest. That much is evident by now. Anyone that was hoping for something else from the GOP should by this point clearly understand: we have to save ourselves if we are to be saved.

It is time to reconsider all of our options as a nation. The Biden administration has thus far resisted using its Department of Justice to throw its weight around, and it seems there is little forward movement in the numerous criminal investigations targeting Donald Trump, though they are ongoing.

What has become of these inquiries into Donald Trump’s crimes?

Certainly, the Biden administration might press the Department of Justice to finally do its job. Citizen Trump committed crimes, and President Trump committed treason, all quite openly. Presumably, there are a long line of prosecutors chomping at the bit to get a piece of the former president. It seems that it is the Biden administration itself that is preventing his prosecution. Why?

Attorney General Merrick Garland famously led the investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing, supervising the federal prosecution and conviction of Timothy McVeigh, resulting in his execution by lethal injection in 2001.

If anyone can comprehend the nature of the threat posed by Donald Trump and the dark nationalism he espouses, it would be AG Garland. Yet he has seemed to close the book on the idea of prosecuting Trump, and the DOJ remains on the sidelines as this criminal president continues to threaten American peace.

Trump has recently all but announced his intention to run for president again in 2024, and he remains far and away the polling favorite among Republican voters, eclipsing other candidates. He controls the Republican Party with an iron fist, and his lies about the 2020 election have replaced anything resembling a political platform.

The presidency is his for the stealing, as Republicans work feverishly to suppress voters and insert political hacks into positions overseeing local and state elections. When will the Biden administration protect the American people from this cancer? Donald Trump is a criminal and a malignant psychopath, and he is readying himself for a second act simply because he can.

By the time Trump successfully captures the 2024 Republican nomination for president, it will be far too late to prevent whatever catastrophe he will unleash on this nation. If he wins the presidency again, our nation is doomed. If he loses, I fear Trump will push this country into a civil war. That is not hyperbolic. Donald Trump must be stopped.

What it will take for America to wake up? Donald Trump is a ticking time bomb for the United States. It’s time to apply justice to this traitorous criminal before he destroys us.

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