Trumpocalypse Now
Scary? Yes, but it does not have to happen
When I think about Trump (as much as I try to avoid doing that), I picture a doddering old man in his nightgown, roaming the West Wing at night, phone in hand and governing by Tweet. But, as doddering as he may be, he has a certain, snake-like cleverness and knows how to get other people to do his bidding.
A pandemic is sweeping the nation that he knew of in advance and that it was “bad”, “airborne”, and “five times worse than the worst flu season” yet refused to make that knowledge public and did nothing to stop it.
As of this writing, the death toll exceeds 213,000 and is certainly higher when you read this.
In 2017, he disbanded the White House Pandemic Response Team the Obama Administration set up, leaving the United States totally unprepared for a pandemic that was certain to come. It was not a matter of if a pandemic would occur, but when.
Instead of doing his job, Trump actively hid the danger out of fear it might rattle the Stock Market. Rather than warn Americans, which would have prevented tens of thousands of deaths, he called the virus a Chinese hoax while he sold millions of dollars’ worth of PPE to China.
We all knew, long before he admitted it, that Trump will question the election results. He expects to lose and will do anything to stay in the White House. He began to cast doubts on the integrity of the November election long ago, sowing a seed he knew would take root with his followers and possibly others, as well.
He has claimed there is massive fraud in mail-in voting, without evidence. And while he and his family happily vote by mail he states at his rallies that Democrats are trying to steal the election with mail-in voting.
He even repeated via Tweet a conspiracy that children in California will go around and steal ballots from mailboxes.
So, his first step in challenging the election results will, of course, be to sue to stop counting of ballots that arrive after Election day, even though in every other Presidential election they are valid votes.
Those ballots will be mailed in, so he has attacked the integrity of mail in ballots, which has never been an issue in the past. Military personnel and American citizens living abroad regularly vote by mail.
To help ensure that many ballots won’t arrive by election day, Trump’s boy DeJoy, Postmaster General, restructured the roles of Postal executives to concentrate more power in his hands and put restrictions on getting mail delivered on time.
DeJoy had thousands of public mailboxes removed nationwide but many were returned the day he testified in front of the Senate.
In addition, DeJoy had 711 high speed mail sorting machines that are crucial to processing thousands of pieces of mail an hour removed from postal distribution centers in 2020.
Trump continues to block a coronavirus relief bill because Democrats added money for the Postal Service.
Public mailboxes that get fewer than 25 pieces of mail a day are routinely removed to use in busier areas. But any one of those mailboxes might have been critical for some people and leaving them in place should not have been a question.
DeJoy says the sorting machines were removed as a cost-cutting measure due to lack of need, despite the larger than ever use of mail-in ballots this year he refuses to return them to the locations from which they were taken.
And with help from “Red” states in voter role purges, blocking ex-felon’s right to vote and reducing the number of polling places, all during a pandemic, voting this year will be more difficult than ever.
Voter roll purges in Republican-controlled states, with Georgia perhaps purging the greatest number at 540,000 since 2018, until the Court found that many had been improperly removed and the total number of voters purged was closer to 300,000.
Many voters were also purged from the roles in a “must-win” (for Trump) state of Wisconsin.
A 2018 Amendment in Florida, supported by more than 65% of state residents, reinstated the right to register to vote to 1.4 million felons. But just a month before the election, Florida’s Republican Governor added a requirement that all fines and administrative fees first be paid, a huge burden on many felons who have difficulty even getting hired.
The US Appeals Court for the 11th circuit in Atlanta blocked a judge’s order that would maintain the Amendment’s intent to allow felons the right to register to vote and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, again leading to disenfranchisement of citizens who might lean toward voting for Democrats.
It is no surprise that Florida’s Electoral votes are a “must-win” for any Presidential candidate.
Locations to cast ballots have also been cut dramatically nationwide, primarily in “blue” districts/cities in “Red” states with Kentucky being a prime example: the state has reduced polling locations from 3,700 statewide to only 200.
Nearly half of all Black residents of Kentucky live In Jefferson County, which includes the city of Louisville, and it now has a single polling location for over six-hundred thousand registered voters.
That effectively disenfranchises tens of thousands of voters who do not have transportation, or even gas money if they own a car (no buses run in rural areas), or time to travel possibly one-hundred miles to cast their ballots.
Voter suppression is going on in many other ways, as well, including removing ballot drop boxes and more but the real fear is what will happen after the election.
If trump manages to win, his proposed 2021 budget contains cuts to services he has promised to protect will come as a surprise to many who voted for him. Social services such as Social Security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security Disability benefits.
Many people have no other income than Social Security retirement benefits or disability benefits. I suppose the crippled, terminally ill and dying will just have to suck it up and get a job.
And SNAP benefits, i.e. “food stamps” will be replaced with “boxes of nutritious, American produced” foods delivered to local distribution centers.
All a recipient has to do is take a bus to the center, wait in line then carry their boxes of food to the nearest bus stop, carry them onto the bus then get off at the nearest bus stop near their home and carry their boxes of food back to their home.
Simple and so easy anyone could do it. Even mothers with young children in tow or a toddler in their arms or pregnant young women can handle it all on their own.
At least those hassle-filled days of having to walk a block or two to the local market and swiping their card will be a thing of the past. As will locally owned grocers. And the local jobs they provide in poor neighborhoods.
Trump may finally get the ACA overturned and his touted “Trumpcare”, the details of which will be released soon, any day now, any day now, soon, doesn’t exist in reality so millions of Americans will be without healthcare during a pandemic, the kind of act only a sociopath would take.
If Trump wins, we are headed into dark times for generations to come.
If he does not win, the more likely outcome, his White Supremacists supporters such as the Proud Boys and others, will heed Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacism and take his “Stand back and stand by” comments the way he intended: it’s “open season” on Democrats, liberal politicians, peaceful protestors, Antifa believers, BLM and anyone deemed anti-Trump.
And the things he will do to get his revenge on Democrats through noon, January 20th, 2021 are unimaginable. Win or lose, this nation is in for hell and we should be prepared for almost anything.
Yes, Trump, the doddering old fool who wanders the West Wing, tweeting in the dark, is clever, and like a snake, will still have a fearsome bite.
If Trump does not win, we’re still headed into dark waters. For a few months, things will be dark.
But the Trumpocalypse does not have to happen.
It can be stopped.
It will take a landslide, but we can stop America’s descent into a third world Autocracy.
“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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