There never was really any doubt who the two main combatants were going to be in November for the White House but Super Tuesday this week pretty much settled all that. Once again it will be Joe Biden for the Democrats against Donald Trump for the Republicans. The last time they faced off Biden won handily and Trump went on a scorched earth tear to try to overthrow the results and the government, he failed at both, but barely.
The complete capitulation of the Republican party to Trump is now complete. His last rival for the primaries, Nikki Haley, has ended her bid and the remaining moderate voice, comparably, left in Congress, Mitch McConnell, has endorsed Trump. The complete turnover of the party is now done and Trump is firmly and totally in control. So what does it mean for us and for this election cycle?
There are five main agenda items for Trump and therefore for the GOP in total also. He has made these all clear and there is no longer any deniability by anyone that is even remotely for this party. They are in no particular order:
Revenge against perceived enemies.
The elimination of our democracy.
The elimination of women's reproductive rights.
Marginalizing those that are not deep believing MAGA.
Turning our backs on our long time allies.
This is not my making things up, this is from their own mouths for the past six months. Really for the past ten years if you want to get technical. The cult that is the new Republican party likes to deny all this and claim that the left is delusional about all things Trump but the facts are he and his followers keep saying these things and at some point you have to believe they are going to do it.
Let's begin with their plans on eliminating our democracy and ripping up the Constitution.
Trump himself has proclaimed that on day one he plans on becoming a dictator. When pressed for details he feigns joking and says he is kidding, but he isn't. He plans on putting anyone who ever did him wrong, in his pea brain, in jail or if he chooses, to death. This is a long time dream of his. Additionally, he plans on getting the Congress to help him by passing laws that make voting not needed to keep him in power and allow him to begin a reign of family leadership like the other authoritarians he so loves around the world.
He will oversee the elimination of voting and voting rights so that only his followers votes will count and any vote for anyone else will be deemed fake. If you are not in complete lockstep with him you will risk going to jail or worse. Lastly, he and the Republican party will pass laws that allow only them to decide things for you like if and when you can have children, what books you can read, what music is acceptable, and what TV shows you will be allowed to watch. This is what dictators do everywhere and Trump will be no different.
The elimination of women's reproductive rights.
The Republican party has been working for fifty years to eliminate abortion in this country and now that they have sympathetic judges on the Supreme Court they are starting to chip away at your rights to decide when and if to have children. The American people have six times now put this decision on the ballots in six very different states and each time they have overwhelmingly voted in favor of allowing women, not the state or judiciary, to decide about having kids. This has not stopped the GOP from continuing on their quest to eliminate this right. States have still voted to deny abortions to such a great extent that any woman who lives south of Illinois, has to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to get an abortion if they choose.
Many of those same states are now passing laws that are trying to force states that do allow abortions to tell them who came in and where they are from so that they can put together a data base of women who have had an abortion. States now, starting with Alabama, are making it illegal to have an IVF because they say humanity begins with an egg and an IVF is murder if it goes wrong. Next up on their agenda is to eliminate all forms of contraception which a few states are already trying to do. My friends this is reality and this is what we have to look forward to if this version of the GOP is able to remain in power at any level of government.
Turning our backs on long time allies.
Trump and the GOP have called on the US to walk away from NATO, stop funding the United Nations, and to embrace the rouges gallery of strongmen, pictured above, around the world that Trump idolizes. They aren't even trying to hide this, they openly talk about it with a wistfulness in their voices like a sixth grader and his first crush.
Our allies have said that if Trump is elected they will no longer share any security information they gather because he has handed it over to Russian and North Korea the last time he was President. Our own NSA has said that if he regains power our national security will be a major risk because of his mishandling of classified information. This again is not my wild assed imagination this is what people in the know are saying.
Trump has already told Putin that if he gets elected that Russia can grab any country it wants and the US will not stop him. In my life I never thought I would hear this from a Republican and now the whole party is in step with his craziness.
Marginalizing those that are not deep believing MAGA.
This new Republican party led by Trump has made it very clear that they have no place in their country for immigrants, unless they are white Europeans, people of color, or anyone in the LGBTQ world. They denigrate them, they mock them, and they openly are hostile towards them because they view them as evil and that they are only here to destroy their White Christian Nationalist way of life.
States that are red have already begun the process of making anyone non-white or straight, persona non-gratis. They have made it harder to for them to vote, to go to school, to get jobs, and just make their lives as difficult as possible in the hopes they will leave their city or state. Again, they have been very open about doing this and wear it with pride. Trust me, it will only get worse if they get power.
So who is this new Republican party and how did they evolve from the Nixon/Reagan party? Well they started prior to the Obama Presidency when a group of small minded, racists, "Christian" folks got together because they all had the same dream and goals, to eliminate anyone that wasn't white and "Christian". I say "Christian" with quotes because these people are not reflective of actual Christians. They are believers in their own twisted world of what Christianity should be and that goes against every single thing the guy they supposedly follow, Christ, believed and taught.
He preached love everyone and treat all with respect while these fools hate everyone and treat those different then them with disdain and disgust. They are about as Christian as Taylor Swift is a hip hop artist. Sadly their ranks are growing in politics, the judiciary, business, and the media. The cult of Trump followers that is the new Republican party has embraced all the evil they stand for as the foundation of their new party. They will deny it and point fingers at the left and scream that they are the true evil in the world.
So what can those of us who can see clearly what the right is trying to do, to stop them.
First, we need to continuously point out to everyone what they are up to and make sure we spread the word to everyone we know, including and especially those we know that have fallen under the spell of the cult. They will hate you for doing it but it is the only way we can let everyone know what evil they are up to and to stop them with our votes against their potential reign.
Next we have to give up the hope that the Republican party will police themselves and not stand for the things the others in their party want to do. They have proven they will not stop this from happening so our only opportunity is to do it ourselves by voting out every single Republican at every level, and this is not an option, it must be done or the evil will continue.
We must continuously push back on any attempt by the GOP to try to make their vision of America seem reasonable and nice. We have to call it out for what it is, fascist and anti-American.
Look, there is no longer any legitimate sliver of deniability about what they want and what they are planning to do. It is up to the rest of us to stop them right here and right now. If we don't our country will no longer stand as a beacon of light to the rest of the world for freedom and safety.
No country in the history of the world that allowed democracy to be taken away and become an authoritarian ruled country has ever been able to return to a legitimate democracy ever again.
Ever.
Tell a friend and pass this along.
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