Liz Cheney on Trump’s victory:

“Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results of our elections. We now have a special responsibility, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years. Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-victory-liz-cheney-131546802.html

"Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy.” Liz Chaney

 

Well, my choice for President of our fair United States of America didn’t win. So, what now?

First the good things:

1.       There will be a peaceful transfer of presidential power. No more worry about there not being one. There is no longer any reason to think there will be another Jan-6 riot at the Capitol. National Guard troops can stay home

2.       All the preparatory positioning by the GOP for mounting multiple legal challenges to the election outcome will be boxed and closeted for at least another election cycle.

3.       47’s incessant school yard trash talk might become less profuse and repugnant and more civil (I don’t really believe this).

4.       Storm Rafael now forming in the Gulf of Mexico will miss Florida.

5.       Due to expected “La Nina” conditions approaching the west coast, a mild winter can be expected for Florida.

6.       The TBT actually delivered my Wednesday paper this morning.

7.       Despite my doubts about the future of my country, I will carry on.

 

Now the bad things:

1)       47 is 78, meaning he will be 82 when his current term is completed. Will he be up to it? Everyone will be watching. If he can’t, his VP will have to step up, and that’s really scary.

2)       Iran is raising “full-scale” nuclear threats toward Israel this morning.

3)       47 insists he can end the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, without explaining how. He summarizes his approach through another Reagan phrase: “peace through strength.” But he remains critical of NATO and top U.S. military brass. “I don’t consider them leaders,” 47 has said of Pentagon officials that Americans “see on television.” He has repeatedly praised authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

                (a)   In other words, Ukraine is screwed and pal Putin will get a pass and a chunk of Ukraine.

                (b)       U.S. commitment to NATO will now be in question … again … offering Putin further expansion opportunities.

4)       47 will have unconstrained power granted to him by SCOTUS.

                (a)    Heaven help us.

                (b)   47 has promised he will truly weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice and go after his opponents.

5)       47 has not said explicitly that he would veto national abortion restrictions if they reached his desk. Thus, women can expect a federal law limiting their right to make decisions regarding their own body.

6)     DeSantis successfully used your tax dollars to defeat a constitutional amendment that would have allowed women in Florida greater freedom to make decisions affecting their own bodies.

7)       47 will levy stiff import tariffs on some foreign products.

           (a)       Respected national economists have expressed doubts as to how this can be done without raising prices for you and me.

8)       While 47 has promised he will carry out “the largest mass deportation program in history” using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort, he has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the U.S. illegally. 

9)       47 has promised to extend his 2017 tax overhaul, with a few notable changes that include lowering the corporate income tax rate to 15% from the current 21%. That also involves rolling back Biden’s income tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans and scrapping Inflation Reduction Act levies that finance energy measures intended to combat climate change. With national debt in the trillions and growing, how will he pay for this reduction in federal revenue?

10)  47  has called for rolling back societal emphasis on diversity and for legal protections for LGBTQ citizens, and has called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions, using federal funding as leverage.

11)  47 has pledged to remove obstacles to fossil fuel production, including opening all federal lands for exploration — even though U.S. energy production is already at record highs. 

12)  47 has pledged he will unleash housing construction by cutting regulations — though most construction rules come from state and local government – as well as to end “frivolous litigation from the environmental extremists.”

13)  47 has pledged to weaken the government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by reducing the number of employees engaging in the work and, potentially, impose a chilling effect on those who remain.

        (a)  This would make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of them as being outside civil service protections.

14)  47 also claims that presidents have exclusive power to control federal spending even after Congress has appropriated money. Trump argues that lawmakers’ budget actions “set a ceiling” on spending but not a floor — meaning the president’s constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” includes discretion on whether to spend the money.

       (a) This interpretation could set up a court battle with otherwise weakened Congressional oversight.

15)  47 has suggested that the Federal Reserve, an independent entity that sets interest rates, should be subject to more presidential power.

       (a)       Though he has not offered details, any such move would represent a momentous change to how the U.S. economic and monetary systems work.

16)  47 has targeted the federal Department of Education for elimination in his second administration. That does not mean that he wants Washington out of classrooms. He still proposes, among other maneuvers, using federal funding as leverage to pressure K-12 school systems to abolish tenure and adopt merit pay for teachers and to scrap diversity programs at all levels of education. He calls for pulling federal funding “for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

17)  In higher education, 47 proposes taking over accreditation processes for colleges, a move he describes as his “secret weapon” against the “Marxist Maniacs and lunatics” he says control higher education. Trump takes aim at higher education endowments, saying he will collect “billions and billions of dollars” from schools via “taxing, fining and suing excessively large private university endowments” at schools that do not comply with his edicts which would almost certainly end up in protracted legal fights.

18)  As in other policy areas, 47 isn’t actually proposing limiting federal power in higher education but strengthening it. He calls for redirecting the confiscated endowment money into an online “American Academy” offering college credentials to all Americans without a tuition charges. “It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that’s going to be allowed,” he said on Nov. 1, 2023.

19)  Trump insists he would protect Social Security and Medicare, but exempting tip and overtime wages from payroll taxes would reduce the funding stream for Social Security and Medicare outlays.

         (a)   47 has also mentioned approving state requests for waivers of various federal rules and has broadly endorsed state-level work requirements for Social Security recipients.

20)  47 has called for repealing the Affordable Care Act and its subsidized health insurance marketplaces. But he still has not proposed a replacement.

21)   In the latter stages of the campaign, 47 played up his alliance with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and of pesticides used in U.S. agriculture and repeatedly told rally crowds that he would put Kennedy in charge of “making America healthy again."

22)  47 has claimed falsely that climate change is a “hoax,” and blasted Biden-era spending on cleaner energy designed to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. He proposes an energy policy – and transportation infrastructure spending – anchored to fossil fuels: roads, bridges and combustion-engine vehicles. “Drill, baby, drill!” was a regular chant at Trump rallies.

23)  47 says he does not oppose electric vehicles but promises to end all Biden incentives to encourage EV market development and to roll back Biden-era fuel efficiency standards.

24)  47 could make it harder for workers to unionize. In discussing auto workers, Trump focused almost exclusively on Biden’s push toward electric vehicles. When he mentioned unions, it was often to lump “the union bosses and CEOs” together as complicit in “this disastrous electric car scheme.” In an Oct. 23, 2023, statement, Trump said of United Auto Workers, “I’m telling you, you shouldn’t pay those dues.”

25)  47’s rhetoric and policy approach in world affairs is more isolationist diplomatically, non-interventionist militarily and protectionist economically than the U.S. has been since World War II. But the details are more complicated. He pledges expansion of the military, promises to protect Pentagon spending from austerity efforts and proposes a new missile defense shield — an old idea from the Reagan era during the Cold War.

26)  47 is a convicted felon. How will his sentencing be handled?

27)  Will he pardon the Jan-6 rioters? He has promised to do so if they’re innocent.”

28)  Will he pardon others who were complicit in the illegal attempt to overthrow the Biden election?

29)  Will he and his family again be able to reap millions inappropriately if not illegally through the opportunities created by his position as President of the United States?

 

 Election Day in America 2024

Well … finally … the day is upon us. We, the people of America, collectively get to discharge the privilege and obligation to choose one of its human members to guide and lead our nation further into an unknown condition called the future.

Though it is a period of great angst for many, it has been equally so for others in past elections, I’m certain. This is not the first time the continuance of the country’s chosen form of government has been so clearly challenged. But how that challenge has come to be is historically unique and more dangerous than it has ever been. There three conditions that have brought us to where we are today.

One condition not unique in world history is that the mindsets of many have become consumed with the believe that their lives are harsh and to them bleak to the extent that it is no longer acceptable. They believe it is due to the decisions and disregard of others. And, there is very little they can do about it. It is a feeling bordering on desperation.

The second condition is also not unique. It is when one person of some stature or personal attribute who accurately defines and identifies this desperation and offers an alternative that will remove it and replace it with a better life. And then also promises to remove all those who were responsible. Desperation will no longer exist, and their lives will improve.

But the third condition is very unique. Never has there been the ability of anyone on the planet to be heard at will and instantaneously by everyone else on the planet. Social media has become a force no earthly society has ever had to deal with. The ability to sneeze and have it immediately heard around the world, and then for others to have the ability to respond to it in real time, has never existed. Suddenly, group thought can explode and be generated in seconds forcing institutions and governments to react far more quickly, and dangerously, than they otherwise would’ve had to. The world is now seemingly more and more easily influenced by information spread by the phenomenon of viral dissemination that does not even have to be true.

So this is what we have today. Folks who feel disenfranchised, actually and not. A man who promises an impossible utopia formulated by a tsunami of lies and false realities given agency by instantaneous dispersion to millions at a time without letup 24/7 for ten years.

Having said as much, there is hope today, that, as America has a few dark times in the past, stood still for a moment and took time to assess it all. And having done so, determined what it collectively believes will be the best path forward for the next four years. It has made the right decision in the past. 

I have hope it will again.