Stop Trump!

 (NOTE: This is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of my employer. This is a column I wrote before Donald Trump’s ICE agents murdered two Americans in Minnesota. This column has not been published in print or anywhere other than here.)

Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again. Don’t believe him. He wants to make Donald Trump great. He is fixated on himself; the country be damned. The evidence is overwhelming. The man is a menace and needs to be stopped.

Trump returned to the presidency as a criminal convicted of 34 felonies. He was twice impeached by the House of Representatives in his first term. Despite what he wants you to believe, Joe Biden did not steal the 2020 election. He won and Trump lost. That has been proven in recounts and court challenges. Keep these things in mind because it’s important to remember his motivation as we review some of his actions in the past year.

Among the first things Trump did when he returned to office was fire anybody and everybody who remotely had anything to do with any of the prosecutions against him and replace them with Trump loyalists. He stacked the courts in his favor. He issued pardons for everyone convicted of or facing charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.

This is nothing more than an attempt to cover up and erase his crimes. He’s doing the same thing now by resisting the release of the FBI’s Jeffrey Epstein files. Now that they’re slowly being released, he’s trying to dismiss it as a “Democrat hoax” and a distraction. It’s kind of like the Wizard of Oz telling Dorothy to not pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.

Assault on the First Amendment

Trump is assaulting the First Amendment in his attempts to silence his critics. First, he booted The Associated Press out of the White House press pool because it wouldn’t go along with his name change of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

He got Congress to cut $1.1 billion from public broadcasting because he disagreed with NPR and PBS. He sued The Wall Street Journal, the BBC and the New York Times for billions of dollars. He called the Times “a threat to national security” and “a true enemy of the people” that “must be dealt with and stopped.”

He threatened to yank the broadcast licenses of networks if their late-night shows are “almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party.”

Trump even wants to eliminate American Sign Language translators from his press conferences because he says they intrude on his ability to control his image. His efforts to stifle the free press should chill every American to the bone. What he is doing is unconstitutional.

Abuse of power

Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t seem to let the Constitution get in the way of his abuses of power. He ordered domestic invasions of major cities by the National Guard. The attack on Venezuela and the snatching of its president is of highly questionable legality. His administration has been bombing boats and murdering their crews in international waters without due process, making him judge, jury and executioner without the benefit of a trial and in violation of international law.

Trump purports the boats are Venezuelan drug smugglers. He claims to be saving American lives in this war on drugs. Yet he pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez who was convicted and sentenced to prison on massive cocaine distribution charges. In the wake of the raid on Venezuela, Trump rapidly turned his focus from drugs to oil.

Vengeance

When Trump embarked on his reelection campaign, he made it crystal clear that revenge was one of his goals. He has been relentless in going after his enemies, real or perceived.

In my home state of Colorado, Trump attempted to pardon former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters who was convicted in a state court on election related charges. The state has refused to free Peters claiming Trump lacks jurisdiction to pardon her. In retaliation, Trump has refused three requests for disaster relief funding and threatened to eliminate the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

In a further affront to Colorado, Trump has vetoed a unanimous, bipartisan bill to provide clean drinking water to communities in the eastern part of the state reportedly because Rep. Lauren Boebert broke ranks with him over the release of the Epstein files.

When six Democratic lawmakers – former military and intelligence officers – made a video reminding members of the military they can refuse illegal orders, Trump went ballistic on social media, calling it seditious behavior punishable by death. He ordered the FBI to investigate them.

SNAP decisions

Remember the government shutdown that put SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) payments in jeopardy? Trump was so adamant in blaming Democrats that he threatened to pull funding from states that tried to supplement SNAP funding so people could eat. All the while he was doing this, he threw a huge Great Gatsby themed party at his Mar-a-Lago home. He wined and dined while forcing poor Americans to go hungry.

What’s in a name?

Given his history of naming buildings and things after himself, it should come as no surprise that Trump is naming and renaming government buildings and programs after himself. The most egregious is the plastering of his name atop the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Narcissist in Chief has ordered construction of a new “Trump-class” of battleships. He has the TrumpRx prescription drug website, Trump Accounts for children, and the Trump Gold Card, a $1 million visa for wealthy immigrants. There is a much longer list of current and proposed namings that I won’t list for the sake of brevity.

Traditionally a building or program is named for someone in recognition for work they have done. The name is normally proposed by others as a way to bestow honor. Trump dishonorably names things for himself.

Dignity slips to a new low

Just when you think Trump couldn’t be more full of himself, he sunk to a new low in a social media post the day Rob Reiner and his wife were found slain in their home. Their son has been charged with their murders, but Trump said they died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

Trump did the most childish thing any president has ever done while in office when he created the Presidential Walk of Fame. It features gold framed pictures of each president (excluding Biden whom he replaced with a picture of his autopen signature). Under them he posted plaques in typical Trumpian language describing how good or bad they were in Trump’s opinion.

In another of his Truth Social posts, he claimed Jesus spoke to him, singing his praises for making America great again, saying “The whole world owes you a debt of gratitude for being so Christian and having perfect morals.” That is so wrong on so many levels I’d have to say the devil made him do it.

Redecorating the White House

It’s not unprecedented for presidents to add their personal touch to the White House. Trump has taken things to a new extreme. Without undergoing any kind of approval process, Trump had the East Wing of the White House demolished to make way for a proposed $400 million ballroom (undoubtedly to be named after Trump). He paved over the Rose Garden to make a patio. He redecorated the Oval Office with garish gold embellishments.

Stop Trump

Keep in mind that he has committed these and numerous other atrocities in just his first year back in office. There are three more years to go unless he is stopped. The only way to do that is to pull out the props from beneath him.

The House and Senate will not take any action against him because they have a majority of Trumplicans (or Trumpuppets) who are beholden to him. They’re either afraid to stand up to him or are so drunk on the Trump juice that they can’t tell right from wrong anymore.

This means we need to use ballot power to get rid of them. We need to vote every Trump supporter out of office at every level of government. The upcoming midterm elections is the perfect opportunity to do that. We can replace them with people who will stand up to Trump, stop his shenanigans and possibly impeach him from office.

Any candidate that has Trump’s endorsement or who touts support for Trump will automatically lose my vote and hopefully yours as well.