GUILTY! But Not Gone

I told myself if this slimy bastard got tried and convicted of multiple felonies, I'd mix up a batch of my famous mango margaritas and go dance in the street.

And today, Thursday, May 30, 2024, the jury in the Orange Turd's New York hush money trial handed down its verdict: guilty on every single one of the 34 charges in the indictment. As CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell slowly read off the verdict on on each count, I felt a chill of relief and, dare I say, delight.

This slam-dunk outcome shines a glint of hope in a world that seems to be seriously considering if fascism might be the way forward. Hope that there's still a cross-section of people in this country who can think for themselves and actually believe thoroughly documented, damning evidence, even against the conman of our generation.

But that's really all it is, a glint. For we all know this creep. He's a cockroach, and cockroaches are really tough to catch and squash.

                      Each and every decent American…
                      must make a solemn commitment.

IT’S NOT OVER
Before the cretin even leaves the courthouse he's pulling out all his tattered cards. Poor me! Rigged. Conspiracy. Travesty. And, of course, he'll appeal…for as long as any court—some of their judges hand picked by him--will hear the case.

So yes, I'm enjoying my margaritas, but I'm not dancing in the street. Because this isn't over.
But a taste of justice, even if it's just on paper, should inspire us to start and continue the hard work of making sure this vile little man can no longer pretend to lead this great country toward the collapse of our Democracy—a way of life that’s the envy of the world, and which millions of our countrymen and women have fought and died to defend.

Each and every decent American—those of us who believe our president should defend and bolster Democracy, not sabotage it; those of us who think it’s about hope and helping people, not fear and controlling them—must make a solemn commitment.

                 During the last campaign we mailed some
                 6,000,000 letters…with a phenomenal success
                 rate ranging from 1% to 3%.

TAKE THE PLEDGE

We must pledge not just to vote come November; that’s the easy part. We must also find ways to encourage others to vote, especially those who might otherwise be unlikely to do so. Maybe they don't believe their one vote can make a difference. Maybe they find both candidates lacking. Could be they're just worn out by the vitriol that Donald Trump has stirred up in our politics.

I've taken that pledge. I looked for a way to turn my outrage into action, a hands-on way of turning out potential progressive voters who might need a little encouragement to speak up for Democracy. It had to be something I knew I could stick with and that would bear results.

What I discovered was VOTE FORWARD, a 501(c)(4) non-profit that empowers grassroots volunteers to send handwritten letters encouraging fellow Americans in key districts to vote. During the last presidential campaign we mailed some 6,000,000 letters—600 of them were mine—with a phenomenal success rate ranging from 1% to 3%.*

This time, we’re aiming for 10,000,000.

PIECE OF CAKE
It's easy. I craft my own (non-partisan) message. I can write letters just about anywhere and in my own time. And it risks none of the face-to-face, slamming-door rejection one encounters with that old reliable get-out-the-vote go-to: door knocking.

Let’s make sure this charlatan, this proxy hoodlum for a generation of bloated billionaires and bitter Billy-Bobs, never again controls anything more than his own miserable, fools-gold life and those of his NDA-muzzled spawn.

¡Salud!

* Vote Forward impact

STAND BY – The War Between Trump’s Enablers and Moral Rebels

There’s an interesting and timely article in the current Amherst College alumni magazine. Psychology professor Catherine Sanderson explains the science of bystander inaction—why otherwise nice people fail to act when they witness something that, in other, clearer-headed circumstances, they might not allow.

Of course, the author cites last May’s police killing of George Floyd as an example. But it strikes me how this bystander-inaction science might also apply on a broader, societal level, accounting for the political debacle that's played out over the past four years.

Specifically, how millions of Americans have stood by and not lifted a finger as the leader they chose, and who represents them, allows thousands and thousands of their countrymen to die of COVID-19 while he's Twitter-twiddled his little thumbs. Not to mention as he's systematically trashed our democratic institutions and norms of civility.

 

 

The hands are those of a great nation, drowning while Trumpublicans turn away.

             Are there enough of them to
             bring down the massive, gaudy
             dam that’s been holding back
             America’s incredible potential
             for the past four years?

MORAL REBELS
Sanderson calls those who do step forward and act to thwart cruelty “moral rebels.” These, her study suggests, tend to be people with a more accurate sense of what others around them are thinking. And who, in many cases, grew up free of heavy-handed, authoritarian parental control.

So, who have the moral rebels been who've broken from the lock-step Trumpublican ranks to act with integrity and courage? Certainly not the likes of the McConnells, the Grahams, the Barrs, who are ultimately going down with the ship. And not those who've scrambled like rats to abandon ship at the last minute.

Nor those, like John Bolton or Michael Cohen, who've only shown up when they no longer had anything to lose.

No, the moral rebels were those folks, like Mitt Romney, John McCain or Christine Whitman, who did have something to lose and acted with decency anyway. We’ve witnessed, over the past year or so, more and more of these genuine American heroes, standing up to defend our time-honored values against an angry, vengeful bully.

There are many other pre-Trump Republicans who have consistently spoken out: Colin Powell, John Kasich, hundreds of former Justice Department officials, the former Republican strategists behind the Lincoln Project and many more.

We’ve witnessed more and more of these genuine American heroes, standing up to defend our time-honored values against a tyrant. An angry, vengeful bully who, literally since birth, has had nothing on his feeble little mind but feeding his insatiable ego.

LEAKS IN THE DAMN DAM
I wonder, on this, Election Day 2020: Have there been, among political leaders and the ranks of erstwhile Trump supporters, enough moral rebels who, like pinprick leaks in the massive, gaudy dam that’s been holding back America’s incredible potential for the past four years, have grown and joined and brought that dam down? We shall see…

 

THE FOURTH HORSEMAN – Aim For the Plump One With the Tiny Hands

Here we are, mired in a compound national crisis of historic proportions. It’s occurring on four fronts.

First, there’s the COVID 19 pandemic, which promises to challenge the devastating 1918 Spanish flu pandemic for its worldwide death toll. The U.S. is, through our shameful inaction, soaring past the rest of the world in both cases and deaths.

Then there’s the generation-defining paroxysm of outrage and self-examination over systemic racism, rekindled by the indefensible Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police—a reaction fed in part by the fears and frustrations of the pandemic.

Third, if we can even pretend to one day gain the upper hand on the both of these afflictions, our worries will be far from over. We’ll still have to face the dire threat of global climate change. The impact on lives, health, economies, cannot be overstated—and it’s already occurring.

Finally, as if that weren’t enough, while all three of these calamities threaten the security and the very lives of every single American, we find ourselves struggling to face any of them, gasping in a suffocating vacuum of national leadership. Oh, and did I mention the Trumpublicans’ continuing, full-on assault on democratic institutions?

      Others have had to step up and show us
      the way, kicking aside the shattered pieces
      of American exceptionalism.

THE ENVY OF NO ONE
So here we sit, those we wish would lead so consumed in their hubris that they no longer see beyond the reach of their own thieving grasp. So jealously hunched over what they insist is theirs to possess, that they see not, care not, that the states and the rest of the world—even places these ugly Americans love to diminish—have had to step up and show us the way, kicking aside the shattered pieces of American exceptionalism.

Leading the heroic effort to get ahead of COVID 19, cooperating to at least try saving the planet, delegitimizing hatred, reclaiming truth, defending freedom, fostering a vision of peace, love and happiness…all are opportunities our gutless, amoral president and his republican enablers have pointedly refused to seize.

These now represent ideals our country can no longer pretend to espouse. Values that, for nearly two-and-a-half centuries, have distinguished the United States of America, and stood as the envy of the rest of the world.

       It’s a mistaken idea of liberty as the right
       to do what ever they want…period.

THE FOOLS-GOLD EMPIRE
Here we sit, abandoned by our own president, who, having sold his soul to the devil by the time he was ten, still prizes wealth above wisdom, loyalty above respect, rumor above reality, the approval of dictators above the honor of his nation.

And his equally soulless disciples keep begging to be in on the deal, cheering on the hate and intolerance they’d inflict themselves if they thought they could get away with it. Howling for a piece of his vapid, fools-gold empire.

All so they can enjoy their mistaken idea of liberty as the right exclude anyone not like them and simply do whatever they want…period.

A FUNCTIONING ADULT
Of these four desperate crises, three will require years, perhaps even decades, of smart, vision-driven work. There will be more heart-rending sacrifices. And staggering investments.

The fourth disaster, the hijacked presidency of the United States, begs for a much easier resolution (and thank God this remedy has not yet fallen victim to the republican party’s wrecking ball approach to our Constitution): The presidential election just four months hence.

       It will not be enough for us democrats to
       simply get to the polls on election day.

Though I appreciate the lawn signs I’ve been seeing which read: “Any Functioning Adult - 2020,” we do have a better alternative than that to oust the man who’s brought America to its knees. Former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden, while he has his flaws, is still a capable, accomplished public servant, and, perhaps even more important right now, a genuine, thinking, caring…yes…functioning adult.

With the all-but-certain interference of Russia and other adversaries in the November election, and the republicans’ dogged efforts at voter suppression, it will not be enough for us democrats to simply get to the polls on election day.

Each one of us who cares about this country’s true, time-honored values must find a way to leverage our own power of the vote and convince at least one or two others who might not yet know which side they’re on, or who are considering not voting at all, TO VOTE!

• Talk to people.
• Write letters through VoteForward, the organization mobilizing a massive, ten-million-letter, get-out-the-vote mail blitz right before election day.
• Join up with the League of Women Voters, Let America Vote, Fair Fight or another fair-voting advocacy group.
• Inform older or more vulnerable family members and acquaintances about easy alternatives to in-person, at-the-polls voting.
• Do something!

 Please! We may not yet have a whole lot of power over COVID 19, and it could well take a generation to quash congenital racism or mitigate climate change, but for the small-hand, small-mind, big-ego traitor now infecting the presidency, there is a timely, sure-fire cure.

VOTE…and help others to vote.

A SNOWFLAKE’S CHANCE IN HELL – Fear and Loathing In the Trump Era

Listen to this deluge of campaign ads! Notice how much of the republicans’ message is about fear? A couple of spots running here in MN epitomize it: “I would never vote for so-and-so; he won’t protect us;” and “So-and-so will make Minnesota a sanctuary state for criminals.”

Fear is much easier to incite than any positive passion like hope, excitement or love. With fear, all you have to do is dangle it out there and people—mostly folks who are, I suspect, already deeply insecure—will bite.

It reminds me of Stephen King’s approach to engendering fear. He realized he can stir more fear by merely suggesting the presence of some horror than by actually showing it. That’s because we human beings are so good at filling in the gory details in our imaginations.

Of course, it helps to objectify and demonize the thing you want folks to be afraid of: Cujo, Christine, the Mist…immigrants, the media, smart people…

       It’s easier to be against something that someone
       else’s vision and hard work have created than it is
       to do the work of creating something better yourself.

A CONSTRUCTIVE VISION
There’s another spineless premise at work in the republicans’ message. Attacking someone else—someone you portray as The Enemy—requires none of the clarity and courage it takes to say what it is you stand for. Easier, it seems, to be against something that someone else’s vision and hard work have created than it is to do the work of creating something better yourself.

Both these intertwined, negative attitudes—fear and negativism—are not only gutless, they’re lazy and undisciplined. They require no constructive imagination, no work whatsoever. And, worse than the ignorance inherent in them is the fact that the beliefs they rest on involve not defensible truths, but—to use their proponents’ own term—“alternative” facts.

ILLUSTRATION: iStock/dane_mark

The problem we progressives face in coming elections is that we’ve found no one—yet—on the national level to lay out a vision of the kind of peaceful, prosperous future intelligence, creativity, joy and hope can inspire. Unlike fear, positive concepts like this have to be articulated. And they have to convince conservatives that being constructive just might address their complaints as well, or better than, being destructive.

Perhaps the most difficult nut to swallow, for both sides of the divide, is that the new, positive approach must embody a measure of reconciliation.

        Not a person famous for nothing but fame
        itself, but one with deep insight, an expansive
        outlook and real integrity.

WHO WILL TURN THE TIDE?
During the disastrous second term of George W. Bush, the only solution I could imagine was for a charismatic leader to emerge who might articulate hope for a nation still on wobbly knees from 9/11. My prayers were answered.

Sadly, though President Obama embodied nearly everything we needed as a leader, he failed to use his eloquence to full advantage. And, for reasons I’m convinced the neo-cons are too smart to ever say out loud—though Trump is all but doing so for them—he was met with a degree of political rancor and obstruction one would have thought reserved for a true tyrant.

Once again I’m praying for a charismatic leader, one who can make the distinction between beliefs and facts, articulate a view of the future that doesn’t require Americans to talk circles around the values we know undergird this great country. Not a person famous for nothing but fame itself, but one with deep insight, an expansive outlook and real integrity. One with a deep, selfless love for both country and planet.

Tall order, right? I figure it won’t be the first time the loving power I call God has called on us to be his instruments in delivering a miracle. So please, please, even if you feel insignificant, even you’re deeply disillusioned with our political system, don’t give up. Come Tuesday, November 6, get out and VOTE! And while you’re at it, see if you can help a couple of other people who might otherwise not be voting to do so too.

We can do this…we must do this!