PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
President Biden is a 79 year old lifelong politician who was humble enough to resist the initial recruitment efforts to make him the democratic candidate running against Trump in the 2016 election. Biden is, above all, a decent man and one whose political career has benefited America.
Currently, as Trump’s popularity with voters has diminished to an almost record low, the Biden administration has been effectively working with the Congress and in recent months seen to the passage of substantial legislation. And Biden’s popularity has improved.
I have personally seen on TV some of President Biden’s verbal mistakes or pauses suggestive of confusion—but he recovers; and most importantly, President Biden is surrounded by staff who help him get the job done.
Most of the American press have treated him with the respect he deserves. Most importantly, President Biden is a decent man who with his assistants is performing at least adequately. He is not dangerous and is more loyal to America than to any of his own self-interests.
For the record, I grew up in a republican home, have been a registered republican my whole life, voted once for Trump and most recently for Biden.
FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP—WHAT A JOKE, WHAT DISTRESSINGLY BAD BEHAVIOR
In the run up to the 2016 election, I watched all the republican forums and debates. Trump was the extreme outlier. He never actually debated anyone; instead, toward his fellow debaters he showed clear-cut disrespect by simply denying their point, mocking them, and pivoting to draw attention to himself. He made himself a scene to behold-- something more crazy than ever before in politics, such that you could not stop watching what was going to unfold next. And unfold it did. Boom! He was going to solve the crisis at the border by building a 2000 mile long wall. When asked who would pay for it, he didn’t pause at all. He nonchalantly said Mexico would pay for it. Mexico said no we won’t; and they didn’t.
Trump’s tactics never changed: grab people’s attention, speak what’s outlandish, give no respect appropriate to the occasion, no political correctness, no empathy, and arrogantly show no concern for the non-outliers on the stage. He only cared about his showmanship and capturing the audience. With his strategy, he never in his campaign produced a legitimate, stable platform to offer to American citizens. His impulsive randomness was always front and center.
On the international scene, when then president Trump landed in Britain on a state visit, he found occasion to publicly insult the Mayor of London even before he had met him! Trump’s inappropriate official state visit comments led the Mayor to say that Trump’s behavior was what would be expected of an eleven year old boy.
Former Director of the FBI Robert Mueller performed a thorough investigation of Trump’s alleged wrong-doings (there were seven charges in the indictment) which led to the first of his two impeachments. Mueller did not conclude that the Trump administration colluded with the Russians to affect the 2016 election; but Mueller identified activities which could be obstruction of justice; Mueller, appropriately , did not take the role of judge and say Trump had obstructed justice—that would be for the impeachment process in Congress to do.
With this short background, the point I want to make is as follows:
- The Mueller report contains many, many incidents of Trump’s grossly inappropriate behavior and his own staff trying to protect Trump from himself—warning him about negative consequences.
- But he ignored his staff’s warnings and charged ahead.
- When the bad consequences came, he blamed his critics as just being political, or he mocked them, or he claimed it part of a hoax.
- Before during and after Trump’s two impeachments, he never changed.
- He never changed when he lost a significant case in federal court and the judge said, “You are not a king” (and above the law).
- He never changed after he lost the election for a second term. Instead, he openly made wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his prompting of the insurrection attempt January 6th.
- Before, during and after two impeachments the Republicans in the Senate let Trump off the hook and did not convict him of the charges. Instead they continued to support Trump. And 95% of the republican Congressmen and women turned hostile and mute to the Democrats’ attempts to hold him responsible and prevent his further damage to democracy.
SENATOR MITT ROMNEY
Could America have avoided and escaped all together the Trump 2017-2020 presidency? Yes!
They could have by listening to Senator Mitt Romney.
On March 3, 2016, toward the end of the Republican debate series, I watched on TV, Mr. Romney’s speech in which he called out Trump as a fraud.
View Mr. Romney’s speech at: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/03/politics/mitt-romney-presidential-race-speech
I watched and listened closely to Senator Romney’s speech. It was clear and the publicly known facts justified his opinion.
Because Trump has always been such a self-promoting and personally revealing public figure, what Mr. Romney had to say was not surprising at all. Trump’s obvious character flaws and lack of political office experience, along with his chronically disruptive behavior during the primaries—all of this made it seem impossible that he could be allowed to become the Republican candidate for president.
THE JULY 2016 REPUBLICAN (GRAND OLD PARTY = GOP) CONVENTION
It was the machinery of the Republican National Party (GOP for short) which caused him to be the candidate. Their rules ruled and the republican delegates from all over the country cast their votes at the convention. He needed 50%. He got 70% of the delegate votes, making him the presidential candidate by a considerable margin.
NOW IT IS SIX YEARS SINCE THAT REPUBLICAN CONVENTION . . .
What follows is a collection of evidence for voters to keep in mind and act upon to protect America from Trump, who spreads conspiracy theories, lies, and routinely contributes to the dysfunction of all. Trump is dangerous to democratic government and there is no reason to believe that the 76 year old Trump will ever change.
Voters need to read and understand why Trump can still be dangerous because he is a showman, has a following, and to this day continues to explore ways to violate the laws of this country. He wants to win. To win for the sake of winning. He is a man who, when president, and in his ignorance, flirted with the idea of pardoning himself for the crimes of which he has being accused. Or maybe he was just toying with public opinion.
Trump continues on with the Big Lie of election fraud. He just recently has been demanding the 2020 election be undone, like it never happened, so we could have a new election! The height of Trump’s arrogance and presumptuousness is that he has been kicked off from some major social media for spreading misinformation and racist attitudes; he had to resort to creating his own new social media site called, “Truth Social.” And on “Truth Social” he is just being the same guy with the Big Lies. Lately, his audience on “Truth Social” has been decreasing; and, a wished for merger has been put on hold. Not promising. Some news media find signs everyone is getting tired of his antics.
In 2019 Michael Cohen, the attorney known as Trump’s legal problem “fixer,” explained how Trump was like a mob boss who escaped consequences of illegal activity by only implying what subordinates needed to do—and then they would do so. Cohen predicted well how Trump as president would successfully avoid being held accountable. Cohen pled guilty and testified at great length to Congress about Trump and his history of wrong-doing. Trump showed us everything Cohen warned us about.
These Trump associates have pled guilty or been convicted of crimes related to their loyal service to Trump. Not unexpectedly, Trump pardoned several of them prior to leaving office, but not Cohen, of course. https://www.newsweek.com/guide-trump-allies-whove-pleaded-guilty-been-convicted-crimes-1735298
Allen Weisselberg (CFO of Trump Organization)
Rick Gates
Paul Manafort
Michael Cohen
George Papadopoulos
Roger Stone
Michael Flynn
George Nader
Elliot Broidy
Steve Bannon
The republicans in the Senate insured Trump would not be found guilty of any of the charges from the two, separate impeachments. This fact is the biggest reason Trump has not been held accountable so far. He never admits error. I’ve never seen or read of him apologizing or taking responsibility for misbehavior.
Almost all republican congressmen have never publicly acknowledged Trump’s wrongdoings. And right wing conservative states have passed hundreds of laws trying to fix election fraud, fraud which was non existent. But those right wing conservative states have been passing dozens of laws impeding voting rights with measures which likely will affect minorities the most.
All of the federal courts have dismissed the dozens of lawsuits brought by Trump with his Big Lie conspiracy theory of election fraud. The only election fraud which has shown up in national news is Trump’s attempts to “find” himself more votes in Georgia to make him the winner in the last election. The consensus and expert opinion results on the 2020 election was that it was the most accurate and fraud free ever. Trump's claims were just that Big Lie once again. Several of Trump’s lawyers have already or will lose their licenses to practice law because of their ethical violations.
In 2019 a British medical journal (Lancet) published research estimating and concluding that 40% of the first 500,000 COVID-19 American deaths were preventable; and these researchers concluded that Trump dismissed the seriousness of COVID-19 even though he privately believed it to be serious. They said he refused to support interventions which were known to be helpful:
He politicized mask wearing, and held indoor events “[A] ttended by thousands, where masks were discouraged and physical distancing was impossible.”
CONCLUSION
Americans will be voting this November in the mid-term elections. Everyone should make every last effort to vote. Individual voters must somehow sort out which actual, nitty gritty ISSUES are most important for OUR COUNTRY’S WELFARE.
In this blog I’ve been clear in saying that President Biden is a decent man worthy of respect. He is a man with a reasonable agenda for helping the vast majority of citizens. There also are republican politicians, apart from Trump, who are decent men and would be capable presidents.
What’s coming up in future blogs. I’m digging deeper and deeper into (1) why we the people have surprisingly little voting power over our government; and, (2) why the supreme court with all their intellectual capacities can confuse themselves on certain cases. Some cases and findings I’ve been reading defy common sense.