0
0
A nation in the grip of Trumpism sees the demise of President Joe Biden for future re-election. No matter the irksome words emerging from Republican candidate Donald Trump a goodly part of America backs him. A gun crazy culture nearly witnesses the assassination of yet another political leader and that makes him some kind of hero in their eyes. WTF is America? Who is the USA? A multiracial population resides in America and still the white identity wants to hoard power for itself. Make America Great Again – was that back when white Protestant men controlled all the levers of state power?
American Identity On The Line
Power has always resided within a select few in America. Money talks in the United States louder than in most places. The political shell game in America, which they call democracy, is about pulling the wool over the eyes of the poor schmucks. MAGA Trumpism has been called a cult. It is populated by largely overweight, non-college educated white folk who enjoy racist attitudes and feel hard done by. Trump points the finger at illegal immigrants flooding the country and apparently committing terrible crimes. Demonising migrants is an old trick that seemingly never tires. Trump also directs ire at liberals and lefties, which must be the LGBTQI community and anyone with socialist leanings. Again right wing white folk want to celebrate their intolerance for diversity. Gender diversity and sexual preference diversity is not OK in their book. They want to ban any books about such stuff from public access in schools and libraries. America is faced with a choice about who it wants to be in the 21C.
Democracy In America All Talk
The electoral system in the US is not truly democratic and never has been. Although they have a popular vote for the presidency the candidate who gets the most votes does not always win. The electoral college system makes smaller less populated states more important than big states where millions more people reside like California. Hillary Clinton won the most votes in 2016 but Donald Trump was elected President. The Constitution was devised by James Madison, in large part, to protect the interests of wealthy white men. Most of the original drafters of the Constitution were slave holders. Likewise the Senate, the upper house of government, were traditionally appointed by the state legislatures up until 1913. The senate make-up, again, does not reflect the population spread within the US, with 2 from each state serving 6 years. Washington DC residents have no senate representation in the US government. The checks and balances within the US system of government, therefore, renders changes to the Constitution and the indictment of Presidents unlikely under the present system. Gerrymanders determined by state legislatures have produced rigged representative results in many instances, again, to the detriment of truly democratic government in America. This, then, places the US Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter of many important governing decisions. We have seen how this has been manipulated by Republican interests to be skewed 6 to 3 in their favour by the lifetime appointments of justices to this highest court in the land. These justices are supposed to be non-partisan upholders of the law. SCOTUS is the worst example of where America finds itself in the current era. A minority of radical conservative Americans are determining things like women’s reproductive health rights and gun control to the detriment of the country.
Trump & Project 2025
Project 2025 has been produced by the Heritage Foundation, an ultra-conservative think tank. Many of the drafters of Project 2025 served in Trump’s administration from 2016 until his electoral defeat by President Joe Biden. In this 200 page document or manifesto there is a stated push to remove the freedoms from ordinary Americans around things like birth control and marriage equality. They want to groom the DOJ as the President’s personal fiefdom to do with as he sees fit. The rule of law will be warped to serve the dictatorship of the presidency. Donald Trump is a convicted felon and he surrounds himself with dubious power seeking people from whom he demands complete loyalty like a mob boss. It amazes me that so many Americans have lost their moral compass when it comes to Trump. Winning at all costs has replaced respect for the rule of law. I find it hard to believe that a majority of Americans will vote for Trump in November. That they will be foolish enough to throw away decades of hard won freedoms for the BS coming out of Trump’s mouth.
American Lies Are Legion
I have been reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and if you want to find out WTF is America? Who is the USA? This is a great place to start. Moneyed interests in America have always held sway and the great unwashed have been hoodwinked time and time again. The current example of Joe Biden’s administration and the lack of credit he has got for the many great things he achieved is further proof of this. Too many Americans are susceptible to stories which bear little credence to reality. The lies that emerge from Trump at tremendous rates are not called out by the mainstream media, as they should be. Trump calling President Biden – ‘crooked Joe Biden’ – when there is not an iota of evidence regarding this upstanding lifetime good guy politician. It is sickening to see what Trump puts out via social media, the vileness of this individual is beyond anything we have witnessed before. Hang your head in shame America.
Power, Guns & Money
Anytime moneyed interests were threatened by union strikes in America’s history out marched the militia with their guns and people died. This is despite the workers being paid peanuts and the owners making millions/billions. The narrative put out to the population was always about the threat of socialism whilst the wealthy amassed huge sums to the detriment of worker’s families going hungry. Unions fought for better working conditions for decades. Still today in America the minimum wage is $7.25. In Australia it is $24.10. Think about that.
“The federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour.”
All the BS you get from Hollywood about how great America is. It is 24/7 spin whereas the reality for many millions of Americans is struggle street. The billionaires in the US are making more money than ever before thanks to Trump’s last tax cuts for the rich and the administrations of Reagan, Clinton, and the Bushes. Neoliberalism and the ‘trickledown effect’ has made the divide between the richest and the growing poor wider than ever before in recorded history.
Angry Americans
People are angry in America but the Trumpers are too dumb to recognise that they are being screwed by the very people behind Trump. They are manipulated by the culture wars to focus their hate upon other Americans who merely want equal opportunity for themselves and their loved ones. Racial divides have been nurtured to hide the class divide between rich and poor in America.
Suckers For BS Or Embracing Something New?
America has an opportunity to step out of the dark ages when it comes to gender equality by electing their first female President. Trump and Project 2025 want to take the country backwards to a time of deep inequality, when women were controlled by men and kept in the kitchen. How can any sane American woman vote for Trump and honestly look at themselves in the mirror? What right do a few white men have to tell women that they have no control over their own reproductive health. Is America the land of the free or not? A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for a new America – a fairer America for all. Will African Americans and Latin Americans actually vote for a white supremacist in Trump? It beggars belief that Americans of all persuasions can entertain the idea of electing the Republican party and Donald J Trump back into power. Will the US move forward and progress or lurch backward into the dark ages? The choice is there for every American.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©MidasWord
