The people have spoken

By Mike Weland

“The people have spoken.” Yes, they have, and much the same as they did for Hitler and the Third Reich in the 1930s. And now, ten years of following Hitler’s playbook has worked to near perfection for Donald Trump, putting him within reach of what he’s wanted all along, total dictatorial power. Based on what he’s said and done until now, I don’t predict Trump will be taking Joe’s offer of a peaceful transfer of power. Indeed, I recommend we enjoy the peace we have right now … I don’t think it will last long.

My prediction is that peace in our nation will end on or about January 20, 2025 (see “Opposing Opinions,” November 3, 2024). The people who will be most shocked, and most hurt, will be those who voted for him, thinking Trump would be appreciative. Sorry, fellas. You might want to visit with Mike Pence.

Were Trump a strong man, a man of principles, I’d likely feel otherwise, but he isn’t. He’s a poor little rich bully who mistakes bluster for strength. He is a con artist. Even though wrong, he will feel compelled to live up to his promises to lead an attack on the enemies of this nation, and I predict he will. And he’ll lead from the rear, just as he did the insurrection, from the safety of the White House.

On January 20, all of Trump’s myriad legal woes go away when he places his hand on that patriotic Trump Bible and solemnly swears to the Chief Justice of the U.S. of A. that he will carry out the duties of the office of president and protect and defend a document he has undermined and claimed can be terminated at any time thanks to his own well-contrived lies.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he said in 2022 after his false allegations were repudiated in over 60 courts of law.

Instead of a global war, Trump will attempt to launch and wage civil war. He’ll to convince “his” generals to be loyal to him instead of the Constitution they swore to uphold and defend. He will convince friendly governors to “lend” him their National Guard troops. Sadly, as seen in Trump One, he’ll not lack takers.

And together they’ll go after the vermin poisoning the blood of our nation.

Remember, it’s not only “illegal” immigrants he’s after, he also promised his followers he’d be their retribution. Expect him to go after “the enemies within” … and not the enemies of this nation, many of whom are Trump’s friends, but his own enemies, the ones he’s spent ten years vilifying and encouraging his followers to hate — Democrats, liberals, gays, journalists, the woke, the educated.

In addition to “his” military, Trump will have his own loyal private army as well, an untrained and undisciplined collection of misfits led by a cadre of those who’ve been standing back and standing by, many of whom he’ll release from prison on day one or soon thereafter, ready to enlist the disaffected in every corner of our nation to loot, beat and burn locals who are ostensibly Trump’s enemies.

Once sworn in January 20, Trump is above the law … he has a get out of jail free card from the Supreme Court exempting him from criminal prosecution for acts under color of his office, but he won’t need it long … Trump no longer just owns the Republican Party, he is the Republican Party, and legislatures nation-wide will be cleaning house to get rid of any “disloyal” elements. Once that’s done, the Supreme Court, already well in Trump’s pocket, will be his rubber stamp, and little those in dissent might do — they put Trump above the law, remember?

And what for? Trump’s motive is clear … he wants to be remembered as a “strong man,” as dictator of the greatest nation on Earth. To him, that’s what will make “America Great.”

Notice there’s no “again?” We’ve never suffered a dictator.

But what about the 73,493,965 who voted for him, what do they get? In the end, probably nothing — a good con man cedes the little things, such as an abortion ban, to get what he wants, but never the big things, in this case a white Christian evangelical nation … precisely what those who flocked to these shores from Europe sought to escape.

If he succeeds, do you think Trump plans to share his new-found authority with the zealots he suckered?

I fervently hope I’m wrong, that our better angels prevail, as they did in 1941 when our greatest generation rose to stand against the fascists Hitler and Mussolini and the living god, Hirohito. But I fear this U.S. generation is ensnared in a cult, as were the Germans beguiled by Hitler, and that no other nation will dare to intercede.

Yes, the people have spoken. And so once again, on a web of lies and by our own hand, our nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, is in grave peril.