I admit I’m only one of millions of people angry at President Trump’s lawlessness; preempting the other two main branches of government; defunding of vital services and research; mass firing of federal personnel; deportation of individuals and whole groups without due process; threatening law firms, public broadcasting and radio, public schools and universities; breaking laws enshrined in our US Constitution and ending protections for our citizens.
But, in good conscience, I cannot blame him. Although I did not vote for him, millions of Americans voted him into office knowing exactly who the man is. For over 50 years, and he’s now my age, he has been breaking laws while I’ve been living within the law. I remember weeping in grief the morning after the first election he won because I knew at that moment that our country was in mortal danger with the election result.
After his first term and the two impeachments did not remove him from office, I was furious at his attorneys who bullied the senators into letting him off, stating that the legal system would remove him from the streets if he were guilty (or words to that effect). I’ve never studied law, but I knew he and the Republicans who backed him were too powerful already to let that happen.
Here’s who I blame: Congress, businesses who have been too intimidated and frightened to stand up to him, powerful law firms who are too interested in the bottom line to stand up to him.
Most of all, though, as a former journalist from the ‘70s who was taught only to get both sides of controversies and never to take one side, I blame the media. It was shameful all through his first campaign the way the media fawned after his every word or gesture. I remember the shock of seeing an empty podium time and again as the media trained their cameras on nothing because he chronically ran late.
Because of that one-sided media coverage of all things Trump over the past decade while not truthfully covering his assaults on democracy, a huge percentage of voters have little information about the assault of Trump and his minions on our democracy. But I do not let voters off the hook.
I’ve lost track of the many times in this era of Trump that a voter has said they “don’t care about politics.” Too many don’t even do solid research for themselves before voting and vote by which names are most familiar to them. With his name everywhere and prominent every day for 10 years, of course his name is the most familiar. That’s a terrible reason to vote for someone.
Being an eternal optimist by nature, I’m hoping that many more millions join the throngs of protestors in the streets of our country. But if more don’t, they will have themselves to blame when their health insurance goes up in smoke, someone they love is deported without due cause, their incomes drop significantly, their retirement savings disappears, then their Social Security checks stop coming. Forget the benefits citizens are entitled to; we’ll all be lucky soon if we can just scrape by.
Clarice McKenney
Bonners Ferry
This article comes from a liberal. A true journalist would understand what’s realistically going on in our country, rather than a bias self opinion.
Where to begin. First, no one has been deported without due cause. In every case theses people are illegal aliens. They broke our law by entering our country without authorization. Point two, all these criminals did get due process. The ones who are being deported now have also committed heinous crimes while in the US, like the documented MS-13 gang member Kilmar Garcia. I did not see any Democrats weeping for Americans who have been killed by these savages. Nor did Biden use due process or follow our laws when he violated his oath and opened the border. Clarice, you and your ilk hate Trump more than you love this nation
Sorry, MP. Since he stepped off his golden elevator and into presidential politics in 2015, Donald Trump has been jabbering on and on about the brown hordes invading over our southern border to rape our women, eat our dogs, kill the menfolk and turn the kids into sex slaves. None of it true, but Trump knows his base.
And he knew the kind of talk that would well and truly twist the nipples of one segment of his base, the white supremacists, and that they’d willingly and fervently believe the nonsense. The irony of it is that a person is far more likely to be killed by a white supremacist in this country than by an illegal alien of any nationality.
But Trump proclaims it, his MAGA sheep believe it and we find ourselves saddled with a rogue president stretching his authority by virtue of the Supreme Court putting him above the law. Armed with his very own Department of Injustice and having turned the world’s premier investigative agency into his own gestapo, some people who have long believed in Trump’s finery are beginning to see that Trump has been butt naked all along.
Once again Mike you have let your injured mind speak more untruths. I wonder if you have ever spoken with any of our local border patrol who have actually been to the southern border. If you don’t like our country perhaps Rosie O’ Donnel has room for you in Ireland.
My injured mind and I stand behind the opinion pieces I have and continue to write as being fact-based. I have not spoken to Border Patrol and I do not deny there is a problem; a lot of people are coming north trying or getting in. But it’s been that way for decades and Trump has only exacerbated the issue, not in hopes of solving it, but to rouse those who fear being “replaced.” I also reject Trump’s assertion that those coming across are murderous evil thugs wanting to rape our dogs, eat our wives, stuff our kids full of illegal drugs and turn our men into Tijuana sex slaves. The numbers don’t bear it out. I don’t know if they’re eating dogs, but white supremacists are killing far more of our nation’s citizens than are illegal aliens of any nationality. And let me be clear … I love this country. I just happen to take the oath I took to serve her literally — I swore fealty to the constitution, not to a man and certainly not to the low-life grifter that is Donald Trump. And I think I’ll stay right her where I am. We need everyone available on deck right now who’ll stand up for truth … who’ll protect and defend our constitution from all enemies, even if those enemies are our neighbors.
You are so right MP. This mentality is do to the mainstream media brainwashing. I wonder how Clarice would feel if her granddaughter was raped or injured by one of these illegal thugs sleepy Joe invited to our country
That is a step too far! What disgusting suggestion! You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking it! I hope you don’t consider yourself a Christian, because that was anything but. But then, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the threat of violence from a MAGA sheeple.
Here is where to begin ‘MP’. Put a name to the vitriol. For all any of us know you are just a faceless troll from somewhere else, or worse yet a bot from Russia.