The Wall Street Journal suggested that since disgraced former President Donald Trump’s attempted coup d’etat failed, the country can afford to give him another chance.
Others have repeatedly argued that Trump’s worst impulses will encounter resistance from institutions that were designed to prevent dictatorship from taking root in the United States.
Those people are out of their minds.
Trump apologists are overlooking the fact that he recognizes his shortcomings in the past and has vowed not to make the same mistakes this time.
Despite the GOP’s dishonest disavowels, Project 2025 is a playbook for gutting the checks and balances we heard in civics class, back when school included lessons about the world in which we live.
Trump intended to overthrow the Constitution, he has pointedly refused to accept his defeat in 2020, and he has described his plans to empower plutocrats and punish his critics if he returns to the White House.
The Congress and the Supreme Court have already failed to stand up for truth, justice, and the American way, as have the Republican Party and the Biden administration’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has essentially declared the president is above the law.
Those Republicans in Congress who acknowledged the truth after January 6, 2021, have been ostracized and ousted from office, and there were few of them to begin with.
Dozens of complaints and legal challenges concerning emoluments, ethical conflicts, and other misconduct were filed and left untended.
Twice, our elected senators were unable to convict the impeached commander-in-chief because party came before country.
The fact that voters can elect Trump instead of him serving the sentence handed down after he was convicted by a jury who listened to evidence at a fair trial is proof positive that Garland dropped the ball. Why has this criminal not been tried?
He clearly took classified documents and refused to give them back.
He absolutely participated in a conspiracy to defraud the voters, and the mountains of evidence accumulated by Special Counsel Jack Smith was released by order of District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over that case.
He engaged in vote tampering in Georgia during a telephone call that was recorded and revealed to the world.
None of these serious crimes have been adjudicated because Merrick Garland is utterly incompetent, and the system on which so many people are relying has demonstrated that it is dangerously incapable of restraining a real dictator.
There are many reasons why the insurrectionist president remains free to return, but none of these factors is cause for confidence that things are not going to become dramatically worse.
America’s institutions won’t stop Donald Trump from imposing his brand of fascism on the United States if he wins, so the only thing standing between freedom and a dystopian nightmare is the judgment of voters in a few swing states.
Let’s hope our fellow Americans are ready to rise up to the responsibility of citizenship.