Making Choices

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for our former president. It’s not every month you get to announce your candidacy for the presidency, have dinner with a couple of racist Hitler fans, and declare the Constitution should be terminated. That’s a full month, even by Trump standards.

I don’t know anyone who was surprised when Trump announced he was going to run for the presidency in 2024. It was all his handlers could do to have him wait until after the midterms to announce. He was expecting a big splash from the midterms themselves, but most of his election denier choices went quietly into the night. Yea, Vance won in Ohio, and Lake is still whining like a mini-Trump in Arizona, but the rest of them? B’bye. None of it slowed down his big announcement though. It was almost as if he was oblivious to anything else happening. And the rest of the Republicans? Perhaps Senator Rubio said it best: “We should not have a Senate GOP leadership vote until we have a clear explanation for why our 2022 campaign efforts failed…”. Ummmm, Senator, I could help you with that…

Of course Mr Trump didn’t slow down. As a matter of fact, in typical fashion, he accelerated. Are any of us surprised he ate dinner with Ye (the former Kanye West) and white nationalist Nick Fuentes? Nothing quite says “there are good people on both sides” like having dinner with a couple of Hitler loving antisemites. It’s never a good sign when Alex Jones is distancing himself from some of your dinner guest’s comments, as Jones later did during his interview with Ye. The Republican response to all of this? Again deafening silence. Senator McConnell managed to say “Let me just say that there is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.” The brave Senator couldn’t bring himself to utter the “T” word.

Ye and Fuentes… “I See Good Things About Hitler”

Which of course brings us to Mr Trump’s most recent episode. His blast on the Truth Social network was … interesting. He called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” because he lost the last election for president. He wants to be declared the “RIGHTFUL WINNER,” or “have a NEW ELECTION.” (All CAPS are directly from the Trump quote) Wow. Wanting to terminate the Constitution finally drew some rebuttals from the right, but not from everyone.

Just as the events of Charlottesville, or January 6th, or his continuing election denial caused some people to leave the Trump orbit, another dribble of people are departing after the Ye/Fuentes dinner and the subsequent “termination of the Constitution” comments. The vast majority of his core? Like a married couple, they are there through thick and thin, for better or worse. There will be no divorce. They will follow him to the bitter end, however that turns out.

I’m not really sure why I wrote this blog. It’s not going to change any minds. Having said that, I think we all have a duty to bear witness to what is going on in this country. If we don’t continue to speak out, the future becomes a foregone conclusion. As Edmund Burke (or maybe someone else) famously said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

I have a couple of last questions for you. First, if Joe Biden declared he wanted to terminate the Second Amendment, what would the immediate reaction be? And second, does anyone doubt Trump would terminate the Constitution in a heartbeat if he could?

Finally, those of us who served in the military or the government swore an oath that started with these phrases: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;”. For my West Point and former military comrades who still support Mr. Trump, I guess we are finally at that point. Which do you support – Mr Trump, or the Constitution?

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