'Ghost in the Machine'

Most Republican voters still don’t understand the price they will pay for refusing to hold Trump accountable for January 6th and the post-election chaos that preceded it. 

Four Seasons Landscaping?  Imagine going back to that. 

Instead of banishing him from their party, the GOP made Trump a hero for it and allowed him to rewrite the narrative - turning a coup attempt into a branding opportunity to further his grift. 

If you give Trump an inch he will take a mile - or perhaps democracy itself. 

The folks that still support him are not sophisticated people; many are hard-working and can be more or less decent folks in the rest of their lives but as a whole they tend to fall for the sort of false patriotism and xenophobic rhetoric that he delivers. 

When they engage politically, Trump’s supporters are reacting to the conditioning they have been exposed to for three presidential election cycles.  

He reminds them of everything they have been taught to respect. 

So inundated with fake patriotism and the fetishization of America First-type iconography from Fox News to pickup truck flavors, they exist in a culture that is self-perpetuating and reassuring; being fed messaging that tells them they are the good guys. 

Over and over again. 

He makes them feel better about their shortcomings and offers simple lies to counter complex issues.

Trump is the political equivalent of the snacks on sale at a gas station. 

Salt and fat and empty calories.  The sugar high that comes from consuming something that you know is bad for you. 

MAGA supporters have yet to understand the stain that Donald Trump has left on our national character by his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. 

He was allowed to continue the lie by a mainstream media addicted to the ratings his daily outrages and mendacity provides - adding insult to injury, they have platformed his compatriots in the name of ‘both sides-ism’. 

That oversight had a deep effect on the psyches of much of the American electorate. 

Marry that with the misinformation churned out 24/7 in the right-wing ecosphere and you have a big chunk of the voting public with absolutely no grounding in the facts.  

The GOP has also been flooding the market with fake polling data in places like Pennsylvania to further skew reality. 

Not to mention Elon Musk handing out million dollar prizes in an attempt to lure voters away from democracy and towards the kleptocracy he and his billionaire cohorts desire. 

As I wrote recently online, if Musk is willing to give away a million dollars a day to buy people’s votes, imagine how much money he stands to make if Trump wins? 

Trump and his attempts to subvert our democracy did not end when he left Washington, D.C. in January of 2021. 

It has been an ongoing dark chapter in American history and one that many have failed to read properly.

He has been, in effect, running a shadow presidency from Mar-a-Lago in several ways.

In his continued hold over the GOP, where he successfully killed a bipartisan border deal to hurt democrats - and judging by how much VP Harris is targeted with the ‘the border’ as a chief concern of the ‘undecided voters’ she needs to win, it was an effective move. 

It was also unprecedented and unlike anything attempted before in American politics. 

Trump is an enemy of democracy unlike anything we have seen and you will not defeat him via business as usual. 

The former president bragged recently about a phone call with Netanyahu where he was asked his advice on a potential Israeli strike on Iran and he told the Prime Minister, ‘Do whatever you want’ in a clear violation of the Logan Act; a federal law that seems to have stop mattering long ago in terms of enforceable actions against him. 

The casual, transactional nature with which Trump discusses the most dire geopolitical situations and matters of war with a smug idiocy should keep you up at night. 

We would all fear for the free world if he were to once again be in charge of our military.

A man who once exclaimed to John Kelly “I need the kind of Generals that Hitler had”. 

Not to mention his lack of support for Ukraine and how he was able to pull the puppet strings of men like Mike Johnson to delay US aid for as long as possible earlier this year. 

Forcing Ukrainian troops to run perilously low on ammunition and equipment. 

Now North Korean troops are joining the Russians on the battlefield - after years of open Kim Jong-courting by Trump. 

Everything Trump does is for the benefit of Vladimir Putin, KSA or some other autocrat that has his attention that day. 

I have lost track of how many times Viktor Orban has visited Palm Beach this year but it is safe to say we have never seen anything like what Trump has been able to accomplish by dumb luck, cunning criminality. 

A man who stole classified documents when he left the White House was allowed to host world leaders and conduct shadow foreign policy from his private club in South Florida.  

Where foreign nationals put money into his pockets by paying exorbitant membership fees that reflect both his avarice and his desire to exploit his position as an ex-President. 

To deny his loss in the 2020 election and carry on as if he was still a POTUS of sorts and hold on to that illusion so tightly that he ends up as the GOP nominee once again - and within spitting distance of a victory - is certainly unprecedented. 

To profit while doing it is another thing altogether. 

People have tragically succumbed to fascism and suffered under the lash of tyranny far too many times already in the modern era but they have never before been so grifted while doing so. 

MAGA supporters are paying for the privilege of being exploited and made obsolete by a leader who has so little concern for their well-being he feeds them lies instead of hope. 

Any man who spreads the disinformation that Trump did after the recent hurricanes cares little about human suffering. 

In the climate change-caused catastrophe he saw an opening - a chance to score political points and inject chaos into the upended lives of the victims. 

It’s also no surprise that far-right militias and anti-government groups have moved into some of the rural Appalachian towns that FEMA had to temporarily suspend relief operations in as a result of Trump’s rhetoric. 

Folks are betting their economic futures, their environmental safety, the very infrastructure of their communities and lives to a man who they should hold beneath contempt for his actions in the past month alone. 

And they are being preyed upon for it, by the extant forces his calamity ushered into the lives of so many in red and blue state America. 

It should not be this way and yet it is - but there is still time left. 

We must do all we can to reach across any bridge or barrier we come across in the next week or so to change those minds that can still be changed and touch the hearts we can touch. 

Politics is the way we organize ourselves, and the way we can communicate and buttress the concepts of civic life that should remain bipartisan. 

There are lines that simply cannot be crossed in a free and democratic society: Trump has crossed them all, time and again. 

We must hold ourselves to a higher standard as a people and reject both the fascism that he wishes for our future and the darkness of our past that he asks his followers to cling to. 

We must move forward into the light.

We must Vote Blue.