THE START OF THE DUMPSTER FIRE PRESIDENCY

 Steve Bannon, the self proclaimed white nationalist advisor to President Donald Trump,  describes his plan for Trump in his second term is to "flood the zone with shit", that is, to do so many things at once that the media, the Democrats and the public will all have to scramble to keep up with it.  In just the first month of his second term, Trump has obviously taken that to heart.   

Trump kicked off his presidency by pardoning all of the January 6th rioters, including ones that beat police officers (so much for back the blue!).  He followed that with a flurry of executive orders, some symbolic (America only recognizes two genders), some predictable (he pulled out of the Paris climate change accord) and one brazenly unconstitutional (an end to birthright citizenship in violation  of the 14th Amendment).  He also fired 18 inspector generals (the people charged with non partisan over site of federal departments),  several career attorneys who had investigated him in the past, and sent out an email to millions of federal workers pushing them into resigning,  because, of course, he isn't sure that they're loyal enough to him.  

In his quest to return America to a place where white, straight heterosexual men run everything, he  called to completely dismantle Diversity Equity and Inclusion hiring programs in the federal government, saying that all hiring should be based on merit (pretty rich coming from a guy who would be nowhere without his daddy's money).  He has responded to both a terrible fire in California and a plane crash in  Washington DC by blaming  DEI hiring, essentially implying that any person who isn't a white heterosexual male in any position of authority doesn't deserve to be there.  At one point he tried defunding congressionally approved federal funds but was blocked by a judge and later rescinded the order after an outcry over programs like Wheels on Meals getting defunded.

To me, the cruelest cut of all was his decision to freeze almost all foreign aid, and to withdraw completely from The World Health Organization,  both of  which will result in people suffering all around the world.  This is not only despicable, it's also foolish: people in countries aided by the US inevitably have a more favorable attitude towards us, and China may very well take up the slack we leave, making our biggest rival in the world more popular in many parts of it than we are. And leaving the WHO may be even worse, as it ends our ability to access global data on health issues, which will probably be a big deal as bird flu continues to spread. It becomes even more absurd when you consider that the cut to foreign aid and payment to the WHO amounted to a savings of around 70 billion federal dollars; for context, our total federal spending last year was almost seven trillion.  In other words, the cost of saving people's lives in other countries only amounts to about one percent of our government spending, but Trump has decided against it.

And then there are his tariffs.  For months, Trump's defenders have said that he's only going to use them as a negotiating tool, but on Tuesday February 4th. they will become a reality.  They impose a 10% tariff on all goods from China, a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico,  and a 25% tariff on all goods from Canada except for energy and oil, which will still pay 10%.  While Trump has been talking about punishing Mexico and China for years, entering into a trade war with Canada seems especially crazy given how long we've been allies and how reliant the American auto industry is on Canadian products and  oil. While he claims this is all about stopping the flow of drugs like fentanyl and undocumented immigrants into our country, both Canada and Mexico have already taken steps to prevent both, and border crossings are the lowest they've been since 2020.

Part of the reason that Trump loves Tariffs is that he can just put them in place without facing any constraints from congress or judges, allowing him to act like the fascist dictator he wishes he were.  What he doesn't seem to realize is that they will wind up raising prices on the average consumer, as affected companies will inevitably raise prices to cover the tariff cost.  In other words, Trump's solution to the problem of high prices that helped get him elected will only make it worse!  

What can the Democrats do about any of this?  Sadly, without any control in congress, not a lot. Although Trump's nominations for cabinet positions have at least faced some tough grilling from Senate  Democrats,  for the most part  Dems  and the rest of the world can only look on as Trump burns down the government and distorts American democracy to his bidding, with the midterms elections in two years being the only possible hold on him.  I do often wonder if America can really survive the utter corruption and degradation of Trump's political movement.  We'll found out in the next two years.

WHY TRUMP'S NEXT TERM WILL BE WORSE THAN HIS FIRST

 When Donald Trump won in 2016, it was seen as a fluke, even by Trump himself (reportedly he had no victory speech prepared because he thought he didn't need one).  The public was shocked and many members of big businesses were afraid to cozy up to a president who lost the popular vote by millions and inspired women's marches across the country.

But  this time the wealthy companies saw it coming and began fawning up to Trump even before he won.  His inauguration tomorrow will feature several of the richest people in the world cheering him on, all of whom have donated millions to his campaign or inauguration.  (Elon Musk personally donated over two hundred million dollars!). 

Sadly, the media in 2024 couldn't seem to remind the public just what an utterly chaotic and corrupt first term Trump had, even before the pandemic: from his defense of  a white supremacist rally ("Very fine people.") to child separation  at the border.  And his conflicts of interest will continue; once again the Trump Hotel in Washington DC will be a place where foreign dignitaries can stay and run up huge bills as a way to bribe the president (You'd think such a flagrant violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution would be a serious issue,  but not any more).  And every time Trump plays golf, he will once again charge an entrance fee to the Secret Service agents he brings with him.   His family will also always stay at one of the Trump hotels when they travel and charge their Secret Service agents a room fee.  Yes, a family that always boasts of its wealth and love of our country  will still bilk the tax payers at any opportunity when they could just as easily comp those agents that our tax dollars pay to protect them.

Recently, Trump has promoted  crazy ideas like the US taking over Greenland, Panama and even Canada, but I'm not worried about any of that.  He has the attention span and temperament of a toddler, and once he's in office one of his people will wave a toy in front of his face and he will forget about these things.  (He mentioned buying Greenland in his first term and then quickly dropped the idea, which I assume he will again).

But there are some things that he definitely will be moving on, and, unlike in 2016, this time Trump is prepared to hit the ground running. Here is  a list of just some of the damage that he will do:

    The environment: To me, Joe Biden will always be remembered as the president who did more to fight climate change than any president before him (which is pretty sad considering its been a concern for decades).  Trump, who has said that he considers climate change a hoax and that ocean wind farms drive whales insane(!),  will, of course, attempt to reverse all of that.  While the move towards electric cars in this country will probably continue even without his help,  he can and will open up more and more land to oil drilling and reduce air emission standards, all while the evidence for climate change can be seen in our ever increasing number of global natural disasters.

    Tariffs: Trump's love of tariffs dates back decades, but he doesn't seem to understand how they work!  He honestly thinks that putting a tariff on imported goods is a way to collect taxes from foreign companies without any consequences for the US.  But he doesn't seem to realize that those companies will pass the cost of those tariffs onto the American people by raising prices.  Now, some targeted tariffs aren't necessary a bad thing, but Trump is considering an across the board 20% tariff on all imports, and perhaps a 60% tariff on all imports from China, which would cause American prices to skyrocket.  Kind of ironic from a president who won partly due to a backlash against inflation.  Now, some Trump defenders have said that his tariff threats are just a bargaining chip to be used against foreign countries, and I hope they're right.  But he really seems to be a true believer in them.  Even worse, he can just impose them without any congressional or judicial oversight.  

    Immigration:  One thing Trump was right about in 2016 is that he won because of his "Build the Wall" mantra, although, of course, he failed to do that as  president because actually building that wall proved far harder than he had made it seem.  That explains why he's moved from building a wall to the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in this country.  There are currently around thirteen million undocumented immigrants in America today, and rounding them all up, processing them and then  deporting them would be a colossal  undertaking costing billions of tax payer dollars. On top of that, it would tear families apart and inevitably sweep up American citizens into the system.  But even if you have no problem with the costs or morality of it, the mass deportation that he wants  would destroy the American economy, because much of it is dependent on undocumented labor.  For example, a recent article in the New York Times pointed out that deporting undocumented immigrants would  decimate the American Dairy industry.  As Pete Wiersma, the president of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association put it bluntly,  if undocumented immigrants were all deported “I don’t think there would be milk.I just don’t think we could get it done.”

    Health:  A sobering recent report on the bird flu virus that has been spreading among American livestock finds that it is only one genetic mutation away from being able to be passed from human to human.  Even worse, milk has been found carrying the virus.  Now the good news is that milk pasteurization greatly reduces or eliminates the virus.  The bad news is that unpasteurized milk (or so called "raw milk") has inexplicably become popular in certain circles in this country, even in the face of the fact that between 1998 and 2018, at least 2,645 people fell ill after drinking raw milk, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  And the real bad news is that Robert Kennedy Jr., Trump's choice to run the department of Health and Human Services, is a big proponent of raw milk.  Yes, the anti vaccine lunatic with no real scientific or research experience may soon be in charge of our nation's health while we stand on the precipice of what may be a serious outbreak of bird flu among humans.  Putting it bluntly, there could not be a worse person  at a worse time running that department.  I only hope that the Republicans in the senate can show some shred of decency and vote against his nomination.

    The Justice Department: Recently Pam Bondi, Trump's pick for attorney general, claimed that "politics will not play a part" in whom she decides to prosecute.  While Bondi certainly is a better candidate than Trump's original choice for the position, the loathsome Matt Gaetz, it still seems possible that she will use her power to settle scores against Trump's perceived enemies than to investigate actual crimes.  This becomes increasingly likely given that Trump has repeatedly said that his political opponents should be put in jail.  It also doesn't help that Trump's choice for leading the FBI, Kash Patel, once published a book with a list of politicians that he sees as enemies that he very well may target in some way or another as FBI chief.  Unfortunately,  it looks like both Bondi and Patel will be confirmed by the Republican Senate, which will cement Trump's desire for retribution against any political figure who doesn't think that he won the 2020 election or any politician that he does not see as properly loyal.

While there are certainly other terrible things that Trump will do as president, from going after trans people to perhaps even signing a national ban on abortion, I think these four points will be his focus and they all have me deeply worried about the next four years.  I was very pessimistic about our nation's future before Trump's first term, but now I'm even more pessimistic. 

THE DEMON RUM

 Recently,  Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for warning labels to put on alcoholic beverages, citing recent studies that show a link between alcohol use and multiple forms of cancer.  This link was sometimes found even in people who only drank moderately.  These recent findings fly in the face of the oft repeated belief that some drinking can be good for you, which was based on some other recent studies that were trumpeted by the media and have now been called into question.  Murthy's call for common sense warning labels may go unheeded considering just how rich and powerful alcohol companies are, but I think it's a good idea.  As  Dr. Ernest Hawk, the vice president and head of the division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at the University of Texas  recently put it,   “There is no safe level of alcohol when it comes to cancer risk.” 

It seems to me that one of the problems with alcohol consumption in this country is  that the deadly possible  effects of alcohol are often downplayed because it's legal.  The linking of heavy drinking and good times, from margaritas at brunch to downing shots after work, has lead to the belief, (wrongful in my opinion) that heavy drinking is an acceptable stress reliever. Now, I would never in a million years say that prohibition should be brought back, but I do think Americans should take a long hard look at our alcohol consumption, which not surprisingly spiked upward during the pandemic and has remained stubbornly high ever since.

On a personal note, I've always hated the bitter, acidic taste of alcohol.  I've only been drunk twice in my life, and the horrific hangovers I faced afterwards pushed me into giving it up entirely. I don't miss it all, and I haven't had a drink in over thirty years. I also hate what alcohol did to my father, who lost years of his life because of a long running drinking problem.

But on a less personal note, I also hate what alcohol has done to the world: hundreds of thousands of people all around the world die from alcohol poisoning or cirrhosis of the liver every year.  And then there are the thousands of people who die in car accidents involving drunk drivers, and the fact that according to the National Institute of Alcohol and Drug Dependence, around forty percent of all violent crimes are committed by people under the influence of alcohol (there's a reason why we refer to an "alcohol fueled rage"),  That number rises to almost half for murders.   Remember that alcohol is also a physically addictive drug that causes addicts to shake in agony when they try to quit.  It may be legal, but it's seriously dangerous.  

Do I think that the US can be convinced to cut back on drinking?  Yes, because there is a precedent: tobacco use.  Although tobacco still kills hundreds of thousands of people in this country every year, the number of tobacco users is far lower than it used to be: according to the American Lung Association, in 1965 over forty percent of Americans used tobacco products, while the current rate is a mere eleven percent.  That decline didn't happen because tobacco was made illegal, it happened because the American people were shown the dangers of tobacco use, and millions of them wisely decided to quit or never start.  A similar system should be put in place to get Americans to start drinking less.  It's for the best.

MISPLACED RAGE

 

As we all know, Brian Thompson, the chief executive of United Healthcare was recently gunned down in Manhattan by a still unidentified gun man.  In a grisly display of how brutal our modern discourse has become, the shooter, who actually wrote words on his bullet shell casings that seemed to hint at some kind of motive about refused healthcare coverage, has become something of a folk hero to people on social media.  Things got so bad that a news report on the shooting on Facebook had to be removed because so many people were responding to it with a smiley face emoji!

As a progressive who opposes the death penalty, I am offended that people would ever celebrate the shooting in the back of an unarmed, unthreatening  man.  Killing anyone like that is a despicable act, period.  And, since one thing we have seen of the shooter is his face, a fair question that arises is this: would this man  be considered by some to some kind of folk hero  if he weren't white?  I don't think so.

But the outpouring of dark jokes on social media after the shooting  reveal a harsh truth about this country: our healthcare system is broken.  After the shooting, several articles have pointed out that the company that the wealthy  Thompson was chief executive for, was infamous for denying clients healthcare coverage.  If the killer is captured, we will probably hear a story from the killer about a friend or family member being turned down by United Healthcare and perhaps dying because of it.

This situation highlights the essential problem with the American healthcare system: although national healthcare exists for the poor, the elderly and veterans through government programs, the rest of us have to rely on private, profit driven companies for our care.  And those companies obviously profit more from denying healthcare than providing it.  Even when that denial results in a person dying.

So it sounds like Thompson really was an amoral, profit driven  person.  But I still don't think that he deserved to be shot because of it.  After all, if we're going to say that executives who have done morally despicable but legal things should be shot, there would be a long list of potential victims!  From tobacco companies lying about their product to chemical companies dumping dangerous chemicals into our drinking water, the excesses of capitalism have lead to some pretty terrible things. 

Instead of supporting a killer, I wish people in this country would turn their anger over our health care system in a positive way, towards America having a national healthcare system.   Every other industrialized nation in the world has national health care, and the results are clear: numerous studies have shown that Americans pay on average twice as much for their health care, without any better outcomes in overall health and happiness.  A 2008 study by Families USA suggested that more than 26,260 Americans aged 25 to 64 died in 2006 because they lacked health insurance.  It's also the number one cause of bankruptcy, with around half a million Americans falling into bankruptcy because of medical bills every year.  Plus, on average about one million Americans every year travel to Mexico to get medial care that they can't afford here.  Given all of that, it's clear that our system is broken. 

Let's face it, the free market is just fine for some things, like setting the price for TVs, cars and computers.  But when you're talking about health as a commodity, you are literally putting a price tag on a person's health, well being, and perhaps their life.  But beyond that, our current health care system is a bureaucratic mess for doctors, who have to constantly check on what procedures and tests are covered for each client, depending on which company they have health care with and what level of coverage they have.  It's a lousy system and a dangerous one.

What I'm saying is that I wish the rage over our health care system results in the support of what Senator Bernie Sanders calls Medicare care for all instead of just empty venting on social media. America can and should have the same kind of health care found in every other industrialized nation.  There's no good reason against it.          

AND SO IT BEGINS

 Donald Trump isn't the first US president to serve 2 non consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland did too).  He is, however, the first president to be reelected after being found guilty of 34 felonies, not to mention his  being impeached twice in his first term. That first term was a dumpster fire of chaos and corruption, topped by his utter mismanagement of the pandemic, which, according to some studies, lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths in this country.  But tens of millions of Americans seem to have forgotten all of that and just remember that prices were lower when he was president, so here we are.

And any hopes that a second Trump term would be less insane than the first were quickly dashed when he started naming his intended cabinet members.  First, former Senator Marco Rubio was named for Secretary of State, which, under the circumstances, wasn't such a bad choice.  But then came the crazy trifecta: Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General and Robert F.  Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Right off the bat it should be noted that each of these men has a history of alleged sexual misconduct: Hegseth made a payment on a sexual assault charge that he claims was actually consensual, Kennedy has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, and Gaetz famously was investigated for taking illegal drugs with and having sex with a minor, although he was never formally charged.  Once upon a time, these kind of allegations would cast a serious shadow over a nomination, but since the country just reelected a man with 28 allegations of sexual assault (including an adjudicated rape charge), things have clearly changed on that score.  Just ask Justice Kavanaugh.

But after even dismissing those allegations (even though we shouldn't!), none of these men are qualified to run the agencies that Trump wants them to: Hegseth is a combat veteran and TV personality who's never run anything on the scale of the largest military in the world.  Gaetz does have a law degree, but little experience.  And Kennedy is a lawyer with no scientific training.

Of the three, the one that scares me the most is Kennedy because of his anti-vaccine views, and the power he would have if he were confirmed. (He would run a department with over 80,000 employees and a three trillion dollar budget).  Although he publicly goes back and forth on the subject of vaccines, depending on who he's talking to, (he recently told a podcaster that “there’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” and then later tried to walk that back), it's clear that he is skeptical of their safety.  He has even chaired an anti vaccine organization, deceptively titled  The Children's Health Defense. All this  despite the fact that there has never been any proof of a link between vaccines and autism as he and other anti-vaccine people have claimed.  (A 2014 meta study by the University of Sydney that looked at 10 different studies covering over one million children  concluded that there was no such link).

Vaccines should be celebrated as one of the great scientific advancements of the 20th century, with terrible conditions like polio and diphtheria being eliminated.  But, mainly because in 1998 the medical journal The Lancet published an article by surgeon Andrew Wakefield that claimed that there was a link between vaccines and autism, the lie has spread on the internet.  Even though The Lancet retracted the story and Wakefield's questionable research methods and personal financial interest in lawsuits against vaccine companies were exposed, the damage was done.  Since then Wakefield has continued to lie about his findings while celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and social media have kept the lie going.  And the pandemic, and the fact that many conservatives refused the Covid vaccine, even when it came from the Trump administration, only furthered the anti vac movement in this country.

Kennedy's personal history on this issue is downright despicable: in 2019 in Samoa, he took a picture  with local anti vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein.  The Children's Health Defense and Winterstein both blamed the 2018 death of two Samoan infants on vaccines, even though it was later discovered that were wrongfully given muscle relaxant injections along with the vaccines.  These false allegations lead to a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed over 70 people.  So, putting it simply, Kennedy has blood on his hands.

And it gets worse, during the pandemic he came out against Covid vaccines and  absurdly claimed in 2023 that the virus was "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. the people who are the most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese ... we don't know whether it's deliberately targeted or not."  There is, of course, no scientific evidence that the virus was "targeted".  Clearly he was buying into the right wing media racist mindset of blaming China for the virus, which lead to an increase of hate crimes against Asian people in this country.  And he threw in some anti semitism for good measure.  In any normal time, this single offensive, stupid quote would kill any nominee for Health Secretary, but we haven't lived in normal times in this country since Trump first announced his candidacy back in 2016.

As for Trump's own views on vaccines, he's always seemed anti vac adjacent, but, because he's a fool who just repeats whatever he's just heard, and he's been listening to Kennedy a lot lately, he appears to have gone full on anti-vax himself.  Add that to his bigotry, sexism, dishonesty and corruption and you can see why I'm not excited about the next four years.

THE FACTOR THAT CAN'T BE IGNORED

 

The day before the election, I blogged that if Donald Trump won, a large part of it would be because of the lingering effects of the pandemic and Vladamir Putin's invasion of Ukraine,  both of which  caused  inflation to skyrocket all around the world.  I definitely stand by that statement because it has been shown that globally this year, as John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times noted, "...governing parties and leaders have undergone an unprecedented series of reversals this year. The incumbents in every single one of the 10 major countries that... held national elections in 2024 were given a kicking by voters. This is the first time this has ever happened in almost 120 years of records."  Interestingly, this is not a conservative or progressive thing: while the Democrats lost big here in America, the conservative Tories in England just suffered their worst loss on record.  One way of looking at it is that there is one thing that everyone all over the world can agree on: we all hate inflation, especially when it effects the price of food.

So, being an incumbent in a time of global anger at incumbents made this election an uphill battle for Kamala Harris.  But there was another factor here.  In the last eight years, Trump has run three campaigns and won two of them; the only time he lost was when he ran against another man.  Now, both losing campaigns had their own set of difficulties: Hillary Clinton had a history of legal troubles, Harris had to step into a campaign just before the convention, but it's still hard to say that gender didn't play any role here, especially given that Harris played it up by giving talkshow host Oprah Winfrey a prime speaking role at the convention and then appeared on the female oriented political talk show The View.  

One of Harris's big strategies was to make abortion a central issue of the campaign, which made sense give that this was the first presidential campaign in the post Roe world.  To push that issue, Democrats put abortion support on the ballot in 10 states, hoping to drive out the pro Harris female vote.  In 8 of those 10 states, the abortion support won, but in several of them Trump still won the state, meaning that voters voted for abortion rights while also voting for the man who caused those rights to be threatened in the first place.  In Arizona, for example, more than 60% of female voters voted to protect abortion rights, but only around 50% voted for Harris.

The sad fact of the matter is that it just seems that there are millions of Americans (perhaps even tens of millions) who just won't vote for a woman for president, even if they agree with them on the issues. And they're not all just men. (Trump has now won a higher percentage of the white female vote than his opponent in all 3 of his electoral contests.) Way back in 2013 I first wrote about this issue, and I don't think its changed that much.  That is, a combination of fundamentalist religious beliefs and the sheer masculine nature of the president being known as the "commander in chief" of the armed forces,  have driven many people in this country to think that our president should be a man.

And Trump, for all his despicable sexism, is very much the epitome of the all American male success story for around half of the country.  While some see the fact that he cheated on his first wife with his second, and then on his second with his third, all the while boasting of his many sexual partners in between, as proof that he sees women as disposable, others just see him living the rock star celebrity lifestyle they wish they had.  To them, the sexism is a feature, not a bug.

Now that the Democrats have suffered two stinging losses with female candidates running against a man  I truly believe to be a sexual predator, the question arises as to whether there will ever be a female president.  Sadly, it's really hard to say; the only real way I could see it happening is if both parties were to run female candidates at the same time, an unlikely but not impossible scenario.  Until something like that happens, I think we will be stuck with men leading the country for years to come.

UTTERLY DEVASTATING

In 2016 after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency, I was shocked.  I cried, I had trouble sleeping, and I suffered from what was basically panic attacks for days afterwards.  This time, I was more prepared for the possibility of a Trump victory, so right now I'm not as shocked.  But I'm actually more worried about the future of this country than I was then.

I still can't believe it.  A twice impeached president who sent a mob to the nation's capitol after he refused to accept his loss has now won a second term.  Part of the reason he won is that the numbers already show that the female voters who appeared ready to vote for Kamella Harris failed to do so.  You would think a man who once bragged about grabbing women by their genitals, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault or rape by 28 women, and who put the judges on the supreme court that overturned Roe Vs Wade, wouldn't appeal to female voters, but here we are.  A majority of white women have voted for him every time he has run, proving, I suppose, that race matters more than gender.

If Trump does the things that he has promised to on the campaign trail, the next four years are going to the some of the ugliest in American history.  Here's just the worst parts of his coming agenda:

A mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants unlike any seen before.  Demonizing undocumented immigrants, whom Trump has referred to as "vermin" has been Trump's big issue since the beginning.  His plan to use state, local and federal law enforcement officials to hunt down the undocumented, house them in camps, and then deport them, will cost billions of dollars to implement, rip families apart, and seriously damage the economy.  (A recent story in the New York Times said that the dairy industry is so dependent on undocumented labor the dairy industry in the country might not survive without it).

He wants to put a tariff on all imported goods of 20% and on ones from China at 60%.  Nearly every economic expert says that Trump's tariff plan would cause prices on goods to skyrocket, hurting the poor and the middle class more than the rich.  And, of course, many of those countries will start putting their own tariffs on our exports, hurting our industries.  He would also make his massive tax cuts for the rich that he passed in his first term as president permanent, blowing a hole in our deficit. 

He wants to turn the Justice Department into his own personal vendetta outlet.  In recent weeks Trump has discussed turning our military against "the enemy within", specifically meaning his political opponents.  Now just how far he'll be able to go with what is essentially a fascist attempt to jail political party  members for no reason other than running against him before the courts stop him is debatable.  But the fact that the question is even raised is terrifying.

He has talked about turning massive parts of our nation's health regulation over to anti Vaccine extremist Robert Kennedy, who's desire to ban all vaccine mandates for children could bring diseases like polio back.  He wants Elon Musk to run an efficiency task force to cut federal waste.  It should be pointed out that Twitter had a value of over 40 billion when Musk bought it a  few years ago, and its current value is under 10 billion.  Oddly, Musk himself has admitted that his attempt to cut waste might cause some "hardships" in the short term.  How heartening!

He would undo all the good work the Joe Biden administration has done to encourage a green economy and proudly boasted that he would open up vasts areas of the country for more oil drilling.  He would do this in the face of more and more obvious effects of climate change happening all over the world.  It would also allow China to take the lead in developing green energy, which will be a huge growth industry in the future.

He has also said that he would end the war in the Ukraine in one day.  While that's impossible, what he clearly will do is cut all aid to the Ukraine and try to give Vladimir Putin whatever he wants.  Which would basically open the door to Putin invading other countries.  But what does Trump care about that?  He's threatened to withdraw from NATO too. And he has encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do whatever he wants concerning the horrific bombing in Gaza.

These are just a few of the awful things that Trump will try to do in his next term: it's an agenda of corruption, cruelty, unhealthiness and economic disaster.  The fact that tens of millions of Americans have voted for this is appalling to me.  I am so deeply disappointed with this country right now.