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AMERICA’S PLAGUE: DDMBs–PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 8, 2024 at 12:10 am

If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.            

According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,879.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 739 square feet.”

Patent 523 Apartments for Rent in Seattle, WA | Essex

But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum (DDMBs). 

Why? 

Because the Mayor of San Francisco—currently London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.

“Untermenschen,” in German, means “subhuman.”

The short version of this is “Unters.”

A major part of this lies in placing these “guests” in hotels throughout the city. These range from the relatively low-budget Motel 6 to the luxurious Mark Hopkins.

“Guests” receive personal grooming, sanitary and cleaning supplies, three delivered meals, and laundry service for clothes and linens. 

The hotels were pressured into accepting the Unters, but they also wanted to recover monies lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city is paying $200 per night per room, totaling $6,000 a monthnearly double the cost of a private one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco

But there is a big catch for the hotels: When the “homeless” are placed in subsidized housing, their mental illness, irresponsible addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and/or generally sloth-like habits usually trash those premises.

San Francisco is secretly placing DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bumsamong the tourists who check into these hotels. It does so by designating them as “emergency front-line workers.”

For most people, this means doctors, nurses and similar professionals.

It doesn’t mean DDMBs, if not outright criminals

The city has invoked emergency-disaster law to keep this information secret. Officials refuse to notify the public about the dangers within their midst. The list of hotels is withheld from the press and reporters are forbidden to enter the properties. 

City and hotel workers are required to sign nondisclosure agreements that forbid them to reveal the dangers they and their legitimate guests are exposed to. Doing so is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both.

Despite this, the truth has been leaking out. Security guards stand outside hotel entrances, alerting anyone who sees them that all is not well. Crime, vagrancy and drug usage/dealing have also increased around the hotels.

In one hotel, Unters receive needle kits and are advised to call the front desk before shooting up. Drug-related deaths have occurred. Containers for safely disposing of needles are placed on every floor. Even so, used syringes are often left where non-addicts can be infected by them.

“There are parties, drug overdoses, deaths, assaults on people, sexual harassment. It’s pandemonium,” City Journal writer Erica Sandberg reported. “This is very bad and it needs to be stopped.

“What they [hotel employees] told about the situation inside goes beyond any scope. They are not just terrified, they are traumatized by what they see. According to their stories, in hotels they found mattresses with feces, blood, hospital bandages on the floor. What people see is so terrible that they go out and say, ‘I don’t want to go back there.'”

City officials provide far more than free room and board to DDMBs

The Department of Public Health (DPH) runs the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program. And it works in two stages:

Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.

Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes. 

According to a May 11, 2020 story in City Journal.org:

“The program’s primary purpose is to keep homeless people, the majority of whom are addicts, out of harm’s way during the pandemic. By getting their substance of choice delivered, the thinking goes, the guests may be more apt to remain in their government-funded rooms.

“Another purpose of the program is to protect the public against the spread of coronavirus. The city doesn’t want homeless people who should be staying in their rooms roaming the neighborhood in search of the substances, potentially infecting others.”   

But the agency doesn’t require that its addict “guests” remain quarantined. It merely asks that they do so.San Francisco Department of Public Health - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding

After news about these deliveries leaked on social media, DPH claimed that “rumors that guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”

Except that the reports weren’t false.

The program is funded by private philanthropists.  Nevertheless:

  • DPH administers and oversees the program.
  • It’s staffed by city workers, including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and security personnel.
  • The department manages, stores and distributes the substances.
  • Employee time is involved.

Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers, even if an outside group provides some of the funding. 

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for Untersuntil they can be “navigated” to permanent housing. 

AMERICA’S PLAGUE–DDMBs: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 7, 2024 at 12:10 am

On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”       

From the story:   

“‘Fentanyl is a game-changer,’ Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral and mental health services, says of the opioid that’s 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. ‘It requires a new way of thinking and resourcing.’ It also, she says, ‘requires people to learn to work across disciplines and sometimes across organizations.'”

And what is the ultimate result of repeatedly saving drug-abusers from their own self-destructive behavior?  

In his 2021 bestseller, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, author Michael Shellenberger provides the answer. 

San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities: Shellenberger, Michael: 9780063093621: Amazon.com: Books

According to its dust jacket:

“Progressives claimed they knew how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, progressives made those problems worse.

“Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During that time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to jail and prison.

“But as homeless encampments spread, and overdose deaths skyrocketed, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the problem. What he discovered shocked him. The problems had grown worse not despite but because of progressive policies.”

In a June 1, 2022 interview with The Spectator World, Shellenberger blamed liberal ideology for this epidemic:

“The first thing is that they don’t enforce laws. They don’t enforce laws against people that they consider victims, which includes addicts and the mentally ill. And if you don’t enforce laws it turns out people don’t follow them and you don’t have functioning civilization.

Michael Shellenberger.jpg

Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

“The second is that they have pursued a radical de-incarceration, de-policing and decriminalization agenda, which has removed penalties for many laws, including shoplifting $950 worth of goods, or possessing three grams of fentanyl and meth, enough to produce paranoid psychosis. And they’ve pursued a so-called housing first anti-shelter policy.

“So they’ve defunded the shelters. The governor himself has established that housing should be a right. That anybody who comes to San Francisco or Los Angeles should have their own apartment unit in those cities. That is the state policy. It is so ridiculous. It is shocking to even say that that is what the policy is, but that is what it is.

“What we need is pretty straightforward. We need to enforce laws. We need a shelter-first housing-earned policy and you need statewide psychiatric and addiction care like they have in every civilized country.

“We’re reviving people from overdose six, nine, twelve times and then sending them right back onto the streets to smoke more fentanyl. It’s bonkers.

“Fifty percent to 75 percent of all fires put out by the San Francisco and Los Angeles fire departments are in homeless encampments. My own research, and the research of others, shows that most of these are arson fires, people just getting back at each other.”

Drunk guy passed out on the sidewalk - YouTube

And how did the city’s mayor, London Breed, respond to the closing of Whole Foods Market?  With a public statement that was pure boilerplate: 

“Public safety is Mayor Breed’s top priority and vital to the City’s work around restoring our economy and making our residents and workers feel safe. 

“Over the last several months, the San Francisco Police Department and the Mayor’s Office have been working collaboratively with Whole Foods’ leadership to address public safety issues at their 8th and Market location.

“We will continue to engage with them about the future use of the site. The Police will continue aggressively enforcing against open-air drug dealing, maximizing police response to urgent calls for assistance, partnering with retailers to address theft in their stores, and enforcing new street vending regulations to disrupt the sale of stolen goods.”

In short: Blah-blah-blah.

Nowhere in that statement is there any mention that from 2020 to July, 2022, San Francisco had a District Attorney—Chesa Boudin—who saw criminals as victims and sought any reason to excuse them for their crimes. 

Nor is there any mention that the current D.A.—Brooke Jenkins—remains stymied by the realities that, under California law: 

  • Theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor.
  • As a result, many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.
  • The maximum sentence offenders can get is six months.
  • This has led to massive shoplifting sprees at drugstores and merchandise discount stores like Target.

Also left unsaid:

  • Firefighters, police officers and schoolteachers are unable to afford the extortionate rents charged by San Francisco landlords.
  • But city officials have thrown out the welcome mat for DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums
  • Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, psychotics and outright bums. 
  • Another reason why many of these shelters go unused: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBsuntil they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.

This is a triumph of misleading language over reality, since there is little available housing in San Francisco to “navigate” them to.

AMERICA’S PLAGUE: DDMBs–PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2024 at 12:10 am

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit forced San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors to do what, for years, they had refused to do: Clear the city’s streets of DDMBsDruggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums. 

APEC was established in 1989 to promote trade between the United States and Asian-Pacific nations.

From November 11-17, 2023, world and economic leaders were expected to descend on San Francisco. Among those expected to attend: President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“APEC will be a major moment that will live in our City’s rich history. We will show the world San Francisco’s unique ability to create a world-class experience where people continue to want to live, work, and visit,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a news release.

And that meant San Francisco had to counter the “Doom Loop” image it has acquired since the onset of COVID-19 in 2020.

This meant removing homeless camps that had become major health hazards, driving away tourists and infuriating local businesses. These, in turn, had spawned widespread drug abuse, public defecation, filth and rampant theft in the surrounding areas. 

During the week before the summit, the city cleared many camps from seven intersections around the Tenderloin, the most affected part of San Francisco. Key intersections near the APEC site—the Moscone Center in the South of Market area—became tent-free for the first time in months.

A typical street scene

The city also established a “security zone” area around the Moscone Center that only admitted APEC attendees and people who lived in the area.

This, of course, led many tax-paying San Francisco residents to demand: “Why does it take the appearance of self-important big-shots to persuade city leaders to make San Francisco a safe and desirable place to live and work?”

A massive casualty of the irresponsibility of “city leaders” had come on April 10, 2023: One of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—announced it would shut down at the close of business that day. 

The store, operated by Amazon, had been operating slightly more than a year. It had become the repeated victim of wholesale thefts courtesy of the city’s DDMBs.

Whole Foods Market 201x logo.svg

The Politically Correct name for these people is “unhoused.” The accurate name for them is summed up in a German word: “Untermenschen”“subhumans.”

Given the Politically Correct climate of San Francisco, the closing of the Whole Foods store was almost guaranteed to happen.

At its opening, on March 10, 2022, the store operated from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. By October, it opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.

“It’s to better serve our customers, and it’s more or less because of the area and security issues,” said the store’s manager. “There’s just high theft and people being hostile.”

In November, the store enforced new rules for customers after syringes and crack pipes were found in the restroom. The bathroom was now open only to customers who showed security guards a receipt. Customers were then given a QR code for entry.

It was no coincidence that the bathrooms were often used by drug-abusers—the store was close to the Tenderloin Center, a safe drug-use site. 

Crack cocaine 

Argv0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikipedia Commons 

Another reason for the change in bathroom policy: Thieves would fill up suitcases with merchandise before going into the restroom.

And who is ultimately responsible for such outrages? 

San Francisco’s topmost officials—the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney and chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Together, they have formed an “Untermenschen”-friendly alliance.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a massive loss in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as employees fled high rises to work remotely from home. Many small businesses—especially restaurants—shuttered.

Compounding this disaster has been an increasing influx of hardcore alcoholics, hardcore drug addicts, psychotically mentally ill and parasitical bums. Sidewalks are littered with huge tents, used hypodermic syringes and needles, empty beer cans and wine bottles, human feces and pools of urine.

The local and national press have predicted a “Doom Loop” facing San Francisco, as the city’s tourism rate sharply declines and City Hall officials currently project a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget. 

Tech giants such as Meta and IBM have abandoned San Francisco for events in cities such as Denver and Orlando, Florida.

In September, 2023, Silicon Valley tech giant Alphabet announced that it would move its high-profile Google Cloud Next conference to Las Vegas in 2024.

But this has not prevented city officials from calling for increased efforts to comfort those very parasites who threaten not only their own lives but those of law-abiding San Franciscans and the city’s tourism industry. 

On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”

From the story:

“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.

“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”

CENSORSHIP: IT’S THE REPUBLICAN WAY

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 5, 2024 at 12:38 am

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis likes to refer to his state as “the free state of Florida.”  

But for those who cherish the right to read whatever they want, Florida’s legislative agenda offers anything but freedom.  

Among those books pulled from public libraries—temporarily or permanently—are John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” Colleen Hoover’s “Hopeless,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Grace Lin’s picture story “Dim Sum for Everyone!” 

Florida’s Martin County school district removed dozens of books from its middle schools and high schools. Among these: Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved,” James Patterson’s “Maximum Ride” thrillers, and numerous novels by Jodi Picoult. 

Ron DeSantis

Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News host, staunchly supported Florida’s book ban laws enacted by DeSantis. Then two of his own books—Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidencywere temporarily removed from the Escambia County School District.

Suddenly, O’Reilly changed his mind. 

“It’s absurd. Preposterous,” O’Reilly told Newsweek. He threatened to “find out exactly who made the decisions … [and] put their pictures on television and on my website … and I’m going to ask them for a detailed explanation of why they did that. 

“When DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme because there was abuse going on in Florida. There were far-left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children, there’s no doubt about it.” 

So O’Reilly believes it’s OK to censor books promoting a “far-left progressive” view. Censorship is wrong only when it condemns his books to oblivion. 

Bill O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.jpg: World Affairs Council of Philadelphiaderivative work: Karppinen, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Under Florida’s HB 1069 bill, affected titles include dictionaries, The Autobiography of Malcolm X,  and Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl.

A partial list of the 1,600 books banned in Escambia County, Florida, includes:  

  • The Guinness Book of World Records
  • Ripley’s Believe It or Not
  • Biographies of Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Thurgood Marshall
  • The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
  • Titans and Olympians: Greek and Roman Myths
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
  • The Martian Chronicles
  • Van Gough and Gauguin: The Studio of the South
  • Invisible Man
  • As I Lay Dying
  • Light in August
  • The Reivers
  • The Sound and the Fury
  • Tender Is the Night
  • Lord of the Flies
  • I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

The Negative Effects Of Book Banning In The Classroom – Maryville Pawprint

  • Catch-22
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls
  • Heretics of Dune
  • Brave New World
  • Ulysses
  • Dubliner
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  • Carrie
  • Pet Sematary
  • Daniel Boone
  • Babbitt
  • Doctor Zhivago
  • Coping with Date Rape and Acquaintance Rape
  • Super Human Encyclopedia: Discover the Amazing Things Your Body Can Do
  • HIV infection: The Facts You Need to Know 
  • King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
  • Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America 
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles
  • The Fountainhead 

Nazi book burning 

  • The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison 
  • Black Like Me
  • Atlas Shrugged 
  • Flowers for Algernon 
  • James Dean: Rebel Life 
  • The Silence of the Lambs
  • Slaughterhouse Five 
  • The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood
  • Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters 
  • Paul McCartney: The Life
  • Augustus Caesar
  • Dracula  
  • Coping As a Survivor of Violent Crime 
  • Schindler’s List
  • Date Rape 
  • France: A History in Art 
  • The AIDS Epidemic: Disaster & Survival
  • Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood 

The Impact of Book Banning – The Live Wire

  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 
  • Tupac Shakur
  • Hernan Cortes
  • Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters
  • Native Son
  • The Clear and Simple Thesaurus Dictionary 
  • Illustrated Who’s Who in Mythology
  • Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America
  • STDs
  • Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary
  • Encyclopedia of World Costume
  • The Winds of War
  • Early Humans
  • Child Abuse
  • The Bible Book 
  • Les Misérables

All of which means: If you want to read something forbidden by the State and can’t meet the high prices of bookstores, you’re not going to read it.

At least, not in Florida.

In 1969, the Young Rascals sang:

All the world over, so easy to seePeople everywhere just wanna be free

but this ignores a grim and fundamental truth: Many people don’t want to be free.

Psychoanalyst  Erich Fromm noted this in his 1941 bestseller, Escape From Freedom.

Its thesis: People who can’t accept the dangers and responsibilities that come with freedom will probably turn to authoritarianism.

Democracy has freed many people, but it also makes others feel alienated and dehumanized. Many Germans turned to Nazism for a sense of belonging and purpose.

Many people hold a twisted concept of what accounts for freedom. They accuse their enemies of being tyrants, while fiercely supporting a dictatorship of their own. A favorite marching song of Hitler’s SS went:

Clear the streets, the SS marches!They will take the road from tyranny to freedom!

Such people fervently believe that they are being persecuted if they aren’t allowed to persecute those they hate.

Thus, during the Presidency of Barack Obama, millions of Republicans believed themselves victims because they weren’t allowed  to

(1)  discriminate  on  the  basis of  race  or sex; and

(2) deny medical care to millions of poor and middle-class Americans

The same holds true for the followers of Ron DeSantis.

TRUMP AS A TRAGIC HERO?: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2024 at 12:10 am

For historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Trump possesses an unappreciated self-awareness and sense of what it means to be a tragic hero.    

Trump was into the first year of his Presidency when Hanson penned his article, “Donald Trump, Tragic Hero,” published on April 12, 2018.  

To make his case, Hanson cites a series of popular Western movies featuring lethal men who risk—and sometimes sacrifice—their lives on behalf of others too weak to vanquish evil on their own.

Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) | Twitter

Victor Davis Hanson

Thus in the classic 1960 film, The Magnificent Seven, the Seven slaughter the outlaw Calvera and his banditos—and then ride into the sunset. As they do, Chris (Yul Brynner) tells Vin (Steve McQueen): “The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.”

Writes Hanson: “He knows that few appreciate that the tragic heroes in their midst are either tragic or heroic — until they are safely gone and what they have done in time can be attributed to someone else. Worse, he knows that the tragic hero’s existence is solitary and without the nourishing networks and affirmation of the peasant’s agrarian life.”

Chris may know this, but there is absolutely no evidence that Trump does. He has never shown even an awareness of sensitivity and self-knowledge, let alone the possession of either. Trump is at best semi-literate. The concept of tragedy—as expressed in the Greek tragedies to which Hanson refers throughout his article—means nothing to Trump.

Moreover, the Seven have risked their lives—and four of them have died doing so—on behalf of villagers who can pay them almost nothing.

It is inconceivable that Trump would risk anything—especially his life—for people he regarded as poor and thus unworthy of his concern.

The Magnificent Seven (1960 poster).jpg

Copyright © 1960 – United Artists Corporation.”, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In their first encounter with Calvera (Eli Wallach) the bandit chief offers to make the Seven partners in his ravaging of the village. Of his intended victims, Calvera sneers: “If God had not wanted them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”

If Trump had heard Calvera’s offer, he would have instantly accepted it.

In June 2016, USA Today published an analysis of litigation involving Trump. Over the previous 30 years, Trump and his businesses had been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. Federal and state courts.

Of the 3,500 suits, Trump or one of his companies were plaintiffs in 1,900; defendants in 1,450; and bankruptcy, third party, or other in 150. Trump was named in at least 169 suits in federal court.

Many of those cases centered around his refusal to pay contractors for their finished work on his properties. Most of the contractors didn’t have the financial resources—as Trump had—to spend years in court trying to obtain the monies they were owed. As a result, they never received payment—or, at best, only a small portion of what they were owed.

When he ran for President in 2015-16, Trump repeatedly promised poor and middle-class Americans a far better plan for medical care than the Affordable Care Act. 

He spent the next four years thuggishly trying to dismantle “Obanacare,” the signature achievement of Barack Obama, America’s first black President. But never did he offer even a general outline of his own alleged plan to “replace” it. 

Hanson tries to draw a further parallel between Trump and the fictional Tom Doniphon, the unsung hero of John Ford’s 1962 movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962 poster).jpg

Copyright © 1962 Paramount Pictures Corporation and John Ford Productions, Inc.”, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hanson sums up the movie thus:

“Tom Doniphon (John Wayne)…unheroically kills the thuggish Liberty Valance [Lee Marvin], births the [political] career of Ranse Stoddard [James Stewart] and his marriage to Doniphon’s girlfriend [Vera Miles] and thereby ensures civilization is Shinbone’s frontier future. His service done, he burns down his house and degenerates from feared rancher to alcoholic outcast.” 

It is inconceivable that Trump would take the risk of committing a crime on behalf of someone else—or being able to resist bragging about it if he did. It is equally inconceivable that he would give up a woman he wanted for the happiness of another man.

Most unbelievable of all is the suggestion that Trump would imitate Doniphon by quietly riding off into the sunset.

Trump has often “joked” about becoming “President-for-Life.” After losing the November 3, 2020  Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden, he filed 60 lawsuits to overturn the will of 80 million voters. Those failing, he tried some old-fashioned but unsuccessful arm-twisting of several state lawmakers to “find” non-existent votes for him.

Finally, on January 6, 2021, he incited a mob of his fanatical followers to attack the United States Capitol Building. Their mission: Stop the counting of Electoral College ballots certain to give Biden the victory.   

Victor Davis Hanson is a brilliant scholar and colorful writer. But his effort on Trump’s behalf is embarrassing and appalling.

In a series of bestselling books, he has eloquently chronicled the heroism of the ancient Greeks in defending their budding democracy.

It is depressing—and frightening—to discover that this same man can blatantly ignore the criminalities and even treason of the greatest and most destructive tyrant to ever attain the Presidency.

TRUMP AS A TRAGIC HERO?: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 1, 2024 at 12:13 am

Victor Davis Hanson has long been a distinguished historian and classicist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.     

On April 12, 2018, the year before the publication of The Case for Trump, Hanson offered a preview of its upcoming contents in an article published in the well-known conservative magazine, National Review

Its title: “Donald Trump, Tragic Hero.”

“The very idea that Donald Trump could, even in a perverse way, be heroic may appall half the country,” begins his first paragraph. 

“Nonetheless, one way of understanding both Trump’s personal excesses and his accomplishments is that his not being traditionally presidential may have been valuable in bringing long-overdue changes in foreign and domestic policy.”

Related image

Donald Trump

Having laid out his thesis, Hanson writes: “Tragic heroes, as they have been portrayed from Sophocles’ plays (e.g., Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Philoctetes) to the modern western film, are not intrinsically noble.”

On the contrary: A true tragic figure is a noble character with a fatal flaw, which ultimately destroys him.

To cite one from literature: Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet believes that his father, the king of Denmark, has been murdered. He believes the murderer may be his uncle, Claudius, who has seized the throne. Hamlet is brilliant, athletic, supremely eloquent and conscientious. But he’s not completely certain that Claudius is guilty, and in his hesitation to strike he lays the seeds for his own destruction. 

To cite one from history: British General Charles George Gordon, sent by the British government in 1884 to evacuate the Sudanese city of Khartoum. But instead of evacuating its citizens, he chose to stay and fight the oncoming army of Mohammed Achmed, an Islamic religious fanatic who called himself The Madhi (“The Expected One”).

Although Gordon’s dynamic leadership enabled the city to hold out for almost a year, the British relief force arrived too late. The city was overwhelmed and Gordon himself killed.

Various theories have emerged to explain his motive: He was a religious fanatic; he had a death wish; he was arrogant to believe he could hold off an entire army. Any one or more of these theories could be correct. 

Charles George Gordon - Wicipedia

Charles George Gordon

But the fact remains that for almost an entire year he kept alive about 30,000 men, women and children. It was only the failure of the British to send a relief army in time that allowed the city—and Gordon—to perish. 

Tragic heroes always have a cause that is bigger than life—something that makes giving up life worthwhile. They always recognize this, and they have the ability to put into perspective the ultimate sacrifice—giving up life—for the good of something bigger. 

Which brings us back to Trump. Apart from being a five-times draft-dodger during the Vietnam war, he has never made an act of professional or personal sacrifice for anyone.

On the contrary: he has been forced to shut down both his Trump Foundation and unaccredited Trump University.

Trump was forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.

And his university scammed its students, promising to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivering nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement  with many of those students.

This is hardly the stuff of which tragic heroes are made.

The Controversy Surrounding Trump University - ABC News

Hanson cites several examples from famous Western movies to make his case that Trump deserves the status of a tragic hero. 

One of these is the classic 1953 “Shane,” starring Alan Ladd as the soft-spoken gunfighter who intervenes decisively in a range war.

Writes Hanson:

“He alone possesses the violent skills necessary to free the homesteaders from the insidious threats of hired guns and murderous cattle barons. Yet by the time of his final resort to lethal violence, Shane has sacrificed all prior chances of reform and claims on reentering the civilized world of the stable ‘sodbuster’ community.”

Comparing Trump to Shane is unbelievably ludicrous. Shane doesn’t boast about his past—in fact, this remains a mystery throughout the movie. Trump constantly brags—about the money he’s made, the buildings he’s put up, the women he’s bedded, the enemies he’s crushed (or plans to).

Moreover, Shane takes the side of poor homesteaders at the mercy of a rich cattle baron, Rufus Ryker. Ryker tries to bully the homesteaders into leaving. When that fails, he hires a ruthless gunman named Jack Wilson (Jack Palance).

In the film’s climax, Shane kills Wilson, and then Ryker, in a barroom showdown. Then he rides off—much to the sadness of Joey (Brandon de Wilde), the homesteaders’ son he has befriended.

“There’s no living with a killing,” says Shane. “There’s no going back from one. Right or wrong, it’s a brand. And a brand sticks.”

And so he rides on, knowing that his gunfighter’s skills make him an outcast among those very homesteaders whose lives he’s saved.

If Trump appeared in the movie, it would be as Ryker, not Shane.

Shane empathizes with the plight of others. Ryker–like Trump–hires others to do his dirty work. 

TRUMP AS A TRAGIC HERO?: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 31, 2024 at 12:10 am

“America needs the outsider Trump to do what normal politicians would not and could not do.”

That was the assertion made by Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California.   

Among his bestsellers on military history:

  • The Second World Wars
  • Carnage and Culture
  • Wars of the Ancient Greeks
  • The Western Way of War
  • The Soul of Battle: How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny

Historian Victor Davis Hanson said there has been no consequences for the wrongdoing by elites in society and warned that republics and successful states fall apart when the elites fall out of touch with the people."We have a whole bunch... here at home, that feel they can dictate to people and they're never subject to the ramifications of their own ideology and policy," he said of elites. "And it's like the emperor has no clothes and then they're surprised that Trump won or surprised that peo

Victor Davis Hanson

In 2019, Hanson turned his attention to politics—specifically, The Case for Trump.

Its dust-jacket provides a useful summary of its contents:

“This New York Times bestselling Trump biography from a major American intellectual explains how a renegade businessman became one of the most successful—and necessary—presidents of all time.

“In The Case for Trump, award-winning historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qualified Republican rivals, a Democrat with a quarter-billion-dollar war chest, and a hostile media and Washington establishment to become president of the United States — and an extremely successful president.

“Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America’s interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn, Hanson argues. And Trump alone had the instincts and energy to pursue this opening to victory, dismantle a corrupt old order, and bring long-overdue policy changes at home and abroad.”The Case for Trump by Victor Davis Hanson | Basic Books

Hanson’s book appeared before Trump:

  • Tried to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joseph Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
  • Allowed the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing more than 400,000 Americans by the time he left office. 
  • Attacked medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
  • Ordered his Right-wing followers to defy states’ orders to citizens to stay-at-home and wear masks in public to halt surging COVID-19 rates.
  • Became the first President in American history to refuse to accept the results of a Presidential election. 
  • Tried to overturn the November 3, 2020 election of Joe Biden through 60 lawsuits and the arm-twisting of several state lawmakers.
  • Sent a mob of his fanatical followers  to attack the United States Capitol Building. Their mission: Stop the counting of Electoral College ballots certain to give Biden the victory.         
  • Was twice impeached during his four years in office—the only President to be impeached twice (and acquitted by a Republican Senate which ignored his litany of crimes).

But his book appeared after Trump had:

  • Fired FBI Director James Comey for pursuing ties between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
  • Tried to fire Independent Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who was assigned to investigate those ties after Trump fired Comey. 
  • Attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for refusing to fire Mueller.
  • Attacked the integrity of Federal judges whose rulings he disagreed with.
  • Given Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey  Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
  • Amassed an infamous record as a serial liar, in both personal and Presidential matters.
  • Attacked the integrity of the American Intelligence community.
  • Sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election.
  • Repeatedly attacked the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
  • Branded America’s longtime ally, Canada, as “a national security threat.”
  • Praised brutal Communist dictators Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
  • Shut down the Federal Government for 35 days because Democrats refused to fund his ineffective “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay. The shutdown ended due to public outrage—without Trump getting the funding amount he had demanded. 

So much for Hanson’s claims that Trump had been “one of the most successful—and necessary—presidents of all time.”

Related image

Donald Trump

Then there’s Hanson’s claim that “Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America’s interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn.” 

In November, 2017, Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress. It became law on December 22, 2017.

According to Chye-Ching Huang, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy, the law did nothing to help ordinary Americans.

Testifying before the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2019, Huang stated that the law:

  • Ignored the stagnation of working-class wages and exacerbated inequality;
  • Weakened revenues when the nation needed to raise more;  
  • Encouraged rampant tax avoidance and gaming that will undermine the integrity of the tax code; 
  • Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans—and in many ways hurt them.

For American corporations, however, the law was a godsend: 

  • Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent;
  • Shifting toward a territorial tax system, where multinational corporations’ foreign profits go largely untaxed;
  • Benefitting overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly paid executives.

This was hardly an attempt at “defending the working people of America’s interior.”

Trump never made another attempt to “reform” the tax laws.

SOUTHERN REPUBLICANS: SLAVERY ISN’T DEAD–IT’S OUR AGENDA

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on January 30, 2024 at 12:10 am

Nikki Haley has a problem.  

It’s the same problem faced—and ignored—by every Republican candidate for President: The refusal to face the truth about slavery and the evils it spawned—including South’s role as its greatest defender.

On December 27, 2023, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was campaigning in Berlin, New Hampshire, for the 2024 Republican nomination for President.

“What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” a male attendee asked Haley. 

“Well, don’t come with an easy question,” Haley replied. “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?”   

Haley smiling

Nikki Haley 

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

The questioner replied that he wasn’t the one running for President. 

“I think it always comes down to the role of government, and what the rights of the people are,” Haley said. “And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life.” 

Of course, what she refused to say was that, in the pre-Civil War South, Southern governments had told millions of black slaves “how to live your life.”

The cause of the Civil War lay in the South’s trying to impose a slavocracy mentality and control over the rest of the nation. 

From 1860 to 1865, the South—Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia—produced the greatest case of mass treason in America’s history.

Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories

Union (blue) and Confederate (red) states: 1860 – 1865

According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect.” 

“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.

“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.

It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North refused to do. 

Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln President in 1860.

An iconic photograph of a bearded Abraham Lincoln showing his head and shoulders.

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country. 

On April 12, 1861—just over a month since Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4—Southern batteries opened fire on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, triggering the Civil War.

More than 750,000.Americans died—when the population of the United States stood at 31,443,321.

Four years later, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Now Southerners are trying to win through political manipulation what they couldn’t by open treason.  

Red states are adopting Fascistic social policies on such issues as abortion, gay rights and classroom censorship. And they are trying to prevent the federal government or their own largest metro areas to resist those policies.

In the case of abortion, Red states are not only outlawing it within their own borders but trying to prevent states where abortion is legal from providing that service.

Thus Republicans, who began as the party of freedom, have mutated into the party now trying to end it.

According to Donald Kettl, the former dean of the public policy school at the University of Maryland:

“The only time I can recall in American history even remotely like this [divergence] was after the Civil War when the separate but equal doctrine began to emerge” across the South as a backlash against the attempts of the 13th, 14th and 15th Constitutional amendments to ensure equality for the freed slaves.

CNN Correspondent Ronald Brownstein warns of this development: 

“As red states grow more aggressive about going their own way, while working to preempt challenges from above (the federal government) or below (blue local governments), they are testing how much divergence the nation’s fundamental cohesion can take before it begins to unravel.”

Twenty-five states voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Of these:

  • Twenty of these states rank in the bottom 25 of those who hold at least a four-year college degree;
  • Most fall into the top half when states are ranked by the share of their population that are White Christians or who own guns;
  • Twenty-three rank in the top 26 states that emit the most carbon from their energy sector; 

These states seek to reverse the “rights revolution of the last 60 years—on abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception and civil rights.

Today’s Republican party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It has become the party of John Wilkes Booth, Benito Mussolini and Donald Trump.

ALL HAIL THE AMERICAN GERONTOCRACY!

In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on January 29, 2024 at 12:14 am

“Congress has become the most privileged nursing home in the country,” said Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley at a rally in Conway, S.C., on January 28. 

American voters, she added, deserved to know that those charged with protecting the nation were “at the top of their game.”

“Don’t you think we need to have mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75?” asked Haley, 52.

On July 4, 1776, representatives of the original Thirteen Colonies met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to affix their signatures to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. 

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

The ages of key American Revolutionary figures in July. 1776, were:

  • Marquis de Lafayette, 18
  • James Monroe, 18
  • Aaron Burr, 20
  • John Marshall, 20
  • Nathan Hale, 21
  • Alexander Hamilton, 21
  • George Rodgers Clark, 23
  • James Madison, 25
  • Edward Rutledge, 26
  • John Paul Jones, 28
  • Thomas Jefferson, 33
  • James Wilson, 34
  • Benedict Arnold, 35
  • Samuel Chase, 35
  • Ethan Allen, 38
  • John Hancock, 39
  • Thomas Paine, 39
  • Patrick Henry, 40
  • John Adams, 41
  • Paul Revere, 41
  • Richard Henry Lee, 44
  • George Washington, 44
  • Josiah Bartlett, 46
  • Lyman Hall, 52
  • Samuel Adams, 53
  • Roger Sherman, 55
  • Benjamin Franklin, 70

Youth was a commonplace among the signers of the Declaration. Their average age was 44.

In the hit play (and later movie) 1776, several members of Congress—including Thomas Jefferson—are surprised to learn that John Adams—who’s 41—“burns” for his wife Abigail, who’s waiting for him in Boston, Massachusetts.

1776-musical.jpg

Today, a nation that once prized youth among its leaders is now moving toward government by gerontocracy.

The average age of members of the House of Representatives is 58.4 years. In the Senate, it’s 64.3.

During 2020, the major Democratic Presidential contenders were: 

  • Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders: 79
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: 78
  • Massachusetts United States Senator Elizabeth Warren: 71
  • Minnesota United States Senator Amy Klobuchar: 60

Image result for elderly men walking

Opposing them was President Donald Trump, 73, as he sought re-election. On Election Day, he would be 74. 

A visit to the Soviet Union in the twilight of its 74-year existence reveals where the United States is heading.

In May 1982, 75-year-old General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, suffered a severe stroke. He had ruled the U.S.S.R. since 1964, but by the early 1980s he was essentially a figurehead. On November 10, 1982, he finally died of a heart attack.

Related image

The Kremlin

Succeeding Brezhnev was Yuri Andropov, 69, who until May, 1982, had been chief of the KGB. 

Andropov suffered from kidney failure and was often on dialysis. By December, 1983, after barely more than a year in office, he was totally bedridden. On February 9, 1984, he joined Brezhnev at the great Party Congress in the sky. 

Andropov had realized that the Soviet Union needed a younger and more energetic ruler. Not long before he died he suggested that Mikhail Gorbachev, his aide, succeed him.

But the Central Committee instead chose Konstantin Chernenko, who, at 72, was older than Andropov. On February 13, 1984, he became the U.S.S.R.’s third leader in a year and a half. 

Suffering from emphysema, occasional heart failure and liver disease from alcohol, Chernenko died on March 10, 1985.

Only then did Kremlin rulers decide to choose a General Secretary who was likely to live more than one or two years. One day after Chernenko died, the Politburo chose Gorbachev, a relatively young 54.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Gorbachev survived to retire as President of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.

So what does this mean for old men and women seeking the White House?

According to Dr. Michael Roizen, Presidents effectively age twice as fast while in office. Roizen, a chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic and co-founder of RealAge.com, bases his opinion on his research of medical records of previous presidents, back to Theodore Roosevelt.

“The main cause is what we call unrequited stress—they don’t have enough friends to mitigate the stress. The major way most of us handle stress is through a number of techniques, but the most prominent way is to discuss it with friends.  

“The problem with presidents is, some of them lose friends, and the closest friend they have is usually the spouse.”

Thus, a person who has been president eight years has the risk of disability or dying of someone who is 16 years older.  When you’re already in your late 60s or early 70s, that doesn’t give you much room for risk-taking. 

Of course, given America’s Politically Correct social norms, pointing out the disadvantages of combing extreme age with extreme pressure is taboo for many persons. 

Julian Castro found this out when, in a debate, he questioned Joseph Biden’s mental acuity. 

“In a cultural way, it shocked me,” said Gerson Borrero, a New York City political commentator. “We respect our elders—there may be a point where we smile at their ‘disparates’ (gaffes), but at the same time we stay respectful.”

As the United States approaches the 2024 Presidential election, the perils of gerontocracy loom even larger.

Biden turned 81 on November 20, 202. If re-elected in 2024, he would be 82. If he lived out his full term, he would be 86

Trump, who still lusts to be President, is 77. If re-elected President in 2024, he would be 78 upon taking office in 2025.

FBI agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57. Airplane pilots must retire at 65

It’s past time to bring a mandatory retirement age to members of Congress and the Presidency.

REPUBLICANS: STILL AWAITING THEIR “ALBERT SPEER SAVIOR”—PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 26, 2024 at 12:15 am

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany:           

“Destroy all German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants!”

If implemented, it would deprive surviving Germans of even the barest necessities after the war.  

Opposing him was Albert Speer, his favorite architect and Minister of Armaments. 

Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans

But Hitler refused to back down. He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.

The next day, Speer told Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!” 

“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.

“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”

Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.

By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” order.

Trained as an architect, Speer had joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year. 

From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years. “If Hitler had been capable of friendship,” Speer said after the war, “I would have been that friend.”

In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.

Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.

“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.

“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—-perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”

Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler. 

* * * * *

As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, Adolf Hitler blamed the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.

His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”

Fortunately for Germany, one man—Albert Speer—finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.

Albert Speer

Albert Speer

Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocked such destruction and persuaded influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.

As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.

Fast forward 75 years: Facing the end of his Presidency, Donald Trump desperately sought to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he now fought to make that a reality. 

Unlike his 44 predecessors, he rejected the will of the voters and for almost three weeks denied his successor access to the resources he needed to launch a smooth transition.

Donald Trump

Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claimed to love, Trump sought to relentlessly destroy those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:

  • The Pentagon
  • The CIA
  • The FBI
  • The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

His attitude clearly was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.” 

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughtered about 1,000 Americans a day.

Even Republicans who privately admitted the Trump era was ending realized that 70 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly awaited the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.

They would also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dared break with the man they worshiped like a cult leader. 

For Congressional Republicans, staying in office—and keeping their power and perks—was their top priority.

On November 25, 2019, CNN political correspondent Jake Tapper interviewed Representative Adam Schiff on Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

What would it mean if Republicans uniformly oppose any articles of impeachment against Trump? asked Tapper.

“It will have very long-term consequences, if that’s where we end up,” replied Schiff.

“And if not today, I think Republican members in the future, to their children and their grandchildren, will have to explain why they did nothing in the face of this deeply unethical man who did such damage to the country.” 

In the end, only one of 53 Republican Senators—Mitt Romney—dared to vote for impeachment. And he became an instant pariah for it. 

On March 18, 1945, Albert Speer, opposing Hitler’s plans to destroy Germany’s infrastructure, addressed a memo to his Fuhrer, in which he wrote: “No one has the right to take the viewpoint that the fate of the German people is tied to his personal fate.”

The country is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive intentions of its own would-be Fuhrer.