Sixteen months ago, Donald J. Trump was re-elected to a non-consecutive second term. This is only the second time in the nearly 240 years since the US Constitution was ratified in 1787 that such a re-election has occurred. Grover Cleveland was a more noble figure than Trump, although he was far from beyond criticism. I wanted to revisit some old posts of my own on the topic of Trump, now that some time has passed and we have seen how he will actually behave in his lame duck term.
In the wee hours of the morning just after election day, I wrote a post noting that Trump may have won. I expressed my disgust at Kamela Harris and my distrust of Trump. Now, the Democrats are having a field day of "I told you so" moral superiority, forgetting that their criticisms of Trump weren't really related to what he is doing now, and ignoring how Trump was actively courting the anti-war left while Harris enjoyed the endorsement of neo-conservative war hawks Dick and Liz Cheney. Then, and now, their talking points were his "felony convictions" under dubious application of financial laws along with accusations of being some kind of neo-Nazi racist. They had little interest in any substantive accusations which may also apply to their party's heroes, like unconstitutional overreach or his initial COVID policies they would later embrace and escalate.
I tried to make a best-case scenario argument for how Trump might not turn out to be so bad after all, but my heart wasn't really in it. The only item I see on that list which came to pass was his pardon for Ross Ulbricht.
Unfortunately, it now seems I was too optimistic even in my worst-case scenario. Trump has supported the destruction in Gaza, and despite initially appearing to negotiate for peace and de-escalating regional tensions with Iran, he and Netanyahu conspired for a preemptive war just as peace talks were reportedly making progress. In that old post, I said,
Iran has been escalating military tensions with Israel already, creating a very dangerous simmering violence which could boil over into disaster for the Israeli citizenry if this explodes into real warfare. Trump could be far more of an indirect existential threat to Israel because of his shoot-from-the-hip jingoism than due to any perceived animosity of an alleged fascist and racist, and such a war could explode far beyond the confines of the middle east.
Call me Nostradamus, because that was exactly what we see happening now.
OK, so Trump has neither ended the Ukraine war nor escalated it to nuclear war. Instead, it has just continued to plod along inconclusively. Russia does have ties to Iran, but also benefits financially from the disruptions to Iranian oil exports. The US is "allowing" Russia to sell its oil to India, for example. I don't know whether this could escalate further to open war with Russia or not.
On the financial front, I also warned,
[W]e also stand on the brink of economic disaster thanks to inflation, debt (public and consumer alike), an inverted yield curve, and massive supply chain disruptions. Replacing income taxes with tariffs will add even more instability to the economy as we try to rebuild trade in a post-pandemic policy world.
At the time, I could not predict exactly how irrational or autocratic his tariff impositions would be, but that mess is still in the background.
We still have immigration enforcement abuses, and my warnings are coming to pass.
Escalations in police actions against minority communities, demands for citizenship papers, and random raids of workplaces or homes could escalate. The War on Drugs has already made the US a police state with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Border walls and "your papers please" signal further descent into real tyranny.
We have seen unprecedented shifts in precious metals over the last several months, and now this war is causing oil prices to spike. Rumors of a draft, new fronts of war, questions of nuclear escalation, and more rumble in the background. There is little we can do to stop this tide of chaos, but we can still consider our spheres of control. Decouple yourself from the megacorporations and their spyware as much as you can, because government wants to use it to aid its surveillance state overreach, especially with AI tools now becoming prevalent. Build an emergency kit and have an evacuation plan, whether you're near a warzone, wildfire-prone region, or anything else. Connect with your local community through churches, libraries, and other hubs. Plant a garden, even just a large flower pot with a tomato trellis and some carrots.
No one will give us freedom. We must take it, with or without permission. We are taught to fear anarchy, but the government is, and can only ever be, an existential threat to our families, communities, and wider society. How many more senseless wars will it take for you to see? I recommend Lysander Spooner's A Letter to Grover Cleveland for a deeper exploration of political authority and governmental legitimacy overall, whether applied to Trump now or Cleveland then.
Image by StudioLabs from Pixabay
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