America Chose Trump, But It's Far From Over

Now, to save the country we love, we have no choice but to stop him - and we will.

Donald Trump is insane. It's important to start out with that full understanding. He’s not a conservative or a Republican; he is part of nothing other than himself. He sees himself as all-powerful and uses his power to abuse, threaten, humiliate, demean, and destroy.

Rick Wilson is right: “Everything Trump touches dies.”

Think about that for a moment. Think about that as the stock market crashes.

The President of the United States — the most powerful person on earth is so sick and afflicted that we still lack the imagination to understand how much pain and destruction he is capable of and willing to inflict on the American people and the world. ETTD!

The American people chose Trump’s insanity. Democrats need to understand that no matter how good we think our policies are, 77 million Americans chose the madman over us. That’s one hell of a problem. But the problem isn’t the Democratic Party as much as it is democracy itself and how broken ours has become.

As journalist Hamilton Nolan wrote a few days ago about what drove so many Americans to place so much power in Trump’s hands:

“That, my friends, is the unfortunate outcome of an economic system that has so profoundly failed to enforce economic equality and a political system that so profoundly failed to protect its democracy from the influence of capital that it allowed itself to be totally captured by extreme lunatics backed by extreme wealth.'

In their competition for more and more campaign money from powerful interests, both Republicans and Democrats badly botched the job for decades. Donald Trump exploited that failure and won by railing against both the failings of our economic system and our failed political system with no idea of how to fix either other than to “burn it down.”

A promise he is keeping.

Elections have consequences, and the revenge and retribution flames that Trump stoked during his campaign are now the policies burning down order in the world within weeks of his inauguration.

Wall Street analysts and talking heads on financial networks complain that Trump’s economic policies have created something the markets do not like — “uncertainty”.

Smell the coffee! There is nothing uncertain about the damage Trump has already done and will continue to do.

Ukraine and Europe are certain that they can no longer count on America as an Allie as Trump sides with Putin.

Greenland has a population of some 56,000 citizens of Denmark, and of the European Union, it is certain that it is no longer safe from Trump’s designs on taking it - “whether they like it or not.” The Panama Canal and, yes, Canada are also certain that Trump wants them under his thumb, too. Whether they feared America as an imperial nation or not before doesn’t matter — they are certain America is an imperial nation now.

Islands with no people on them are being hit with tariffs, while countries around the world are certain that America is no longer a reliable trading partner. Even Canada, Mexico, and Europe are being hit with crushing tariffs as Trump launches his global trade war.

America’s place in the world as a trusted partner and as the leader of the free world has been trashed by Trump, the destroyer, in a matter of months.

As one American who was overseas meeting to assess the damage told me, “It is amazing how fast folks have turned on us. We were once respected and adored; now, we are disdained. They all had the same questions: “How did you all vote for him, and how do you get rid of him? It’s only been 6 weeks!!”

We are headed to a world with more countries developing and building nuclear weapons because these nations are certain they can no longer trust America to deter attacks against them.

As France EU Minister Benjamin Haddad said, “We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every four years,” he continued, "Let's get out of collective denial. Europeans must take their destiny into their own hands, regardless of who is elected president.”

“Regardless of who is elected President.” Let that sink in.

They never trusted Trump. They may or may not have trusted previous presidents we’ve elected.

But they always trusted us, the American people.

People around the world aspired to be us. To become one of us. We, the people, had all the trust in the world until we handed the most powerful office in the world to a sick man bent on revenge and retribution. It does not matter how many of us did it wittingly or unwittingly.

We all know now. Deep down, every American knows this is not who we are.

It will not be the Democratic party or enough Republicans in the Senate who will save us. It will not be the courts or any other American institution that comes to the rescue. It is up to us.

We, the American people, have saved Europe, the West, and the world before. The truth is we are the only people with the power to save it again, now.

We have a choice to make. We refuse and resist now, or we all go down together.

Those who stormed Normandy and every American who served to sustain freedom despite all our flaws and faults put petty political differences aside to stand together for love of country and our children’s futures.

We may have lost the trust of some, but we can not lose faith in each other. The destiny of America has always rested in the hands of we, the people, even if we have taken that power for granted for far too long.

But what about his MAGA followers? Many will join us. Yes, the King will hold onto the weak.

However, one by one, we can inspire the necessary courage to build the pro-democracy movement that admits the flaws that must be fixed but starts with resisting and refusing the King at every turn.

Now is not the time to play dead. Now is the time to rise to save America and the world like so many Americans before us.

Democrats, in defending democracy, were essentially defending the status quo. Capitalism had been running roughshod over our economy and our democracy to the point where both were broken.

In a sense, the jujitsu that this created for Trump was fuel for the fire. Trump, when he raged that “America was becoming a third world country,” was seen as telling the truth. Democrats saying that Trump was a threat to democracy — were seen as defending a broken system at best and, at worst, were seen as perpetuating the lie that democracy was working.

This is all-important to understand if we as a people are to break free of Donald Trump’s destructive grasp.

Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if capitalism is subservient to democracy and not the other way around.