Never (ever) again
B. Jay Cooper examines the dilemma faced by some Republicans torn between their long-held ideological beliefs and voting against Donald Trump, whom they see as contradicting those values. He advocates for choosing to vote against Trump, whom he perceives as a potential tyrant.
B. Jay Cooper examines the dilemma faced by some Republicans torn between their long-held ideological beliefs and voting against Donald Trump, whom they see as contradicting those values. He advocates for choosing to vote against Trump, whom he perceives as a potential tyrant.
I was talking to an old friend from Republican working days not long ago about the current presidential campaign.
He had no difficulty saying he was not a Trump supporter but had great difficulty trying to articulate who he could vote for. I offered that it is a binary choice:
Democracy or tyranny.
He agreed. But, when we attached names to each category he had more difficulty. Being a hard-core, old-style Republican, he has trouble voting for a Democrat.
He offered up Sen. Tim Scott and Nikki Haley as good candidates. Scott is no longer running, and Haley is very good at talking around her true political positions (like abortion or Trump) so is coming across to some as a moderate, which she is far from.
It was a good discussion. Not an argument. Like the old days of politics. We could disagree, but we weren’t disagreeable. We parted still friends but still not settled precisely on the issue.
It got me thinking that people struggling with who to support because of long-held ideological beliefs, do have it rough. But Trump is the antithesis of those beliefs – he has no beliefs. He believes only in himself.
He appointed three justices to the Supreme Court who, as he promised, would overturn Roe v. Wade. And they did.
Now, he backs away from any real credit there because he knows it plays horribly with the general electorate. Just look at the mid-term election results.
Worse, though, he seems to be running as Adolph Hitler. I don’t do that.
Until now.
Donald Trump says it more clearly than he did even in his two most recent runs for president: immigrants are poisoning the blood in this country, he says.
If you haven’t read Mein Kampf, Hitler’s manifesto, among the quotes from his book:
- “All who are not of a good race are chaff.”
- It was necessary for Germans to “occupy themselves not merely with the breeding of dogs, horses, and cats but also with care for the purity of their own blood.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica says of Mein Kampf:
“In style, Mein Kampf has been appropriately deemed turgid, repetitious, wandering, illogical, and, in the first edition at least, filled with grammatical errors — all reflecting a half-educated man. It was skillfully demagogic, however, appealing to many dissatisfied elements in Germany — the ultra-nationalistic, the anti-Semitic, the antidemocratic, the anti-Marxist, and the military.”
Sound like anyone we know?
Trump’s updated version relies on applause lines to his audiences of:
- Immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
- I will have “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Folks, he isn’t even trying to hide what he wants to do on day one “only,” as if we are gullible enough to believe it will last only one day.
This is not hysteria. This is not Trump hate.
These are his words.
If you like electing a tyrant, he’s your man.
If not, the other choice will be Joe Biden, like it or not.
That’s what it comes down to.
Do I think Biden has been the best president in history? No. But he hasn’t been the worst either. We experienced that with the administration that preceded him. If we elect Trump, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Personally, I get the entertainment value of Trump. But this isn’t entertainment.
This is reality.
We can’t give him the chance to do exactly what he’s saying he will do.
Never again.
GOING FURTHER
Trump blasted for saying immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" | CBS News
Trump repeats 'poisoning the blood' anti-immigrant remark | Reuters
Trump reprises dehumanizing language on undocumented immigrants, warns of ‘invasion’ | Washington Post
Trump says he will be a dictator only on ‘day one’ if elected president | The Guardian
Donald Trump said he'd be a dictator for one day. His supporters say they're not worried. | USA Today
Sources:
▪ Text: This piece was first published in The Screaming Moderate and re-published in PMP Magazine on 19 December 2023 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Flickr/Gage Skidmore. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)
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