I've been at least somewhat active in politics since 1968 and Bobby Kennedy....and on through Arizona Congressman Mo Udall in 1976....Teddy Kennedy in 1980....Reagan and finally South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint in 2011/2012...
We have a small clocktower in our town that plays tunes....a lot of John Philip Sousa....and occasionally the Star Spangled Banner....of which when it plays....if I am walking by the stores....or crossing the street....I stop....and I don't know that I've ever seen anyone else do it....I take off my hat....put my hand on my heart as I face the music.
I'm a veteran....(who had....way back when....a top secret clearance)....with very strong feelings for those who serve in our military....but I feel today that I no longer have a country.
Some people....many actually....despised Richard Nixon....and the Clintons....and George W.....and Barack Obama.....but though we had vastly different political opinions....it was still America.
We argued over socialism and abortion and guns...and then the national debt and immigration....but it was still a constitutional republic. President-elect Obama said that we were five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. He spent eight years in....what was then the White House....I'm not sure what it should be called today....for it bears little resemblance to the White House that America knows....and there was no transformation. We were still America.
Donald Trump muddled his way through four years....and is fortunate that he was not convicted in his impeachment trials. President Biden then proved to be the worst president that we have ever had....but we were still America....and then came January 6....four years of threats and torment....and the second term of Trump....followed by vengeance....purges and show trials.
I've studied Donald Trump over the past 8 1/2 years probably closer than his own personal doctor....reading over 100 books about him....107 to be exact. I have watched fifty rallies if I have watched one. I've studied every decade of his life. He has never displayed any compassion....without the expectation of praise. He has never had a functioning ideology. Everything has always been transactional....anything is for sale at the right price.
It seems as if today he thinks that he has his own personal army....and police....and district attorneys.....and FBI. He has no concept of what truth is. He lies as calmly and consistently unlike anything I have ever witnessed....and then he will look at an opponent....and show outrage that the opponent told a lie? When he does things like this.....I calmy either out loud or in my mind....I'm not really sure....I'll simply utter...."extraordinary".....extraordinary to have witnessed such starkly sociopathic behavior in not only a government leader....but one who has somehow developed a worshipful following of true believers....and...as of now....fundamentally transformed the United States of America....into what is very similar to....or is at least quickly moving towards being....a dictatorial police state.
