“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Although Maya Angelou didn’t have Donald Trump in mind when she said that in 1997, we would be smart to take her advice today as we turn the page on 2023 and enter the election year of 2024.
Trump is now showing us plainly that he will be a dictator if he wins a second term.
We must take him seriously.
For example, in recent remarks:
• He echoed the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler by calling his political opponents “vermin” who are more dangerous to the nation than foreign enemies, thus opening the door to use of violence against us.
• He says immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the nation, another echo of Hitler.
• He has promised mass sweeps to arrest millions of immigrants and place them in detention camps, again echoing the Hitler era.
• He has promised to end “birthright citizenship,” throwing into question the citizenship of millions of Americans, including the children of immigrants born in this country, and imposing his own interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
• He has said he will throw out the criminal and legal cases against him, overhaul the Justice Department, and use it to go after those who oppose him or turned on him, such as former attorney general William Barr, and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley.
• He has promised to purge federal agencies of professional civil servants and replace them with people who will do his bidding, undermining the effectiveness of agencies that protect our air and water, food and drug safety, transportation safety, and more. The Heritage Foundation already is screening job applicants for their loyalty.
• He has discussed activating the Insurrection Act to use the military to put down protests against him.
• He has promised to be a dictator – only for the first day in office – when he will unilaterally build a wall on the Mexican border and order more drilling for oil.
Soldiers in the streets, detention camps, mass firings – all these are hallmarks of a dictatorship, not a democracy.
We can’t assume that Trump will be as inept at carrying out his radical ideas as he was in his first term. Trump’s team has learned from its mistakes and will be more effective the second time around. They will not worry about breaking past protocol or defying the law.
Could a Democratic Congress put the brakes on Trump’s agenda? Possibly, but in any showdown between Congress and Trump, the Supreme Court — with its Trump appointed justices — is likely to have the last word.
The bottom line: We can’t risk another Trump presidency. Laws and political norms about the way things should be done in Washington are too weak to save our democracy. Trump must be defeated in the Nov. 5 general election or it likely will be the last meaningful election for a long time.
And it’s up to us to defeat him.
That means all of us need to redouble our efforts. If we already volunteer, we need to volunteer more hours. We will have to step out of our comfort zone and volunteer in new ways such as talking to voters door to door. If we haven’t volunteered, we need to do so for the first time.
We must do this even if we are tired of politics, if we would rather spend time with our grandchildren, if we are afraid of offending our neighbors and relatives who support Trump, or if we don’t think the Democratic Party is perfect.
We beat Trump once. We can do it again.
But it will take all of us.
If you would like to sign up to defend democracy, fill out this form (https://forms.gle/BrGcNq2347TqmG6t8) and the Livingston County Democratic Party will be in touch.
