I would say it happened when Donald Trump entered the political scene in 2015 and wasn’t immediately laughed off the stage.
I remember calling my mother in disbelief and asking her if there wasn’t an unwritten rule that a successful presidential candidate has to be a decent and honorable human being. Sure, we elected Nixon (twice), but we didn’t know he was a criminal at the time.
Although I completely agree with the fellow at left, I have to admit that the Republicans’ push to make ID required at the polls is going to be compelling to all Trump supporters who have been lied to, and are convinced, that America is rife with voter fraud.
So where is all this going? Probably to the U.S. Supreme Court, since the Constitution is very clear on assigning responsibility for carrying out elections to the states.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in Russian military leadership and personnel facing accusations of killing civilians, destroying infrastructure, and committing torture.
Then there are the atrocities in Gaza and Darfur.
All of these war crimes are punishable by life prison sentences.
OK, we all know that, even if Trump does go down, his criminal prosecution is very unlikely to follow this path.
But should we cheer that our president is a war criminal, one of the most vile people in human history?
The vast majority of Americans are sickened that the president of their country has led us to this point.
What Katie Couric says here is undeniably true.
There is a palpable resentment of educated people who understand science, and push for all the tenets of the U.S. Constitution: due process, the balance of powers, the states’ rights to regulate their elections, the emoluments clause, etc.
I believe that this can’t last forever; it’s a fad not unlike the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, that vanished just as mysteriously as it arrived.
Of course, not everyone feels that way. Check out what Isaac Asimov had to say on the matter, below.
From what we see at left, are we to infer that voters are OK with the fact that Trump is turning this country into a lawless, authoritarian state?
FWIW, I don’t believe that.
Most of the full-on Christians I know are politically conservative, though I doubt a single one takes it to the extreme shown at left.
Considering that their only real job is protecting and defending Trump, I’d given them high marks.
If you have a broader set of criteria, e.g., protecting and defending the Constitution, they’re both abominable.
The answer to the question becomes obvious when one considers what we’ve become as a country, which, in a couple of words, is hateful and ignorant.
How much intelligence do you expect from a population that re-elected a convicted felon who then immediately had 60+ other felony charges against himself dropped?
This country has a great deal of woes, and our lack of modern railroads is somewhere among them. Having said that, I think we need to resign ourselves to the fact that this will never get fixed. The financial (and thus political) strength of the airline industry is too massive. The cost of all the easements that would be required is astronomical. Communist countries don’t have these problems.
Besides, the United States is in the process of becoming an authoritarian regime. Establishing high-speed rail would be like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Shortly before my mother passed away, she and I were talking about sanctuary cities. She had lived the last decade or so of her life on a steady diet of Fox News, and so when I asked her to tell me what the term actually meant, she regurgitated what she had been told, i.e., it’s a place where an illegal immigrant who has committed a crime can go and hide without fear that the police can follow and arrest them.
In fact, sanctuary cities are those that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Police typically do not ask about immigration status, refuse to honor federal detainer requests for non-serious offenses, and do not allow local resources to be used for immigration enforcement.
This is not about liberalism or compassion; it’s about common sense effective policing. The belief here, and it’s proven to be true, is that if undocumented immigrants trust law enforcement personnel, they can be instrumental in helping the police solve crimes, by providing vital information as witnesses.
