Donald Trump has actually kept a promise! He said he would be a dictator on his first day back in office, and to that end, he has done his very utmost. Among the most notable decrees were an attempt to basically revoke the 14th Amendment, illegally use the military to domestically terrorize minority and immigrant communities, fire all his potential opponents, critics, or just anybody he doesn’t like within the government, and — oh yes, pardon well over a thousand violent insurrectionists, thus demonstrating his full responsibility for the attack. It will take months to sort out all the evil Trump has accomplished this week. The lawsuits that will inevitably follow shall grind on for years, and the damages caused will take decades or more to eradicate. If, that is, he keeps his word to limit his dictatorship to the first day back in office. The threats he continues to make show just how improbable that is.
Perhaps Trump is finally beginning to do himself what all the earnest warnings and outcries from former cronies and honest citizens alike could not accomplish. He is proving by his own long-considered actions just what he is: liar, thief, and cheat in chief. With no constraints, who knows what kind of monster he will become? The betrayal of law enforcement by his January 6 pardons was just the first of many to come. How long will it take for the fools who voted for him to lower the price of eggs realize he won’t even do that?
Our best hope to save us from this madman is that unlike Germany in the 1930’s, the US has had nearly 250 years of democracy. But while that has given us some strong traditions, it’s a lot of time for corruption to flourish, and our institutions — particularly the judiciary — have been systematically weakened and infiltrated by unjust and greedy persons. It will take a determined, tough, unyielding, and above all, united resistance from the decent citizens of this country and the world to get us through the ordeal we must all now endure.
One thing, however, is certain — the stakes are now finally out in the open. God’s judgment on each of us is now inevitable and will be made. At some point, every last human being will have to choose between resistance to evil or submission.
May God give us strength to choose truth, freedom, and decency.
