The big problem with letting 45 get four more years of rampaging through decency and good judgment isn't just that he'll devastate everything around him. The much more dangerous issue is that he'll get bored.
He'll sit there like Alexander the Great, in tears because he'll have no more worlds to conquer. It's then that he'll start fulfilling the scheming that he's doing this very minute.
He's out in front of us now, you know. He knows he can't be stopped until next January. The Democrats asked their Republican Congressional colleagues for a declaration of decency, and got it thrown back into their faces. The numbers don't work. End of story. I'm betting a few of them feel pretty stupid now, not that it matters.
As he begins to consider what he believes he could do, he gets more and more wound up and hysterical. He'll strive to make his minions exactly the same. If you can stand to watch any of it, take a minute to absorb not only what he's saying, but how he's saying it.
It's hard for most of us to imagine the nonsense that'll be spewing from his awful voice during the rest of the campaign--remember, we have eight more months, plus. But not to worry; as events in the news are posted, he'll twist them to get the faithful to think that the Democrats are to blame for all the bad news--every bit of it, including and especially whatever he's caused to happen himself.
He'll continue with the lies, half-truths and distortions. This is his fun tunnel now. He has until November to utilize it.
Anyone who doesn't get this now isn't listening, which might be what they've done all along. The rest of us will have to work our pants off to get the undecideds to think seriously and keep this monster from tearing everything else apart.
But if we can't, if we don't, he'll need to dominate something else. It's his nature. He can't help himself.
He'll lie to get people to look away from him, then undermine other institutions that we normally count on to advance our civilization. I have three in mind: birth control, journalism and education.
They are for people who think for themselves and want to. They are bastions of genuine liberalism--not leftist thinking, which is what right-wingers insist and hang upon as justification to undo them, but the ability and the willingness of people to engage in fact-finding; the joy of discovery, the fun of knowing what hasn't been known to this point.
Right-wingers--and there were plenty of them in Cedarburg when I taught there, dolled up in upper middle class garb though they were, disguising radicalism behind suburban backdrops, to give one example--are about control of information, not its expanse. They start with being scared of what's around the next corner. It's why the insistence of mainstream media as delving in 'fake news' is now the knee-jerk reaction of millions, and will remain that way as long as 45 has his finger on the tweet button. That's why creationism is still out there as a tired, regurgitated idea that simply doesn't wash. It's why sex education looms as dangerous and might lead to more sex--or even worse, a consideration of pregnancy termination as a sad but allowable part of world civilization that's been practiced for centuries, safely or not.
He'll put a stop to that, most certainly upon Ruth Bader Ginsberg's demise. She's in her high-80s now. She's fought off more than one cancer. Four more years on the Supreme Court is a lot to ask or even expect of her. He'll get that lock-down vote to throw abortion to the states, where it will be a free-for-all under Article IV of the Constitution, which says that states must respect the official rulings of other states. That can be twisted to mean anything that a particular state wants it to mean. That battlefield is being prepared right now.
It's all about giving quasi-religious fanatics what they want, even though he doesn't believe it himself. Wait and see: At least one woman who's had an abortion as a result of 45's attempted or unintended progeny will emerge. And it won't matter to them whatsoever. Nothing else has.
He'll create a significant deterrent to public education with a wave of propaganda that will encourage states to double down on charters. Instead of being someone to dispose of immediately, Betsy DuVos, obedient, religiously radicalized and devious--changing not a bit of her original personality--will be a far more familiar name than she is even now.
Being unable to completely control mainstream media or insult it into subjection, he'll also begin to lay the groundwork for his own media empire, even to include government in its disposal--a genuine propaganda wing, designed to facilitate the above two efforts. He'll use government funds to spread his half-truths, explaining it as the only antidote to the 'lies' that's been spread about him and, after all, the public deserves the truth, doesn't it?
All this will happen if he's re-elected. It will. Please, please believe this. It never feels good to think about things in these terms and I take no pleasure in it, but that's where he's going: greater and greater control of something, anything, so he can establish bragging rights about institutions that distribute information he doesn't like, facts that he can't deny though he sure tries to do so. That's where he's going, so everybody will agree with everything he says all the time.
He's that twisted. He's that jaded. He's that craven. He's that full of himself. We already know what's happened to those inside his circle who have called him on it: Insults, lies, firings, public humiliation. And he may also take us to war; we've been close enough to this point and none of it's been necessary.
We have to remember this when confronted with someone who still isn't sure what to do. This is the dystopian future we will have shoved down our throats.
This is what's at stake. In the meantime: Be creative. Keep discovering new stuff. Don't let this foul, horrible person disturb or diminish that in any way. Indeed, creativity is an act of defiance against this creep. Keep standing up for good and decent rights. And seriously consider getting out there and reminding people what's at stake.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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