by Sheila Markin, June 29, 2024

Do you want to live in a dictatorship with Trump as your dictator?

If Trump is re-elected we will lose our democracy. Our country will become a dictatorship with Trump and rightwing extremists in charge. Christian Nationalists will force our schools to conform to religious beliefs that defy the idea that our church and state are separate and people have a right to their own religion. In a dictatorship the rule of law no longer protects citizens from the will and the whims of the dictator. The dictator gets to have everything his way. Without the rule of law, the dictator and his loyalists control your life and your fate.
How do we know Trump would impose a dictatorship?

Because he TOLD us he plans to be a dictator.
Because PROJECT 2025 is the blueprint for deconstructing our democracy and rapidly changing us into an autocracy (dictatorship) and it is being openly promoted by rightwing extremists who are laser-focused and determined to have an autocratic take over of our country.
The Supreme Court decision in Trump’s immunity case gives a president total immunity (he cannot be prosecuted) for acts that can be plausibly claimed to be “official” acts. This decision puts a president above the law for these “official acts” and bars evidence that derives from these acts from being used in a prosecution.  This decision runs counter to everything legal scholars have told us for 100 years- that no man is above the law including presidents. The Supreme Court just gave Trump the ability to be a dictator on day one. Biden would not abuse his power as president, but Trump has promised revenge and retribution against Liz Cheney (military tribunal) and arrests of Nancy Pelosi and many other people Trump wants to punish for trying to hold him to account.

Let’s get real about what this would mean for our country and our lives.
FIRST, TRUMP TOLD US HE WOULD BE A DICTATOR ON DAY ONE

What would a second Trump term really look like? You no longer need to guess:

Former President Trump has laid out, publicly and unambiguously, designs to stretch traditions, norms and accepted law in historic ways, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write.

Why it matters: We’ve written for months that Trump allies privately are plotting loyalty tests and policy proposals to vastly expand presidential power and punish critics.

Trump himself is now saying the quiet part out loud. You should listen.

You might like this or loathe it. But, based on two interviews with TIME magazine totaling more than 80 minutes, you can no longer ignore Trump’s intentions:

On whether states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion that violates a ban (say, after 15 weeks of pregnancy): “I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.” (President Biden tweeted about that quote: “This is reprehensible.&rdquo
On political violence in connection with the upcoming election: “I don’t think we’re going to have that. I think we’re going to win. And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
On using the military to deport migrants who cross illegally: “Well, these aren’t civilians. These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”
On launching the largest deportation operation in American history: “Because we have no choice. I don’t believe this is sustainable for a country, what’s happening to us.”
On using the military against protesters: “I would use certainly the National Guard, if the police were unable to stop. I would absolutely use the National Guard.” He then mentioned an executive order he signed to encourage prosecution of anyone who desecrates national monuments.
On using Schedule F power to fire civil servants: “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected. And you have some people you almost want to protect because they do such a good job.”
On pardoning every one of the people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol: “I would consider that, yes. … Yes, absolutely.”
On whether he might fire a U.S. attorney who didn’t prosecute someone on his orders: “It would depend on the situation. Yeah.”
On “anti-white racism” protections: “I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country, and that can’t be allowed.”
On disbanding the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, established under President Biden: “I think I would. … I think it sounds good politically, but I think it’s a very expensive solution.”

Between the lines: TIME, in the cover story that went on sale May 17, calls Trump’s responses “the outlines of an imperial presidency…”

Asked by the magazine about his statement on Fox News in December that he’d be a dictator just for Day 1 of his presidency, but Trump said: “I think a lot of people like it.”

Oh yeah? What do YOU think?! Dictator only on day one or dictator starting on day one?
SECOND, PROJECT 2025 IS THE BLUEPRINT FOR AN EXTREMIST AUTHORITARIAN TAKE OVER OF OUR COUNTRY

If you want to understand what Project 2025 would mean for our country if Trump were re-elected watch the following segment from John Oliver’s TV show, Last Week Tonight. It is the clearest explanation I have seen yet of what is coming if Trump is re-elected:

‘Last Week Tonight’: John Oliver Compares Trump To “A Hamster In An Attack Helicopter” As He Unpacks Conservatives’ Project 2025

As Americans about to have the most consequential election in the history of our country since the Civil War, we need to understand the stakes.

With Joe Biden we would keep our democracy. It is imperfect and a work in progress but it has created the strongest, most successful economy in the world. We have the longest lasting democracy on the face of the planet. Because we are a democracy, businesses thrive, people who work hard can get ahead, the basic ideas of fairness and equality for all are fundamental. Businesses thrive in democracies because the rules are reliable- because they are not just the whims of the dictator. To be a vibrant democracy, we have to be multicultural and tolerant of differences or better yet, welcome differences. Christian nationalists and other rightwing extremists are intolerant (afraid) of a pluralistic country.

WHAT HAPPENS IF TRUMP RULES AS A DICTATOR

For starters, with Trump as dictator, our country (and the world) would immediately be thrown into chaos.

Do you care about reproductive rights? Trump, who needs the continued support he gets from evangelicals, and therefore has to keep them happy, has the immediate power as president to reactivate the Comstock Act on day one. In 1873 – at the behest of anti-vice crusader, Anthony Comstock – Congress enacted a law banning the interstate mailing and receiving of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” writings, or “any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring an abortion.” This law is still on the books and it would affect the entire nation if it were to be reactivated creating an instant nationwide abortion ban.

Even without reactivating the Comstock Act, Trump as dictator, would have the ability to put a loyalist in charge of the FDA and that loyalist could immediately label mifepristone as a dangerous drug and remove it from the market enforcing a de facto nationwide abortion ban.

Let’s say you want to participate in a march to express your disapproval of some decision Trump has made. If we lived in a dictatorship with Trump in charge, you could be arrested for participating in that march or fired on by a fellow American in the military who was ordered to put down the “insurrection”. That happens all the time in dictatorships like China or Russia.

Let’s say your daughter or son posts an anti-Trump meme on Tik Tok. Trump goes after your company to punish you for allowing your kid to post an anti-government meme. In a dictatorship there would no longer be true recourse in the courts. The rule of law is diminished or abolished in a dictatorship. Only Trump loyal judges would be appointed to judgeships.

Trump has told us he will seek revenge and retribution. As the dictator of America, Trump could punish anyone who wasn’t loyal to him or who embarrassed him. By doing that he could suppress dissent. That’s what dictators do. What if he orders HIS DOJ to arrest Joe Biden, Liz Cheney, Rachel Maddow, Merrick Garland, Judge Juan Merchan, Fani Willis, Barack Obama, Anthony Fauci and others who either tried to hold him accountable, embarrassed him or, to his mind, disrespected him? In a dictatorship the only people left in government are the dictator’s loyal henchmen.

Once a democracy is gone, it is very hard to impossible to get it back. [timothysnyder.org]
THIRD, THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS HERE RIGHT NOW- THE NEXT PRESIDENT WILL MAKE OR BREAK THE FUTURE OF OUR PLANET

Exceptional heat is arriving sooner and lasting longer. (Washington Post)

Many of the gravest threats to humanity are drawing closer, as carbon pollution heats the planet to ever more dangerous levels, scientists have warned. People are dying from the extraordinary heat that doesn’t let up, breaks past records and goes beyond what humans have experienced in the past as well as more frequent, more destructive storms . Five important natural thresholds already risk being crossed, according to the Global Tipping Points report, and three more may be reached in the 2030s if the world heats 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial temperatures.

Triggering these planetary shifts … will unleash dangerous and sweeping damage to people and nature that cannot be undone.

“Tipping points in the Earth system pose threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity,” said Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “They can trigger devastating domino effects, including the loss of whole ecosystems and capacity to grow staple crops, with societal impacts including mass displacement, political instability and financial collapse.”

The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of one oceanic current in the North Atlantic.

Ocean currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. Without currents in the ocean, regional temperatures would be more extreme — super hot at the equator and frigid toward the poles — and much less of Earth’s land would be habitable.

We are at the tipping point when it comes to winning the war against fossil fuels that are plunging our fragile planet into a place of no return, a world where it is too hot to survive in many locations, the storms are more destructive, and the water levels rise too high to maintain structures engulfed by the water. Biden is addressing the climate crisis but we must do more to rapidly scale up renewable energy and stop using fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry supports Donald Trump which should tell you all you need to know about who to vote for.

If we don’t address the climate crisis we face in the next few years, millions of people will become nomads who are forced to leave their countries of origin to stay alive. Parts of our planet will become unlivable. Climate scientists warn that we are at a tipping point. The next president will either make or break our climate future.

Trump doesn’t value or believe in expertise. He disregarded Dr. Fauci’s advice when our country and world faced the pandemic. He told people to inject bleach, use hydroxychloroquine and other ideas and remedies that were dangerous instead of following the advice of experts. He always thinks he knows best. About everything. He doesn’t.

Biden listens to experts. Trump, who is only out for himself, has promised the fossil fuel industry leaders, in exchange for getting millions from them, the opportunity to drill baby drill . We need people with expertise to guide us at this incredibly perilous time, not MAGA climate change denialists and corrupt industrialists.
THIS IS IT. MAKE NO MISTAKE WHERE WE ARE. THIS IS IT.

Americans need to understand the danger we face in the next election from the extremist movement: Trump, the MAGA Republicans, Christian Nationalists and many extremely wealthy and greedy Americans who want Trump re-elected to get more tax cuts, do away with regulations on businesses that protect us from dangers including toxins in our food, water, air and more.

Case in point- Trump’s right wing Supreme Court just struck down the Chevron decision which was a well established law with 40 years of precedent that empowered government regulatory agencies to assess, and regulate those kinds of dangers to all of us. Regulatory agencies hire scientists and experts, knowledgeable in their fields, to keep us safe. The Supreme Court just gave the power to make these expert determinations to…wait for it… judges! Ridiculous! Judges have no knowledge of the scientific principles that guide experts in our regulatory agencies that protect us from harm. But thanks to our corrupt Supreme Court with 3 Trump appointed justices plus Thomas and Alito, who are on the take from wealthy corporate donors big time! OUR lives are now at greater risk. This is part of what Trump and Project 2025 are ready to do more of- the deconstruction of the so-called “deep state” or the “administrative state”. This is the way big companies get to do whatever they want to make more money even if it endangers all of us.

It is too dangerous to rehire Trump as president.

Think about it.

Trump was not only convicted of 34 felony counts in the most recent Manhattan criminal case, he was also found to have been a rapist in the E Jean Carroll case, found guilty of committing a massive fraud which resulted in huge civil fraud damages he has not yet paid.

If you wouldn’t hire Trump to work in your company, then why would you entrust him with our country, the nuclear codes, the future of your children and grandchildren, the future of our planet?!

Think about it.

Don’t vote for him or any Republican until this fever passes.

As Kenny Loggins says in his song about his father’s fight against cancer to stay alive…

You said that maybe it’s over
Not if you don’t want it to be
For once in your life, here’s your miracle
Stand up and fight
WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE – NOW IS THE TIME TO GET ACTIVE

The cancer we are fighting is the rightwing extremist movement being led by Donald Trump. We are lucky that we have a miracle cure for this toxic disease. The miracle we have is that we can vote for Democrats up and down the ballot and accomplish what we need to do: save our planet, our democracy, our reproductive rights and other freedoms and the future for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.

The choice is absolutely clear. Standing up to the threat means we do everything we can to make sure the Dems wins this election no matter what we think about their imperfections. Frankly, I would vote for a ham sandwich if it kept Trump from winning back power.

Don’t sit there and worry. Get active NOW.

Talk with everyone you know to be sure they understand the stakes of this election. Be certain your vote will be counted. Vote early. Volunteer with your local Democratic party. Canvass. Write postcards to swing states. Donate to Democrats up and down the ballot. Volunteer to be an election judge and participate in election protection teams. Register voters, cure ballots, support on the ground organizing, and canvassing. Help people get to their polling places.

This is it. Make no mistake.

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