Fatal Election

Yeah, I know, every election is the most important ever. But this one actually is.

Trump channeling his inner Mussolini.

Those of you who have read me for a while know my primary subject is the climate emergency. I’m going to be talking about overshoot much more, too, as I did in my last article. I rarely weigh in on politics unless there’s a direct connection to these issues from deniers or poor policies. However, with this particular election having most of us on edge, I feel the need to share some thoughts because we have multiple dire situations that go beyond politics and no time for more mistakes.

I am a “liberal” whatever that is supposed to mean. I hate labels, as they immediately categorize us and create division before reasonable conversations can take place. I think most of us are angry at this point, whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, and for good reason. Since the 1980s, the wealth gap in the US has grown into an obscene disparity. Many of us have been forced into lower and lower paying, multiple jobs. The cost of homeownership has soared. The social contract has been broken. Many have no hope of retirement after working hard all their lives. Our government, under both parties’ leadership, has conspired with neoliberal economic policy to privatize the world, enriching a few and enslaving the vast majority. Having scorched every other country in the last 50 years, these policies have now washed over US shores and burned many of us. We are manipulated by mainstream billionaire owned media, rife with half-truths, omissions and outright lies orchestrated to divide and conquer. Both parties are in bed dark money. Powerful lobbies control most politicians, and the electoral college undermines the people’s wishes. We have lived under corporate rule for a long time now.

US wealth distribution

In the first quarter of 2024, 67 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. 

I truly hate labels. If I hear the word Republican, I immediately make assumptions, I’ve been conditioned just as Republicans have to hearing the word Democrat. It’s Pavlonian. I’m sick of it. We all want the same thing, opportunities for decent lives on a level playing field. That field hasn’t been level for a very long time. How can it be in a system where one percent of people hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent? I know that in daily life, in an emergency, I would have my neighbor’s back regardless of party affiliation. Your child is my child. If your kid got hit by a car, would I ask if his mama and papa are Republicans before calling an ambulance? All of this division is manufactured horseshit.

What we have is class warfare. It’s always class warfare. Blaming immigrants for our woes is more horseshit. And don’t tell me about lifting yourself up by your bootstraps. Those that have wealth, for the most part, came from wealth. They do everything they can to keep us down. They’re never satiated. It’s always about power.

As usual, we have choices in this presidential election which are making many of us unhappy, and we’re all tired of the trite words, “This election is the most important ever.” However, in this case it’s true because we face unprecedented problems that need solutions implemented NOW.

I have spent the majority of my time for the last three and one half years researching climate change. I did this because when I was on Twitter, before megalomaniac ownership, I was in contact with many people who knew much more about climate issues than I did, including scientists running studies and writing papers. I realized to express a legitimate opinion, I had a lot of learning to do. I also realized most of the information I was digesting was not being communicated in the mainstream media with the emphasis, consistency or explanation needed for an issue that is now just beginning to affect our lives in direct and devastating ways. As a longtime professional in communications, I decided to make it my job to bridge that gap to the best of my ability. It’s a great responsibility that involves endless hours of research. I can’t afford to get anything wrong. Credibility is everything.

Climate change is only one aspect of an array of extremely serious, planetary health issues. It’s not political, although it has been evilly and foolishly politicized. It’s science. The science isn’t perfect, but it is advanced and accurate enough to prove beyond a doubt we are in deep trouble and need a radical and immediate course correction.

We have two presidential candidates, one who on April 23, 2020, advised us to inject bleach as a remedy to Covid during the lockdown before walking it back. Conducting an hour long media briefing with the government's coronavirus task force, Trump suggested bleach and isopropyl alcohol as possible Covid remedies:

“Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see, it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.”

One can guess Trump wasn’t suggesting injecting bleach into people’s lungs. When he said “it gets in the lungs,” he probably meant Covid, not bleach, but this inarticulate word salad, typical of Trump and only worse now as he fixates on the issues of our day such as Hannibal Lecter and getting electrocuted by battery powered boats as he swims away from hungry sharks is an indictment of incompetence, a puny intellect, and negligible communication skills rife for misinterpretation. Certainly, clarity in communication should be a prerequisite for the most powerful person in the world waltzing around with a nuclear suitcase, responsible for communication with other powerful world leaders. Fortunately, four minutes later, he “clarified” his interest in household cleaning items and their use in treating Covid:

"It wouldn't be through injection. We're talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. But it certainly has a big effect if it's on a stationary object."

Other than the fact this exchange exhibits stunning stupidity (people in the medical community understand the need to sterilize an injection site, but thank you for the suggestion), referring to or comparing a patient as a stationary object brings its own psychotherapy questions.

Trump had more good ideas, erudite thinker and man of science that he is suggesting sunlight could be curative.

“There’s been a rumor that – you know, a very nice rumor – that you go outside in the sun or you have heat and it does have an effect on other viruses,” Trump said, before asking coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx “to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can apply light and heat to cure, you know, if you could.”

I bring this episode up because it demonstrates Trump’s abject ignorance, which extends to being a first order climate change denier who openly solicited the oil industry for $1 billion in bribes during this campaign and is on board with abolishing the EPA as suggested in Project 2025. If Trump is elected, it’s game over for any hope of salvaging enough of our deteriorating planet to support human life on it. This is not hyperbole.

Trump has also sworn vengeance on his enemies and using the military to smother whoever has the courage to question his “ideas.” From an AP article:

“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

No doubt should he get far enough down his grievance list that will include me, and maybe you, too.

This is a man who has called those in the military “suckers and losers,” (link from the Military Times) and finds veterans who lost limbs disgusting and doesn’t want them in his presence. Yet, Trump is eager to use those losers against the American people. And frighteningly, it’s possible he could do so. Here’s an excellent, informative article from Jay Kuo explaining the Posse Comitatus Act and Insurrection Act he could twist to come after anyone he dislikes.

Just days ago, former Marine General John Kelly and Trump’s Chief of Staff from 2017 to 2019 warned Trump fits the definition of fascist and repeatedly expressed his admiration for Hitler. Kelly said:

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy. So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America...Certainly, the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

Kelly told The New York Times that Trump had praised Hitler. “He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.’”

The same day, The Atlantic reported that Trump had praised Hitler’s generals for their loyalty.

“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”

Trump is also a sexual deviant, tried and found liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carrol which the judge in the case described as rape. We’re all familiar with the Hollywood Access tape in which he bragged:

“You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Most recently, former Sports Illustrated model Stacey Williams has come forward to reveal Trump groped her in 1993 while sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein watched. Trump was friends with Epstein. Many women have come forward over the years. Mary Trump has gone into far more detail here than I care to delve into. I am just mystified as to how any man who has a woman he loves, a wife, daughter or friend can look the other way and vote for a pervert who abuses women this way. I’m even more mystified by the women who support Trump.

I’ll be glad to finish this article, but I write it for a reason. I’m aware that there are people who won’t vote or will cast a vote for Jill Stein rather than vote for Kamala Harris. I understand why, they’re quite clear in their disgust for the Gaza genocide. Me, too. It’s horrifying, and I pulled off of climate change to write about this atrocity twice, in Israel, Hamas, Palestinians and the U.S. and Will the War in Israel Take Down Biden? I also wrote about the resulting police crackdown on political speech on college campus protests.

I am as sickened as anyone by the Biden’s administration’s support of Netanyahu. It’s an appalling fact the US supplies the vast majority of Israel’s weapons, and that makes us complicit. I understand and respect the revulsion those who wish to boycott the election feel, but what I have written here is a plea to reconsider. If Trump prevails, we will live in a fascist state. We will lose any chance of saving the planet, and it won’t just be blameless immigrants being rounded up into camps, it will be people like you and me as the Orange One works his way from top to bottom for complete obedience. This is what’s at stake. Fascism, and losing the planet forever.

This election is not Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative. It’s about saving our democracy, taking it back from oligarch billionaires and preserving an inhabitable world. This is truly a potentially fatal election. Thank you for considering my words.