So lets go back to November 5th, 2024 when Donald Trump was triumphant. President Joe Biden invited him to the White House with decency, dignity and honor while congratulating him on his victory. There will be no Democrats rioting at the Capitol building, there will be few Democrats saying how the Republicans cheated and were underhanded. Something is not adding up here. When one side gets to say the most goofy weird things about the other, and the other side acts with dignity and honor and wants a peaceful transference of power, we have a problem. Dear reader, I don't care what your political stance is; progressive, radical, Democrat, MAGA Republican what ever it might be, please get a new light. It’s a two word light, its called fact check, fact check.
I'm going to be 88 years old in three months. I am bound to caring about the American political scene, the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, our flag and our 55 Founding Fathers. I am a writer by avocation. I remain proud of my small attempt to affect climate change by a book I wrote 14 years ago called End Times Prose and Poetry that is still available at Amazon and remains totally relevant. I believe climate change was never, and is never going to be, a hoax. It is a real problem created by man. I am a former small business owner, a grandfather, and an Army Veteran with two older brothers buried in Arlington National Cemetery. They were both wounded in combat. It seems natural as I get older to embrace the precepts of my Christian faith. Remember 65% of the American population claims to practice some form of Christianity. I really believe every single American, no matter what your religion, should study the Beatitudes in Matthew, the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke, and the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew. These three Parables if studied, just may change your life, and lend perspective over how to live in truth. These three Parables help demonstrate the core values in the New Testament.
I will get right into who are the "pair" in my title. I feel strongly that President-elect Donald Trump and his number one supporter Elon Musk are both absent of American mainstream thinking, and more importantly, void of our American political core values. In fact their actions, just since November 5th 2024, are clear as they show an intention to only represent one percent of the American people. And they plan to use Authoritarian tactics for the first time in American politics. Their goals are the usual suspects, more power and more money. That is their end game. Remember, that one percent represents the billionaire class. Project 2025 will be used to replace the Administrative State, the Deep State. They claim those terrible woke politicians have made government too big and too powerful. And worse than that, they always want to regulate and tax the rich. Now what is Project 2025's intentions? It is to shrink the size of government while growing the size of the billionaire's wallets. And they intend to do it with cruelty and the usual need to inflict a lot of economic pain on the ordinary electorate. They intend to go into areas such as Social Security and Medicare where ordinary and reasonable men should fear to tread.
I simply cannot be silent. Plato said, “democracies pass into despotism”. How does that happen after 248 years of the successful U.S. Constitution and the rule of law? It is by a simple, slow, incremental breakdown of the rule of law which has been weakened by disinformation. We have a lack of civics being taught clearly in our school systems. Most children have not been told or taught the great story of George Washington and those 55 Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1787. Dear reader, Donald Trump and naturalized American citizen Elon Musk do not realize that those men who created the U.S. Constitution rejected power and money for themselves by turning the government over to be run by the people. If the people forget who should be in charge of our government they will of course have fulfilled the sad prediction of Plato.
Now dear reader, back to July of 2024. President Joe Biden bowed out of a second term as President of the United States. He was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris. MAGA Republicans like Donald Trump became glum and upset over a new Democratic party position and a new possibility of their losing ground before November. Who then appeared on the scene, but a knight in full green armor (over $240 million worth). Elon Musk not only offering money as the second richest man in the world, but offering strategic political television ads to impact voter outcomes. Remember, between Fox News pundits, other right-wing hate TV and hate radio, social media and so forth and so forth, the Democratic Party is shamefully behind on confronting the emotional impact of the lies, the innuendo, exaggeration that so many political ads put forth against them. The public is told daily by Donald Trump that the news is false and that Democrats are going to cheat on this election cycle. OK OK, so the information in this election cycle was filled with all the negative ads and especially the one on transgenders which was shown over 30,000 times: they show a tattooed youngster, very tall, a male athlete playing as a female on a sports team. Oops! Is this a common thing to happen in female sports? Transgenders make up under 2% of the population and dear reader don’t forget a vast majority of female sports have zero transgenders on their teams. So what? Well Trump won the election by a thin margin of 1.5%. Did that ad affect the outcome of the contest? History will tell that tale some day. But no matter what, transgenders loose over cruel and unusual fabrications of their impact on society. It is shameless and offensive, yet many voters believe the lies and half truths. That is why Sean Hannity is so successful financially, because he can sell so much disinformation. This is true of many other Fox pundits and former Fox pundits who have all helped to make Rupert Murdoch a billionaire. A 93 year old billionaire who wants to ensure to this day that Fox News keeps its political position that is so full of disinformation, misinformation, innuendo and exaggeration, because that is what his viewers demand! And that's how he gets the big bucks.
Now allow me to correct and produce in a nut shell who is actually the wealthiest man in the world. It is not Elon Musk. Even though he has increased since November 5th, his wealth through his companies in the stock market to the tune of increasing his worth over $200 billion; this is not a typo. Now despite that, the easy winner of the richest man in the world remains Vladimir Putin of Russia. He sits on 80 billion barrels of oil and 1,685 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And that does not count new discoveries or all the other natural resources found throughout Russia. Remember, he owns and controls all of these natural resources. He is the dictator, the king, the top dog. He picks who to sell to and what price to charge. He then brings the money in, takes what he wants, gives his chosen oligarchs enough to be billionaires, and the rest of the money trickles down to the rightful owners of the natural resources, the Russian people. What does he get out of it, by making so many billionaires rich? He gets exactly what our next President, Donald Trump wants to receive from his billionaire friends, and that is total loyalty. It appears now that Elon Musk wants to be the top loyalist and he has even moved to Mara Lago, it seems.
Dear reader, you had better stay tuned, because the American billionaires are on parade with a mission to be richer, richer and more rich. The big question, is our Social Security and Medicare safe? Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are the overseers of DOGE, whose job it is to streamline our government and Mr. Musk recently made a statement that the electorate may suffer but it will only be for a little while. That is what he said. Dear reader, dear voter, Social Security and Medicare are funded by the individual worker right? Check it out. How does DOGE get to reduce it, when 50% of the population have no other income? Whew! This is nuts.
Sadly, the truth is despite inflation we are doing very well in America, we are the envy of the free world. We do not need a burning down of the American economic environment. President Joe Biden has cast forward a great legacy in economics through his legislation that will improve our economy and modernize our infrastructure for several years to come. The fear is that the new Administration will want to cancel some of the forward motion started by Joe Biden and switch to Project 2025 and its desire to destroy the Administrative State and the goofy missions they want to begin with in shrinking the Federal workforce. The "deep state" is the issue and they want to destroy it. Does it sound weird, does is sound rather ignorant? You betcha. Never forget Joe Biden added 16 million new jobs in four years (a record for a one term President). His forward-looking legislation if allowed to stay, will create many many more jobs. But, Project 2025 has got their own agenda and reason will be replaced by their ideology. In their attempt to straighten out the so called immigrant program, instead of simply fixing up the border, they want to deport, deport, deport immigrants. The cost alone of their millions and millions of deportations to various counties will be huge and require judicial oversight. Questions remain on how to enforce it, and what to do with American born children. And of course, all of this is going to cost billions of dollars. The reason we don't have the money to pay for this is the billionaire class gets a free ride on taxation. In fact those of us on Social Security and Medicare should feel very uncomfortable because the next President, Donald Trump has to find a way to make good on his $3 trillion promise to renew the tax relief bill from seven years ago. Dear reader, please fact check what I am stating about the tax relief for billionaires this summer. And remember, taking undocumented immigrants out of the work force, 12 or 13% that make up the construction industry and agriculture industry, will cause employers many headaches. This is truly dumb stuff!
Dear voter, if you had just landed in America from Mars and wanted to vote and began reading the rap sheet of Donald Trump you might say "I cannot vote for this lawless racketeer". He appears to be the Presidential candidate who loudly suggests his opponents are the true enemy of America. He demeans them, he lies, and persuades his followers that his opponents are the Deep State and they constantly make him a victim of the DOJ and FBI. What's his game? His game is to pick made-up targets in the political environment as a tactic to divide and conquer. Ordinary political opponents running for office in America should not be constantly sold to the public as "enemies". The correct name for people who do that is baloney salesmen and fascists. Am I the only one who laughs at his cynical political messages he delivers on TRUTH SOCIAL? Please fact check me. Will we be able to get the toothpaste back into the political tube? Only by accepting the truth of how we got into this mess.
The way out is very simple. Do not dismantle America. Do not tear down our excellent economic trajectory in the name of retribution and revenge. Revenge is for small minded inadequate politicians bent on chaos. MAGA Republicans must demand stability and calmness in the White House, instead of the power driven, tough guy approach. A tough guy who sell $100,000 watches and Bibles and so forth and so forth. Instead he should moderate his behavior and do what President Dwight D. Eisenhower did in his second term. He played golf and governed with moderate intensity.
Now lets talk about inflation. President-elect Donald Trump has already admitted that there will be no immediate cure for high prices in America (despite what he told the voters all summer). In fact he wants to add tariffs to imported goods from Canada, Mexico, China and others that of course will increase inflation extremely in most cases. Dear reader, tariffs are an add-on cost imposed on foreign goods entering the country. The buyer pays for the add-on as a consumer who buys. Historically, tariffs have received more negative than positive political comment, or success.
Dear reader, the message has to come across. It is this, 80% of MAGA Republicans said in a poll taken in August of 2024 that they did not believe the Democrats would run an honest election ending November 5, 2024. They were told over and over again by Fox News pundits, right wing TV and social media that the Democrats were crooked. So lets go to November 5th, 2024 when Donald Trump was triumphant. President Joe Biden invited him to the White House with decency, dignity and honor while congratulating him on his victory. There will be no Democrats rioting at the Capitol building, there will be few Democrats saying how the Republicans cheated and were underhanded (me maybe?!?). Something is not adding up here. When one side gets to say the most goofy weird things about the other, and the other side acts with dignity and honor and wants a peaceful transference of power, this translates into a unfair dysfunctional system. Dear reader, I don't care what your political stance is; progressive, radical, Democrat, MAGA Republican what ever it might be, please get a new light. It’s a two word light its called fact check, fact check. The real sad crime in America? It's MAGA Republicans believing most of what they hear on right wing TV, radio and social media. It may be the cause that eventually destroys America in my opinion.
Finally, we all better study the meaning of Tryon Edward’s phrase: “Hell is truth seen too late, duty neglected in its season”. Now please, go and read those Parables I cited earlier!
Please have a Happy New Year and keep the faith, by embracing truth. That is our only salvation.
Opening Image: StockCake.com, Ryan Lash/Agence France-Presse Via TED Conference, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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