Today is the inaguration of Donald J. Trump. It is also Martin Luther King Day. The irony is not lost here. You couldn't find two men more diametrically opposed. King was a man of honor, dignity and respect who marched peacefully for the rights of freedom and human rights. He was a great and powerful orator, whose messages were always on point: the equality of humankind. Trump deserves little to no respect because of his oration, whose focus has consistently been on hate and denigration. He repeatedly lies, so it is nearly impossible to figure out what he stands for, aside from me, myself and I. He is vain, petty and worse still, a heartless man who proudly stands on his charlatan pulpit announcing he is poised to deport millions of immigrants today or tomorrow, the first days of his presidency. He boasts of family separations--and his feckless crowd and impotent party cheer him on, as if any of this is acceptable.
I will not watch this charade, so the television is off today, on this tundra of a day with arctic air spinning around. It is a terrific metaphor for what is inside his heart: Nothing. Guess who comes inside for the inaguration? All his techie millionaire friends who have converted to his calls to eliminate fact-checking, thereby becoming a real platform to perpetuate his lies. Where are the hearts and souls of these people? I would say absent. The goal is money and power, not the good values of morality, decency and integrity. Donald J. Trump is the Snow King, frozen in a huge land of ice.
The chill comes not just from him, but from the lack of courage of practically everyone he surrounds himself with, since he only surrounds himself with loyalists willing to enact his retribution. Most of his cabinet choices support the pardoning of the insurrectionists of January 6th, and believe he was the legitimate president in 2020, since this is what he has told them. Partriotism is defined as support for the incorrigible king. Morality is out the door.
What makes this tenure so incredibly ugly are his policies--or lack up--since he is hell-bent on destruction of all the norms and checks and balances we have, instead focusing on hurting people, in particular those he has said he would help. Since there is a whirlwind of destruction, I select just one act of indecency. One of his henchman, Mike Johnson, hypocrite exraordinaire, has told Gavin Newsome, the governor of California, the government will not help the state, which recently suffered billions of dollars in the loss of homes, schools, houses of worship, infrastructure, all because of wildfires. One of the causes of these fires has to do with climate change, which the party has decided is a non-issue.Oh, they will give funding only IF California agrees to their list of demands. More importantly, what kind of feckless leaders tell a suffering state and its inhabitants, I will only give you money if you do as I say, follow my rules? This is not the way government is supposed to work. Biden did the opposite with North Carolina's recent flooding. Helping the people of North Carolina did not come attached to a quid pro quo.
But with a frozen heart and feckless, spineless leaders, get ready for a transactional and mean-spirited government, an autocracy, where first they come after the most vulnerable--and then they come for you. Even those of you who voted for him.
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