Dan DeWalt, a frequent contributor to these pages and one of the founders of this newspaper, writes that if he didn't love his country, he "wouldn't spend so much time trying to get it to live up to its purported principles."
WILLIAMSVILLE-It is now painfully clear that our worst fears have been justified: Donald Trump has emerged as a fully formed nightmare of chaos and destruction.
He has one purpose, and one purpose only: to become a dictator of the United States. He knows that his lies put him in office and that Americans are already seeing through those lies. The only way that he can keep his power is by declaring, or creating, states of emergency,
His lie about the invasion and "state of emergency" at the border has worn thin, so he creates violence and chaos in Los Angeles so that he can call up the National Guard and the Marines to enforce his illegal kidnapping of people without due process. He now vows to send the military into every "Democrat city."
Breaking his promise/lie that he will keep us out of war, he and his pathetic lackeys, falsely claiming that Iran's nuclear program has suddenly become an immediate threat, are jumping on board with Genocide Bibi as he is doing his best to start World War III.
Trump will need an excuse to cancel the elections that will take away his power, and if it takes sending American troops to murder and die in the name of hubris and imperialism, then that's what he'll do.
He knows that if he does not seize absolute power, he faces disgrace and prison, assuming that we will have any scraps of our "justice" system still in place in the near future.
His day of reckoning will come, but the question is: Will it be soon enough to mitigate the disasters that he is creating? Or, as he hopes, will it come posthumously when we disinter him from his gold-plated mausoleum?
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But just as Trump tries to distract us from his true intentions, he himself is a distraction from our need to have our own reckoning as a nation.
It was the corruption and failure of the American political system, and the shallow, consumerism-driven solipsism of the American people that put Trump in power in the first place.
And who has driven this manipulation of us and of our political system? The oligarchs and their collective indecent greed.
Let's start at the beginning, since it's "Independence" Day season. Wealthy slave owners in the South needed their murderous human bondage system to stay in place so that they could maintain their elite status. The northern elites cared more about keeping their wealthy brethren in the fold, so they consigned our Black population to centuries of slavery, segregation, racism, and economic deprivation.
And we, the people, said "OK, 'cause maybe one day I can be rich, too."
Then, in order to fuel this mighty engine of prosperity that they envisioned the U.S.A. to be, the oligarchs, who openly bought their politicians at the time, enacted laws that sanctioned the genocide of the continent's Native population and the theft of virtually all of their land.
And we, the people, said "OK, as long as I and my cohorts get our 40 acres of 'free' land."
Then the land was free to be raped and pillaged in its own right.
When the people in the country did not want to enter World War I, the elites in power, anxious to preserve the archaic and massively unequal power structure in place in Europe, created clever propaganda to convince the masses that this would be "the war to end all wars."
And we the people said "Kill the Hun!"
Then the new propaganda turned its focus on selling products that the oligarchs produced and so ushered in the end of citizens and the beginning of consumers.
Enter World War II, where we fought to "save the world for democracy." After the war, the valiant Black and brown soldiers who had fought for the country that despised them came home thinking that they had earned the nation's respect, if not love. They were systematically shut out of G.I. Bill housing and education benefits and consigned to re-enter the world of segregation and racism.
And we the people said, "Now that Detroit is making cars again, what color should I choose?"
After the war, when prosperity for white Americans did flourish for a bit, the oligarchs couldn't stand the thought that their relatively high tax rates were funding this economic lift, so they began a systematic attack on taxes for the rich.
They have succeeded wildly and now pay less taxes than their hired help does in many cases, and their corporations often pay no taxes at all.
Now, our oligarchs are billionaires. They hide behind dark money organizations, pulling the strings of their pathetic politicians, from U.S. presidents down to city council members. They dazzle us with their gowns and antics at their weddings and parties.
The Times keeps us informed of their comings and goings, and we all hope that one day we can be like them - never mind that their riches are wrought from exploiting and abusing workers, destroying the environment, and creating a corporate welfare system for themselves.
And we the people say "How soon is that package going to arrive?"
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Oh, yes, we the people are concerned. We click on petitions, maybe even waste a phone call or two contacting our corrupted representatives.
And now that the threats are coming closer to our homes, we are even out on the streets a bit (making sure that we don't disturb business as usual or block any traffic, of course). But since we are focused only on Trump and his MAGA mess, the oligarchs are perfectly happy to sit back and watch us resist the figurehead while they continue to cement their economic (read the only real) power.
As a bonus, they see the fruits of their labor materialize as we turn on each other, MAGA against anti-MAGA, "true Americans" against "aberrations" like people of color, the LGBTQ community, or people with a social conscience.
The oligarchs are building their safe rooms, stocking their private islands for Armageddon, or preparing their spaceships to whisk them away to Mars (couldn't happen soon enough), and we the people still gaze at them in adoration, envying their wealth, and hoping that one day we might be like them.
But after this crowd, there won't be any more countries left for any of us to destroy.
When Ben Franklin emerged from the Constitutional convention, he was asked what they had created.
"A Republic, if you can keep it," he replied.
Well, the rich have turned it into a monster. We will have to broaden our scope and understanding of who has created this monster, and how it has never met its promise - if, indeed, we are to keep it.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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