Image by wildpixel - Getty Images
Social Justice illustration
We have always said this really would be the most consequential American election in history and it was. The first time the U.S. elected a president who intended to emulate Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Day One of his presidency, they thought he was joking.
This time, Trump ran the same campaign of racial and gender hatred that got him elected and a majority voted to destroy equal Constitutional rights for all Americans for four more years. Vice President Harris’s fight for our equal Constitutional rights based on race and gender was the beginning, not the end.
All the rest of us somehow need to convince a majority of Americans that democracy is worth fighting for. The Trump winning coalition was a coalition of two very different groups of Republicans – those who believe Trump’s continuous pack of lies and those who know better but believe his enormous tax for the ultra-wealthy will somehow benefit them.
It was a cruel irony that Wisconsin was the first crack in the “blue wall” of Midwestern states including Pennsylvania and Michigan to deliver the win for Trump since Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin defeated California millionaire banker Eric Hovde by 23,613 votes at the same time Harris lost Wisconsin to Trump by more than 32,000 votes.
Republicans won the Senate, but Democrats only need to flip four House seats to control the House and have a real brake on Trump’s corrupt agenda. The final results of House races may not be known for days.
Trump’s ‘To Do’ List
Voting in Wisconsin’s newly approved un-gerrymandered state legislature election districts for the Assembly and State Senate narrowed Republican majorities but retained Republican control in both houses.
Trump’s most important “to do” list as president has nothing to do with improving the lives of the American people. It is to fire the legitimate prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department including Jack Smith prosecuting Trump for the violent Jan. 6 insurrection to overthrow President Biden’s victory over Trump. His second priority is to pardon the violent mob of his supporters who went to prison for attacking both Republicans and Democrats in Congress who certified Biden’s vote.
|
|
It may sound foolish to expect Republicans to do anything to support democracy after Trump has won the presidency for their party after advocating its destruction. But many Republican Senators are elected in states with substantial minorities of Democrats and independents. They have to vote more moderately than the House.
Also no one knows yet how far Trump’s supermajority on the U.S Supreme Court will go in declaring Trump to be immune from prosecution for his crimes in his second term as “official acts.” Four years ago, Trump’s appointees and those of other Republican presidents refused to go along with his most legally outrageous efforts to obliterate the rule of law in America.
Off the Wall Crazy
We didn’t stop resisting Trump’s every off-the-wall crazy impulse the first time he was elected and we shouldn’t this time around either. Trump’s campaign made it clear he’s in an even darker and more destructive place vowing to wreak revenge on “the enemy within” – namely any American, especially Democrats, who fail to support him.
Biden and Harris were right to respect the election results and the peaceful transition of power between political opponents, but that does not include abandoning our fundamental American values. As MAGA Republicans chip away at our Constitutional rights, all the rest of us will continue to fight to restore all the progress we have made since the Civil War.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 25 headed by some of the most radical extremists Trump’s flrst term have laid out a clear to create a White male Christian nation than leaves out the overwhelming majority of our diverse American population.
Jim Crow South?
It’s no mere coincidence that Trump’s vision of America closely resembles the Jim Crow south that took over local sheriff’s departments to murder civil rights activists registering Black and Brown voters during the civil rights movement. Trump wants to take it national by destroying the FBI and federal prosecutors. With a pat on the back from the Supreme Court, Trump’s second term could freely operate a full-time criminal enterprise.
There are still some federal judges on the bench who base their rulings on the Constitution rather than partisanship who could thwart that. Our survival may depend upon it because Trump, who is now the oldest president in history, is getting crazier all the time.
It’s a good thing there will be midterm elections in 2026 that historically result in substantial losses in the House and Senate for the party that won the presidency. The Senate voting map will be much less friendly for Republicans than it was this year. It includes 20 Republicans and 13 Democrats up for reelection.
