To say that Donald Trump is unfit for the office is an understatement on the scale of saying a rabid honey badger is not a good pet for your two-year-old.
Democracy is fragile. Republics are fragile. No matter how high-minded our dedication to the principles of a republic, any government can be and will eventually be corrupted by those who seek power for its own sake, or worse — power as a service to profit.
The corruption of global governments has put us in a position where we are facing a climactic catastrophe — and those same people, for god knows what stupid motivations are denying the most aggressive attempts to do something rational and sane in response.
Perhaps they believe they are better than others. It's possible. I knew a man once who judged people by how much money they were worth. He was a millionaire, so that was his measure of success. But the cost of that standard was that he ended up disrespecting the people he needed most and eventually lost a lot of money on the most noble of his ventures — because he wasn't willing to trust that other people knew how to do things too.
(Over here, my measure of success is how well my son has turned out — by that measure, my parents did well and I did well too and I expect my son will do equally well.)
Meanwhile, our government is in the hands of a bluffoon and his criminally corrupt enablers.
The bluffoon has ridden the storm for three years, he has stoked it, encouraged it, whipped it up to the point that people are dying — but the winds are rising to hurricane strength, and no man can ride the hurricane for long.
Even if he is reelected, even if he survives impeachment, even if he must become the dictator he aspires to be — he is doomed. Even if he plunges this nation into civil war, he is doomed.
Because as much as he likes to believe that he is a leader, he is really nothing more than the figurehead on someone else's battering ram.
When enough people are tired and angry and frustrated. When enough people are ready to say, "Hell, no!" this reign of error will come to an ignominious end.
Some people point to Nazi Germany as an example of why we are on a slippery slope to fascism. But Nazi Germany was mostly a monoculture. We are anything but. And Nazi Germany controlled all the media — we have a chaotic mess, a torrent of conflicting data-sources. Nazi Germany could demonstrate real economic progress that its citizens could see when they put butter and sausage and bread on the table and young people training (ultimately to be soldiers) in work camps. This bluffoon has given us neither bread nor circuses. He has given us no strength, he has only leeched our souls.
I think I would rather point to the example of Russian in 1990, when the Russian people filled the streets and brought down not only a coup, but the entire Russian government. Or perhaps I could point to the East Berliners who tore down a wall with their bare hands. Or maybe I should point to the millions of Hong Kong protestors who flow like water through the streets, paralyzing the city.
Yes, America has a dreadful history of oppression, racism, and genocide. Those crimes have brought us to this moment of choice.
But we also have an ideal that all people are created equal and that we are committed to the freedom of expression in a land of opportunity. It's a promise that we can keep — if we are willing to make it a national priority.
The alt-right, the incels, the 4chans and gamergates, the hydrophobic puppies, all those who thrive on hatred, all those who have been stoked by Russian meddlers who want to keep us fighting among ourselves — they are a minority, a sad, sick desperate, frightened minority, some of whom can't even go out the front door unless they're carrying a gun — that's how scared they are of other people.
The rest of us — we outnumber them. We outnumber them ten to one. Twenty to one. A hundred to one. And we can prove that in another 457 days.
It's this simple. Register. Vote. And work to make sure that everyone around you gets out to vote as well.
75 million Americans voting blue will not only end the bluffoon — we will end the ascendant fascism of his enablers.
He created a storm? We'll create a cat-5 hurricane.
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