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Matthew Sheffield is a conservative Christian journalist who became disillusioned with the Republican Party and right-wing journalism. I read an essay he wrote a couple of years ago comparing mainstream media, which he had once believed was liberal, with the conservative media ecosystem.

According to Sheffield, mainstream media was about process. They may have had a left-leaning bias, but in almost all cases, they went where the facts led them, they followed widely accepted journalistic standards, and they reported what they found, regardless of who it hurt or benefited.

By contrast, conservative media outlets were outcome oriented. More often than not, they decided what story they wanted to report, and then they only paid attention to facts that bolstered that story. In the end, the resulting story they reported was what mattered to them, not the process they used to get there. Their conservative readers and viewers didn’t want their chosen media platform to challenge their beliefs. They would only accept stories that confirmed what they already believed.

This outcome over process methodology is at the heart of many of the differences we see between conservatives and liberals, and by extension, Republicans and Democrats. It’s the difference that makes all of the difference in our politics.

A good example of this concept at work can be seen in Donald Trump’s many civil and criminal trials. For Trump, as with any civil or criminal defendant, due process is essential to having a fair and just outcome of their trial. And like all civil and criminal defendants, Trump was afforded due process.

In the criminal trial where he was convicted of 34 felonies, an investigation was conducted, evidence was presented to a grand jury, an indictment was issued, a trial date was set taking into account his schedule, a jury was selected with input from his attorneys, witnesses were called by both sides and both sides were allowed to question the witnesses, the jury that Trump’s attorneys helped select deliberated over the evidence and unanimously found him guilty on all charges. The legally dictated process was followed. The outcome was a result of that process.

But talk to a Trump supporter and they will ignore the due process Trump was afforded and instead talk about who financially supported the campaign of the prosecuting attorney. They will bring up the political affiliation of the judge’s daughter. They’ll claim that the jury was rigged and the witnesses against Trump lied (although the witnesses for Trump were beyond reproach). They’ll make the unfounded accusation that Biden weaponized the Department of Justice to go after Trump, despite the fact that the charges against Trump were state charges, the trial was held in a state court prosecuted by attorneys for the state, and the Department of Justice had nothing to do with the case.

Those who support Trump are not concerned with the process that was followed and legally mandated to insure the fairest trial possible. The only thing they care about is the outcome. And when the outcome wasn’t what they wanted, they went on the attack, defending Trump and making excuses for his conviction.

This attitude of outcome over process can be seen in the calls to “lock her up” at Trump rallies. It can be seen in the call to deport immigrants, including those who are in the country legally. It can be seen in Trump’s pledge to prosecute his political opponents. No process is required, such as the breaking of an applicable law, a trial, a vigorous defense, etc. If Trump says it, then it should be done, regardless of process.

Of course, this attitude extends to the election as well. In 2020, Trump’s own administration acknowledged that the presidential election was the freest and fairest in our country’s history. Despite that fact, Trump and his supporters refused to accept the results of the election. The process didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the outcome.

Trump is already setting the stage to claim voter fraud in the 2024 election, and he has all but said that, unless he wins, he will not accept the outcome. He routinely tells anyone who will listen that the only way he can lose the election is if Kamala Harris and the Democrats cheat. He provides no proof for this claim, yet his supporters parrot it.

The electoral process (there’s that word again) is set up to provide the fairest results possible while still making voting convenient for American citizens. History has proven that there is no outcome-determinative fraud in early voting, mail-in voting, or in-person voting. We have seen the proof of this in election after election. Yet Trump and his supporters attack the process, claiming widespread fraud without providing any evidence, and claiming that, unless he wins, the election is rigged.

Process is provided for in nearly every aspect of democracy. But Trump and his followers have abandoned process (except when it favors them) in favor of outcome. They don’t want to follow the process before achieving a result. They simply want to dictate the outcome, with no regard for process. This, in a nutshell, is the difference between democracy and fascism. And if Trump is elected, process will take a backseat to his desired outcome, regardless or the rule of law or our established traditions.

 

I came of political age in the early 1980’s. Despite how much I grew to admire and respect Jimmy Carter in later years, his presidency was dogged by an overarching feeling of negativity. The Vietnam War tainted the way a lot of people viewed the United States. Watergate soured them on the American government. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon just cemented those negative feelings. And then Jimmy Carter swept into office and things seemed to get worse.

When Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1980, he brought a positive vision for the country with him. He saw the United States as a force for good, a shining city on a hill. That vision spoke to me. While Carter and the Democrats offered a dim view of the future and tried to sell sacrifice as a way forward, Reagan and the Republicans offered a brighter path to the future. Republicans were the party of ideas at a time when Democrats seemed to lack a coherent plan. Becoming a Republican at that time was an easy decision.

My, how times have changed. Today, Democrats are the party with the positive message and creative ideas for the future. I no longer recognize the Republican Party. They talk about an apocalyptic America where crime runs rampant, cities are like bombed-out war zones, and the economy is collapsing. They see the United States as a “garage can” (Trump literally called it that). This, despite the fact that crime is at a 50-year low, once down-and-out cities have rebounded, and our economy is the strongest in the world.

The Republican Party that attracted me to it prioritized freedom, limited government, strong national defense, quality public education, limited taxes, balanced budgets, conservation of the environment, free market capitalism, and a foreign policy that included not only American leadership, but a strong and supportive relationship with our allies.

Today’s Republican Party operates more like a cult of personality, with Donald Trump calling the shots and his fellow Republicans nothing more than loyal yes men. They often utter the word “freedom,” but they seemingly have no idea what it means. They have orchestrated the taking of rights we previously enjoyed, done everything possible to restrict voting, supported the banning of books, elevated the rights of Christians over non-Christians, attacked a free press, and have passed laws making it more difficult to peacefully protest. In fact, Trump has voiced his desire to use the military to tamp down any dissent from his political opponents. By any reasonable definition, that is not freedom.

They want to limit government by largely doing away with it. Trump wants to gut essential departments and appoint Elon Musk as Chief Efficiency Officer. Musk says he will chop $2 trillion out of the federal budget, more than the entirety of discretionary spending. He admits it will destroy the U.S. economy, but it will give us the chance to start over and will work out in the long run.

Republicans at both the state and national level are working to destroy public education. Trump wants to do away with the Department of Education at the national level. In the states, Republican governors are working to send taxpayer money to private schools, depriving public schools of much needed funds. Even at the college level, Gov. DeSantis in Florida is in the process of reimagining (i.e. destroying) public universities in that state. He has fired college presidents, installed his friends in those positions, and instructed them to turn the colleges and universities into right-wing training institutions. The results have thus far been a disaster.

Trump wants lower taxes, but not for you and me. He wants lower taxes for the wealthy and large corporations, people and institutions who can send him political contributions. He literally told oil executives he would do their bidding if they made political donations to his campaign.

Republicans also talk a good game when it comes to a balanced budget, yet they have increased our national debt every time they’ve been in office. In fact, no president in modern history has run a higher budget deficit than Donald Trump.

The Republican Party has also become the party opposed to conservation. In addition to claiming that climate change is a hoax and not wanting to do anything about it, Trump and the Republicans are generally resistant to any kind of renewable or sustainable energy. Trump has floated the idea of selling off federally owned land to developers, and has proposed increased oil drilling, including on pristine federal land like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party no longer believe in free market capitalism. Trump has said over and over that he wants to implement tariff’s on foreign-made products (including those made by US-based companies), which would drive up prices and damage the economy. In other ways, Trump wants a completely unfettered market, with no regulations or consumer protections. This type of Darwinian “survival of the fittest” economy would benefit the wealthy, who could make any rules that suit their purposes on a given day, but would quickly bankrupt most lower and middle class consumers.

Trump does not believe in the alliances we have built since World War II through NATO. He has voiced his desire to pull the United States out of NATO, and has shown an interest in aligning the US with Russia, China, and other authoritarian countries.

The point of all of this is that, although Donald Trump calls himself a conservative, he is not. He is a right-wing extremist who doesn’t believe in democracy, preferring a more authoritarian form of government. He believes in an expansive unitary executive, which to his mind means he can do whatever he wants to do, with no limits or obstructions. He views the presidency more as a monarchy than an elected official in office to serve the people.

Likewise, his fellow Republicans have followed Trump off the cliff, jumping from democracy to authoritarianism. As long as they continue to support Trump and refuse to stand up for our democracy, I will never again vote for a Republican. The party must be cleansed or eliminated before I ever again cast a ballot for one of them.

You may have noticed that the title of this post is “Why I’m Voting for Kamala Harris,” but until now, I haven’t even mentioned her name. I think Harris is a capable person who will do a fine job as president. I agree with many of her policy ideas, and even those I don’t agree with, I can live with if it means we maintain our democratic form of government and we can vote in a meaningful election for president again in 2028. Because those are the things I fear most with Trump. A vote for him is a vote to end democracy and government of, by, and for the people.

So, why am I voting for Kamala Harris? Because she’s not Donald Trump.

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Donald Trump. I could come up with a dozen or more right now off the top of my head. In fact, Donald Trump has done so many despicable, irresponsible, undemocratic, authoritarian things since he first came down the golden escalator in 2015 that I’ve lost track of them, my memory unable to keep up with the sheer number of horrible, unpresidential things he’s said and done.

Thankfully, Mark Jacobs, former editor of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, has compiled a comprehensive list of reasons not to vote for Donald Trump so none of us has to rely on our ability to remember everything he has done that makes him truly and completely unfit for office.

Just one or two of the things listed below would derail most campaigns, disqualifying the candidate. But somehow, Donald Trump has managed to build a campaign out of hateful rhetoric, racism, misogyny, and anti-American values. Rather than being repelled by his words and actions, Trump’s supporters excuse, defend, and at times, embrace them as their own.

If you’re still undecided, consider the entries on this list. Is this really the person you want to give your vote to?

Here’s Mark’s list:

1. Trump incited a deadly assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
2. His extremist justices took away women’s right to control their own bodies.
3. He wants huge tariffs, which are essentially a tax on American consumers.
4. He stole top secrets and left them in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.
5. He bragged about grabbing the private parts of women he’d just met.
6. He called for a “day of violence” in which police could do whatever they wanted with no accountability.
7. He says his mass deportation of undocumented immigrants will be “a bloody story.”
8. He pushed the fake-electors scheme to overturn a fair election.
9. He called his opponents “vermin,” echoing hate speech from the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwanda massacre.
10. He invited the Taliban to Camp David.
11. He claimed you need an ID to buy cereal.
12. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
13. He said a 2nd Trump administration would give a major health policy role to anti-vaxxer RFK Jr., a disturbed person who dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and cut off the head of a dead whale with a chainsaw and strapped it to the roof of his minivan. (Really.)
14. He was friends with Jeffrey Epstein.
15. He helped the Saudis cover up the murder and dismemberment of a U.S.-based journalist.
16. He wants to use the military to put down “the enemy from within” – Democrats.
17. He thinks windmills cause cancer.
18. He used a Sharpie to doctor an official weather map rather than admit he was wrong about a hurricane hitting Alabama.
19. He lied that “Dems want to shut your churches down, permanently.”
20. He said falsely that Mexico would pay for the wall.
21. His administration separated migrant children from their parents and then lost track of the parents.
22. He said he’d be a dictator, but only on “Day 1” (which is not how dictators operate).
23. He denounced Denmark’s leader because she wouldn’t sell him Greenland.
24. He increased the national debt by 39% in just 4 years while giving the rich a big tax cut.
25. He said of his daughter Ivanka: “She does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
26. He lied publicly that Covid-19 was “like a regular flu that we have flu shots for” while he privately said it was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”
27. He suggested that putting light in people’s bodies and injecting them with disinfectant could kill Covid.
28. He had to pay $2 million in a lawsuit over the Trump Foundation’s misuse of charity funds.
29. He called Mexican immigrants “rapists.”
30. On 9/11, he bragged that the fall of the Twin Towers meant his building was NYC’s tallest. That boast was tasteless — and false.
31. He touted his business acumen but couldn’t make a profit from casinos and filed for bankruptcy six times.
32. He said a judge in one of his legal cases should be removed because he was of Mexican descent.
33. He called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries.”
34. He threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, a key alliance for global stability.
35. He urged supporters to “knock the crap out of” protesters at a 2016 rally.
36. He made false statements more than 30,000 times as president.
37. He lied that an “extremely credible source” told him Obama’s birth certificate was fake. After years of pushing the birtherism hoax, Trump admitted it was bunk — and he blamed it on Hillary Clinton.
38. He took Putin’s word over the word of U.S. intel agencies.
39. He insulted Gold Star parents whose son, a U.S. soldier, had been killed in Iraq. It was no coincidence that the family was Muslim.
40. A NY judge found Trump and his adult sons liable for business fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certification.
41. He exploited the assault on a NYC jogger by taking out newspaper ads calling for the death penalty. The young Central Park 5 suspects were exonerated, but Trump never apologized.
42. He paid actors to pose as supporters at his June 2015 campaign launch event.
43. In a bizarre speech to a Boy Scout Jamboree, Trump described a cocktail party for “the hottest people in New York.” He later claimed the group’s leader called to say it was “the greatest speech that was ever made to them.” The Scout leader denied any call happened.
44. He cheats at everything, including golf. There’s a book: “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.”
45. Trump claimed he “helped a little bit” to clear 9/11 rubble, but there’s no evidence it happened.
46. He lied about being named Michigan’s Man of the Year.
47. After a MAGA supporter massacred Latinos in El Paso, Trump and his wife went to the city and used a newly orphaned baby as a prop for a photo op.
48. He lied that “we’re the highest taxed nation in the world.” Nope.
49. He bragged about his penis size on national TV, and Stormy Daniels later fact-checked that as false.
50. He tweeted in 2019: “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas.” In fact, the plant had opened nearly 6 years earlier.
51. He makes the absurd claim that people weren’t allowed to say “Merry Christmas” until he came along.
52. He accused Ted Cruz’s father of a role in the JFK assassination and said Cruz’s wife was ugly. But Cruz is so low that he sucked up to Trump anyway.
53. He claimed he coined the phrase “priming the pump,” which has been around since 1932. He said he gave Defense Secretary James Mattis the nickname “Mad Dog”; he didn’t.
54. He lied that there were “205,000 more ballots than you had voters” in PA.
55. He made the U.S. a laughingstock when he gave a speech at the United Nations.
56. He denounced 4 women in Congress who are members of minority groups, telling them to go back where they came from, even though 3 were born here and the 4th immigrated as a child.
57. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump wanted to shoot social justice protesters. “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at Gen. Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?'”
58. He lied that the strategic oil reserve was “mostly empty” and he filled it. In fact, the reserve was lower at the end of his term than at the start.
59. He lied that “the entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED!”
60. He overruled experts to give a security clearance to Jared Kushner, who later leveraged his access to get $2B from the Saudis.
61. He bathes in his cult of personality: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
62. After the right demonized Anthony Fauci, Trump claimed not to know who gave Fauci a presidential commendation. It was Trump.
63. He said he got to know Putin “very well” when they were on the same episode of “60 Minutes.” But Trump was in NY, Putin in Russia.
64. Discussing the breakup of his marriage to Ivana in 1990, he said: “When a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left for a piece of ass—a good one!— there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left.”
65. He said in 1991: “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.”
66. He said in 2015 he favored the creation of a database to track all Muslims in the U.S.
67. Asked in 2016 if women should be charged with a crime for having an abortion despite a ban, he said: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”
68. He defended Putin in 2015: “Nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody.”
69. In 2016, he called for not only killing terrorists but killing their family members, too.
70. He invited Russians into the Oval Office and shared classified information.
71. He tried to revoke CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s credentials because Acosta did his job.
72. His company, the Trump Organization, was convicted of 17 tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records.
73. He called for government crackdowns on MSNBC and CBS because he didn’t like their coverage of him.
74. His pardon got Steve Bannon out of federal fraud charges in a “build the wall” scam. Right-wing disinformation is Bannon’s game: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
75. He falsely accused 2 Georgia election workers of election fraud – the same allegations that led to a $148M judgment vs. Rudy Giuliani.
76. His bid to monetize the presidency by hosting the G-7 summit at his Doral golf club sparked outrage, and he backed off.
77. As Notre Dame Cathedral burned, Trump embarrassed the U.S. by tweeting: “Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!”
78. He declared publicly in 1999 that he was “pro-choice in every respect.” But he tossed that aside for politics.
79. He’s always been a sore loser. After Ted Cruz beat him in the 2016 Iowa caucuses, he tweeted: “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.” Sound familiar?
80. He praised Hungarian despot Viktor Orban as “one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world.”
81. A Trump golf club put up a marker about a “River of Blood” at a Civil War battle that supposedly took place there. But no such battle occurred. It’s a lie.
82. Several Trump golf clubs displayed a Time magazine cover featuring him. You guessed it: It’s fake.
83. He pardoned Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of ignoring a court order to stop profiling Latinos.
84. He tweeted about MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski “badly bleeding from a face-lift.”
85. He lied about Brzezinski’s husband/co-host: “When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so.”
86. He hired Kellyanne Conway as a professional liar, and she fulfilled that role, saying early in the pandemic that Covid was “contained,” calling lies “alternative facts” and referring to a terrorist attack that never happened: the “Bowling Green Massacre.”
87. He uses phrases like “brilliant” and “strong like granite” to describe China’s dictator Xi Jinping.
88. He quit the Iran nuclear deal, raising the chances of nuclear war.
89. He told his Cabinet that the Soviet Union was justified in invading Afghanistan in 1979.
90. After former Klan leader David Duke endorsed him for president, Trump said: “I don’t know David Duke. … I just don’t know anything about him.” But researchers found video clips showing Trump talking about Duke on national TV multiple times.
91. He refused to attend his successor’s inauguration, becoming the first president to boycott the transition since Andrew Johnson in 1869.
92. He tore up official documents, forcing aides to tape them together to preserve them as required by federal law.
93. He encouraged a “lock her up” chant about Hillary Clinton and her private email server, but Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner improperly used personal messaging services such as email and WhatsApp for hundreds of government communications.
94. He endorsed NC gov hopeful Mark Robinson, a Holocaust denier who called Obama a “top-ranking demon” and said “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”
95. Trump’s social-media Christmas wish for his opponents: “May they rot in hell.”
96. He used the South Lawn of the White House for a partisan event, ignoring precedent and propriety, when he gave his 2020 Republican National Convention speech there.
97. In late 2020, sore loser Trump delayed transition talks with the Biden team even though the stonewalling hurt public health efforts during a pandemic.
98. Trump’s administration asked Japan to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Japan did so to curry favor.
99. Asked about QAnon, the conspiracy cult that claims JFK Jr. is still alive and Democrats kidnap children to harvest their blood, Trump said: “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand that they like me very much, which I appreciate.”
100. He lied that U.S. Steel was building 6, 7, 8, or 9 new plants (the number varied). But the company built no new plants.
101. He was asked about charges vs. Ghislaine Maxwell for conspiring with sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. Trump said: “I wish her well, frankly.”
102. He bragged that he received “the highly honored Bay of Pigs award” from Cuban Americans in Florida. There’s no such award.
103. He retweeted a GOP pol’s post suggesting duct-taping Nancy Pelosi’s mouth so “she won’t be able to drink booze on the job as much.”
104. After a 75-year-old social justice protester in Buffalo, NY, was shoved to the ground by police and suffered a fractured skull, Trump suggested it was a “set-up” by “an antifa provocateur.” Trump tweeted that the activist “fell harder than [he] was pushed.”
105. A 1973 New York Times story said Trump “graduated first in his class” from Penn’s Wharton School. Nope. It was an early case of media swallowing Trump lies.
106. He said about Covid in June 2020, “If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”
107. He encouraged police to be more violent. After describing how police put their hand over a suspect’s head to prevent injury as they’re loaded into a police car, Trump said, “You can take the hand away, OK?”
108. He lied that Obama spied on his campaign.
109. He said: “We will be ending the AIDS epidemic shortly in America and curing childhood cancer very shortly.”
110. Trump’s Agriculture Dept. ordered staff to stop referring to “climate change” and call it “weather extremes” instead.
111. He is selling watches, crypto, and sneakers.
112. He secretly shipped Covid test equipment to Putin when it was needed in the U.S.
113. There is credible evidence that Egypt gave Trump’s campaign a $10M bribe.
114. He says he’d withhold aid and let California burn if the governor opposed him politically.
115. He opened most of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other development, removing protections for a temperate rainforest. Biden reversed the move.
116. Trump’s coup attempt projected such instability that Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. planned no attack. This infuriated Trump, who suggested Milley deserved execution: “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
117. As he plotted to keep power despite losing in 2020, Trump considered naming conspiracy crackpot Sidney Powell as a special counsel to “investigate” the nonexistent voter fraud he claimed. Powell later pleaded guilty to conspiring to interfere with an election.
118. Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bibles were printed in China.
119. Trump wants to pardon the rioters who beat up police officers at the Capitol.
120. Trump did nothing but watch for 187 minutes as his followers stormed the Capitol. Why? Because he liked it.
121. Trump said he’d “withhold aid and let California burn” if the governor didn’t support him politically.
122. He claimed to have built hundreds of miles of new border wall, but most of it was just repairs to existing sections.
123. He spread false claims that mail-in voting would lead to massive fraud, even though it’s been used safely for decades.
124. Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. would lose its energy independence under Biden, even though the U.S. was energy independent before and after his presidency.
125. He downplayed the importance of wearing masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to unnecessary deaths.
126. Trump hosted super-spreader events during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to multiple outbreaks.
127. He tried to block the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which described his unfit mental state and corrupt behavior.
128. Trump pressured the FDA to speed up the approval of a Covid vaccine for political gain ahead of the 2020 election.
129. He repeatedly lied about voter fraud to undermine confidence in the 2020 election.
130. He encouraged his followers to storm state capitals and “fight like hell” to overturn the election results.
131. Trump attempted to overturn the election results by pressuring Georgia officials to “find” votes in his favor.
132. He used his presidency to enrich himself by directing government business to his hotels and resorts.
133. Trump’s administration cut taxes for the wealthy while leaving middle-class and lower-income Americans with a growing national debt.
134. He separated migrant children from their parents as part of a cruel immigration policy and failed to reunite many families.
135. Trump praised dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, while alienating democratic allies.
136. He pardoned political allies and criminals, including those convicted of corruption and war crimes.
137. He repeatedly attacked the media, calling them the “enemy of the people” and undermining free speech.
138. Trump continued to profit from his businesses during his presidency, violating the emoluments clause.
139. He refused to condemn white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, telling them instead to “stand back and stand by.”
140. He tried to use the Department of Justice as his personal legal defense team, undermining the rule of law.
141. Trump undermined pandemic relief efforts by refusing to sign stimulus bills until they included unrelated demands.
142. He attacked democratic institutions, including the FBI and CIA, when they didn’t support his narrative.
143. Trump criticized peaceful protests against police brutality while encouraging violence by his supporters.
144. He refused to release his tax returns, breaking decades of tradition and transparency.
145. Trump suggested delaying the 2020 election, which would have been unconstitutional.
146. He pressured foreign governments, including Ukraine, to investigate his political rivals, leading to his impeachment.
147. Trump downplayed the threat of Covid-19 despite knowing how dangerous it was, as revealed by journalist Bob Woodward.
148. He mocked a reporter with a disability during a campaign rally, showing a lack of basic decency.
149. Trump’s administration failed to address the growing opioid crisis, leading to more preventable deaths.
150. He repeatedly insulted veterans and military leaders, calling them “losers” and “suckers.”
151. Trump attempted to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the 2020 election to disrupt mail-in voting.
152. He refused to support measures to protect against Russian interference in U.S. elections.
153. Trump tried to pressure governors to reopen their states during the Covid-19 pandemic against public health advice.
154. He failed to address the rising threat of domestic terrorism, including from right-wing extremists.
155. Trump repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using government resources for political purposes.
156. He ignored intelligence reports about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
157. Trump’s administration rolled back environmental protections, contributing to climate change and pollution.
158. He falsely claimed that U.S. troops voted overwhelmingly for him, when military ballots showed otherwise.
159. Trump pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, including claims of rigged voting machines.
160. He endorsed violence against protesters, saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
161. Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization during a global pandemic, weakening international cooperation.
162. He promoted unproven Covid-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine, which endangered public health.
163. Trump repeatedly lied about his administration’s accomplishments, including jobs created and trade deals made.
164. He defunded essential public services like the CDC during a public health crisis.
165. Trump ordered the violent removal of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo-op with a Bible.
166. He claimed without evidence that wind turbines cause cancer, undermining clean energy efforts.
167. Trump’s administration ignored early warnings about the Covid-19 pandemic, delaying critical responses.
168. He sought to criminalize peaceful protests while defending violent actions by his supporters.
169. Trump tried to politicize the U.S. military by using them to suppress protests against racial injustice.
170. He insulted John McCain, a decorated war hero, saying he prefers “people who weren’t captured.”
171. Trump’s handling of natural disasters like Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was widely criticized for incompetence.
172. He downplayed the severity of climate change, reversing policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
173. Trump repeatedly undermined the credibility of U.S. elections, a cornerstone of democracy.
174. He called for imprisoning political rivals, a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.
175. Trump’s administration failed to protect whistleblowers and actively retaliated against them.
176. He used his platform to promote dangerous conspiracy theories like QAnon, endangering public safety.
177. Trump’s trade wars, particularly with China, hurt American farmers and manufacturers.
178. He falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him, inciting violence and division.
179. Trump refused to fully divest from his business interests, leading to conflicts of interest throughout his presidency.
180. His administration’s family separation policy left lasting trauma on thousands of children.
181. Trump’s reckless foreign policy decisions alienated key allies and damaged the U.S.’s reputation globally.
182. He attempted to overturn the results of a free and fair election, threatening the future of American democracy.
183. He bragged that he received “the highly honored Bay of Pigs award” from Cuban Americans in Florida. There’s no such award.
184. He retweeted a GOP politician’s post suggesting duct-taping Nancy Pelosi’s mouth so “she won’t be able to drink booze on the job as much.”
185. After a 75-year-old social justice protester in Buffalo, NY, was shoved to the ground by police and suffered a fractured skull, Trump suggested it was a “set-up” by “an antifa provocateur.” Trump tweeted that the activist “fell harder than [he] was pushed.”
186. A 1973 New York Times story said Trump “graduated first in his class” from Penn’s Wharton School. This was false and an early example of media swallowing Trump lies.
187. He said about Covid in June 2020, “If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”
188. He encouraged police to be more violent, saying: “You can take the hand away, OK?” when discussing how suspects are loaded into police cars.
189. He lied that Obama spied on his campaign.
190. He said: “We will be ending the AIDS epidemic shortly in America and curing childhood cancer very shortly.”
191. Trump’s Agriculture Department ordered staff to stop referring to “climate change” and call it “weather extremes” instead.
192. In unprecedented behavior for a presidential hopeful, he is selling watches, crypto, and sneakers.
193. He secretly shipped Covid test equipment to Putin when it was needed in the U.S.
194. There is credible evidence that Egypt gave Trump’s campaign a $10 million bribe.
195. He opened most of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other development, removing protections for a temperate rainforest. Biden reversed the move.
196. Trump’s coup attempt projected such instability that Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. planned no attack. This infuriated Trump, who suggested Milley deserved execution, saying, “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
197. As he plotted to keep power despite losing in 2020, Trump considered naming conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell as a special counsel to “investigate” the nonexistent voter fraud he claimed. Powell later pleaded guilty to conspiring to interfere with an election.
198. Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bibles were printed in China.
199. Trump wants to pardon the rioters who beat up police officers at the Capitol.
200. Trump did nothing but watch for 187 minutes as his followers stormed the Capitol. Why? Because he liked it.

I’ve recently been taken to task for comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and George Wallace. The people who take exception to these comparisons view Trump in a substantially different light than I do. They also don’t seem to realize that before Hitler gassed the Jews and other “undesirables,” and before Wallace supported turning fire hoses on black protesters while peacefully protesting, their words foreshadowed the actions they would eventually take. Likewise, Trump’s words are foreshadowing a dark, authoritarian future if he wins next month’s election and is allowed to re-occupy the White House.

In my opinion, comparing Trump to history’s worst tyrants and racists is appropriate, even necessary. In fact, now is the time to call out the similarities, before he actually carries out the insidious plans he has for immigrants, women, and others. But today, rather than comparing Trump to tyrants, I’d like to compare him to one of our founding fathers, and one of our greatest Presidents, George Washington.

Living 225 years after Washington died, it’s easy to take his greatness for granted. In fact, for many of us, he has become more of a caricature than a real blood and flesh person. We hear the stories of how he chopped down a cherry tree and couldn’t lie about it (an apocryphal story, to be sure), but we often overlook the actual great things he did.

If you’ve seen the Broadway musical Hamilton, (If you haven’t, you should), you know that Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda made a point of stressing just what a paradigm shifting thing it was to have Washington give up the power of the presidency.

In the show, the George Washington character, as he is preparing to relinquish his position as the most powerful man in the country, sings a song called “One Last Time.” The song’s lyrics talk about how important it is for Washington to give up his position so the country can learn to move on. He goes on to sing about how people will come to view the peaceful transfer of power as strength, not weakness.

The song sung by the Washington character builds to a crescendo and becomes quite emotional. Then, as it ends, the King George character comes onto the stage and sings the song “I Know Him.” The first lines of that song are:

“They say George Washington’s yielding his power and stepping away
Is that true?
I wasn’t aware that was something a person could do
I’m perplexed, are they going to keep on replacing whoever’s in charge?
If so, who’s next?
There’s nobody else in their country who looms quite as large.”

The idea that anyone in power would voluntarily step down was revolutionary at the time. Even more revolutionary was the idea that the United States government would continue to replace the person in charge, not through force or coup, but through elections. It was a radical new concept, and it changed the world.

In his 2020 book, First and Always, A New Portrait of George Washington, historian Peter Henriques writes: “(Washington) proved that his truest allegiance was to the republic by voluntarily surrendering power. It was the first of many peaceful transfers of power in the unprecedented American experiment.”

But as Tom Nichols, conservative pundit and former professor at the Naval War College recently wrote in The Atlantic, “Less than a year after the (Henrique’s) book’s publication, however, Trump would subvert this centuries-long tradition by summoning a mob against the elected representatives of the United States, after refusing to accept the result of the vote.”

Nichols’ article is instructive in the clear-eyed way it compares our first president to our forty-fifth. He begins his article by talking about John Kelly, the former Marine Corp general who served as Trump’s first Chief of Staff. In speaking about Washington at a symposium at the first President’s home in Mount Vernon, Kelly told the story of perhaps Washington’s greatest and longest lasting act. When his time in the White House had ended, Kelly said, “He went home.”

Kelly described Trump as a “person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.” As Nichols writes, “(Kelly) was making a clear point: People who are mad for power are a mortal threat to democracy. They may hold different titles—even President—but at heart they are tyrants, and all tyrants share the same trait: They never voluntarily cede power.”

Nichols goes on to write:

“Forty-four men have succeeded Washington so far. Some became titans; others finished their terms without distinction; a few ended their service to the nation in ignominy. But each of them knew that the day would come when it would be their duty and honor to return the presidency to the people.

“All but one, that is.

“Donald Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged in his new nation. They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the ‘spirit of revenge’ that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics. Washington feared that, amid constant political warfare, some citizens would come to ‘seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,’ and that eventually a demagogue would exploit that sentiment.

“Today, America stands at such a moment. A vengeful and emotionally unstable former president—a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, an admirer of foreign dictators, a racist and a misogynist—desires to return to office as an autocrat. Trump has left no doubt about his intentions; he practically shouts them every chance he gets. His deepest motives are to salve his ego, punish his enemies, and place himself above the law. Should he regain the Oval Office, he may well bring with him the experience and the means to complete the authoritarian project that he began in his first term.”

Washington was a legitimate war hero. In fact, many Presidents served in the military. And even those that did not still understood the importance of military obedience to the rule of law and civilian authority. That is, all but Donald Trump.

Trump, who declined to serve in the military during the Vietnam War due to alleged bone spurs, expected the military to be loyal to him, not to the country. Nichols writes: “(Trump) did not understand (or care) that members of the military swear an oath to the Constitution, and that they are servants of the nation, not of one man in one office. Trump viewed the military like a small child surveying a shelf of toy soldiers, referring to ‘my generals’ and ordering up parades for his own enjoyment and to emphasize his personal control.”

Washington was an uncommonly humble man who held himself to a high standard. In fact, he set the standard that future presidents would seek to emulate by taking responsibility for events–particularly failures–that happened on their watch. Presidents Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt are well known for the responsibility they each took for decisions made during the Civil War and World War II respectively. But they are not alone.

When American troops attempted to rescue hostages in Iran during his presidency, Jimmy Carter took responsibility for the failure of the operation. Likewise, it would have been easy for John F. Kennedy to blame Dwight Eisenhower for the Bay of Pigs failure in Cuba. After all, the plan for that operation was formulated during Eisenhower’s time in the White House. But Kennedy demurred, humbly taking personal responsibility for the unfortunate outcome.

There are many other examples as well. However, Donald Trump is not one of them. He has a long history of blaming others when things go wrong and denying responsibility for any failures. Perhaps the greatest example of this occurred during the COVID pandemic, as millions of Americans fell ill and the White House failed to adequately address the mounting deaths. When Trump was asked about this failure, he replied, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

As Nichols points out, “Washington’s character and record ensured that almost any of his successors would seem smaller by comparison. But the difference between Washington and Trump is so immense as to be unmeasurable. No president in history, not even the worst moral weaklings among them, is further from Washington than Trump.”

He then goes on to list some of the more obvious differences:

• “Washington prized patience and had, as Adams put it, “the gift of silence”; Trump is ruled by his impulses and afflicted with verbal incontinence.
• Washington was uncomplaining; Trump whines incessantly.
• Washington was financially and morally incorruptible; Trump is a grifter and a crude libertine who still owes money to a woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting.
• Washington was a general of preternatural bravery who grieved the sacrifices of his men; Trump thinks that fallen soldiers are “losers” and “suckers.”
• Washington personally took up arms to stop a rebellion against the United States; Trump encouraged one.”

“Trump is the man the Founders feared might arise from a mire of populism and ignorance, a selfish demagogue who would stop at nothing to gain and keep power. Washington foresaw the threat to American democracy from someone like Trump: In his farewell address, he worried that ‘sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction’ would manipulate the public’s emotions and their partisan loyalties ‘to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Comparisons of Trump to both Adolf Hitler and George Wallace are fair and appropriate. History bears out the similarities between Trump and the worst tyrants and extreme racists through the ages. But as you can see from the foregoing, there is almost no similarity between George Washington, one of our greatest presidents, and Donald Trump, one of our absolute worst.

Addendum: Here are videos of the two songs I referenced above. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a live performance video of “One Last Time.” Instead, I included a reaction video from a vocal coach who is listening and watching Chris Jackson’s performance of the song as George Washington (How about that voice on Chris Jackson?). Somehow, the vocal coach reacting to Jackson’s performance found a live version of the song, but I couldn’t. The other video is a live performance of “I Know Him” sung by Jonathan Groff as King George III.

I have long been a fan of Teddy Roosevelt’s politics (he was a progressive Republican when that was still possible) and his amazing life. I ran across an X (formerly Twitter) thread that did a great job of capturing exactly what an extraordinary character Roosevelt really was.

The thread was written by Time Capsule Tales, which bills itself as an “internet history museum.” I like that idea, and I’m thankful that someone thought to use X in this way.

The following was written by Time Capsule Tales:

Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th U.S. President from 1901 to 1909 While his presidency is perhaps best known for his conservation legacy, Roosevelt was one of the most face-smashing, rough-riding, badass dudes to grace the Oval Office. These are his “greatest hits”

 

 

1. Teddy Roosevelt suffered from severe asthma & nearsightedness but didn’t let that hold him back. He spoke French & German fluently, studied in Europe, wrote numerous literary works & attended Harvard & Columbia Law School.

 

 

2. President McKinley appointed Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. When the USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, tensions with Spain hit a boiling point. Roosevelt didn’t waste time – he sent Commodore George Dewey to the Philippines, giving him the green light to take down the Spanish fleet.

After Congress officially declared war on Spain, Dewey obliterated the Spanish Navy at Manila Bay in just a few hours, solidifying Roosevelt’s reputation as a military mastermind.

3. Roosevelt formed a volunteer cavalry regiment known as the Rough Riders. He pulled together a wild mix of cowboys, miners, Ivy League athletes, & anyone ready to fight, regardless of background. They shipped off to Cuba, and at the Battle of San Juan Hill, Roosevelt led the charge on horseback, earning fame for his bravery.

While he didn’t receive the Medal of Honor until 2001 (long after his death), his leadership in the battle was critical to the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War. He was later promoted to Colonel.

4. When Roosevelt returned from Cuba as a war hero, he ran for Governor of New York in 1898 and won. His reformist agenda made political bosses nervous, so in 1900, they pushed for him to run as Vice President under McKinley, thinking he’d be sidelined in the largely ceremonial role. It wasn’t George Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman, but Republican Party leaders like Senator Thomas Platt who wanted him out of New York politics.

The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won, but soon after, McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901, and Roosevelt became president on September 14, 1901, making him the youngest president in U.S. history at age 42.

5. As President, Roosevelt tackled labor disputes head-on, famously mediating the 1902 Coal Strike to prevent a national energy crisis. He earned the nickname “Trust Buster” by breaking up monopolies like Standard Oil. He also spearheaded the construction of the Panama Canal, revolutionizing global trade.

Roosevelt was a staunch advocate for conservation, believing in the need to protect the American landscape for future generations. During his presidency, he established five national parks, including Crater Lake & Yosemite, as well as 18 national monuments, such as the Grand Canyon and Devil’s Tower.

He created the United States Forest Service and signed into law the Antiquities Act, which allowed him to designate national monuments to safeguard significant natural and historical sites. Through these efforts, Roosevelt set aside over 230 million acres of public land, more than any other president before him.

In 1901, he made history by inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House – the first time an African American dined as a guest of the president.

6. In 1912, while campaigning for a third presidential term, Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin in Milwaukee. Undeterred, he insisted on delivering his speech, famously declaring, “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose!”

With a bullet lodged in his body, he spoke for over an hour to a packed crowd, showcasing his incredible resilience and determination. Only after finishing did he finally allow himself to seek medical attention, proving that nothing – not even a gunshot – could silence his fervor for politics and reform.

7. In 1906, Roosevelt made history by becoming the first sitting president to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in mediating the end of the Russo-Japanese War. He worked tirelessly to broker a peace agreement between Russia & Japan, securing a treaty that ended years of conflict.

He was a firm believer in the power of a strong navy, famously showcasing American military might with the construction of the Great White Fleet, a group of 16 battleships painted white that sailed around the world from 1907 to 1909. This impressive display of naval strength was intended to demonstrate the United States’ emerging status as a global power and to foster goodwill with other nations.

8. Roosevelt studied boxing after being bullied as a child and continued with the sport through college at Harvard. And he didn’t let a little thing like becoming president stop him from boxing – he would often box during his time in the Oval Office. That is, until he was blinded in one eye. He wrote in his autobiography:

“I had to abandon boxing as well as wrestling, for in one bout a young captain of artillery cross-countered me on the eye, and the blow smashed the little blood vessels. Fortunately it was my left eye, but the sight has been dim ever since, and if it had been the right eye I should have been entirely unable to shoot… Accordingly I thought it better to acknowledge that I had become an elderly man and would have to stop boxing. I then took up jiujitsu…”

9. Devastated after losing his final presidential election, Roosevelt dealt with his grief by going on an adventure. Accompanied by his son Kermit and famed explorer Colonel Candido Rondon, they set off on a journey down an uncharted, anaconda- and piranha-infested river in South America known as the River of Doubt.

Though the former president was warned of the risk, he insisted on the trip, writing, “If it is necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I am quite ready to do so.”

Things did not go well. They lost several canoes. They were in close vicinity to cannibalistic tribes. One sailor died in the rapids. Another was murdered by a crew member gone mad.

Roosevelt then badly cut his leg trying to cross the river to free two jammed canoes. His injury led to an infection, which led to a fever. Near death, he pleaded with his son to leave him behind, but Kermit refused. In the end, Roosevelt finished the journey – albeit nearly 60 pounds lighter.

10. While living in North Dakota, Roosevelt became a deputy sheriff. During this time, he once pursued three boat thieves through a frozen river. After capturing them, he personally took them to Dickinson for trial, rather than allow them to be hanged by vigilantes. On the journey, he watched them for over 36 hours straight without sleep – reading Tolstoy to keep himself occupied. Roosevelt wrote:

“I kept guard over the three prisoners, who were huddled into a sullen group some 20 yards off, just the right distance for the buckshot in the double-barrel.”

11. After his wife and mother died – on the same day – Roosevelt grieved in his own unique way: by leaving the city behind for the wild of the American West to become a cowboy.

Roosevelt operated a cattle ranch on the Little Missouri River in the Dakotas for a few years, learning to ride, rope, and hunt. He worked alongside men who made him tougher, stating that they “took the snob out” of him. During his years in the West, he wrote several books on the subject, before returning home and running for office.

“I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota,” Roosevelt wrote.

12. When Teddy died in his sleep in 1919, sitting Vice President Thomas Marshall said, “Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight.”

Imagine for a moment that you’re a single woman who has been asked out by a guy that your friends know. They’ve socialized with him, worked with him, even worked for him. In total, you know 44 different people that know him, and of those 44 people, only 4 give him a good recommendation. That’s right, 40 of the 44 people who know this guy say you shouldn’t go out with him. What would you do?

If you’re like most people, you wouldn’t go out with someone who 40 out of 44 people say you shouldn’t date because that person can’t be trusted, doesn’t have the best of intentions in dating you, and is otherwise wholly unfit as a potential date.

As voters in the United States, that is the situation we face with the upcoming Presidential election. During his Presidency, 44 different people served in Donald Trump’s cabinet. And of those 44 people, 40 say they cannot endorse him to be president again.  They say he can’t be trusted. They say he doesn’t put the interests of the country first. And they say he is unfit to be anywhere near the oval office.

Of course, those 40 people are not alone in their opposition to Trump becoming President again. There are many other Republicans who think that Donald Trump is unfit for office.

Two of the more well know Republicans opposing Trump are former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), both of whom served on the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6 coup attempt. They saw the evidence, they are intimately familiar with Trump’s wrongdoing, and they have come forward to endorse Kamala Harris.

In that same vein, Trump’s own Vice-President, Mike Pence, has gone on the record saying that what Trump did leading up to January 6 was illegal and has branded Trump as unfit to serve in the presidency. When a president’s own vice-president says that the former president isn’t fit for office, we should definitely listen.

But that’s not all. More than 200 Republicans who worked for Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and who worked on the presidential campaigns of Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney, have stepped forward to denounce Donald Trump. In a public letter obtained by USA Today, the Republicans who signed the letter predicted that a Trump victory in November would be a potential disaster for the nation, and they called on their fellow Republicans to vote for Kamala Harris.

“At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions,. Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen.”

Over 100 Republican national security leaders who worked for Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush, and Trump have also penned a letter condemning Donald Trump and endorsing Harris.

“Donald Trump cannot be trusted ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . . and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.’ We believe that Kamala Harris can, and we urge other Americans to join us in supporting her.”

In addition, a bi-partisan group of more than 700 national security leaders recently endorsed Kamala Harris, saying:

“We do not agree on everything, but we all adhere to two fundamental principles. First, we believe America’s national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable. Each generation has a responsibility to defend it. That is why we, the undersigned, proudly endorse Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States.”

You may also note that the only other living former Republican President, George W. Bush, has not endorsed Trump. It is very unusual for a former President not to endorse the candidate from his party. And although he hasn’t done it yet, rumor has it that Bush will eventually endorse Harris for President.

But wait, there’s more. At the Democratic National Convention, several Republicans spoke, condemning Trump and endorsing the Democratic nominee for President. In addition to Kinzinger, former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles;  and former advisor to President George W. Bush and Vice-President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye–all Republicans–spoke at the convention, condemning Trump and encouraging their fellow Republicans to vote for Harris.

It’s not all that unusual for a handful of members of one party to go against that party’s presidential nominee. What is unusual is the sheer number of Republicans condemning Trump, and the level that those people have reached within the party and the government. These are the people who know Trump best. They are the people that know the presidency best. And all of them believe that Donald Trump is unfit for office.

So, when you go into the voting booth, think about what the people who know Donald Trump best think of him. Don’t date that guy. You can do better. Much better.

The first time I met Mojo, he was living near Chattanooga and going by the name Cujo. He was in the fenced backyard of a woman I knew. A few years earlier, her house had been burglarized and she wanted a dog to help protect the property. She bought Mojo as a puppy and immediately sent him to a trainer to be taught how to be a guard dog. When he got home to her, she couldn’t get him to obey her commands, so she put him in the backyard and left him there for three-and-a-half years.

When I’d visit my friend’s house, Mojo would jump up and put his paws on the top of the cyclone fence, waiting for me to pet him. He was the largest German Shephard I’d ever seen. His skull and paws were massive. Every time I’d see him, I was amazed at his size. Every time he’d see me, he’d get excited because he knew he was going to get some much-needed attention.

When my friend decided to retire from her job and downsize her house, she made the decision to get rid of Mojo. Her plan was to drop him off at the city dog pound. I explained to her that if no one adopted him, he would be euthanized. “Someone will adopt him,” she said. I wasn’t so sure. He was huge, unruly, and an adult male, all strikes against him. When people adopt, they often want puppies, especially females, not a gigantic, undisciplined adult male.

I tried to make her change her decision, but her mind was made up. So, I did the only reasonable thing I could do. I took Mojo home with me.

It took Mojo about ten minutes to transition from being an outdoor dog to an indoor dog. In fact, at first, he didn’t like going outside for fear that he’d once again be left there. And he hated to leave the couch. In those early days with me, the couch was Mojo’s happy place.

Getting him outside was the first of many fights we had. As much as I’d like to say that Mojo was immediately the perfect dog and I was the perfect dog owner, that wasn’t the case. Mojo was independent-minded and undisciplined. And I was headstrong and impatient. I’ve owned several dogs over the years, and each of them before Mojo was relatively well-behaved. Despite his early-life training, Mojo didn’t know how to behave. He had too much energy and he craved attention. He wanted to be petted, and to his mind, humans were only in this world to pay attention to him.

I’m embarrassed to say that I got super angry at him on more than one occasion. I didn’t know how to deal with his bad behavior. I also didn’t know how to deal with his subservient nature. Because of his size, I expected him to be an alpha dog. But he wasn’t. He was very much a follower, and he was scared of his own shadow. When it even threatened to rain, he would get nervous. And thunderstorms scared him to death. Despite being so big, he would often try to hide in the smallest spaces. On more than one occasion, I had to get him unstuck from behind the TV stand or from under the bed.

But in time, we came to an understanding. He began to listen to me and do what I asked, and I learned to accept him for who he was. He began behaving more often and I got angry less often. We became friends, and he was the most loyal, loving friend I’d ever had.

Mojo loved to be with me, no matter what I was doing. If I was going outside, he’d get excited to go outside. When it was time to come in, he’d get just as excited about going into the house with me. He loved car rides, no matter where we were going, and he loved to walk in the woods. When I bought my place in Wisconsin, it was like Heaven to him, exploring the woods and wide-open spaces off-leash. I don’t think I ever saw him as happy as when we were hiking the trails together. He loved it.

Yesterday, Mojo wasn’t feeling well. He couldn’t get comfortable lying down, and he constantly wanted to go outside. Last night, as I was watching TV, he came up to my chair asking to be petted. I showed him some love and told him I wished he felt better. He curled up at my feet and put his head down. I stroked his side with my foot and he looked up at me with his big, dark eyes. Age had dulled those eyes, but they were just as loving as ever. Then he lay his head on the floor, closed his eyes, and died.

Mojo was a month shy of his eleventh birthday. He was the sweetest dog I’ve ever known. He was my best buddy, and I’m going to miss him. Life won’t be the same without Mojo.

In 1963, the United States was a segregated nation. In many communities, Black people were not allowed to drink from the same water fountains as white people. They were not allowed to sit at the same lunch counter or attend the same schools. But things were beginning to change.

President Kennedy was pushing a new civil rights law that would put an end to Jim Crow laws, desegregate schools, prohibit discrimination, and strengthen voting rights. The idea of a new civil rights law was becoming more popular, but not so much among the voters in Alabama.

In 1963, Alabama voters elected George Wallace, an outspoken racist, to be governor of their state. In his inauguration address, Wallace uttered one of the most famous quotes ever uttered by any American politician. During this address, the self-proclaimed white supremacist  said,

“In the name of the greatest people who have ever trod the earth, I draw a line in the dust and toss the gauntlet at the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Today, most of us rightly find Wallace’s statement abhorrent. It is obviously hateful and racist. Wallace wasn’t trying to hide his racism. He was proudly proclaiming it, making it clear to anyone who heard his words exactly how he felt about blacks and other minorities. And sadly, many people agreed with him and cheered on his racist rhetoric.

It seems unbelievable that today, more than sixty years after Wallace’s inaugural address, that we are witnessing a similar phenomenon with Donald Trump. His rhetoric is a throwback to a darker, less enlightened time.

When Donald Trump first descended the golden escalator and entered the political stage, he immediately launched into a racist rant about Mexicans, calling them “rapists” and “criminals.” He falsely claimed that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims cheered the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and he implemented a Muslim ban as one of his first acts as President. More recently, he has condemned Haitian immigrants in Ohio–who, by the way, are in the United States legally–claiming that they are stealing and eating family pets; spreading disease; and committing crimes, including rape and murder, none of which are true.

Sadly, just like followers of George Wallace, Trump’s supporters cheer on his racist rants, calling for laws that favor white people (especially the straight, Christian variety), and encourage him to deport or jail people who don’t look like them or think like them.

This is what the Trump Campaign means when they say “Make America Great Again.” They view the time before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a time when America was great, and they want to take us back to that time. They want to go back to a time when blacks, Hispanics, non-Christians, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized groups were treated as second class citizens, who didn’t enjoy the rights and privileges of “preferred” citizens, and to a time when it was much more acceptable to be openly and unapologetically racist.

It seems incredible to me that we are re-fighting this issue again. Even more incredible to me is the number of people on the other side who are fighting to take us back. This isn’t a fight over policy preferences. It is a fight to define our national identity. Are we a people who believe and support the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence, that say:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Or are we a people who don’t believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, who don’t believe in the rule of law, and who believe that some people should be preferred in the eyes of the law, while others are left out, or thrown out?

Those days of segregation and open racism were not good for anyone. They were dark days for the nation as a whole and none of us should want to go back, regardless of the color of our skin, the God we follow, or the person we love.

Kris Kristofferson was one of a kind. He was a soldier, a scholar, a singer, a songwriter, an actor, and a cultural icon. Many people have been one or two of these things. Kris Kristofferson was the whole package.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of the movie “Bloodworth” in Nashville. Kris starred in the film and was to receive an award after the film’s debut. I was seated one seat away from Nicole Kidman. Keith Urban was to her right, and Kristofferson sat directly across the aisle from me. I was in rarified air.

I had long been a fan of Kristofferson. I thought he was great in “A Star is Born” with Barbara Streisand (In later years, I came to believe that the Kristofferson/Streisand version of “A Star is Born” was better than the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga version), and I had long been a fan of the songs he had written, including one of my all-time favorites, “Me and Bobby McGee.” For what it’s worth, I prefer the Gordon Lightfoot version over the one done by Janis Joplin.

Anyway, I was excited to be at the premier of “Bloodworth,” not only to see Kristofferson’s latest film, but to hear the man speak after the debut when he received his award. Kristofferson’s performance as E.F. Bloodworth, a country singer who returns home to a dysfunctional family while battling demons of his own, was dark and gritty, and showcased his immense talent. When the film ended, the MC gave a short introduction for Kris, then called him up to get his award.

I saw Kristofferson struggle to get out of his seat. Finally, someone helped him stand (I’m fairly certain it was W. Earl Brown, the co-writer of Bloodworth and the actor who played Dan on one of my all-time favorite TV shows, “Deadwood.”), and then allowed Kris to lean on him as they walked up to the front of the theater. He gave a short, inarticulate speech, his words badly slurred, and then stumbled back to his seat.

For me, it was a sad affair, seeing someone I had long looked up to being humbled in that way. But the experience also taught me that no matter how talented or accomplished a person might be, they’re still human, and still subject to human foibles and weaknesses. Kristofferson battled alcoholism and drug abuse for many years. In fact, the roles he played in both “A Star is Born” and “Bloodworth” were only slightly fictionalized versions of his own life. He was a mess. But he was an intelligent, flawed, heartbreaking, creative, amazing mess.

RIP, Kris. Your life was an inspiration and a warning.

 

An internet meme is circulating around social media using a Bible verse to justify mistreating immigrants and deporting them from the country. Here’s what the verse,  Deuteronomy 28:43-44, says:

“⁴³Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. ⁴⁴ They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end, they will be your rulers.”

As you may know, I oppose a punitive immigration system. I particularly oppose the type of cruel plans Donald Trump has for immigrants, including mass round-ups, concentration camp-style detention facilities, and deporting millions of immigrants, including those who are in the country legally, as well as naturalized citizens.

So, I started wondering why the Bible would contain a passage that appears to be anti-immigrant. As I’ve stated often, I’m no expert on Christianity, but it has always been my understanding that God calls us to welcome the foreigner, not fear or abuse him. What was I missing?

It didn’t take long to figure out the verse from Deuteronomy that supporters of Donald Trump are using to justify his cruelty. If you continue reading chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, it says:

“⁴⁵ All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. ⁴⁶They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, ⁴⁸therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.”

Well, that doesn’t really support the claim the Trump supporters are making, does it? In the verse offered to justify cruelty toward immigrants, the people are being punished because they “did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.” In other words, the people who disobeyed God brought on their own hardship. They were being punished for not following God’s commands and decrees.

That got me wondering, what are God’s commands and decrees when it comes to the treatment of foreigners and immigrants? As it turns out, there are a bunch of Bible verses that tell believers how to treat strangers to their land. For example:

“You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)

“Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.’ Then all the people shall say, ‘Amen!” (Deuteronomy 27:19)

“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:34)

“When they were few in number, of little account, and strangers in the land, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, saying, ‘Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.” (1 Chronicles 16:19-22)

“For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7)

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” (Zechariah 7:9-10)

“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35)

“Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

“Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” (Romans 12:13)

“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” (Hebrews 13:1-3)

That’s just ten Bible verses speaking to treating strangers, foreigners, and immigrants with love and respect. There are several more. But my question is, with so many Bible verses telling us how to treat the strangers among us, why would Trump supporters—most, self-proclaimed Christians—misuse a Bible verse to justify Trump’s plans that so clearly go against Christian doctrine? Why would they weaponize the Bible to score political points? Maybe they simply don’t understand the error of their ways. Or maybe, they’re not the committed Christians they claim to be.