Trump’s Victory Proved Surprisingly Swift And Dangerous!

By Donald A. Collins | 7 November 2024
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

After writing hundreds of opinion pieces about Trump’s many faults and predicting his loss in a 10/17/24 piece entitled Trump’s Defeat Is Surprisingly Sure my wife and I went to bed at 10 o’clock on November 4th expecting to awaken to the fulfilment of my prediction. You can imagine my reaction to the Trump landslide result!

In addition to the Presidency the GOP captured the Senate and likely the House. I guess I was partly influenced, but not greatly by the predictions of pundits of far great insight such as James Carville who should have stuck to his famous saying” It’s the economy, Stupid!!  instead of predicting a Harris victory. 

By the time I had breakfast and a good walk it made me feel less nauseated by this unfortunate outcome. I will continue in the days ahead to offer some comments to attempt to alleviate the non-GOP trepidation among my readers.

It is so easy to read the “I told you so” comments of those who backed the Trump landslide victory. Those with special interests such as Elon Musk can now better parley their greed, but the less educated masses who formed the base of this victory may find their hero cuts their access to government benefits if Musk gets into reducing the Federal Government.

How did victory despite Trump’s hyping racism and the unwillingness of many less informed voters which caused them to believe that a qualified woman could not effectively serve as President.

This disastrous election outcome was bought and paid for with money, by spreading vast media lies which could not be fact checked over dark media.

My arguments and those of many highly qualified experts failed to persuade enough voters that the lack of understanding that the price of groceries is not worth giving a dictator the clean path to his goal.

Those who voted for this flawed candidate had various reasons which were pertinent to them. They ranged from the economy, the immigration worry and their own vision of who should give them more support which a major number saw as Trump despite that he repeatedly told us what cutbacks he would do if elected.

Aside from Trump’s absurd claim that he would make America great again, he promised to end the Middle East war and the Ukraine war immediately. Since his penchant for truth telling has exhibited credible cracks, we will doubtless have many chances to raise questions about how well he kept his promises.

Of course, after what was a very successful Biden Presidency, Triumph has inherited a fabulous economy with inflation down to 2.44 percent, prices for gasoline and consumer goods have come down as wages increased and unemployment was at sustained historic lows. Adroit Federal Reserve management produced a soft landing that has avoided a recession.

No quite what Trump was saying about our economy during the campaign, but clearly those who rushed to help his win, most notably Elon Musk, saw an opportunity for more big corporate greed than now exists in a nation where the wealth gap between rich and poor has never been greater.

One wonders at the failure of Trump voters to note any of the above but decided his character flaws didn’t matter.

Peter Baker’s October 20 recitation of the Trump history entitled ‘For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” stated that “No major party presidential candidate, much less president, in American history has been accused of wrongdoing so many times.”

It is absorbing history which you may in light of Trump’s reelection may find impossible to read, but Baker suggested that could well occur when he wrote, “Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”

In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.

His persecution defense, the notion that he gets in so much trouble only because everyone is out to get him, resonates at his rallies where he says “they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in the way.” But that of course belies a record of scandal stretching across his 78 years starting long before politics. Whether in his personal life or his public life, he has been accused of so many acts of wrongdoing, investigated by so many prosecutors and agencies, sued by so many plaintiffs and claimants that it requires a scorecard just to remember them all.

If you have a strong stomach or a masochistic tendency, you can read this masterpiece in full here.

One promise which supersedes all he made is that he would only be a dictator for only one day. After being widely endorsed by many of his key first term advisors as unfit to serve, we can quail with fear at the almost sure prospects for the substantial undermining of our democracy. America First implies an isolationist trend reminiscent of pre-WWII isolationis of Lindburgh which allowed unchecked rise of Hitler. Failing to maintain our historic alliances with NATO and others will put an end to our role as world defender of democracy which he doesn’t believe in.

His admiration of dictators such as Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim of North Korea could lead them to intimidate other key governments such as Japan and South Korea.

One powerful defense against Trump’s dictatorship may well be the massive size of our Federal Government. Most government employees have long put up stiff resistance to so-called reformers. So National Parks, the NIH and even the Education Department may not fall to his axes.

Another will be the cutting of benefits voters expected.

Another will be the disastrous effect of Trump’s tariff policy.

Another will be his immigrant removal threats.

The ultimate Trump effect as implementation ensues will so frighten and disgust voters that even by the mid terms in 2026 we will see substantial rebellion.

Don’t despair.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk”, “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?” and “Trump: Pardon or Punish?: The Nixon Precedence Was Not A Trump Coup Denied!”.

Donald Trump’s full victory speech

FULL SPEECH: Kamala Harris addresses nation after conceding election to Donald Trump

President Joe Biden – Full Post-Election Speech to America

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here