While I’m watching Trump turn America into a fascist state I’m pretty much taken aback by much of what I’m seeing and hearing – both in the media and in my “real world.” Media personalities who are considered “liberal” or “progressive” are still trying to figure out what went wrong and who to blame while people I know here on “earth 1” aren’t giving me much hope there will be a concerted push-back on Trump’s and Project 2025’s agenda. And, OBTW – if you don’t understand YET this is the Project 2025 “manifesto” I would suggest you need to do some reading. It’s not a hard document to locate – it is a bit hard to read. I’ve been calling it a “roadmap to fascism” since the first time I opened its pages and began reading.

Here’s some of the things you WOULDN’T be surprised by had you taken the time to give it a peek. (And, forgive me if you’re one of the rare Americans who chose to do so) This past weekend, I’m sure you know this by now, Trump – late into the night on Friday or early in the morning on Saturday – ILLEGALLY dismissed ALL of the Inspector Generals (IG’s) of the varying American institutions – i.e. the Justice Department, the State Department, the Department of Intelligence, the FDA, HHS, and so on. These are career public servants who are the check against waste, fraud, and abuse in each department. They are the ones who the “whisleblowers” would report something which is WRONG.

There is a legal REQUIREMENT that before an IG may be terminated Congress MUST be notified 30 days in advance. Of course, as a way to send ANOTHER “chilling” message to our nation’s public servants Trump simply brushed off that minor hassle and just fired the whole bunch. Here’s my questions – 1) Do you really think there will be any challenge to Trump’s authority to do this? Do you think republicans in the Senate will complain or object? Of course not, they’re a bunch of cowards. (OBTW – these are Senate confirmed positions) 2) Do you believe Trump will appoint replacements who are apolitical (as they are supposed to be) and will report on the waste, fraud, and abuse which is the MO of Project 2025? OK, of course not!

Then there’s the Justice Department. Today, the “acting Attorney General” FIRED all the career prosecutors who worked on the January 6th cases including the prosecutions of Trump – prosecutions which were brought via Grand Jury Indictments – giving the reason for the firing “I don’t trust you to follow Trump’s agenda” – or words to that affect. There’s potential problem here. These people CAN’T be fired because the assistant Attorney Generals says he doen’t “trust them.” These are career civil servants – some likely nearing retirement – and they CAN’T be fired without cause. (You’re seeing why unions are SO important). Now, will any of them sue to get their jobs back and/or their back pay – well, they’re all lawyers, so my guess is some of them will. But, that’s not the point.

What Trump and his puppet masters (those behind Project 2025) want is for a whole bunch more career prosecutors from the DOJ to simply resign and move on. The major focus of Project 2025 is to replace career public servants with sycophants to Trump. The want people in place – not just in the DOJ, but across all the agencies – who make a pledge of support for Trump as opposed to the oath to the constitution. No one should be surprised by all this because Project 2025 was in the news enough that “we the people” have only ourselves to blame for what is taking place right before our very eyes.

And, I can’t help but think of some of my peers (I’m 77) who are Trump supporters and they consider me “radical.” They don’t seem to be able to comprehend what they’ve unleashed on this nation – which has the longest history of self governance in the history of the world. Now, it’s only one week – and, that week has unfurled pretty much as I predicted it would – so, we’ll have a better idea of the extent of the DAMAGE in a couple years when the next election is scheduled. Lots more people will understand how serious this problem is – but, will Trump and his masters find a way to cancel or manipulate the mid-term elections? Most democrats can’t even bring themselves to believe that could be a possibility.

However, let me simply point out Pete Hegseth is now the most incredibly incompetent Defense Secretary in the history of this great nation and, soon, Kash Patel is going to be the Director of the FBI (a ten year term, by the way – Christopher Wray SHOULD have FORCED Trump to fire him – forcing him to invent a “cause” – do you really think these two will refuse an ILLEGAL order from Trump? I’m guessing we’ll have our military in the streets within the next six months – likely sooner. Trump attempted a coup back on January 6th, 2021 and republicans are busy attempting to rewrite the HISTORY “we the people” all witnessed with our own eyes – do you really believe he won’t be attempting to “fix” the mid-term elections?

If, somehow, “we the people” have the opportunity for “free and fair elections” in 2026 I’m predicting IMPEACHMENT #3. It would take a miracle for enough turnover in the Senate to give the democrats control let alone give them enough Senators for a conviction – and, I have to add, JD Vance would also need to be IMPEACHED. The thought of him as the president makes my stomach want to hurl. They keep telling us the universities like Harvard, Yale, etc. are turning out “liberals” such that they want to take over the endowments (a lot of money by the way) – but, I’m not buying that. Vance is a product of Harvard (just like Zuckerberg and a bunch more) who’s whatever he needs to be to gain power and money. The CIA is full of right wing graduates of Yale – some kind of “secret society” there – not liberals.

Trump chose a doctor from Stanford as the new Director of the National Institutes of Health – the agency we would all need to depend on in the case of another pandemic – who believed the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic was to simply almost encourage everyone to get it in order to create what him and others have referred to as “herd immunity.” Well, I’m no doctor, but I’ve read enough about the COVID to feel safe in saying HOGWASH. The vaccines have proven to have saved TENS of MILLIONS of lives world wide and the anti-vax movement in America is said to have led to as many as several HUNDRED thousand American deaths. It appears one of the requirements for nomination to Trump’s 2.0 reign on America is you have to be a bit nuts or looney.

I mean, not only has Trump chosen a person with credible accusations of alcohol abuse, abuse of women, and incompetence regarding administration abilities to lead the Defense Department, a conspiracy theorist who’s written what appear to be certifiably STUPID “children’s books” and a long list of STUPID public remarks – but, who has the president’s “enemies list” – as the FBI Director, but, he’s also nominated RFK Jr. to head HHS – someone with NO expertise when it comes to the issues of Health (HHS is the umbrella agency over stuff like Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, the FDA, the NIH – a certified “anti-vax” whack job, PLUS a Russian “useful idiot” as the head of the Department of National Intelligence (oversees 17 Intelligence agencies including CIA) – I mean, what could go wrong?

Here’s the deal – the ensuing CHAOS is obviously the point. I’ve written about this, what seems to me, endlessly and Trump is already proving me correct. Once again, do you really think those 200 executive orders were the result of Trump’s critical thinking? Of course not – they’re right out of Project 2025 and, I have NO doubt they were written by those who were the Project’s authors. It just makes it easier for Trump to get all the attention focused on HIM. That’s what makes him happy and “we the people” can’t possibly keep track of all the s#@t and I have no doubt they’ve got “stuff” they want to get “through” which requires “we the people” don’t notice it. The s#@t is officially in the FAN!

Final Thought: Just in case one of the “progressives” (ie “liberals”) who are still trying to figure out “what went wrong” and who they should blame – to me it’s pretty simple. For starters back when the democrats started “stabbing” Joe Biden in the back and then “twisting the knives” I pointed out to anyone who would listen (and, I had several liberal friends who wouldn’t listen) the winner of the 2024 election was going to be either Biden or Trump. I had seen this “act” play out multiple times in the lifetime. Sure Biden gave a poor debate performance, but, so did TRUMP. The “media” failed to focus on the TORRENT of LIES rolling off Trump’s tongue everytime he opened his mouth – the issue became Joe Biden’s age.

That was EXACTLY what the republicans wanted. In reality, we’re ALL (well most of us) going to soon realize the real ISSUE was voting for a FELON who has acted like a MOB BOSS since the day he walked down that escalator who was backed by a bunch of BILLIONAIRES and corporate toadies who actually hate America’s so-called “democracy.” They’ve long realized the only way for them to succeed is by CHEATING and LYING. They have a message “machine” which is like men v boys when it comes to getting out the “message.” They convinced enough Americans that Biden’s age was more significant than Trump’s 34 FELONY convictions, the other indictments, being an adjudicated sexual offender, a serial fraudster – and, those are his good traits.

Add to this – it was no secret – once again – that the Russians were attacking our republic – Putin even managed to get some American “useful idiots” to be parroting his talking points on right wing podcasts. And, of course, there was Elon Musk, who’s turned Xwitter (full disclosure, I don’t do Xwitter or any of the other social media sites) into a cesspool of right wing garbage – who used his MONEY and his access to 200 MILLION followers to possibly be the key to making the difference in the election. Musk was, in essence, BUYING votes for Trump with young people in the so-called “swing states” – in addition to supplying Trump with nearly $300 MILLION during the elections final few months. Democrats brought this on themselves by losing the FOCUS of what was important in the election. Joe Biden could have easily turned things over to Kamala Harris in a year or two – his age SHOULDN’T have been the issue. Stopping Trump WAS!

Democrats did this back when Jimmy Carter was running against Ronald Reagan. Carter wasn’t “liberal enough” for people like Ted Kennedy – so, kind of like his nephew in the 2024 election – he ran against Carter – plus, as is the way with republicans, they funded John Anderson – a so-called “liberal republican” as a third party candidate and he peeled off votes by disaffected democrats from Carter. The result was the “trickle down” scam republicans have run since the day Reagan took the oath of office. Many democrats, also bailed on Al Gore because of their anger over Bill Clinton’s infidelity – and, even though Gore won a majority of the votes, it was close enough for our SCOTUS to decide they would intervene by picking Bush/Cheney – kind of like they intervened in 2024.

My point here is democrats need only look inward – at their inability to actually run in elections based on their fundamental beliefs and, in the case of Joe Biden, by defending what was a record of historical proportions. The legislation passed during Biden’s first two years in office was, to me, the most encouraging I’d seen since the days of LBJ – who, due to the Viet Nam War, I was not a fan. Ironically, I got my intro to American politics by supporting RFK in 1968 – until, of course, he was murdered. I use the word “ironically” because RFK Jr. will be, to me, on the same page in the history books next to Trump and Benedict Arnold. Democrats WON’T succeed in future elections until they decide they will NOT shy from their foundational principles – the principles which were part of the New Deal. It really IS a war for the sould of this nation. And, I guarantee you this, the puppet masters (Project 2025) behind Trump have hated the New Deal since its inception. Our future, our economy, the education of our children, the ability of the working class to live in dignity, and, when it gets down to it, the future of our planet depends on democrats finding the guts to stop worrying what republicans think of their fundamental values and actually fight for them! Stay tuned……

I have to add this. I know a person who’s older than me and has been a republican his entire life – just like the rest of his family. He’s in the Trump CULT (and, he was a dentist) and he’s excited about “mass deportations.” To me, just another republican who’s a be deluded (after all, during President Obama’a two terms in office over 5 MILLION undocumented persons were removed from the country – WAY more than Trump’s first term – and Trump will have to go some to do more than that now. I’m writing this because the person I’m talking about is referring to those being deported as “scumbags.” I, today, pointed out he was spewing racism and suggested he not make those comments in public. He responded, “Sending a criminal back home is not racist. They are law breakers. To which I replied, they’re NOT “scumbags” they just weren’t born with your privilege. So far, no reply this time.