My Lament for America as Trump Returns to the White House in a Few Short Hours

As I write this, there are just over 11 hours left in the presidency of Joe Biden.

At noon tomorrow, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. 

Along of millions of other Americans who did not vote for him nor support him in any way, I cannot help but feel a tremendous trepidation of what is to come. 

Whatever does come, it will be a very long four years and it may be longer than that should Trump see fit to remain in office beyond 2028. The 22nd Amendment might very well become a dead letter just like 14th amendment where it concerns presidential immunity. 

The same might also hold true for the First Amendment. It appears CBS (which is due to merge with Paramount) is going to settle with Trump regarding his frivolous suit about 60 Minutes editing its interview with Kamala Harris. All news entities have editors, and it is none of Trump's goddamn business nor that of the government as to how CBS edits its stories. 

Nevertheless, CBS will likely follow ABC's lead which amounted to an in-kind donation to the Trump Presidential Library (an oxymoron if there ever was one). George Stephanopoulos had said Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll in a civil suit when he had "only" liable for sexual abuse. A distinction which warranted an on-air correction, not a civil suit. In what way did this story "damage" Trump? He won the election.

If media outlets bend to Trump's whim, he will eventually launch defamation suits for editorials merely criticizing his performance in office or perhaps editorials which endorse his opponents (this means you Washington Post and Los Angeles Times). The media has effectively begun to self-censor. But this isn't enough for Trump. He wants Vladimir Putin/Kim Jong-un like adulation. 

The day before the election, I made the case that America had the choice between good (a Harris win), bad (a Harris win which was nullified by the states/Supreme Court installing Trump back into the White House) or ugly (a Trump win):

It would be ugly because Trump has made it loud and clear that he is seeking retribution. When I heard Trump say he'd be a dictator on day one, I understood it to be his intention to suspend the Constitution. Should this come to pass, and it survives judicial challenges, then Trump is free to jail and execute his enemies real and imagined, restrict the First Amendment by shutting down the free press, and make himself President-for-Life. 

If a second Trump terms results in Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the Obamas, the Clintons, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney being imprisoned and/or executed for treason then none of us are safe. What consequences would I face from a second Trump Administration for posting these thoughts? Would I lose the job I worked so hard to earn? Or would I lose a great deal more than that?

What makes this truly ugly is that we will have freely chosen this path with no hope of going back. There are a great many Trump supporters who despise immigrants, look down upon women and LGBTQ persons and cannot countenance any viewpoint contrary to their own. These are people who are sick of democracy and want to try something else. 

Well, we chose ugly. This is exactly what is so lamentable. The outcome was of our own making. If a plurality of Americans has concluded an unemployment rate of 4.1% and an inflation rate of 2.9% is a catastrophe, then we truly have no idea how good we have it. Granted, the 4.1% who are unemployed might not have it so good right now, but they are in a better position to find work that if the unemployment rate were 8.1%. We are the authors of our own discontent.

President Biden managed a COVID pandemic, produced sustained levels of low unemployment, reduced inflation, got an infrastructure bill passed, enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Yet none of it mattered. He was all but kicked to the curb from seeking a second term because he couldn't stand on a debate stage with a convicted felon. Harris capably stood on the debate stage with Trump, and it meant absolutely nothing. 

We freely chose the man whose policies led to the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of people because he didn't think being prepared for a pandemic was a priority.

I shudder to think what America has to lose during yet another Trump Administration. At this point, I am free to criticize President-elect Trump for his words and deeds. By this time tomorrow, the U.S. Constitution could be suspended. Even if he doesn't go that route, our freedom to criticize Trump will be eroded. 

With that, I must reiterate what I wrote the day before the election. Will the words in this blog result in me losing my job or perhaps losing my life? It is a question I thought I would not have to ask during my near quarter century in the United States. But now the question must be asked, and I have a feeling I won't like the answer. 

Until such time when the answer is revealed, I shall continue to speak out against Donald Trump, his words and deeds as President of the United States as I see fit. People are free to accept, reject or ignore my critique as always. Yet it must be said that if the incoming President of the United States cannot abide what I write in this space, then he will have once again demonstrated that he is ill-suited for the task for which he has been chosen. Trump might be immune from prosecution, but he is not immune from criticism. It is our duty to exercise that right as long as we have it.

At the hour Trump is inaugurated, I plan to meet my former roomie Christopher Kain at the MFA Boston to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is my hope that I can while away a couple of hours seeing the beauty produced in art from America and beyond. 

Alas, those hopes might be dashed. The weather system which has forced Trump's inauguration to take place indoors is dumping snow on both Boston and Providence at this hour and early into tomorrow morning. I have already shoveled snow twice on Sunday evening and will undoubtedly do more when I awake later this morning. By which time, the temperatures will have dropped considerably making the snow harder to dig. A harbinger of cold, hard times to come perhaps.

The time has come to sleep on things. Life carries on - for now.