When I was a little boy, I used to ask my parents questions that would help me understand the basics of living in America. I remember what they told me about electing the president of the United States, and the qualities most people looked for in the person who would ultimately come to occupy the highest office in the land.
Though I can’t remember anything more specific about the conversation, I definitely recall that “honesty” and “high moral character” were at the top of the list, and I went through my life believing this to be the case.
You can imagine my surprise and dismay when, half a century later, Donald Trump arrived on the political scene. I called my mother, and asked how it was possible that this man has any traction whatsoever with American voters.
She was almost as shocked as I was.
For most of our lives, many of us boomers have believed that the biggest threat to the United States was our president, starting with Tricky Dick Nixon, the inventor of the “trickle-down economics,” liar Ronald Reagan, and GW (the moron) Bush.
But yes, none of us was prepared for the cold, calculating criminal who is Donald Trump.
There Were Prior Threats to the Nation Stemming from the White House
The fact that human activity is unsustainable has been revealed to us gradually over the last century. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” was published 63 years ago.
That said, the ideas of climate change, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity have been essentially unchallenged by scientists for just the last couple of decades.
The only thing standing in the way of rapid environmental progress is greed, and in the end, that may prove to be an unbeatable foe. Decarbonizing our grid and transportation sector will eventually destroy the fossil fuel industry, a group so powerful that it has a stranglehold, both on our lawmakers and on our corporate-owned media, that works so hard to misinform our citizenry.
It’s still possible that our most senior military leaders will insert themselves in time to prevent some truly catastrophic event here in the United States/abroad.
I keep thinking I’ll read about an exchange like this:
Trump: We’re invading Greenland.
Some four-star general: The f*** we are.
This may sound like a pipe dream, but these are people of real honor and integrity who take their oaths to our constitution quite seriously.
Will the U.S. Top Military Intervene Before Trump Inflicts Irreparable Damage
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