Many Americans pay little attention to anything beyond their own little corner of the country, much less to what is going on around the world. The political polarization we are experiencing cuts through everything, including any thought of being part of an international community that reacts to what happens here because it will, somewhere, at some point, have an affect on their lives.
So it is hard to ignore the reactions from around the world, especially from countries with whom we have been allied in common causes, and with whom we share much history and cultural background, regarding our presumptive Republican Presidential nominee. The founding fathers are rolling over and over in their graves and tombs at any thought of their constitutional protections of freedom of conscience, and free speech, would permit this former President, and current candidate, to say and do the things he does without any consequence at all, and ostensibly, without any loss of support.
Is the Polling Data Being Manipulated?
I say ostensibly, because I'm having increasing difficulty believing the poll numbers as they are being reported. I know that anecdotal evidence doesn't prove a thing, but I live in a building with a couple hundred other Americans over 55 years of age, and even though it is in a precinct in a county and state that are heavily Democratic party voters, the majority of the known Republicans in the community are openly declaring they're not going to vote for Trump, and the rest have entered radio silence on the subject. I try to be open minded, and avoid conspiracy theories, but someone, somewhere, with a lot of power and money is manipulating the poll numbers to his advantage. The Russians are the first thought that comes to mind, and there are plenty of other American billionaires who would greatly benefit from another Trump presidency who are right there behind them.
Most of the mainstream media is lost in space. We have clearly passed into a generation of news media reporters and commentators who may be decorated with degrees from prestigious colleges, but who can't come up with an intelligent thought of their own based on critical thinking and looking at and analyzing facts. It's become a game of chasing each other down, of what's hot and what's not, what's trendy and what isn't. The dress code has changed, watching reporters on the scene somewhere, who seem to be more into either accentuating their figure, or physique, and advertising the hottest clothing lines and hair styles than reporting the news. Clearly, they're being manipulated into these entrenched themes, that Biden is too old, the Democrats are in disarray, the party is fracturing, and changing the record after the fact when they get something wrong.
It makes me wonder what our public education system has been doing for the last 40 years. It's missed the boat on critical thinking skills.
And without a determination of who is actually doing the manipulating, it's obvious the science of conducting political polls has, since 2020, entered a period of error and miscalculation unlike anything we've seen in about 50 years. But the conversation is also being manipulated. Media reporting has become an exercise in chasing trends, not in finding and reporting facts. Reporters just look at what news seems to be trending and that's what they follow. There's no effort being made at all to come up with a real "scoop," as it was once called. The mainstream media is more or less just getting its information from social media. Or so it appears.
Committing Crimes and Running Wild
We do have a mechanism in this country for determining what falls outside the boundaries of freedom of conscience and free speech. One of the remarkable things that we have in our American democracy is a high degree of tolerance for differences of opinion, or, at least, we once had that degree of tolerance in other times. The boundary, defined by the law and determined by legislation and the courts, in a balance of power, is where one's speech and conscience become destructive to those democratic principles in which it is allowed to exist, and crosses over into someone else's inalienable rights.
Some actions should be obvious.
Threatening to assassinate those responsible for legislating and enforcing the law is off limits. Attacking the system itself, with the intention of overthrowing it, goes completely against any precautions that were taken to prevent such actions from occurring, and was one of the things that the founding fathers were very insistent upon writing into the constitution. The very clear boundary line on American freedom of conscience has been the place where expression interferes with the rights of another American. And the Trump insurrection on January 6, 2021, clearly crossed that boundary.
We can see, in the words, and actions, of Trump, and his sycophants, that this boundary line has been crossed with the intention of inflicting permanent damage and overthrowing democracy completely. That is obvious. What's frustrating is that many of those whom he incited to participate in a violent insurrection intended to overturn the constitution's guarantee of the peaceful transfer of power have been brought to justice, or some form of lenient justice, but he, the one who incited it, and who continues to inflame and incite rebellion against the United States, hasn't been touched and, because of who he is and how slow and cumbersome the system becomes when people with money and influence are involved, it increasingly appears that he will be able to buy enough delay to avoid justice completely. I'm not counting on ever seeing him go to prison for anything he's been indicted for as a result of January 6th, or the documents or the 2020 election.
So, we have a clearly deranged, demented, hostile, corrupt and rebellious politician not only not facing justice for the crimes he committed, but walking around in the very freedom that the democracy he desipses is providing him, mocking it, threatening it, and facing no consequences for his actions while those who are responsible for carrying out justice are working hard to delay it long enough to avoid a confrontation. And what that looks like to the rest of the world justifies their fears over their own security.
It's not a matter of not having the mechanism to deal with this. It's a matter of those who are responsible for dealing with it not having the will or the fortitude to do it. It's a matter of having created a legal system on top of a justice system that is geared for delay, to increase the profiteering around access to it. The system separates the will of the people from their ability to hold those responsible directly accountable. It has figured out how to neutralize the effects of the ballot box to preserve its income stream.
Resolving the Problem
What it's going to take, now, at this point, is for someone who has responsibility for administering justice to get the kind of courage that will be necessary to stop the delays and the obfuscation, and move forward as quickly as possible. It appears that Fani Willis, Fulton County, Georgia's district attorney, is taking steps to do this, using both the law, and public pressure. I have few doubts about Jack Smith's motivation, but he needs a ramped up, fired up, passionate attorney general behind him who is willing to bring the influence and pressure of the Presidential administration to bear, to get things moving again.
Instead of backing down from required bonds, deliberately scheduling delays or fobbing the job off on someone else, judges who are involved need to do their job. And if they don't then they need to feel public pressure leading to either the fortitude and courage they need to muster to do it, or to get out of the way, resign and let someone else who wants to work do the job.
In the long run, when we win a Congressional majority and re-elect the President in November, which I believe we will succeed at doing, we need to put some teeth in the law, put a legal stop to the endless mud bog of obfuscation and delay in the justice system, and make it much more efficient and effective in enforcing the law. The Democrats in the Senate need to end the silly filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, get rid of lifetime appointment to the federal bench and fill the judicial seats with the most liberal, far left wing judges they can still find. And that needs to be in the first 100 days.
The courts are not going to help us, and they're not going to listen. We need to create the kind of public pressure that forces them to make the right choices. To do that, we can't sit home on election day, and we have to stop giving credence to distractors like RFK Jr. and Jill Stein, who offer nothing and have no chance at doing anything except helping Trump win and self-defeat their own agenda.
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