Former President Donald Trump is in the race to become the next President of the United States. He can do that because he lost the last race to Joseph Biden, the current President, and can still run for a second term. Remarkedly, he lost the popular vote of the people in the race he won and the one he lost.
Trump is fashioning his campaign around promises of ridding the government of the “deep state,” all “those” people especially the “corrupt” Democrats, and more specifically, the departments that wronged him — that would be anything related to law enforcement such as the FBI and Department of Justice.
You may recall that Trump promised as much in his first term along with stopping all “those” people coming across the border. He promised a wall along the border that would be funded by Mexico.
Apparently, he needs a second term to fulfill “those” promises of his first term, although he did manage to get 47 feet of wall built on a multi-mile border paid for by taxpayers — American taxpayers.
Trump had some success in discrediting the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) during a worldwide pandemic by prohibiting including necessary science on their website.
Credit where credit is due though, Trump did get the ball rolling on a preventative vaccine.
Erasing certain people
Trump creates general hysteria on the left and center media outlets with his comments that sound a lot like hate speak and authoritarian rhetoric. Analysts abound that cite example after example of his phrases and words that inspire blind allegiance to following him on a path on which he promises “only he” can protect them.
All that would not engender so much hysteria if he were seen only as a ranting eccentric narcissist man long past his prime. Instead, his rallies draw thousands of people in the audience who wildly cheer him and his message of hate, revenge, exclusion and oppression.
Who knew there were so many people longing to be special and got quite excited at the prospect of eliminating the competition.
Trump gets an especially lively response on his plan to take down universities and their teachings of science and critical thinking, a form of Ron DeSantis’s take-down of public education K-12 in Florida by simply outlawing certain topics like gay people and periods.
Think about the meaning behind the deliberate withholding of information, yes knowledge, of certain groups of people. If we deny by withholding the history of a group of people such as Africans brought to America to be slaves, we deny the fundamental explanation of the origins and effects of racism and centuries of oppression.
Think about the denial inherent in blinding people to the existence of people who are biologically attracted to the same sex or those biologically inclined to be the gender different from the one in which they were born. When we deny biological science, we deny the fundamental explanation of the origins and discriminatory effects of differences in behavior.
We create children who grow to be adults who are incurious about who they do not understand and worse, afraid of people who are different and more prone toget “rid” of them if only by excluding them from opportunity.
Cultural war nonsense
Cultures, of which there are many in a diverse nation like the United States, are under attack by leaders, wannabes and otherwise who have learned that attacking mores or ways of life can build a following that hangs on their words and gives them money.
The strangest attack is the one being waged on women, most likely a greater percentage of the population than men. It is not being done because women are different rather it is due to a strange desire or compulsion to take from women what should be theirs alone.
What brought this home to me was a recent (April) law passed in Florida with a prohibition against using the word “period” in grade school. So much for the Disney film I saw when I was in the fifth grade. What is the schoolteacher or nurse supposed to do when a girl goes to her for help when she has her first p*****?
Then there are the 19 states in which attorney generals are demanding access to women’s medical records of care received in another state. We are given HIPPA rights when we go to our health care providers which assures confidentiality.
The Attorney Generals’ demands preclude a woman’s right to confidential care. Oh right, that is what the supreme court ruled — women do not have that right.
On one hand, we have women treated as if they are meant to be veiled in mystery and on the other treated as if they should be naked in front of those that seek to judge them.
We should be worried that biology of women is even part of the culture wars to be trifled with without consideration of science, laws, and human dignity.
To date, Trump and the Republican party has used none of these to protect and defend women … nor have they done anything else.
More importantly, since it is the foundation of our nation, there is little indication the GOP will protect and defend democracy from the purge of all the parts of government and culture that displeases them and their front-running candidate, former President Trump as he struggles to evade the law.
We should be worried.
Bertha Cooper, an award-winning featured columnist with the Sequim Gazette, spent her career years in health care administration, program development and consultation and it the author of the award-winning “Women, We’re Only Old Once.” Cooper and her husband have lived in Sequim more than 20 years. Reach her at columnists@sequimgazette.com.
