What Democracy Does and Doesn’t Look Like

Drum roll please. OMFG, this piece is number 100 of OMFGTRUMP!

I started this blog because I was challenged to stop whining about The Don’s victory. Specifically, I was confronted and asked, “So what are you going to do about it?”
As they say, the rest is history.

When people ask me why I continue to write, I tell them it’s because I must.
From a personal perspective, it is an emotional imperative: it is a kind of therapy; it is a way of transmuting all the toxicity of the daily trauma The Don creates; it is a way to expel the poison that seeps inside on a daily basis; it is a means of survival in the face of moral turpitude, malfeasance, mendacity, maliciousness, malignancy, and of course small hands.

I also continue to write because as a writer I feel compelled to document one of the most extraordinary and bigly political moments in our history. I would write whether or not people read this blog.

With all the outrageous things that have transpired, the most concerning is The Don’s assault on facts and the truth, which have attacked the fabric of our democratic institutions. The Republican’s complicity in this process has led to an abdication of their ethical and moral responsibility to speak truth to power and have emboldened a man who has no interest but his own and whose megalomaniacal pursuit of admiration and power create a toxic brew.

Their lack of action has reinforced his demagogic fantasies and allowed a disturbed and dangerous man–a malignant narcissist, to run rampant and trample over our democratic institutions. Hopefully, history will expose their collusion in this heinous process and they will be remembered as the spineless sycophants they are.

All over the world xenophobia and right wing agendas are on the rise. The Don did not create this movement, but he was the perfect person for this moment. The fact that he is the leader of the “free world” and is brazenly promulgating anti-democratic rhetoric and values, gives credence to these authoritarian regimes. Rather than the U.S. standing up to this withering of democratic values, The Don has remained silent or worse, has commended these leaders for their strength. Not to get too hysterical, but this was how Hitler came to power!

Despite The Don’s assault on the press and decrying of “fake news” at every turn, the press and the coveted 1^st amendment, which protects freedom of speech, continues to hold him accountable and speak truth to power. It is through the diligence and power of the press that the truth will be known. We must speak out and demand the truth, as only the truth will set us free. So I will continue to write, as that is the privilege democracy affords.

Each day I awake, I hope it is the day the Robert Mueller delivers the fatal blow to The Don’s presidency. Realistically, I know this will be a slow and grinding process, but I believe the truth will be revealed and democracy will prevail.

To this date, people from more than 70 countries have visited OMFG. I thank you for your interest and hope you will spread the word to others. I will continue to share my thoughts and observations, as the resistance must continue!

I want to make a special shout-out to Jinnifer Douglass, who as my technical wizard is responsible for the design and images that support this blog. Also, thanks to Sarah Landew, who has faithfully proof-read every piece.

The Don’s assault on democracy:

The Don came right out of the box after his inauguration with his Muslim Travel Ban. The attempt to ban people from this country because of their religious affiliation was unconstitutional.

Thankfully, injunctions were brought against the ban and the courts stopped it.

From the beginning, The Don has ignored and frankly laughed at the Emoluments Clause which prohibits elected officials from using their office to enhance their wealth. The Don has never divested from his business practices and has been profiting from his presidency in unprecedented ways. Whether it is his hotel in Washington, where foreign governments and lobbyist stay to curry favor with the White House, or Mar-a-Lago, where people pay large sums of money to cozy up to The Don, his blatant defiance of the ethics of the office has been on full display since the beginning.

Just last week the Attorney General of Maryland and Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit claiming The Don has violated the Emoluments Clause and a summons has been sent to The Don; The Don is now a named defendant and has three weeks to respond to the court. The court is weighing in here as well.

He has attacked the courts and specific judges because he didn’t approve of their rulings. Most notably he went after Judge Curiel, who was overseeing a class action lawsuit concerning students who claimed they were defrauded by Trump University, because he was Mexican! (He was born in Indiana!) But irony of irony, this same judge cleared a major obstacle standing in the way of building The Don’s cherished border wall. Guess he is not a “bad hombre” after all, but don’t expect The Don to apologize any time soon for his initial racist statements regarding Curiel’s ethnicity.

His attempt to delegitimize the press by decrying “fake news” at every turn has been egregious. He has banned certain reporters from press events and would be very happy if Fox Fake News was the only game in town. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the Washington Post, has been under siege by The Don. He has shown vigorous support for Sinclair, a news organization that demands that its anchors make certain statements regarding “fake news.”

“So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.”

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He has obstructed justice by firing James Comey and has suggested firing Robert Mueller. He has spoken to witnesses who have testified to Robert Mueller, bullied Senators and Jeff Sessions to shut down the special prosecutor. He has attacked our Department of Justice and the F.B.I. in attempt to delegitimize the investigation in to Russia’s involvement in our election and The Don’s involvement in this.

Voting rights continued to be under assault. Cutbacks to early voting and same-day registration, polling place closings, voter-roll purges, racially discriminatory redistricting (gerrymandering) and felon disenfranchisement laws harm minority voters more. The Don’s campaign added its own twist:

Shortly before the election, a senior official with the Trump campaign gloated: “We have three major voter suppression operations underway,” which the article described as targeting “idealistic white liberals, young women, and African-Americans.”

It was suggested that the campaign would use this image to discourage a demographic category described by the reporters as infrequent black voters in Florida. “Only the people we want to see it, see it,” he explained. “It will dramatically affect the ability to turn these people out.”

The recent decision to include a question about citizenship in the 2020 census will have profound effects. The census count determines how many House seats each state gets. The census is also used to determine how more than $600 billion in federal spending is allocated across the country, including Medicaid, food stamps and grants to schools. Asking about citizenship will reduce responses from immigrant families, which are already less likely than others to answer government surveys and are today terrified by President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. An inaccurate count is likely to provide more representation to states with fewer immigrants and relatively higher response rates and take seats away from states like California where response rates would be relatively lower. Given the geography of American politics, that would probably lead to more power for Republicans, and less for Democrats.

The assault is fast and furious and only seems to be intensifying as The Don lashes out at anyone that disagrees with him. These are dangerous times. We need the courts, and the press to continue to stand up to him and hold him accountable. We need a legislative branch to check him. Hopefully, the 2018 midterm elections will put the democrats back in charge of the House of Representatives, the Senate?

But we the people must push back and take a stand against the cancer that The Don spreads. We must be the chemotherapy that stops it in its tracks and eventually destroys it.

So here is what democracy looks like:

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