The following paragraph, taken from Federalist I, was written by Alexander Hamilton on October 27, 1787. This essay seems to describe the choice we, the electorate, have to make in the Presidential Election of November 2024.
“Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.”
The 87 essays that make up the Federalist Papers were an attempt by three members of the Constitutional Convention to explain to New Yorkers why the newly written Constitution should be ratified. The words in the preamble, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” are beautiful and meaningful, they do not delineate why or how the proposed (laws) articles should be interpreted. Think what we may of the framers, and of their personal biases or flaws, they were forward thinkers and did try to “form a more perfect Union.”
We must remember that the colonies had just succeeded in seceding from England. As such, they were forging a government of the people by the people. The purpose of the Constitution was to formalize a set of guiding principles that this new government would adhere to to self-govern. Along the way, many self-serving entities and individuals have interpreted the words in a manner that benefited them. There have been groups with nefarious motives and ill will toward others, lest we forget the ills of the attempt at genocide (native peoples), the enslavement of Africans, and the pseudoscience of Eugenics. This leads me to the above-quoted paragraph from Federalist I.
On January 6, 2021, after losing the Presidential election, having gone on a mission to prove that the election was stolen from him yet having every court it was argued before refute that notion, the loser of the election, Donald J. Trump, and his minions agitated and incited his followers. From Representative Mo Brooks yelling “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” to Trump’s then Attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, proclaiming “Let’s have trial by combat”, to Trump,s own words “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated,” and then, “So we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give.
The Democrats are hopeless. They never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help. We will try to give them the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country.
So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
This is the embodiment of what Hamilton was warning us against 237 years ago when he said, “. . .and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.” Never in the 219 years (1801-2016) since the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, which set a precedent, being the first peaceful transfer of power between political parties in American history, has there ever been a disruption. Up until that fateful day when Donald Trump lost, and he and his MAGA followers refused to accept that loss, has there ever been a strain in what had historically been a hallmark of American Democracy? The leaders of the MAGA movement led, guided, and manipulated their followers into a failed coup d’é·tat. However, a revolution is not always won by sheer force (the storming of the Capitol Building); it is won by many coordinated groups. In street parlance, this would be called a long con, meaning planning for a payday later while convincing everyone that the payday would be immediate. Trump’s revolution began as soon as he was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. While Trump (here I refer to Trump and his ranking officials) created confusion among the masses. The real planning was taking shape behind the scenes. The biggest victory for the MAGA movement was appointing three additional conservative Supreme Court Justices. This court, the highest in the land and ranking supreme above all other courts, interprets the laws. And since these justices are appointed for life, their interpretations will have ramifications for future generations. I mentioned the pseudo-science of Eugenics; well, we should pay close attention to what is happening today. Trump’s comments speak for themselves, “Good people on both sides,” “theyre sending drug dealers. . .” “. . .they’re poisoning our blood, the blood of our country. . .” Trump’s stance on the Second Amendment, his position on women’s reproductive rights, and how his Supreme Court has been interpreting the Constitution regarding those issues. Then, there is the most devasting interpretation of all. The opinion was handed down on Monday, July 1, 2024. The Supreme Court has actually granted the former President total immunity for all acts performed while in his official capacity of President. It shields Donald J. Trump from basically all the wrongdoing (Crimes) he committed in his attempts to 1) prevent Joe Biden from being sworn in and 2) incite the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
I believe that the six conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to grant total immunity are banking on Donald Trump winning back the Presidency in November 2024. If Trump were to get elected, the United States of America, nay the world, are in for a day of reckoning. While it will not be called Eugenics, the concepts promulgated will be. All people of color know intrinsically what is meant by the terms “take back America,” “Make America Great,” “Make America Great Again.” Who are they taking America back from? If America is the greatest nation in the world, why must it be made great? Those terms do not apply to people of color, i.e., genocide (native peoples), slavery (black people), the Chinese Exclusionary Act, and how Spanish speakers were and continue to be treated. So, while some may want to decry Hamilton as a slave owner, which he was, the words he articulated in The Federalist were, and remain to this day, to be true. Good men, and even great men who have achieved and done great things for others, are human beings with defects in their character or moral deficiencies. In fact, all human beings do. No one is perfect. But before we dismiss Hamilton completely because he was a slave owner, let us see the assertion that he put forth. In Federalist I, he warned us of “. . . men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold. . .” and still further he states !. . .who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects. . .”
Last week (June 27, 2024), Joe Biden performed miserably in his debate against Donald Trump. While Trump lied and pivoted the questions back to his canned response about immigrants killing Americans, he did appear to be vigorous. Since that debate, the news media has focused on Biden’s poor performance. This debate was a 90-minute performance, and the media is minimizing his last three and one-half years as President and judging him by these last 90 minutes. As the media continues to fan the flames of Biden’s poor performance, they are negating Trump’s actions and behavior while president, especially after he lost. They make it seem as if January 6, 2021, was just a bad day, that Trump did not go on tour spreading the big lie, that the election was stolen, and that Biden is an illegitimate President. They seem to forget that Trump stated and continues to state that if re-elected, he will show retribution, and everyone who did not kiss his ring (so to speak) will feel his wrath.
Many people are smarter than me, such as correspondents, pundits, talking heads, politicians, scholars, elected officials, lawyers, judges, etc. Why, then, do they not see what I see? Hamilton, in 1787, warned us about men with “perverted ambition” that “. . . hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country. . . We can easily revert to a monarchy -All Hail King Trump- or we can continue to safeguard this wonderful American experiment. For 248 years, this great experiment of Democracy has held strong and led the world. We are in real danger if Donald Trump is elected again. He may forfeit our membership in NATO, which may align with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Germany was a thriving metropolis full of culture and a bustling economy. I am pretty sure that the German people did not expect Adolph Hitler to form a Nazi Party and begin to incinerate people when they elected him Chancellor. But he did. And it took a world war to end his reign. Today, many nations have access to nuclear weapons, and a world war today will be the end of all humankind. The entire world could be annihilated. This is not to scare anyone. It’s to get you to think. I’m a 70-year-old man. I have lived a full life. But I’m really scared. I am fearful of the type of world my grandchildren and their children will inherit if Donald Trump gets elected in November 2024.
No one thinks it’ll happen to them until it does. No one believed Donald Trump would undo Roe v Wade, but he did. No one believed Trump would hope to aggrandize himself by confusing the masses, but he did. We wrecked so much confusion that people overlooked the policies and restructuring he was silently implementing in government. Democrats, it appears, always want to take the high road and stand on moral ground. Republicans, on the other hand, stick to the plan. They kick ass and take names. For example, they fought like hell to prevent President Obama from appointing Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing that it was too late in the term and that the incoming President should be the one to fill the vacancy. They caved in, and Trump won and appointed Neil Gorsuch. Then he appointed Brett Kavanaugh. In a similar instance, with less time than Obama, Trump appointed Amy Coney Barrett. The Democrats did not fight like hell, kick-ass, or take names. They allowed the Republicans to force Coney Barrett on us. Let us not forget Trump’s COVID spreader event on the White House Lawn to celebrate her appointment, where at least eight (8) people were infected, including a journalist who was covering the event and several of Trump’s closest aides and advisers.
Donald J. Trump is reckless, moralless, vengeful, vindictive, and a convicted felon (34 to be exact). At this stage in his life, he is 78 years old and a billionaire, and he has nothing to lose. This man, Donald J. Trump, wants to go down in the annals of world history as the most infamous and despicable despot the world has known since the 15th-century governor of what is today called Romania. Vlad the Impaler was the brutal ruler on which the character Count Dracula is based. Yes, Donald Trump is even more deadly than Dracula. Trump sucks the blood out of everyone in his circumference. Just ask all his former aides, the people who quit working for him while he was still President, or the sensible employees and aides who quit after and during his lack of intervention while the Capitol Building was being ransacked, or the many contractors that he has robbed- refusing to pay them for work completed (see below for how many times Trump has been sued), or the many students that were scammed by his fake Trump Univesity.
There just are to many legal entanglements, battles and law suits Donald J. Trump has faced, and continues to face, to list them all. Following are some of the more notable ones.
From the 1970s until he was elected president in 2016, Donald Trump and his businesses were involved in over 4,000 legal cases in United States federal and state courts, including battles with casino patrons, million-dollar real estate lawsuits, personal defamation lawsuits, and over 100 business tax disputes. He has also been found guilty of sexual harassment.
Between October 2021 and July 2022 alone, the Republican National Committee paid more than $2 million dollars to attorneys representing Trump in his presidential, personal, and business capacities. The New York Times published an overview of his legal involvements as of September 2022. In January 2023, a federal judge fined Trump and his attorney nearly $1 million, characterizing him as “a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries”.
On December 6, 2022, the parent company of Trump’s many businesses, The Trump Organization, was convicted on 17 criminal charges.
After his second trial for defamation, On January 26, 2024, Trump was ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll an additional $83.3 million in damages on top of the $5 million ordered in his first defamation lawsuit.
Amazing! There are so many legal woes, yet this is the guy millions of Americans still want to elect as president.
Excerpted from Wikipedia