You and I have have had the fruitless conversations:
“You’re voting for Trump?”
“Let’s talk about it.”
There’s an old story. A reporter heard about an old Jew who went every day to the Wailing Wall to pray. Twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.
The reporter went to the Wailing Wall. And there he was.
The reporter watched him pray. After about 45 minutes, he turned to leave, using a cane. She approached him.
“Pardon me Sir, I’m Rebecca Smith from CNN, What’s your name?
“Maury Fishbein,” he replied.
“Sir, how long have you been coming to the Wailing Wall and praying?”
“About 60 years.”
“What do you pray for?”
“I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the wars and hatred to stop, I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults, to love their fellow man.”
“How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?”
“Like I’ve been talking to a wall.”
I’m talking to my friends, many Trump supporters.
Yesterday billionaire hedge fund maven, Bill Ackman, went on CNBC to say why has voting for Trump: American hostages in Gaza, too much immigration and inflation. He gave 33 reasons in a long X (formerly Twitter) post, that also include the Afghanistan Withdrawal, Antisemitism and Social Unrest.
To you and I, Donald Trump is a seriously flawed human being who should never be allowed near the White House again.
The Atlantic just published a piece
Trump’s Depravity Will Not Cost Him His Election
Many Americans know exactly who Trump is, and they like it.
In that piece, Tom Nichols wrote:
For millions of the GOP faithful …Trump’s daily attempts to breach new frontiers of hideousness are not offensive but reassuring. They want Trump to be awful — precisely because the people they view as their political foes will be so appalled if he wins. If Trump’s campaign was focused on handing out tax breaks and lowering gas prices, he’d be losing, because for his base, none of that yawn-inducing policy stuff is transgressive enough to be exciting…
Some Trump voters may believe his lies. But plenty more want Trump to be terrifying and stomach-turning so that reelecting him will be a fully realized act of social revenge. Harris cannot propose any policy, offer any benefit, or adopt any position that competes with that feeling.
You can read the full piece: Trump’s Depravity
Once in the White House, he’ll stay there, buoyed by the Supreme Court ruling that a President is immune from prosecution when exercising the ‘core powers’ of the presidency. It didn’t define core powers. They could be anything.
Today the New York Times is running a piece,
As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator
John Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist.
The piece contained this paragraph:
In the interviews (with the NYTimes), Mr. Kelly expanded on his previously expressed concerns and stressed that voters, in his view, should consider fitness and character when selecting a president, even more than a candidate’s stances on the issues.
You can read the full piece Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator
Meanwhile, to add weight to ruling like a dictator, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine published a piece
TRUMP: ‘I NEED THE KIND OF GENERALS THAT HITLER HAD’
The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.
Goldberg writes in his article:
As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” …
A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.
You can read Goldberg’s Atlantic piece Trump_ ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’
So, we’ll have a dictator, but the economy will be fine.
Hang on there. The New Yorker’s John Cassidy has just published a piece:
What Would Donald Trump Do to the Economy?
If he takes office, a trade war, higher prices, labor shortages, a gaping deficit, and a showdown between the White House and the Fed all seem highly likely.
So, even if it’s impossible to predict the exact economic outcome if Trump wins on November 5th, some of the results do seem eminently predictable: a trade war, higher prices, labor shortages, a bigger deficit, rising concerns about long-term debt sustainability, a reversal of efforts to transition to a low-carbon economy, and an undermining of the rule of law. All in all, it’s an alarming prospect—one that could soon come to pass.
Cassidy concludes:
The U.S. economy “would be more than 1 percent smaller in 2028—at the end of the four years of the second Trump administration—than in 2024,..
You can read the piece What Would Donald Trump Do to the Economy
But he’s a great businessman, say my friends, the Trump supporters.
Frankly, he’s not. He’s a crook, who doesn’t pay his bills. He’s starts businesses with no forethought or plan. His businesses fail and fail again.
The New York Times did an exhaustive piece — the research was clearly many months of work:
The article begins:
When the history of the 2024 election is written, one of the iconic images illustrating it will surely be the mug shot taken of Donald J. Trump after one of his four indictments, staring into the camera with his signature glare. It is an image not of shame but of defiance, the image of a man who would be a convicted felon before Election Day and yet possibly president of the United States again afterward.
Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”
In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.
You can (and should) read he entire article. Click here.
Now to some of my personal reasons to fear Donald Trump:
+ My parents fled Nazi Europe because they were Jewish. They went to Australia. When I was 27, I came to America for an MBA. My parents encouraged me to stay here in the United States. They wanted a way out of Australia if someone should come to power who admired Hitler and his generals, i.e. a dictator, a fascist. Ironic how the world has turned. Australia is now sane and safe from dictators.
+ Donald won’t learn. He doesn’t read briefing papers. His breath of ignorance is staggering. Remember Covid? Remember injecting bleach? And Hydroxychloroquine. With his insane and ignorant recommendations he killed many thousands of Americans. I can’t forgive him those Covid deaths.
+ He spouts nonsense. China pays for the tariffs. Mexico pays for the wall. Overseas countries are emptying their prisons and sending us their bad guys. Haitians eat dogs and cats, etc.
+ His “plans” include locking up and deporting 11 million people. Imagine the cruelty he will inflict on all those families. Imagine what that would do to an American economy already desperately short of workers.
+ He’s basically a crook. I live in New York. My friends have quietly told me stories of Donald Trump’s dishonesty. He owes Rudy Giuliani $2 million for legal fees. Because of Trump, Rudy has lost his license to practice law. has lost his apartment, and is now bankrupt. Today I actually feel sorry for Rudy.
+ He fomented an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Five people died during or shortly after the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. This includes four protesters and one police officer. Additionally, approximately 140 officers were injured during the event. When confronted during the insurrection with the fact that then Vice President Mike Pence’s life was in danger, Trump said “So What?”
+ Donald Trump has has only one focus in life. It’s not the Constitution. It’s not the American public. It’s himself. “Transactional” is the operative word. It’s that word that describes why Elon Musk and other billionaires are aligning themselves with Trump. They believe the millions they’re giving Trump will come back to them in spades — lighter regulation, huge tariffs on electric cars that compete with Tesla, lower taxes… I don’t have the imagination, nor the wealth to figure all the benefits.
I completed this blog at 2:45 AM Thursday October 24, 2024. I am crying. This is not what I wanted for the country I emigrated to, made a family in, and love so dearly.
Please encourage your friends to register and vote for Kamala. She is a decent, honest, strong human being who will follow our constitution and our rule of law.
If you can’t access the New York Times piece, email me and I’ll send you a PDF. I wanted to include it but it’s a huge 20 meg PDF file.
Leave a polite comment on my blog.
God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.
— Harry Newton
