I’ve been gone a while, folks. I’m sorry in advance for this post. The stakes in this election are simply too high for me to sit it out.
When Elon Musk announced he would help bankroll Donald Trump’s third presidential campaign, I wondered if the American people noticed or even cared for that matter. I certainly do, and I know many readers of this blog site over the years do as well. But most folks? Not so much.
What made Musk’s proclamation so troubling, however, is that he is now the owner of Twitter (yes, I will call it that because I will not recognize the name he changed it to). The fact that he’s run the social media website into the ground is not the point. It’s how he’s done it: through massive amplification of the farthest right-wing nut jobs and conspiracy theorists we’ve ever seen.
And it is this combination – his massive wealth, combined with outright lies and scant oversight over a platform with hundreds of millions of followers, that makes his endorsement of Trump so horrifying. The question, of course, is, will it matter? In the long run, will Kamala Harris become our 47th President of the United States, overcoming considerable odds? Or, will Musk and his rich buddies help propel the disgraced former President back to the White House?
Harris has a mantra she’s repeated often during her short campaign: if we vote, we win. And she’s right. If the people come out in droves, as we did in 2020, we will send Trump into the dustbin of history and, hopefully, to prison. We hope he will finally be held accountable in a court of law. If she doesn’t win? These cases will never see the light of day, and the American people will be left with an authoritarian president who will be out for revenge and render our fragile democracy impotent and a holy-owned subsidiary of wealthy plutocrats like Musk.
Musk and his pals have a lot at stake in this election. They know Trump will let them do pretty much whatever they want. He will gut regulations. Air and water standards will be a thing of the past. Climate change? Not a chance. Remember, it’s a hoax by the Chinese, according to you know who. And let’s also face the fact that the Trump family will continue to enrich themselves if he’s elected. His hero is Vladimir Putin, who happens to be one of the wealthiest men in the world. How does a president of a country become so rich? Indeed, it’s not his Russian salary. I fully expect the same for the Trump clan.
When men such as Musk and others like him have such an outsized influence on our politics, we, the people, are not getting what we deserve. In Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, he stated, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Honest Abe would be appalled today because we now have an oligarchy. According to Webster, an oligarchy is a government by the few in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.
Our 39th President, Jimmy Carter, said as much on the Thom Hartmann radio show several years ago, not long after the dreadful Citizens United decision by the United States Supreme Court in 2010. He saw the danger and recklessness of the Court’s decision, which said there could be no limits to what corporations and the wealthy could spend on our elections. After all, according to the Court, corporations are people, and money is them exercising their free speech, which our Constitution guarantees.
Of the former President’s many dangerous utterings, none raises my ire more than when he said he would appoint Elon Musk as the guy in charge of cutting government waste. Oh yeah, what a great idea. Here, a guy with billions in government contracts will take away benefits and gut agencies. What could go wrong?
There is so much at stake in this year’s election. Yes, we said the same in 2020 and 2016. But this year is the one that could change it all. I could list many reasons why voting for Kamala Harris is the right thing to do – not the least of which is that she’s a good and decent person who will undoubtedly protect and honor the Constitution of the United States.
We can’t say the same about her opponent. He hasn’t a shred of decency in him. He’s in this thing for himself—and, quite frankly, his rich buddies and bad actors worldwide. We know Putin is already helping him with another massive disinformation campaign, currently in full swing on social media. The dictators in North Korea, China, and Hungary, to name a few, also want him to win. Let’s face it: so does Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
On that last point, if any of you out there on the left think that Trump will be better for Palestinians, I’ve got news for you: He won’t. He has said that he’d make the Gaza Strip a parking lot. His son-in-law said the Strip is prime territory for condos, hotels, and retail. If you think genocide is happening now, and it sure seems as though it is, wait until the billionaires get more involved if Trump wins. I’ve come to believe that Netanyahu wants what the billionaires want.
Yes, these are scary times. But we have a choice to make things right.
Perhaps getting big money out of politics and evening the playing field so that all Americans have a somewhat equal opportunity to contribute is not your issue. I get that. But it has been for me, and I’ve said as much on this site for years and will continue to do so as long as I’m breathing. We can have a better and cleaner democracy that works for all of us. But not if you decide to vote for Trump or not to vote at all.
Harris has said she’d support repealing the Citizens United decision. In fact, the group End Citizens United has praised her for her long-standing advocacy for voting rights and strengthening democracy by cosponsoring several pieces of legislation that would remove big money from politics and shine a light on so-called dark contributions. Would Trump or the GOP do any of these things? Of course not.
When you combine the wealth of plutocrats, in this country and abroad, with a morally bankrupt and corrupt man like Trump, who could become the next President, can you afford to sit this election out? Or, if you do vote, will you cast your ballot for someone like Jill Stein, who was partially, if not totally, responsible for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016?
The choice is clear. Yesterday, I voted for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I placed my ballot in the envelope and dropped it off at our local City Hall here in Oregon. I believe in my heart that America will be in good hands with Kamala. She’s said that she will be President for all Americans, and I believe that to be true.
One more thing. The next President could nominate two or three Supreme Court Justices during their term. Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito have expressed a desire to retire. If Trump wins, they might do just that. And you can bet that he will nominate only those loyal to him and the billionaires. In other words, even further to the right than those two guys.
Folks, we have a chance, a real chance, to put the proverbial nail in Trump’s coffin finally, and thus, the MAGA movement once and for all. An overwhelming victory would be the best outcome, which would diminish his ridiculous pronouncements that the election is somehow rigged against him.
Unfortunately, A Harris victory will not solve the divisiveness in America that Trump has only made worse during his nearly nine years on the political stage. We’ve got a lot of work to do.
I fear we have a tough few months ahead. Let’s begin the healing process by defeating Trump as soundly and convincingly as possible. And yes, our democracy depends on it.
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On The Fence Voters 
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