A Million Reasons

A Million Reasons

Lady Gaga has a song about leaving a soured relationship with a million reasons to leave and needing only one reason to stay. Until January 20th when Joe Biden was sworn in, I often thought I had a million reasons for disliking, even despising the “former guy” and in search for that one reason to give him credit for doing something right. That search ended, empty-handed January 6th.

I have read some very well-conceived “million reasons” , here are a few of mine:

Almost all of his cabinet nominees were not only corrupt men and women, but included individuals who were completely ignorant of the offices they were put in charge of, and many, if not most were former lobbyists whose former roles were to work in opposition to the mission of those cabinet positions. Very much placing the fox in the hen house.

During his campaign 45* bragged of sexual exploits, forcing himself on women without their permission, “…because when you’re famous you can do that.” This included kissing, groping and gabbing their privates. Put off as “locker room talk”, it fell apart when 20 women came forward with complaints that he had followed up on those boasts.

Although marriage and divorce are commonplace today, having a President who has been married three times with five children from those three wives pushes the limits of a role model we expect from our top leaders. Knowing that he cheated on all three, including a tryst with a Playboy Model and an Adult Film Actress, then paid them off to guarantee their silence a month before the election (his quashing an “October Surprise”) a violation of Federal Election Laws (he never reported the funds) went well over the limit.

He openly mocked a disabled reporter at one of his many “Campaign style” rallies that he continued to organize well into his Presidency, forums in which he name-called, and encouraged his followers to inflict violence on peaceful protesters; “Punch him in the face” “Carry him out on a stretcher.”

He was reported to have told over 20,000 lies, told so easily and so abundantly that he impressed many as a function of a man who was a “Pathological Liar” one who actually believed all his lies, and a “Compulsive Liar” a man who could not help himself from lying, he almost HAD to lie. His branding any facts or news that he did not like “Fake News” undermined the Free Press.

His attacking members of Congress verbally, and denigrating the Judiciary, the Press, the Intelligence Services, and other well-respected government traditions undermined them. His politicizing the Department of Justice, an independent branch under the supervision, but not control of the Executive Branch turned it into his Personal Attorney rather than the Nation’s Attorney.

Presented as a successful businessman, he refused to release his taxes despite promises to do so, and was known to have gone bankrupt bilking hundreds of businesses out of the money he owed them. He refused to pay sub-contractors who performed work for him and lost his Trump Airline, Trump Casinos, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Foundation, Trump University and more.

He somehow aligned himself with tyrants and dictators like Duerte, and Kim Jong-un, MBS, and Putin of course, all the while alienating our closest allies by backing out of multi-lateral agreements like the Paris Accords and Iran Nuclear Treaty. He sided with Putin against our intelligence services.

He was not only a science denier, calling the notion of Global Warming and Climate change a hoax, but passed executive actions that allowed corporations to back off clean air and water regulations, and other regulations (protections) that allowed coal companies and fracking firms to dump their toxic and caustic chemicals into the ground water and streams. He declared CO2 gas and asbestos as non-lethal agents all the while the planet continued to warm and people developed cancers.

He blamed Muslims and Mexicans and people of color for the problems in the U.S. and banned them explicitly as an entire group rather than responding to individuals who broke the law. He called Mexicans “rapists”, “drug dealers”, and “gang members” and threatened (promised?) to build a wall that Mexico would build and pay for. The wall was not built.

He never took the office of President serious, spending little to no time with the duties and responsibilities of the role, spending more time on his golf courses then the oval office, refusing to read his PDB (Presidential Daily Briefings) or anything of substance, preferring to communicate via social media “Tweeting” his impulsive thoughts and feelings instead.

He surrounded himself with mean-spirited and self-serving advisers and followed their advice.

And in the end, when expected to participate in the peaceful transition of power, he refused, insisting on waiting to see what the results were, conjuring up false narratives about election fraud and subterfuge by the opposition party and Democrats. When in fact he did lose the election by 36 Electoral College Votes and 7 Million Popular votes, he spread the lie that he won, “by a landslide” and encouraged his supporters to gather in Washington D.C.on January 6th, when the electoral college votes would be formally presented to both Houses of Congress. I say “formally” because that is precisely what it is, a formality.

When his followers showed up in large numbers on the 6th at a rally in front of the Whitehouse, his people and he himself egged the crowd on to fight to “Stop the Steal” what he represented as an election he won that was stolen by the Democrats. He sent representatives to swing states in an attempt to get their electors to change their votes to him, and called the Secretary of State in Georgia to pressure him to switch or “…find 11,780 votes, one more than we have” to turn that state’s electors over to his side.

All his attempts to overturn the election through legal means (70 court cases 90 judges) failed for lack of merit, and yet he continued to insist he won the election (in a landslide) and that it was stolen from him. This has lead to a complete division between the two parties with one side insisting the election was stolen and empowering them to change election laws in their states to wrest control from the democratic process in favor of local politicians.

And the only decent thing he did, was ignore Michael Flynn’s counsel to declare Martial Law and suspend the peaceful transition to the President-elect Biden on January 20th. Instead 45* boarded Marine 1, to Joint Base Andrews to fly to Mar-a-Lago on Air Force One.