I’m not going to say Trump is responsible for the huge shift in public attitudes towards cops and crime—namely, that voters are demanding greater support for police, stricter DAs to file felony charges against thugs, and judges that don’t return convicted felons to the streets.
Trump is taking credit for these things, of course, but in actuality the same trends and tendencies that brought about these welcome changes contributed to his election. The trends, in other words, brought about Trump’s victory, not the other way around. People shouldn’t be fooled.
Republicans have always tried to “own” issues related to public safety. They’ve also tended to support the police. I supported their supporting cops, but I hated the way they connected it with “the flag” and the cheesy patriotism that oozes out of the Republican Party. When I see Trump gazing fondly at the American flag and crossing his right hand over his heart, I know it’s phony, the same kind of phoniness as when he claims the Bible is his favorite book. Trump is about as “Christian” as I am. He’s scammed credulous conservative Christians for years and he’s still doing it. Did you ever see those photos of evangelicals laying hands on him while he sits there pretending he’s thinking about God but is really waiting for the second he can take a shower and wash off their germs?
Well, Trump has overplayed his hand this time. It’s all about hubris. The polls strongly indicate that Americans—including many Christians—finally realize that Trump is stuffing the government with unelected autocrats, like Elon Musk, who are taking a wrecking ball to our government and national institutions for their own personal profit. There’s nothing really surprising about this: Trump’s sinister hatchet man, Steve Bannon, for years has spoken of demolishing American institutions and blasting them to smithereens, so that he and his fellow neo-Nazis on the right can rebuild them along Christo-fascist lines. And now that they’re actually doing it, the American people are freaking out.
Here’s how Joe Lunchbucket is thinking: “We’re going to be paying $10,000 more for a car? Eggs will go up another 50%? Everything from China—my kids’ lunchbox, sneakers, jeans, Play Station—will double in price? Avocadoes will be $4 apiece? We didn’t vote for that!”
But you did, Republicans. You were warned. We told you, over and over, that Trump was bad news. Now, he’s insulting every ally we have—not just Canada and Mexico, but Europe, with whom we built an alliance that has protected the West for nearly 80 years. America will soon find herself isolated from the international community, except for such inspirational democracies as Russia and North Korea. But of course, here at home we’ll still have Donald Trump and his freedom-loving colleagues including J.D. Vance and Speaker Johnson, who would love to burn the Constitution and turn America into a Christian theocracy where Gay people are persona non grata and pregnant women who do not wish to bear a child will be given special MAGA coat hangers.
So, my friends, even if you welcome the advent of Trump and you hate wokeism, you should understand that you are now reaping the whirlwind. Nobody loathes wokeism more than I, but I for one am not willing to flush our democracy down the MAGA toilet the way Republicans are. We can celebrate the shift in America toward public safety and against criminals without turning our nation into a theocracy straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Steve Heimoff