Disturbingly, Mr. Trump’s impromptu campaign rally last week before Congress reinforced his complete departure from American foreign policy over the past 80 years. He is solidly allied with Putin and other dictators, and is picking fights with our long-term allies in Europe, not to mention wanting to annex Canada. In a few months, we find that our United States has switched sides in the Russia-Ukraine war.
At the same time, we have discarded our democracy in favor of a dictatorship. Obviously, every patriotic American is aghast at this treason. I do not believe that even the people who voted for Trump had any idea his plan was to overturn democracy and pattern the U.S. after Russia. I am quite sure they did not realize he planned to steal Social Security and Medicare funds that hundreds of millions of hardworking Americans have paid into from their paychecks over their entire working lives, and use our money to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
Let’s consider what is so attractive about Russia that makes Trump want to remake American in its image: First, it is a dictatorship that gives unlimited power to its leader, Trump’s idol Vladimir Putin. Aided by a billionaire-corrupted Supreme Court and abetted by spineless Republicans, he is well on his way to becoming King of a fascist America. The Russian “government” is organized crime on a national scale. Trump’s appointees almost all have criminal backgrounds and/or personal scandals they do not want litigated. A prime example is Matt Gaetz (Trump’s nominee for attorney general, if you recall!) and his desperate pleas for unlimited retroactive and future pardons (1) during the January 6 insurrection. Next is the elimination of all governmental oversight or restraints on businesses and corporations. They will have free reign to pollute air and water, abuse their employees, sell contaminated food, and rip off their customers. Soon the U.S. will have pollution on a par with Russia, where the life expectancy is lowest among all wealthy countries. We now sit at #48 with life expectancy of 79.46 years (2), but after Trump’s deregulation we will aim to join Russia at 111th in the world at 73.34 years.
Our already dismal standing in this category reflects our lack of universal medical coverage. The life expectancy in 16 European countries with nationalized health care is above 82 years. But when Trump and his GOP lackeys take away Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. will drop like a stone, and shocked Trump voters will be dying in droves. We will experience cart-haulers in our neighborhoods calling out “Bring out your dead!”
There are rumors that Trump was recruited by the KGB several decades ago and is now a not-so-covert Russian operative (3). Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, because everything he does weakens America, precisely as Putin would wish if he were in fact pulling the strings on his Orange Puppet.
Trump hates Americans because we voted him out of office in 2020, and he is exacting his revenge.
(1) https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/17/politics/matt-gaetz-trump-pardon-justice-department/index.html
(2) https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
Tom DeCoursey is a longtime Oak Park resident.