The Kingdom of The United States of America

As I watch from the sidelines what has become of our great nation, I reflect on our journey to this point. Two and a half centuries ago we were ruled by a king living in a foreign land. We rejected that king with a revolutionary war to establish a sovereign nation where no man would ever be king again. Ours would be a place where there would be a balance of power shared by three equal branches of government. We established our US Constitution to ensure that shared balance would be maintained.

Today, after all three branches of government have been corrupted by greed and avarice, our Constitution is in tatters. Given a second chance to use the resources of our nation to advance his personal agenda, we have a wannabe king sitting on the throne of one branch who has used intimidation, threats of violence, and empty promises to get the other two branches to fall in line with his demands.

Ignorance and stupidity are two different things. A person who is ignorant can be someone capable of learning who has not been afforded the opportunity to know and understand. Ignorance is generally a lack of knowledge or awareness. A person who is stupid, is someone who is either incapable of learning or, in the worst case, someone who is capable, but refuses to learn. A stupid person lacks intelligence or good judgement. Worse yet is the stupid person who thinks they are smart. Now imagine that worst case of stupidity residing in an individual in charge of an entire nation.

Welcome to the Land of MAGA. It is a place of wonder and puzzlement. A land where half the nation abhors what is happening but is not in a position to do anything. The other half of that nation is further divided with conflict. On one side of that latter half, we find the Trump loyalists who would follow their lead lemming over a cliff* to a certain death. The rest of the former MAGA faithful no longer are enamored with his antics, but fear reprisal or retribution at any sign of rebellion. The few who express dissent are castigated.

Footnote: *No, lemmings do not typically jump off cliffs to commit suicide. This widely held belief is a myth, popularized by a 1958 Disney film, White Wilderness. In reality, the scene was staged by Disney filmmakers, who pushed or threw the lemmings off a cliff to create the illusion of mass suicide. The lemming analogy is here to illustrate a point and not to explain animal behavior beyond that of those blinded by little red caps made in China.

FOLLOW UP

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My recent post titled, The Kingdom of The United States of America, raised the ire of a MAGA friend of mine. His comment is included as a “cut ‘n paste” section below. My reply follows below his remarks.

MAGA friend: “What a lengthy Diatribe of Whatever you were trying to convey. I wish I knew what you read to get the ideas you talk about. You seem to Hate anything MAGA these days. Well, I guess you always have for that matter now that I think about it. Either way, we, you and I, seem to have a totally different impression of our President. I know you did Not mention him by name but I am assuming this is who you are referring to, MAGA, etc. Mr. Trump is a Successful Businessman and was once had a successful Entertainment show - "The Apprentice, etc.". He has an Ego, but a lot of people have egos. Not a Crime as far as I know. The thing I wish you would remember or at least consider is that he is also a Good American. He really wants what is best for America and Americans. This means YOU and ME also. If it benefits him, so what? What I have found by what the News Media shows, both Dems and Conservative, is that a lot of people do NOT understand what he is doing. They take the most Negative positions on everything and talk about them as if They, the Media, knows what the Hell he is talking about. They have No clue. I think a lot of Americans are the same. They have No Clue. It may be that ONLY Mr. Trump has a Clue. As long as it is for the Benefit of America and the American people it does Not matter. I tend to respect the Opinions of Successful people. People like Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk. I even respected Ted Turner at one time. I think he hurt himself though when he sold CNN and married Jane Fonda. There are others but I will not belabor the point. Success does Not mean you are always Nice but it does Not make you a Villain either. Either way you look at it, Donald J. Trump is trying his Damnedest to Help America. Try to Remember that and don't focus so much on the Negative. Just a Thought.”

My reply:

If you didn’t understand what I wrote, I will assure you that you are among the half of America still supporting Donald Trump and are officially in the half of that half still enamored with his message.

Your belief that he is a successful businessman is perhaps factually true if you allow the term success to include those who are crooked deceitful law breakers. Most successful business types that I know never went bankrupt even once, certainly not six times. In one example, Trump’s Taj Mahal opened in April 1990 in Atlantic City, but six months later, he defaulted on interest payments to bondholders. He declared bankruptcy in 1991 when he couldn’t keep up with the massive debt he ran up under his “successful businessman” leadership. He did this on two other casinos and on the Plaza Hotel in 1992. Later he bankrupted two other properties for a total of six. The one in 1992 lost his investors $1.8 billion. I’m sure there are investors out there that would not laud Mr. Trump as being a successful businessman.

No, his gargantuan ego is not a crime but not one most people would want in their leader. Many psychiatrists see such displays as a mental disorder.

This Good American as you call him, is selling Americans on the need to suffer a bit and tighten their belts so that American manufacturing can return. Meanwhile he is expanding his businesses in foreign lands. Most recently his “business deals” in the Middle East are with people he once called terrorists responsible for 9-11. This good American is a draft dodger just like his grandfather before him. No patriarchal member of the Trump family has ever served in the military.

Trump is claiming to be cutting waste in government while costing the taxpayers millions each week so he can play golf more times than any president ever before. His Big Beautiful Bill is set to increase the national debt (not reduce it) by an estimated $3.3 trilllion over the next 10 years.

While he is campaigning on cutting Medicare fraud, you need to be reminded that he has pardoned seven people convicted of Medicare fraud during his first term in office and he just pardoned Paul Walczak who defrauded the government in a tax fraud scheme that netted him $10 million. Trump did this only after Paul’s mother donated $1 million to Trump at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. Many of these people now don’t have to even pay restitution to us taxpayers. What a mensch. In Mr. Walczak’s case, his family donates $1M to Trump and he gets to keep the $4M he was supposed to pay back to defrauded taxpayers. What a country.

I agree with you that Trump is trying his damnedest to Help America, but he is doing it one American at a time starting with himself and then his family. Hell, he even tried to help Musk sell Tesla’s on the White House driveway and he has sold personal access to the winners of his bitcoin lottery. Many of those winners were from foreign lands enriching our president in untraceable donations.

I will continue to look for the positive in Trump but so far all I’ve found is bupkis.