Have you read the story in The New York Times about Trump plans for what they will do after he regains the presidency in 2024? If a chill didn’t sweep through your body I have serious questions about whether you care about your country at all. If you cheered I would say, “Love it or leave it,” but remind you’d need a time machine to go back to when Mussolini or Hitler ascended. Or just Putin.
    This is how it’s done: fascism. The set up in any soon to be former representative Republic with soon to die democratic elements. And you may even hear the echo of my accusation that Republicans have tired of freedom for anyone but those who agree with them and seek a “one party state with, at best, a two party façade.” If any façade at all; just one party.
    The short, not even Cliffs, version of what he says they will do…
    All agencies will be packed with Trump loyalists, and must obey Trump. Trump has ultimate power over congress, the people, over justice, all the media, all businesses. In Putin fashion those who don’t obey will have their funds impounded, as will Congress if they don’t obey King Don.
    You know Putinesque poisonings, or Hitleresque ovens will follow too, right?
    Putin so loved his oligarchical fascist state he gave us his only begotten devil progeny.
    Apparently MAGA and Trumpees have been cheering on the story, as the pretense of being “real” Americans goes out the window. I suppose the closest in our history could be the first Adams administration with his sedition laws and jailing a relative of Franklin’s from the start simply for calling him “old and toothless.” One might refer to Lincoln during the Civil War but, hey, it was a war about the break up of a nation and all that entails.
    This is WAY beyond all that. We have never been here before. It would be impossible to claim all this is what out forefathers all wanted.
    So insurrectionists who support this PUT DOWN THOSE FLAGS, you obviously hate all they stand for.
    Don’t start with “the nation was out of control” shtick. That could excuse ANYTHING. And that perception is simply borne out of refusing to compromise and you can’t win the popular vote. They have know this for a long time: why they spent decades rigging elections in vulnerable states so an Electoral College will assure victory, even though the public HATES WHAT YOU STAND FOR, Almost 3 million more votes in 2016 don’t lie. That’s almost 3 million despite Hillary being so pilloried since BEFORE her husband became president.
    There’s a LONG history of them unable to sell their s**t.
    Look, if you can’t sell your ideas WORK ON IT. Do what they system is designed for: every election try to win, knowing simply because you lose doesn’t mean you had it stolen from you. I’m sure Al Gore and Hillary Clinton felt that way. How many courts did trump lose in, how many audits and how many recounts? Al didn’t even get one full recount.
    How do you think tyrants fix formerly representative systems? Yup, THIS way.
    The Reich wing must lose and lose big this time and EVERY TIME until they learn. IF they can. This include MAGA Senators and Representatives. Hell, even dog catchers if they are elected. I would want NO ONE who agrees with all this to be responsible for my dog, would you? And, IMO, dogs are better people than these fine examples of what comes out of the south end of a diuretic horse trotting north.
    Otherwise? We might as just put the Constitution, and any sense of being a free state, in the shredder.

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    “Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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