What Would Nellis Say?

Lest We Forget
 

 

Despite Trump’s many plots to overthrow the last election in a violent insurrection that resulted in seven deaths and hundreds of police officers being treated in the hospitals for injuries suffered during the melee, a civil trial that he has already lost concerning massive fraud in his businesses, and ninety-one indictments that have been filed against him, recent polling shows that 46% of Republicans would vote to reinstate Donald Trump to the office of president if the election were held today.

 

During his initial speech declaring his candidacy in 2015, he instigated the era of open hate and blatant racism in the American psyche, which resulted in the most dramatic increase in the mass killings of innocent civilians than at any time in our history and made the murders of minorities by white vigilantes a common everyday event. His relentless bigotry has resulted in Republican extremists and talk show hosts on the Fox network calling for their viewers to take up arms for a second civil war.

 

The Washington Post compiled a list of 30,000 documented lies during Trump’s time in office – what he said, when he said it, and why it was false or, at best, misleading.

 

As a result of his incessant lies about Covid-19 and the vaccine, combined with constant reinforcement from the Republican Propaganda Machine at Fox, we buried more than one million people who died of a preventable and curable disease.

 

Isolationist policies, ignoring or withdrawing from international treaties, and gutting the Department of State of expert diplomats resulted in the leader and defender of the free world becoming the laughingstock of international diplomacy. He was shunned and mocked at every international gathering he attended and was laughed off the stage at the United Nations.

 

He and his lackeys in the Republican Congress gave away more than $1 trillion to his wealthy sponsors and increased the federal deficit by more than 40.5% in four years. Those policies resulted in tax increases for the middle class that averaged 10% and real wages declined by 3.88%, while compensation for corporate CEO’s increased by more than 400% during his reign.

 

Trump inherited a healthy economy, promised to bring manufacturing back to the rustbelt, and encouraged local unemployed workers to hang on for the coming miracle. Major companies shuttered their plants and moved those operations to Mexico or Singapore and their workers, unable to sell their homes in markets where there were no buyers, were left to collect unemployment checks until they ran out.

 

By the time he was driven from office, Federal debt had risen from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, his tariffs on foreign trade cost American companies $46 billion and resulted in the loss of a quarter of a million jobs. Nationally, 2.9 million jobs were lost and unemployment soared by 6.3% during his four years, the trade deficit increased by 21%, 37.2 million Americans were living in poverty, and real GDP was 6% lower than when he started (the largest drop since 1947).

 

The one bright spot in our economy was that handgun manufacturing soared and ownership increased by 12.5%, resulting in approximately 400 million weapons in private hands, exceeding the number of American citizens. As a result, death by guns is now the leading cause of childhood mortality in this country and, due to Republican state legislatures rescinding or eliminating gun laws and restrictions, murder rates have soared to record levels in red states.

 

The number of citizens lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. Despite his endless ranting about building “the wall”, illegal immigration was 14.7% higher when he left than when he came into office. 

 

And, lest we forget, as a result of his administration’s policy of kidnapping babies from immigrant mothers' arms, more than one-thousand children remain separated from their families with little hope of ever being reunited. 

 

Since Trump was legitimately voted out of office, Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan resulted in supplemental payments to families and the unemployed, a child tax credit, small business loans to keep workers employed, and initiated and coordinated the administration and tracking of Covid-19 vaccinations across the country, which finally brought the epidemic under control.

 

Trump’s “Infrastructure Week” was promised every week for years and no plan ever materialized. The current administration got Congress to pass a bipartisan $1 trillion Infrastructure Bill that will result in dilapidated

roads, bridges, railroads, and airports being rebuilt over the next ten years and provide hundreds-of-thousands of jobs.

 

His Chips Act resurrected semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, protecting our technology and a vital industry, both economically and militarily, with $280 billion to support research and production.

 

His Inflation Reduction Act championed a reduction of greenhouse emissions, promoted clean energy jobs and technologies, put a $2000 annual cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare patients and lowered the cost of insulin from $350 a month to $35.

 

His Veterans Bill, which was initially defeated by right-wing Republicans, resulted in funds being allocated to treat veterans suffering cancers and lung ailments from exposure to toxic chemicals emitted from burn pits in the Middle East wars.

 

After years of soaring inflation, it is approaching 2%, stock markets are reaching new highs, and unemployment is at a fifty-year low.

 

If Trump were president, democratic Ukraine would have been swallowed up by Putin’s invasion without a whisper of protest from the leader of the free world. And, like Poland’s fall before the onset of World War II, Ukraine would become the first of many to quench Putin’s quest for resurrecting the power of the Soviet Union. We should be thankful that we have a real president with international experience to deal with the horrors occurring in Israel and Gaza.

 

So, there is no logical reason for anyone, right or left, to support a return to the incompetence, bigotry, and hate, incessant lies, and violent divisions in our society that would result from re-electing the worst president in American history. The damage done during his four-year reign far exceeds any other considerations.

 

Lest we forget, it is time for real Americans to put aside their petty squabbles and join together to build an America that demands the best of each of us and allows every citizen the opportunity to become all that we could and should be as a united nation.