What Would Nellis Say?

let the chaos begin

By Rick Stiller

​​

The contrast…between Jimmy Carter, lying in state in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, awaiting a respectful funeral bound in honor and appreciation not only for all that he accomplished during his presidency but perhaps more for his dedication to improving the lives of millions of human beings across the entire planet after he left office…

 

And our president-elect, an adjudicated sexual predator who will be sentenced for thirty-four felony counts in a courtroom in New York the following day…could not be more stark.

 

Trump has yet to be inaugurated, but he is threatening the invasion and annexation of Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada to bolster our “national security.” 

 

Greenland offers trillions of dollars of untapped natural resources vital for powering batteries and building components for the computer industry…which his billionaire tech-bro sponsors will turn into massive profits. Unfortunately, Greenland belongs to our NATO partner Denmark.

 

Retaking the Panama Canal would provide control over international commerce, leverage Trump would wield for power and profit over any country (friend or foe) that transports its products by sea. The United States signed a treaty granting full ownership to Panama during Carter’s presidency more than forty years ago.

 

Then there’s Canada, a huge landmass containing untold natural resources and a relatively small population that shares our language and whose industries are already thoroughly integrated with our own. Of course, the Canadians have no intention of joining the United States, but our future president will employ threats of massive tariffs and military invasion in any negotiations with our closest ally and trading partner.

 

Trump has yet to explain how he would pay for all of this, but it may well be an attempt to deflect our attention from his intention to end U.S. support for Ukraine’s war to defend itself against the Russian invasion to demonstrate his allegiance and subservience to his puppet master, Vladimir Putin.

 

Carter spent his life in service to his fellow man. Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle the Federal Government and demolish our democracy, replacing it with a dictatorship dedicated to making the rich richer at the expense of the rest of our population. 

 

Two weeks and counting. Let the chaos begin.

 

A bit less than half the population was hood-winked into believing Trump’s endless lies about lowering their living expenses, pledges he started back-peddling the day after the election. He proposes implementing tariffs on imported products (claiming they will force manufacturers to produce in the United States), which will result in a massive sales tax we will pay when we make a purchase. 

 

He will ensure white supremacy by deporting the millions of undocumented workers who grow our food, build our homes, roads, and cities, provide hospitality services in hotels and restaurants, and fill all the jobs at minimal wages that white Americans will not accept. Paying workers to fulfill those jobs with our minimum wage will increase the cost to consumers.

 

He has no plan, no proposals that will lower living expenses or improve financial security for working-class Americans. He never did, and he never will.

 

His mega-rich tech sponsors are rushing to gain favor by donating millions of dollars to his inauguration fund and groveling on bended knee to secure his transactional blessing for their continued sales to the U.S. government worth billions.

 

Washington Post publisher, Blue Horizons rocket company and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos killed an editorial supporting the election of Kamala Harris before the election (as did Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong). More recently, he ditched a political cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes depicting Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Soon-Shiong offering bags of cash to Trump with Mickey Mouse, representing Disney, prostrate at his feet. (Three hundred thousand digital subscribers canceled their subscriptions to the Washington Post since he nixed the editorial). Telnes quit in protest. 

​

Four years after Zuckerberg banished Trump from Facebook for lying and instigating the violent invasion of the Capitol, and less than a month after Trump threatened him with lawsuits and indictments, the Meta CEO ended fact-checking, which was instituted after the avalanche of misinformation spewed by MAGA Republicans, on all his platforms. 

 

As with Musk’s evisceration of any constraints on the hate and lies published on Twitter and his illicit investment of more than $125 million to save Trump’s campaign, as well as the Fox network paying $784 million in compensation to Dominion Voting Machines so they could continue lying to their audience, profits take precedence over truth or factual reporting.

 

Mussolini, Hitler, and all the fascist dictators who followed their example built their power by tyrannizing the press, eliminating political rivals, rewriting history, and controlling the education of the next generation. The next administration has made no secret of its intention to follow that example to achieve complete domination over our political system.

 

With the advent of Trump 2.0, we are already seeing his campaign to establish his reign as the first sovereign to rule from the White House. MAGA Republicans have majorities in both Houses of Congress and no intention of serving the people who elected them. The first Trump term stacked the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary with corrupt, immoral, and unqualified justices who ignore precedent and Constitutionality that has guided our courts for centuries.

 

The voting public refused to pay attention to the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” Project 2025, which was published long before the election and spelled out their intentions for the coming administration. Wikipedia’s synopsis offers a very concise version of some of the draconian changes we should expect:

 

“Project 2025 envisions sweeping changes to economic and social policies and the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Commerce (DOC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Trade Commission(FTC), dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and abolishing the Department of Education (ED), whose programs would be transferred or terminated. It calls for making the National Institutes of Health (NIH) less independent, stopping it from funding research with embryonic stem cells, and reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels. The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts,  but its writers disagree on protectionism. The project seeks to cut Medicare and Medicaid, and urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care. It seeks to eliminate coverage of emergency contraception and use the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills. It proposes criminalizing pornography and imprisoning those who produce it, removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs while having the DOJ prosecute "anti-white racism" instead. The project recommends the arrest, detention, and mass deportation of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement. It promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of those sentences. It hopes to undo "[al]most everything implemented" by the Biden administration.”

 

Trump’s endless blather spelled out all of these devastating proposals. He and his legion of hateful toadies leave no doubt about their intentions, and no one should be surprised by the rapid implementation of their plans in the first months of his term.

 

Let the chaos begin. 

 

We are the resistance, but there can be no hope for the future of our democracy without a persistent chorus of dissension and protest. Stand up and speak out! 

 

Please share this with your friends! I look forward to your thoughts and comments! Thanks!