King writes: "Our visible, tangible opposition to Donald Trump simply does not have the unified fierceness he deserves."
Donald Trump is scheduled to become our next President in less than three weeks. (photo: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty)
We're Not Opposing Donald Trump With the Unified Fierceness He Deserves
04 January 17
man who some believe to be a pretty terrible human being is scheduled to become our next President in less than three weeks. I won't make yet another rundown of all of the awful things he has said and done. I've done that a dozen times. Pretty much every reputable news outlet in the country has covered Trump's lies, deceit, failed commitments, his unethical business dealings, and his personal admissions on mistreating and sexually assaulting women.
We knew he was a bad man before he was elected. Since he's been elected, his character continues to fail us as a nation. He continues to pour profuse praise on Vladimir Putin. He repeatedly tweets vindictive messages to his "enemies" like he is some villain in a Marvel movie. In ways that we've never seen before from an elected President, he attacks individual journalists, union leaders, actors, comedy shows and Broadway musicals. He openly takes credit for business deals and jobs won that he had little to do with. He recklessly rambles on about nuclear weapons and arms races like it's all a big game. It isn't.
This is all very real. In less than three weeks, this man will pivot from being the President-elect to the President of the United States. He will occupy the Oval Office. He will have the nuclear codes. The FBI, the CIA, and all of our military might will be at his command. With Steve Bannon, who some consider the most offensive, sexist, bigoted, ill-tempered hot heads in the country by Trump's side, as his chief strategist, we are about to enter into a dangerous and troubling new era of American history.
I believe you feel it coming. I believe you see it coming.
The only way what's about to happen is anything other than a complete and total disaster is if Donald Trump's very nature shape shifts into something altogether different. His core values, his essence, the very fabric of his humanity would have to morph and transform in a miraculous manner for us to avoid anything other than calamity.
If he operates the government like he operates his marriages and relationships with women, we are in trouble.
If he operates the government like he operated Trump University, which just settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit with its students for overpromising and under-delivering, we are in trouble.
Yet, as I look out over the country, our visible, tangible opposition to Donald Trump simply does not have the unified fierceness he deserves.
Maybe we are exhausted or overwhelmed or so bewildered that we don't quite know what to do? That's a luxury we cannot afford.
Maybe we are waiting for the Democratic Party to rise up and oppose him for us? That simply isn't going to happen. The Democratic Party is in shambles. Bill and Hillary Clinton are not going to be opposition leaders. As she takes long walks in the forest and as Bill calls Donald to wish him well, I think we've seen clues of what they will be in a Trump administration. Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine has all but faded into the abyss. Will Barack and Michelle Obama, who opposed Trump so masterfully during the final weeks of the election, and seemed to be speaking from the heart while doing so, break tradition and vocally oppose his presidency? Or will they operate like most other former first families and simply give Trump the space to be himself?
Whatever the case, if what we see right now is a sign of the opposition we will be offering to Donald Trump, it's not enough. We must wake out of our Trump-induced stupor and fill the streets not by the dozens, or hundreds, but by the thousands and millions. If we honestly oppose this man like we say we do on Twitter, we must do more than tweet about him. He's about to do much more than tweet. He is about to sign executive orders and back legislation which will be far more problematic than his social media shenanigans. And if all we have are retweets and Facebook likes, we will lose in spectacular fashion.
South Korea should be our role model. For months on end, in fierce opposition to corruption with their President, millions of people filled the streets in protest. At first, what it would accomplish was not clear, but the people knew that corruption necessitates opposition. As the opposition grew and grew and grew, it gripped the nation and eventually broke the back of the administration, causing the ouster of their President.
Trump deserves this type of opposition. It will not grow from the establishment, but from the will and energy of the people. If Donald Trump is going to be opposed, it's going to come from the people and it must start now.
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1. Her campaign officially launched in February of 2015 and this dinner occurred in December of that year. She's prohibited by law from interacting with a foreign govt. official. I don't care if she said one word to Putin or talked to him for an hour.
2. Laying out foreign affairs proposals? Wait until you're elected, THEN you contact foreign leaders
3. Based off the photo, she seems quite comfortable sitting at the same table as a despotic tyrant who's imprisoned dissidents, quashed free speech, nullified an independent media, and more transgressions. That doesn't sound like someone "concerned by belligerence".
4. Liberals are justified maligning her. She served as a vote diluting candidate because, in many states Trump barely won (Wisconsin, Michigan for example), Stein's total eclipsed his margin of victory. There's no doubt that, had she not been the female Ralph Nader, HRC would've snagged enough of her votes and thus earn a victory
5. Stein is overrated and unqualified for any office. On a YT link where she discusses Hillary, much of her criticisms either were lies (i.e. that HRC lowered Haiti's minimum wage. Independent fact checking sites classified said claim as "false"), oversimplified and flat out ignorant. She shouldn't be entrusted to be dog catcher. Others on the left might excuse her for dining with a 21st Century Mussolini incarnate: this left wing guy will not.
My two cents.
ensuing nonsense would have been of a higher caliber than what we are
now getting with Trump!
MUST BE BECAUSE SHE WAS A RUSSIAN PLANT.
SO WHAT !
GIVEN WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE FULL SPECTRUM ANTI-RUSSIA PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN, THIS IS REALLY GARBAGE.
I voted for Stein and her trip to Russia, like Tulsi's to Syria, were the responsible acts of future national leaders.
Jill Stein should be president. She didn't put Trump* in office* - Hillary did and you did by voting for her. I voted for Jill, as any person with a conscience and a heart did, but we coulda' written in Bernie.
But who were the other "peace advocates" she alludes to?
And Democrats have to wonder further whether Stein's entry as a 3rd party candidate into the 2016 election - not her first foray - did not cost Hillary Clinton the election. I believe Clinton herself said as much - had something to do with Wisconsin in particular, as I recall.
- still beating dead horse jillie?
pray that hillary is as dead as jillie in 2016 and 2020
folks got over ralph by 2004 - after 8 years of bush2cheney and now at least 4 years of rump, have we learned nothing? do we elect repukes every 16 years, just to see if dead horses, like spoilt milk, still stink?
Dr Stein couldn't be elected alderman in any Lakefront ward in Chicago, and she wouldn't earn a ballot slot in most of the others. And with very good reason. Politics ain't beanbag and she's a dilettante par excellence.