A Few Vital Words ...

By Mort Rosenblum, Reader Supported News

29 October 18

irst Kavanaugh, then Khashoggi. Two examples, among many, shed blazing light on a greed-obsessed, truth-averse, soulless leader who is recasting America in his own image. If voters do not step up on November 6, this will be entrenched as our new reality.

The math is frightening. A third of the electorate is likely to cast ballots for Donald Trump's enablers, and fewer than half of eligible Americans normally vote in mid-terms. We have only days left to motivate everyone we can reach who is open to reason.

Talk with friends to help synthesize arguments. Much of our media underplays the main one. During 17 debates among Senate and gubernatorial candidates, only one included a question on climate change. And yet nothing else will matter when Earth is uninhabitable.

Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation showed how much party now overrides principle. Senators ignored 2,500 law professors who saw intemperate, partisan behavior. Jamal Khashoggi's gruesome murder showed Trump has a lump of coal for a heart.

Journalists who demand answers are fundamental to any free society. It is bad enough when a president cheers on a governor who body slams a reporter. When he covers for a Saudi prince whose goons behead a Washington Post columnist, he is despicable beyond words.

Max Boot, a wise observer of global geopolitics, put it simply: “Trump has given every despot on the planet a license to kill without worrying about the U.S. reaction. Because, in all likelihood, there will be none.”

Republicans tout a pumped-up economy and full employment. But look closer. That tax cut for the rich increased our annual deficit by $779 billion, equal to the Defense budget. Mitch McConnell baldly offered a solution: cut Social Security and health benefits.

Trump says that if he were impeached, the market would crash. It is already collapsing. Stock sell-offs parallel 1987. Nasdaq is having its worst month since 2008. Inflation cancels out wage increases. Paul Volcker, no alarmist, warns, “We're in a hell of a mess.”

China, once open to diplomacy, is preparing for potential armed conflict. Russia is a growing factor in U.S. elections. The world didn't laugh at us before, as Trump asserts. Now it does. Worse, those who hate us are increasing by geometric proportions.

The list is endless. We have irrefutable proof of outrageous malfeasance and misfeasance at the highest levels. We are losing personal freedoms, destroying our land and natural resources, making bitter enemies of former allies.

Every vote matters in swing states. In Arizona, for instance, Martha McSally, a hardcore Republican, won Gabrielle Giffords' House seat in 2014 by 167 votes. Now she is running dead even with Kyrsten Sinema for the Senate. Only a few fence-sitters will make the difference. Texans have a chance to rid us of Ted Cruz.

But we also need a thundering landslide everywhere to deliver a message to both parties. Citizens, finally, have had enough.

Barack Obama just issued an alarm to Democrats: “The consequences of your staying home would be profoundly dangerous for our country, for this democracy.” And, he might have added, for this world.

Marshal your arguments, make your call lists, and get started. Help young people see the incalculable cost of apathy. Reason with Republicans; Trump is poisoning the Grand Old Party. On November 7, we may be condemned to an entirely different United States of America.

Mort Rosenblum has reported from seven continents as Associated Press special correspondent, edited the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and written 14 books on subjects ranging from global geopolitics to chocolate. He now runs MortReport.org.

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