Come Monday ... It'll Be Alright
Power transfers on Monday, and all our problems will disappear. Cheap gas. No wars.... Donnie's less sure.
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
I can’t wait until Monday.
The wars in Ukraine and Israel will end, gas prices will drop back to $1.80 a gallon and poof, just like that, America will be great again.
I know because Donald Trump and his apostles promised it during his campaign.
“I can stop the war in Ukraine with one phone call,” Trump promised. I remember. I wrote it down. And he also vowed to bring immediate peace to the Middle East.
And for four years all his disciples have done is remind us that gas prices in 2019 (when Trump was in office) were $1.80 a gallon and that, if re-elected, their boy could re-open the pipeline (that was never built) and make driving affordable again.
Okay, folks. It is time to put up or shut up. Trump will be inaugurated Monday and I expect the world to be at peace by Tuesday. By Wednesday I want to be able to fill my gas tank for under $20.
The next four years will be interesting. In addition to performing the miracles listed above, Trump wants to regain control of the Panama Canal, take over Canada and make Greenland an American province (there has been no mention yet of Poland and Hungary).
We stole Panama from Colombia once, so why not again. Canada? Well, we get much of our imported oil from our northern neighbor so if we annex – or conquer – Canada, we might get gas prices back down to $1.80 a gallon.
Greenland? Yes, now it is nothing but an ice sheet, but if global warming predictions are right, that northern land could be cultivatable farmland in a few years. Trump is looking out for America’s future.
You can be certain that all this Trump talk isn’t sitting well with the four countries involved (Greenland is a territory of Denmark), especially since Canada and Denmark are, like the United States, members of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). You just don’t expect the president of one of your allies to talk about taking your country from you.
But I suppose those countries know Trump and understand that he often spits out words just to see where they will splatter. No, it is not likely that the former and future president wants a war with a foreign country when he can start one here at home much more easily.
His first battle is likely to be with the FBI, whose director just resigned in anticipation of conflict with the president. The FBI, at (according to Trump) the insistence of the Biden Administration, spent the past four years digging up every dirt particle it could find regarding Trump. Now the tables are turned and The Donald has the upper hand. There is little doubt that he will push the envelope until it falls off the table. Chaos is likely to ensue.
As is chaos in the White House. Remember the turnover in the last Trump Administration? Nobody could work for the man. He wants to be a dictator in a democratic government and “balance of power” means little to him.
He seems not to value – or even listen to - other opinions, even those of his closest associates. His appointees are merely extensions of his own philosophy. It is my way or the highway.
The man is an enigma. He has no charisma, yet his followers would die for him. His disciples were involved in seditious acts after he lost the race for the presidency in 2020, acts Ttump condoned, acts for which these people will likely receive presidential pardons when the man returns to the White House.
He is a convicted felon, tried and found guilty by his peers, yet he wins both the electoral and popular vote in the 2024 election. How does that happen? And his punishment is – no punishment.
Trump makes “Slick Willie” Clinton look like an amateur. The man is constantly embroiled in political and personal controversy, yet his followers look up to him as some kind of a god. What is there about him that his apostles find so irresistible?
On Monday we return to utopia. On Monday we become great again. On Monday the world will be at peace and gas will be $1.80 a gallon.
More likely, on Monday we return to chaos, in great part because the Democratic Party spent four years going after Trump instead of cultivating a candidate who could beat him in 2024.
In the movie The Sting, Paul Newman’s character comments, “Revenge is for suckers.”
The Democrats never figured that out and now we are stuck with Donald Trump for four more years.
But gas is going to be $1.80 a gallon.
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Yeah, you had me right until that last little bit.
Been drinking at Marty D's well a bit too deeply, or you got your own supply?
Trump's reemergence is the Democratic Party's fault?
Huh.....
That's some serious deflection or egocentrism there (depending on whether you are saying that from the perspective of being a Democrat, or from the outside looking in).
How about putting the blame squarely where it belongs. It's not Trump's. Nor the Democratic Party's, nor, for that matter, at this point, really the Republican Party's. Nor the billionaire's, Putin's, or anyone else's.
This time, it lands squarely at the feet of the American electorate.
They, no WE, have CHOSEN a man who lies so much that in his 1st tour of duty, the WAPO had to hire a staff to keep track of all of them. 30,000+ PUBLIC lies in a 4 year period, averaging 15+/day. Kinda of puts Obama's one lies about keeping your doctor in perspective, eh? What's that old saw about one death being a tragedy, but a million is merely a statistic? This time around, Bezos is throwing in the towel and saying "What's the point?" No one cares.
He was found by a jury of his peers to have sexually assaulted a woman, has been accused of it many more times, including with minors, including while associating with a known pedophile who happened to die in his custody, whilst there is ample evidence of his using NDA's and settlements to hide such actions
Etc. etc. On and on. 140 cops beaten half to death, attempt to overthrow an election by force, convicted felon, escaped trial from other felonies due to us, thousands of unnecessary Covid deaths, draft dodger leading the military, deficit blown up....yada, yada, yada.
Pretty much any standard of decency, principle, law, or decorum you can think of challenged, insulted, disparaged, or ignored - and the American people decided that they wanted more or worse.
I suspect, as do you, we'll get it.
So the important point is not what that says about Trump but what does it say about us?
Rights established for 2 generations are taken away by those who lied to get the opportunity. Theocrats raising the blindfold to see whose asking before passing judgement. Children tortured to coerce their parents. Bill of Rights fungible and for sale.
We as a nation should now accept and admit what Putin once claimed.
There is no American exceptionalism. It is a myth.
We no longer have honor nor honesty. Though I am sure the ones most responsible for it's loss will be the ones quickest and loudest to deny it. No matter the overwhelming evidence otherwise. They do on everything else, why not that?
What ally should trust us? Nato countries were the only ones to come to our aid and fight beside us when we were attacked on 9/11. We have been the only country to invoke that pact for our protection, and they answered. They had our back. A generation later we will not only not come to their aid, we're going to attack them? THEM? Damn.....
Again, on and on.
And there is no way the American people can claim, no matter how much they, or we, will - that this was not a conscious choice.
Now don't get me wrong. There are many who do believe in all of those things. I hope I can be counted among their number.
But this election showed we are not a majority. Not among the electorate. Not at this time. Not sure we ever were. Maybe it was just a fantasy that we told ourselves, and some just mouthed the words because it was easier to go along with the crowd. Same as they do now.
I dunno.
Hard for me to believe it. Hard to accept it. To see something you fought, bled, and saw friends die for be given away so cheaply. But I'm a realist, so I must accept the truth for what it is.
As I would recommend you do as well.
This one's on us. God help us all.