OPINION: Rand Paul Is Speaking Truth to the Party
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
At least one Republican congressman is starting to face the fact that Donald Trump’s quest for total power is on the verge of destroying our American democracy.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, in an April 30 speech on the Senate floor, said almost exactly what I wrote in a column about six weeks ago, that the Republican-led Congress was standing by and allowing Trump to transition from president to dictator.
Paul also pointed out, as I did in that column, that the use of the “emergency act” could – and likely will be – used by the next president of the Democratic Party to undo everything Trump has done.
Yes, a dangerous precedent is being set, but Congress refuses to do away with the 1976 law that Trump is now abusing to do whatever he pleases. Unless Congress acts, future presidents will use this law, meant for real emergencies, not fake ones, to manipulate the law any way they want.
The Republican controlled Congress refuses to rein Trump in, and every day he gets a little bolder. Where this will all end is anyone’s guess, but acquiescing power to a tyrant is how dictatorships are born.
The Republicans are acting like children. “We are in control now and we will remake America in our own image. Trump is our president!” And “our image” means we want a country that is all white, all Southern Baptist and plays by any rules we choose to make up. To do, think, or be otherwise makes you un-American.
What’s next? Are we destined to go back to white sheets in the middle of the night and cross burning? Trust me! There are some Trump followers who would if they could get away with it.
Given the direction in which the country is moving, that rebirth of Jim Crow America may be closer than we think. Trump might give his wholehearted approval right now if the violence were directed toward Hispanics.
As I have said before, all this goes back to the Democrats spending four years prosecuting and badgering Trump after his first term and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol debacle. The Democrats could have been cultivating a strong candidate for 2024. Instead, they assumed that any non-Republican could win the presidency after Trump, and sat idly by.
They failed to see that Joe Biden was getting old and frail and could not win a second term. Still, they were ready to nominate him. Then they switched candidates in the middle of the stream. It was a total disaster, and we wound up with an even bigger disaster – Donald Trump II.
This Donald Trump, who had fought the Democrats and government for four years, was bolder, more aggressive, and more vindictive. Trump II would be about power and retribution. He would destroy all who fought against him and is in the process of doing just that.
The Republicans gloated over Trump’s win and their gains in Congress – many of which they attributed to Trump followers – and decided to give “their president” full reign.
What they have never accepted, and what I have pointed out in columns for 10 years, is that Trump is neither now, nor has he ever been, a Republican. He is for himself, his own power, his own ego. The GOP was merely a vehicle to transport him to the White House.
But when he picked up a cult following, real Republicans decided to ride the wave of Trumpmania enroute to their own political triumphs. Now they are afraid that if they abandon Trump, they will lose the next election. Given Trump’s latest approval ratings, it may well be the other way around.
We are little more than 100 days into the Trump II presidency and the country is a wreck. The president’s tariffs threaten our economy, and he has fulfilled virtually none of his campaign promises other than to terrorize Hispanics, who helped him win the election.
I’m still waiting for the $1.80 a gallon gas his followers promised, and egg prices are down because the bird flu epidemic has eased somewhat, not because Trump laid some Grade A large ones.
As Sen. Paul pointed out, Trump has claimed power not given the president by the Constitution. He has defied Congress, the Supreme Court and all other forms of authority. He has served notice that he alone is in command.
Can Congress rein him in at this point? Has he assumed too much power already? Where is the military in all this? Oh, yeah! The military will be parading down the streets of Washington on his birthday, a replica of May Day in Moscow.
Rand Paul is right. We are headed for real trouble unless the Republican Congress stands up to Trump.
Right now they must decide which is more important – the party or America and our democratic form of government.
They must also understand that they are backing a Republican president who is not now and never was – a Republican.
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Always amazing to see the twists and turns in Republicanism/conservatism.
Yes, Trump is horrible, but it's the Dems fault for not giving us someone else....though it's never specified by them what exactly wasn't white, err...., I mean right about Kamala Harris.
You didn't like her laugh? You would complain that Democrats aren't enough like Republicans to be acceptable. I would posit the exact opposite. That too many Democrats are too much like Republicans to ever win.
They too chase the corporate dollars and buy into the inevitability of Citizens United. That corporations are people. Though I've never seen one sit in a jail cell, no matter what their crimes. When Ken Martin says that ours are the good billionaires and theirs are the bad ones.
It rings hollow to those trying to meet the rent or choose between the child's food and medicine for next month. When the Constitution is being overturned, secret police are deporting citizens without due process, etc. and the best you can do is look down the nose of your reading glasses and say how "bothered" you are?
Until Democrats quit compromising the values of being for the downtrodden, rule of law, decency - unequivocably - then many will continue to see their promises as meaningless. But even that does not excuse Republicans/conservatives choosing Donald Trump.
No way at this point any of you did not know him for what he was and is. A convicted felon and known sexual pervert found liable for sexual assault, who escaped more egregious charges not because he was innocent, but because he was able to delay their hearing until after they could not be heard because you elected him once again. Vengeful, irrational, corrupt.
None of this was unknown, but Kamala didn't look as good on TV......
And you ask if white sheets in the night is what's next?
Brother, I got news for you. We're there already, though you tend to overlook it, same as others back in the day overlooked that iteration of the Klan.
Judges who challenge the Klan get anonymous pizza deliveries to their homes with the name of a murdered son of a judge given as the recipient.
Locally, no fired federal worker was willing to have his or her name said by Ms Uphaus when she interviewed them about losing their jobs for "cause" as part of the DOGE cuts.
Schools, museums, and students self-censoring to avoid the wrath of vengeful Republicans looking to rewrite both the past and the present as they plan a military parade for Great Leader. Thousands of workers who were watching foreign threats slashed, while the budget of Homeland Security is being raised 65% (wonder who they plan on watching?). With Inspector Generals illegally fired, reports of spending hidden, critical data destroyed or hidden.
Doxxing, swatting, or just Donnie or Elon calling for attacks on critics...
The Night Riders wish they'd had it so good. And we're not even 4 months into this crap.....and despite your protestations otherwise - I'd say that the fact that so many of you voted for him, and an almost monolithic amount of your elected leaders and everyday people continue to support him without question shows that Trump is the most Republican President there ever was.
He merely lacks the ability to do the exact things you want him to do, to the exact people you want him to do it to, without being smart enough to pretend that isn't what he's doing. He just says the parts you want quiet out loud. And that's why so many of you love him, and so many of you despise him and want to pretend Project 2025 is his idea instead of yours.
Because you rightly realize, as he doesn't (or doesn't care) - the same destruction of safeguards and of the law that is used by you, can be used against you - and even if the morals of doing right for it's own sake wasn't reason enough to do right; the fact that long term demographics, birthrates, and the laws of time mean that no matter how much you wish to return to a 1950's halcyonic idyll that never was, it ain't going to happen.
But please don't pretend anyone "made" y'all do it. You had free will, you had knowledge, you had a choice.
And you chose horribly. And now we all suffer as a result. The only questions are how much, and how long before we say enough? Pretending otherwise merely delays the inevitable. So don't do it, okay?
Once again Mr. Johnston tells it like it is.