We stand on the brink of a major conflict with Russia. How
did we get to this perilous point? What happened to America? Here’s a brief
overview of the past year to help understand how things went so horribly wrong.
May 2016 – Ted Cruz and John Kasich, the last Republican
candidates for president standing, ended their campaigns, making Donald Trump
the presumptive Republican nominee to the shock of almost everyone.
July 2016 – Despite numerous polls showing Bernie Sanders
had the best chance of beating Trump in the general election, and with the
overt help of the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton received
Sanders’ endorsement and became the Democratic nominee for president.
November 16, 2016 – Despite endorsements by every major
newspaper in the country, despite being declared the winner of the presidential
debates, despite numerous revelations exposing her opponent’s racist and
misogynistic background, despite her opponent’s refusal to release his tax
returns, despite reports of Russian influence within the Trump campaign,
despite spending almost twice as much money during her campaign as Trump,
despite the polls and despite winning the popular vote by almost 3 million
votes, Hillary Clinton loses the election by 77 Electoral College votes to
wealthy TV personality Donald Trump. White Americans in the Mountain, Midwest
and Southern states expressed their anger at “the establishment” by voting in a
true outsider.
January 20, 2017 – Donald Trump is inaugurated 45th
President of the United States. Trump
spends his first few days in office arguing that his inauguration crowd was
larger than Obama’s (it wasn’t) and that he would have won the popular vote if
it wasn’t for millions of illegal voters (no evidence has been found to support
this claim). Using his Twitter account, Trump establishes a pattern of
outrageous, insulting and often fabricated comments to communicate his views
and reach his constituents.
January 2017 to May 2017 –
Trump nominates scores of uniquely unqualified alt-right ideologues
and family members to cabinet posts and positions as advisors. With the help of
Mitch McConnell and a lapdog congress, nominations are rammed through the
approval process with virtually no vetting. This pattern continued to include
the April appointment of rabidly right-wing judge Neil Gorsuch to a seat on the
Supreme Court.
Accusations of Russian involvement in the recent U.S.
election rise to the surface as it is revealed numerous Trump administration
officials met with top Russian politicians and oligarchs before and after the
election. Trump’s ties to Russian oligarchs going back years are exposed.
Investigations are started, but Congress continues to run interference for
Trump and block any serious probe into the accusations.
The Trump administration approaches government spending with
a chainsaw, proposing drastic cuts in every area except military spending. Many
new appointees as cabinet heads are avowed enemies of the agencies they now
oversee and have no problems with slashing their own budgets or eliminating the
agency altogether. Threats are made to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
Environmental and safety regulations are decimated.
Trump wages war on undocumented citizens, ordering the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to arrest and deport thousands
of immigrants, tearing families apart and deporting many people who have been
productive, contributing Americans for decades.
Intrigue and internecine warfare escalates within the White
House, as various factions fall in and out of favor with Trump. Family members
are given positions of enormous influence within the administration and
resentment has escalated. Once Trump’s most influential advisor, white
nationalist Steve Bannon appears to be on the way out as Trump son-in-law Jared
Kushner accumulates more and more power.
April 2017 – As the conflicts within Syria continued to
simmer, reports reached the west that chemical weapons were used on citizens of
a Syrian village and that men, women and children died horrible deaths as a
result. The attack was blamed on Syrian President Assad. Despite the fact that
Donald Trump had criticized President Obama for similar actions in Syria on
many occasions in the past, Trump ordered the bombing of a Syrian airstrip on
April 6. Details of the attack have since emerged, and we now know the Trump
administration communicated with Russia before the attack and, coincidentally,
Syrians at the airport were given a heads-up hours before the attack and were
able to evacuate the facility before the bombs fell. The Russians were notified
of the attack before congress.
The Syrian attack appears to have angered Russia, and some
type of response is expected. Additionally, there have been no reports of
whether the bombing destroyed any chemical facilities or accomplished anything
substantial. There are suspicions being voiced that the attack was an attempt
to divert attention away from the Russian investigations in Washington.
Today – The situation in which American finds itself is
frightening. We have an unqualified, unhinged narcissistic president who may be
wittingly or unwittingly instigating a war with Russia to take the heat off of
his administration’s collusion with Russia to sway our presidential election. We
cannot count on the other two branches of government to help us, as congress
and the Supreme Court are under the influence of right-wing radicals who have
no allegiance to democracy or even what most of us consider reality.
Trump is taking America down a very dark and dangerous path
at a rapid pace. The question is, how will we stop him before it is too late?
