From the Publisher: Mobilized is apolitical. While we do our very best to remain neutral, there are times when the insights of wisdom are too important not to share.
Story by Michael Caporale
Hope died yesterday, and I cannot shrink from what I know is a certainty. I fully realize that I live among the willfully ignorant and self-delusional, those who are irrational and therefore emotionally governed, who do not seek knowledge or truth but would rather be spoonfed ies, who remain entrenched as fossilized, petrified wood, intractably frozen, intransigent.
We are all victims of the senile, the naïve, and the gullible. They have set our path for us. Are they truly the majority or are they just the lowest common denominator? The next four years will undoubtedly be the worst four years in our collective lives and world history.
As a small child, my mother always warned me not to get into a car with a stranger offering candy or a puppy or offering to take me home to my parents. We are that child and have been seduced into that car on a road trip of deception, grift, and thuggery.
Using diplomacy against a terrorist is useless. It is nothing more than a Band-Aid on a surgical wound. It neither blunts the impact nor hides the scar. The wound remains. To say Trump is a disruptor is a woefully misconceived analysis. He is more than that. He is every bit a fascist and an anti-constitutional threat to all of America and the world at large.
Post-election analysis indicates a strong trend that one of the most significant dividing lines in the electorate is the attainment of a bachelor’s degree. White males with a bachelor’s degree tend to vote Democratic, while those without a degree tend to vote for Trump. The same is true of women. It should be required of all American citizens, regardless of their vocation, to attain a bachelor’s degree as a qualification to vote. With the bitter taste of yesterday still in my mouth, I say this pejoratively, but were it to be so, I know it would go a long way to solving our nation’s ills because it would mean that the electorate was at least educated and better able to make important decisions.
As the oceans rise, as natural disasters—hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, forest fires, mudslides—proliferate destruction, wreaking economic disaster by increasing assistance from the federal government, as tariffs and shifting taxes destroy the middle class and therefore, our economy, as Ukraine is served up to Russia as the sacrificial lamb and NATO is threatened by Trump, the United States will not honor its Allied commitment to support Europe. Trump will destroy not only the bonds that unite all Americans but that of all of America with the rest of the world. America’s health and well-being will be savaged. Families will be strained. Real income will be reduced, and we will sit on the precipice of a depression. Nevertheless, a massive recession is inevitable. Perhaps our border will be secure, but this too will have predictable consequences for the American economy as those jobs that Americans traditionally do not undertake will be understaffed, lacking immigrant rejuvenation and entry into the workforce at the very bottom. America will remain a slave to the Arab oil-producing nations. The ecological balance of nature will be disrupted. The environment will be sacrificed to developers. We will be tacit partners with Russia, North Korea, and China in their nefarious activities to unite the world in authoritarianism. Both North Korea and Iran will be dominant world powers, not just some flunky theocracy or a subjugated kingdom of lemmings. They will use their nukes to beat us into submission. Taiwan will be overwhelmed by China.
With ever-increasing, repeated exposure to the likes of Steven Miller, Steve Bannon, RFK, the ever-smug Kellyanne Conway, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Green, Josh Hawley, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, J.D.Vance, Bernie Moreno, Lauren Bobert, Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott, Greg Abbot, Nicky Haley, Lindsey Graham, Ron DeSantis, et all, I will discontinue my practice of watching the news, particularly CNN, on a regular daily basis. Also, I will change my registration from Democrat to Independent. This may be of no consequence to anybody but myself, but I can no longer remain a Democrat. Perhaps in some cumulative way, it may send a signal that will be recognized by those who can propagate real change to be brave and courageous and stand strong for all that is right against evil, as it will surely be inflicted upon us for four more years.
Their tepid approach to government, their lack of an aggressive campaign at the time when it was most needed, has shown that the Democratic party is inept. They have failed me and the country. It is more than just a simple matter of letting me down. It is an abrogation of their duty by succumbing to apoplexy.
And as for Republicans, can they not see what happened to Rudy Giuliani? This man has lost everything in the world, including his license to practice law and his one-time reputation as America’s mayor. It is the sad reflection of someone who has sublimated himself at the feet of a charlatan and snake oil salesman for the promise of worldly gain. Trump’s trail is littered with the bodies of his victims, those closest to him, who now, finally in a desperate attempt to retain a viable democracy, have exposed him for what he is: a fascist and anti-Semite, a liar, a misogynist and a threat to democracy… too little, too late.
So, the question that remains is not whether Americans will prosper in the next four years as Trump has prescribed but whether democracy as we know it will survive.
–Michael Caporale
