Think back to the 2016 presidential election: Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump; “love her,” “hate her;” “I’m not voting because she can’t lose”; “I really wanted Bernie so I’m not voting”; “Trump's a wackjob but she’s worse”; “I’m not voting”; “But what if he wins? He could repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with who knows what”; “If he wins, he could possibly appoint up to three Supreme Court Justices”; “I know he’s a wack but he might be fun to watch”; “Did you see how he intimidated Hillary during the debates?” “He’s not going to win”; “It’s all fake news anyway, isn’t it?” “Russia, China, ‘Little Rocket Man’ in North Korea, there's no way he buddies up to the dictators. Or will he?” “After all, business is business and according to himself, he's the best there is.”
These are the thoughts and attitudes that affected the 2016 election and we are feeling the negative effects of it every day since.
Does he really think America is too generous? That we are being taken advantage of by our NATO allies and countries whose fragile democracies are at risk all over the world? Is it really about money for America, the richest country in the world?
“When it comes to business, it’s all about winning.” “He’s not going to win, unless winning is not paying taxes and we know the rich don’t pay taxes.” “It’s ok to grab women if you're famous. He told us so.” “The evangelicals get that, don’t they?” ”As long as Roe v. Wade gets overturned, we are all good.” Red MAGA hats and Trump flags.
They voted and they're voting again. You see, Black lives don’t really matter to the white supremacists or the supposed evangelicals. What matters is that peaceful protests over legitimate concerns by Americans get crushed by the military and "tough guy" militias if necessary. What they hear and react to is the division sowed by this president between Americans, so much so that citizens are killing each other in the streets over these extreme views and ideologies. All following the lead of this president.
I’m speaking to the younger members of Local 3. Never in our history has a sitting president threatened to refuse to leave office after losing the election. He is now ramming through another Supreme Court appointment against precedent set by his party in 2016 so he can count on his stacked conservative Supreme Court to hand him this election. The damage is done, but the pandemic is not done yet. COVID-19 disaster, the economy disaster, climate change disaster, race relations disaster, immigration disaster and partisan politics disaster. Fake news? I don’t think so. You get what you pay for.
