WHY THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS THE PERFECT SET UP FOR A DARTH VADER PRESIDENT
The U.S. presidential election of 2024 took place with the fresh images of Hamas fighters on motorcycles crashing through weak fence barriers separating Israel and Gaza, and running amok in Israel, killing thousands of innocent people and kidnapping others to use as hostages. That shocking event was part of what created a sense of vulnerability and fear that affected Americans when they decided who to elect in 2024. There was more. AI loomed as a threat to jobs, to stability and possibly to the future of mankind, rising prices hinted at potential inflation and/or stagflation, climate disasters were happening far more frequently and without warning: fires, huge rainfalls, extraordinary heat and humidity. Americans felt overwhelmed in an out-of-control world.
Americans wanted a “strong man” leader who would protect and save them from this chaos. Kamala Harris, a Black and Asian woman, was doomed to lose, I think. She did not look like the kind of president Americans imagined protecting them in a world that was out of control. They wanted a tough guy, even a lawless guy, even a dictator, who would command, assert, break through the impediments to change and make sure Americans were safe and economically secure.
Biden, Harris and the Democrats represented soft power, playing by the rules, compromise, and collaboration, but that also seemed to mean endless governmental gridlock and an inability to get things done. Getting along with others, empathy, kindness, and caring were values that the Democrats have stood for. Suddenly these values dropped in importance. Those ideals were considered too weak in a world that was growing more and more terrifying and dangerous. In a world full of bad guys, many people didn’t care that Trump had broken the law. His indictments, his convictions, his impeachments probably even helped him to get elected, because, the thinking went, that’s what bad guys do- they do what it takes to get their way. They are tough. They break the rules.
In the end, 6 million Democrats and independents who had supported Biden stayed home rather than support Harris.
And Trump won over many Black and Hispanic men as well using powerful right wing influencers who wove political ideology into their social media podcasts and interviews. These influencers felt like trusted friends. They were listened to and believed. The Charlie Kirks and Joe Rogans swayed the thinking of millions of especially young Black and Hispanic guys. Trump’s effective message of hard power and protection landed best with people who were getting their news from TikTok and YouTube.
In short, Americans willingly elected a Darth Vader president to feel safer in a world that felt out of control. But they didn’t think they were electing Darth Vader. They thought they were electing a strong and protective leader.
TRUMP WENT TO WAR ON EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE
Once in power, Trump roared out of the gate like an angry bull. He overreached everywhere. He asserted his hard power, his fight, his brutality, and his cruelty. He insisted and still insists on total loyalty to him over everything and everyone else because that helps him to coalesce his power. Safety or rationality is irrelevant. It’s the world according to Trump now.
Trump is already acting as a full fledged dictator, taunting the courts, daring the courts, to try to stop him. This MAGA congress has groveled like a defeated dog, begging not to be struck by its master. They gave up the power of the purse and the power to limit Trump. They obey his every desire. Unless the Democrats get back the House, this subservience will continue.
Trump went to war on all fronts. Immediately. He has upended the rule of law, attacking judges for doing their jobs. Many universities, corporations and some large law firms have been brought to heel. Trump chose incompetents for his cabinet so they would be loyal to him. He freely exemplified and permitted corruption and has used it to create loyalty to him. When people who work for him are corrupt, it gives him the power to indict these people if they stray from him.
He started a global trade war with crazy tariffs and time limits for deals with every country on earth and then changed his mind and changed it again and again and again. He has created chaos and uncertainty that is likely to result in either stagflation or inflation.
He declared war on immigrants, claiming they are criminals when most are NOT criminals, but law abiding Hispanic men who paid taxes and believed in the American Dream and were trying to raise families here. Trump’s real goal is to make America white again. The brutality is turning Americans off to him, even Joe Rogan is upset about it, saying we thought we would be getting rid of the bad guys, not the good guys who are landscapers and have been paying taxes and raising families.
Trump went to war on the truth. He did not like the jobs numbers that came out. So instead of facing the reality that his tariffs are causing companies to pull back, not hire out of caution, and not build or invest in growth out of uncertainty, he fired the messenger and is replacing that messenger with one who will give him numbers that he wants. That will result in skepticism about the data that gets reported and businesses will hesitate to build, hire and otherwise rely on that data.
Trump declared war on research, on facts, on history and on anything that does not fit with Trump’s version of reality.
Trump went to war on working Americans. The Republicans in Texas realized that their Big Ugly Bill is not popular with Americans because Americans have figured out they are going to lose their health care, their rural hospitals, their Medicaid, SNAP benefits, and soon their Social Security and Medicare. They understand that they are losing these benefits so that the ultra wealthy can become even richer and buy another yacht and another vacation home.
Trump has gone to war against American cities with Black mayors and Black and Hispanic populations. Trump recently decreed that the military will take over Washington, DC. LA has already been coping with an invasion of uninvited military troops. LA Mayor Karen Bass took Trump to court over the invasion of her city and LA is now waiting to see what the courts say about whether Trump may keep military troops there.
Trump is talking about extending this fake emergency military presence to other cities: Chicago, Detroit and other specifically blue cities run by Black mayors. He claims these cities are crime ridden and his motivation is to clean up the crime. But the real motivation is the installation and extension of a police state that he is trying to impose across the country. Did you wonder why ICE got $100 billion total allocated for immigration enforcement? This includes construction of immigration jails, hiring of immigration agents, and unrestricted funds for arrests and deportations, according to the National Immigration Law Center, while funds to support the police were removed from the federal budget? Wonder no more. People who have no ethics requirements or standards are being offered $50,000.00 to sign up to be part of the Empire’s storm troopers that will take its marching orders directly from Trump. Trump is, in this move, creating his empire’s storm troopers.
Afraid the so called Big Beautiful Bill is not landing well with most Americans, the MAGA Republicans and Trump are also going to war on free and fair elections and the idea that Americans get to choose their representatives. Instead, Texas is going to re-gerrymander districts so that Republican politicians get to choose their constituents. Texas is planning to re-gerrymander its already unfairly gerrymandered districts to wring more Republican seats for the House of Representatives. If they succeed, many Hispanic and Black citizens will be underrepresented in Texas. Florida and other southern states will be next. Any state that has a Republican majority state legislature will be pressured to re-gerrymander their maps so that Trump and the Republicans can stay in power after the 2026 election no matter how much Americans dislike this administration and try to get them out of power.
We are living in a country under siege. We all stand to lose our liberties, our freedom of speech, our right to vote, the freedom to control our own reproductive health, our social safety net and the freedom to be in our cities without gun toting storm troopers intimidating us.
HOW DO AMERICANS LIKE HAVING DARTH VADER AS PRESIDENT?
Fox News reports that President Donald Trump’s approval rating has declined again in a new poll as some of his supporters sour on his performance.
Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” and other policies, don’t seem all that pretty to Americans, whose views of the president have grown more negative in the almost seven months he’s been in office.
According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted between August 4 and 10, just 38 percent of respondents approve of the way Trump is handling his job, while 60 percent disapprove.
When it comes to how the administration is handling the Epstein files, 70% disapprove and 63% say they have “little or no trust” in what the administration is saying about Epstein.
The most recent Gallup Poll shows Trump losing support on immigration.
A Gallup poll conducted June 2-26 of 1,402 U.S. adults found that many more Americans disapproved than approved of Trump’s handling of immigration. Thirty-five percent approved of his handling of the issue, compared to 62% who disapproved.
WHAT IS THE WAY OUT?
Governor Pritzker, Governor Gavin Newsom, many of the Democrats running for the House and Senate are not trying to go along to get along anymore. They have toughened up their rhetoric and their actions, refusing to play along with Trump, Kristi Noem and others who are going too far.
Governor Newsom held a press conference in California where he talked about the need to “fight fire with fire” on redistricting if Texas is going to try to cheat to win more seats by re-gerrymandering their already gerrymandered districts. If Texas re-districts, breaking the rules so they can get more seats in Congress, then California will do that too but only if Texas does it and only temporarily to meet this need. ICE showed up at Newsom’s press conference. Newsom held his ground and told the crowd he would not be intimidated. ICE, armed to the teeth with gun toting agents, then surrounded and arrested an unarmed Hispanic man, a family man who was not a criminal, who was just delivering strawberries in the vicinity of the press conference.
The Democrats have finally figured out that they cannot work with these MAGA Republicans. They have to become resistance fighters, freedom fighters to reclaim the American Dream for all Americans no matter what color their skin may be. They need to fight for a return to free speech, for the freedom to take care of your own body. They must fight for the social safety net.
Out of this morass is arising our own version of the Rebel Alliance and Resistance fighters, our version of Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker, our Yodas and other Jedi warriors. They include Bernie Sanders, Eric Swalwell, Pete Buttigieg, Governor Pritzker, Governor Newsom, Ro Khanna, and there are many more. Some of our fighters are older- we need our Yodas and Obi-Wan Kenobis. And some are more youthful like Zorhan Momdani and AOC.
THE ROAD AHEAD: Two Immediate Goals to Reclaim Our Democracy
First: win back the House in 2026 (and just maybe the Senate too.) Americans don’t like what this administration is doing. 2026 will be the test of how much Americans care about reclaiming a representative democracy and rejecting Darth Vader and the Evil Empire.
Second: reclaim the majority in battleground state houses. We must flip state houses red to blue because state legislatures are the engines of the autocracy we are getting with Trump and the MAGAs.
We need to work on both goals at once. Right now.
We can all become part of the Resistance.
If we want to have a representative democracy, we can do a lot to make that a reality. Research the candidates running for state legislature and support the ones who foster the country you want. Work for them by knocking on doors, talking with your neighbors about how good these candidates are and why. Get active. The Orange Menace and his incompetent cabinet members are also helping to boost that potential by creating a huge backlash to themselves.