Three Things About Trump That Should Scare the Shit Out of You

If you aren’t afraid now, you will be when he comes after you

Biden’s State of the Union Speech is over and his campaign is ready to rock. In the meantime, if you haven’t figured out who is best for the country, maybe a reality check about Trump will help you decide. (Shutterstock photo from Benoit Daoust)

If you had any thoughts that President Biden isn’t 100% on his game, you should watch his State of the Union Speech. He rocked it!

Despite that, I really do understand my neighbors who think that Biden is too old, or that AOC is too young, or that Democrats are out of touch with reality. I may not agree with any of it … well at least the first two, but I get why they would think these things.

But what I don't understand is why these same people aren’t scared out of their minds that Donald Trump has even the slightest chance of being president again.

This guy is unbalanced. He’s a rapist, a crook, a thief, and a liar. And if there’s anything I’m scared of in my current age, it’s that after he’s elected, he’ll be coming after me for telling the truth about him.

But what the hell? You only live once.

So, at the risk of putting a final nail in my own coffin, I’m going take one last chance at shaking my Trump-supporting friends into understanding just how dangerous this guy is.

Here are three things Donald Trump said that should scare the shit out of you. There's a much longer list, but these three are particularly frightening.

1.) On social media he threatened to execute his own choice to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. He said, “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

2.) He plainly stated, “I won’t be a dictator except on day one.” He models his style of governing on guys like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán who rules with an iron fist. And, Trump really wants to be Vladimir Putin when he grows up, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his own Russian people including just about anyone who opposes hin.

3.) He makes no bones about using the power of the federal government to go after his enemies. “I will use the justice department to go after anyone who opposes me”. We haven’t had anyone this bad in Washington since J. Edger Hoover ran the F.B.I. and targeted everyone from Martin Luther King, Jr. to … you and me.

This may seem unreal, but it’s all been done before.

As Hitler rose to power in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, much of Germany saw him as the savior who would bring them out of the horror of WWI and the devastation of the Great Depression. Someone who might have been an unexpected Hitler believer was a prominent leader of the Protestant Church, Rev. Martin Niemöller. He was a supporter of right-wing radicals and the ideas of the National Socialists aka Nazis.

However, after Hilter came to power in 1933, he became a loud critic of Germany’s new leader. He paid for his outspoken attitude by spending the years between 1937 and 1945 in Nazi concentration camps.

Here’s how he described Hitler’s rise to power:

First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me. — Martin Niemöller

I don’t happen to be Jewish, but two kids I helped raise have Jewish grandparents. And, I am a member of two unions as well as a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

You know, socialism? The terrible ideas that brought you social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, Health and nutrition programs for Children, public schools, public fire protection, and the nastiest of all … public infrastructure programs like CHIPS (Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program).

I regularly am criticized for being a “Liberal” which is pointed out as my reason for being critical of Donald Trump. But frankly, the prospect of another 4 years of Trump scares the shit out of me. And it should scare you as well.