At This Stage Defeating Trump Is A Matter Of Life And Death.…

It is remark­able how two per­sons or two groups of peo­ple can look at a sin­gle object or issue and come up with com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent assess­ments. I guess the dif­fer­ences with which peo­ple see objects and issues, makes for more sub­stan­tive con­ver­sa­tions, and ulti­mate­ly bet­ter outcomes.
But what do we do when the dis­agree­ment on the issues, at least for some, is not anchored in real­i­ty any­more? How do we have good out­comes when the dis­agree­ment that some peo­ple reg­is­ter is geared at mud­dy­ing the water, and cre­at­ing an Orwellian dystopia that sat­is­fies the out­comes they desire.
I first expe­ri­enced that unre­al­i­ty in deal­ing with my own father. The eldest of sev­en chil­dren, my father and I only con­nect­ed in my ear­ly adult­hood. [Sid], as I referred to him, was to me, a father in name only. I had long learned to for­give him for who he has or has­n’t been, much the same way that I have learned to for­give my moth­er as well; I am one of those for­tu­nate kids not to have been raised by my bio­log­i­cal par­ents. Thank you, Lord.
Don’t ask; it isn’t straightforward.
My dad would look at the moon and try to con­vince you that it is green; no amount of facts would change his mind. At times I thought he want­ed to be con­trar­i­an to be different.……The way his life turned out has not argued well for his con­trar­i­an stances.

You may won­der where I am going with this ram­bling, and you would be right in being impa­tient, so that I will get right to it. Having lived in the United States for almost three decades, it is aston­ish­ing to see how truth has been replaced with lies, and a gen­er­al sense of exhaus­tion has tak­en over.
In less than four years, the coun­try’s mood has changed from hope­ful opti­mism to dark fore­bod­ing and deep fear.
Even with the dis­tinct knowl­edge that dark­ness does not extin­guish the light, it is remark­ably dif­fi­cult to under­stand how Donald Trump’s lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion have dam­aged America and the American psy­che in just four short years.
There is so much rid­ing on this elec­tion that peo­ple opposed to Trump are hav­ing sleep­less nights.
Some peo­ple have con­fid­ed in me that they are unable to sleep at night, that they can hard­ly eat out of fear that he will win reelection.
These are American cit­i­zens, not immi­grant chil­dren locked in cages, or their par­ents who have been deport­ed, sim­ply for dar­ing to seek asylum.
These are peo­ple who have lost their loved ones to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic with­out being able to give them a part­ing hug or say good­bye. They are Americans who have wit­nessed an occu­pant of the White House tell police it is okay to bru­tal­ize cit­i­zens and see them in turn into a ver­i­ta­ble bru­tal invad­ing army as a consequence.
They are dis­gust­ed at hear­ing a pres­i­dent refer to racist white suprema­cists as “won­der­ful” peo­ple.”
They have seen the shock­ing attack on the very foun­da­tions of the rule of law, from a pres­i­dent that is not just law­less but con­temp­tu­ous of the rule of law.

They have wit­nessed a Republican par­ty purged of rea­son­able and ratio­nal actors, bow down to Donald Trump, and have become aiders and abet­tors in the destruc­tion of the Republic.
They have watched their Justice Department tak­en over by a hyper-par­ti­san in the form of William Barr, who has inter­fered in Department cas­es and has lied and dis­tort­ed real­i­ty in ser­vice to Donald Trump, rather than in serv­ing the American people.
They have also seen a chief exec­u­tive who has bro­ken laws as he sees fit. He has used the pres­i­den­cy to enrich him­self and his fam­i­ly. He has placed his sup­port­ers at risk of death, just so that he can sat­is­fy his nar­cis­sis­tic lust for ado­ra­tion, at ral­ly after ral­ly after rally…
It is incred­i­ble to imag­ine that any per­son occu­py­ing the nation’s high­est office could be so dan­ger­ous and inher­ent­ly bent on destruction.
I would be lying if I said that I was not deeply dis­turbed myself hav­ing seen the United States under sev­er­al Presidents, good and bad, from the late Herbert Walker Bush, to the White House’s present occupant.
There has nev­er been an elec­tion in my life­time that not only the pres­i­den­cy and down-bal­lot offices are on the bal­lot, but Democracy itself is on the ballot.
One of the most astound­ing occur­rences that must be record­ed for pos­ter­i­ty, is the will­ing­ness of Republicans to burn down the repub­lic to pre­side over the ashes.
What hap­pened to the Republicans, you ask.
They have seen the data that many peo­ple have seen, America is chang­ing; they do not like what they see in the racial demographics.
Immigration and Abortion fights are all about the chang­ing dynam­ics occur­ring in the coun­try. Republicans are pre­pared to burn the house down rather than allow oth­ers to live in it equally.
The lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion that has tak­en over the coun­try have been too much. Defeating Donald Trump is now a mat­ter of life and death.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
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