Trump Tower in Chicago, IL (by M.E.)
When America elected Donald Trump in November 2016, I thought about suitable music to describe my weariness toward the candidate who lies, bloviates, and blathers on a daily basis. I selected “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic. https://www.eastportlandblog.com/2017/01/31/funkadelic-maggot-brain-a-song-which-captures-the-trump-era-by-mark-erickson/ Now that he has been re-elected, I am compelled to make another musical selection.
Upon his booking in August 2023, the former president received inmate number P01135809. He was ultimately found guilty on ALL 34 counts of falsifying business records in his attempts to bury hush money paid to a porn star for an alleged sexual dalliance(s). TRUMP IS GUILTY…we all knew that but somehow elected this wretched man. However, the judge did not impose a fine or jail time on the convict!! He has also slithered from other charges related to 1) mishandling of national security documents, 2) attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and 3) racketeering.
On January 20, 2025, Commander-in-Chief Donald J. Trump will have access to codes to launch nuclear weapons. However, as a history-making convicted felon, he will not be able to own a gun! America now has its Felon-in-Chief.
Donald Trump made, once again, sooo many huge promises on the campaign trail. For example, he campaigned to cut taxes for the middle class, but that did not, and will not, happen. His tax cuts favored the billionaires and corporations, which contributed to a significant increase in the nation’s debt. Donald Trump does not give a shit about me and the middle class. Former Treasury Secretary, Robert Reich, reported the other day that Trump will seek to cut corporate taxes, which will gift, for example, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Banks billions and billions of tax cuts. Writes Reich, “Some populist, huh?”
Yes, the Felon-in-Chief has enthusiastic concern for billionaires; I think of them as oligarchs. Trump wants to pay for his proposed tax cuts by gutting Medicare and Social Security. Dwight Eisenhower declared the party that attacks or eliminates Social Security will cease to exist. Will he hack or eliminate these programs to honor his pledges to aid the oligarchs and/or deport en masse the “illegals?” Some populist, huh?
Trump’s primary campaign issue of hate and fear, i.e., illegal immigration, obviously resonated with the MAGA voting bloc. To honor his campaign promise retold countless times, finding the money to pay for a mass deportation operation seems like a crucial priority for the Trump team. The Wall Street Journal recently cited an analysis conducted by the American Immigration Council that estimated an operation to deport all people living illegally in the USA would cost approximately $88 billion each year for at least a decade. This extraordinarily high cost would obviously require hiring additional Federal agents, paying the prisoner-industrial-complex to hold rounded-up individuals (separate families?), and chaperoning them to…
Historic hurricanes, tornados and typhoons, and fire have made clear global warming has reached a tipping point, an ecocide. And the Felon-in-Chief salivates over everything related to Big Oil’s bottom line with his drill, baby, drill mantra. Does he have any concern about Mother Earth that future generations, including the MAGA Christian families he courted, will inherit? Money-grubbing, Bible-peddling, sneaker-selling Trump has zero concern about this escalating humanitarian crisis. We are on the threshold of disaster capitalism.
Who drank that kool aid last year? Americans, but less than 50% overall, elected this criminal. White women (who are America’s largest voting bloc) voted significantly for the guy who packed the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. According to Fox News, “upwards of 90% of rural farmers” and a huge bloc of white evangelical Christians voted for Trump. White retirees overwhelmingly approved of Trump. Also, Mexican-American males increased their percent. Did these MAGA people refuse to acknowledge any amount of criminal activity on Trump’s end and/or his failed promises from his first term? Ministry has a song called “Lies, Lies, Lies” and I fully expect Trump to “forget” his latest litany of campaign promises. Another answer to my musical quest is David Bowie’s “I Am Afraid of Americans” from his Earthling release.
Now that the MAGA voters have chosen their leader, Trump advanced nominees for Cabinet positions, including Matt “Pedophile” Gaetz, Pete “NDA” Hegseth, and Linda “WWE” McMahon. Linda, 17, married Vince, 21, in 1966 after dating in high school. During their marriage and while operating a professional wrestling corporation, Vince has been embroiled by decades-long legal messes related the steroid distribution, a “ring boys” sexual misconduct scandal, and most recently, that he made hush-money payments (nearly $20 million…that he described as “minor accounting errors”), which circumvented internal WWE accounting controls that caused material misstatements in the company financial statements to bury sexual misconduct allegations. Like Trump, these pricks are dicks.
Additional astonishment recently arose when Greenland, a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, surfaced on Trump’s wish list (again) because of its strategic location and large mineral reserves. Trump has also discussed his desire to control the Panama Canal. He has threatened both sovereign countries with tariffs and military intervention. Both countries have responded resolutely that they are not for sale. In terms of military intervention, I doubt the Felon-in-Chief will invade Greenland, given the color of Greenlander’s skin. You see, America only invades countries and/or assassinates leaders who are not Caucasian.
I expand this blog piece since just the other day Trump announced he will create an External Revenue Service to collect tariffs and duties from foreign countries, i.e., China, Canada, and Mexico. Economists widely deride Trump’s tariff’s plans. All of this leads me to Ministry’s song “Twilight Zone.” The lyrics to this 2018 release, found on Amerikkkant, eerily resurrect the past.
I remember waking up on November 9, 2016, and feeling a bit nauseous. It felt like descending into a bottomless pit on a high speed rail. Careening head first into the unknown.
Disgusted and depressed. We know the world is a mess. Distortion of reality. The truth under arrest.
This is the twilight zone.
Confusion and consent has always been their intent. Destruction of society, unless we dissent.
Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here?
I do give credit to Trump’s first presidency for having not engaged America in foreign military entanglements though he did authorize the assassination of a brown-skinned Iranian General, Qassem Soleimani, just days before Trump sought to overturn the election results. As the entire world has witnessed the “relocation,” starvation, extermination, liquidation, and genocide in Gaza with complicit Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala, coupled by the killing of Christians in the non-Hamas West Bank, I wonder how Trump will respond. He will likely do nothing as Palestinian skin is not white. Will the Felon-in-Chief mimic mindless, bureaucratic thumb twiddling regarding Congo too?
Lies, Lies, Lies, I Am Afraid of Americans, and Twilight Zone, while totally relevant, prescient, endearing to me give sway to my decision to vote for my favorite thrash metal group, Slayer. Their apocryphal album, God Hates Us All, which was coincidentally unleashed on September 11, 2001, questions why a benevolent God whose love for humanity is unconditional and infinite, permits worldwide problems such as war, disease, suffering, injustices, etc. Specifically, the GHUA liner notes include the disillusioned lyrics of guitarist Kerry King, and quote verbatim numerous chapters from the book of Job, including chapters 20, 21, and 22. A church pew Bible that I have held identifies Job 21 as “Why Do the Wicked Go Unpunished?” Verses seven through thirteen of the New International Version reads, “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. Their homes are safe and free from fear, the rod of God is not upon them. Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry. They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about. They sing to the music of tambourine and harp; they make merry to the sound of the flute. They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.” The Slayer song that accompanies Job 21 is called “Threshold.” Like Maggot Brain, I cannot think of anything more buttressing than Slayer.
