Is it nostalgia for a time when America was “great” or a return to a time when hate was the driving force in American politics? I’m talking about the Republican Party, or at least those who blindly follow the Cult of Trump. These cultist, and let’s face it, it is a cult, at least a cult of personality, want to turn back the clock, not just to elect Trump to the presidency again, but to spread their belief in hate against immigrants, the LGBTQ+, women, etc. They keep saying that they want to go back to a “more innocent time” and “Make America Great Again,” i.e. MAGA. The problem, there never was a “Great.” What they mean is to go back to oppression, back to a segregated America, back to a time when only white, “Christian” (Protestant, not Catholic) men were in charge of oppressing those they deem unworthy of freedom and prosperity. Instead of being horrified by Trump using the same words as Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, they celebrate it. Maybe they would not go as far as genocide, but they do want to force their cruelty on others. There were many Germans who claimed not to know what the Nazis were doing or had no knowledge of the Holocaust. The only way this claim could have ever been true is through willful ignorance. They did not want to know, so they ignored all the signs.

Leni Riefenstahl, a German director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, and actress known for producing Nazi propaganda, is a prime example. She followed Nazi ideology and was one of its most effective promoters of its ideology with her propaganda films Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938). After the war, Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi “fellow traveler,” but she was not charged with war crimes. Throughout her later life, she denied having known about the Holocaust, and was criticized as the “voice of the ‘how could we have known?’ defense.” Shortly before she died in 2003, Riefenstahl voiced her final words on the subject of her connection to Hitler in a BBC interview: “I was one of millions who thought Hitler had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn’t know bad things were to come.”

Like the Trumpists of today, Riefenstahl hid her head in the sand because as long as Hitler was effective in his oppression, she believed his lies, or at least wanted to believe. The same is true of the MAGAts who follow Trump. He continues to spread lies that he won the 2020 election, when he did not even come close to winning. He had claimed he had a huge victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016, when in 2020 he lost to Joe Biden by the same number of electoral votes as Clinton was defeated by. Any rational person knows, Trump did not come close to winning, yet they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to follow Trump’s pleas for an insurrection because of “widespread voter fraud.” The only cases of voting fraud that have been discovered were actually committed by Republican voters. 

Their willful ignorance is making Trump the leading Republican presidential candidate. There are dissenters in the Republican Party, or Nikki Haley would not have done as well as she did in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary, but the majority are blindly following Trump’s lies and hateful speech. If (God forbid) Trump is elected again, how many will one day echo the words of Riefenstahl and say, “I was one of millions who thought Trump had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn’t know bad things were to come”? It will never excuse their campaign of hate and bigotry in their false claims of “making American great again.”

Former President Donald Trump was indicted yesterday. It wasn’t the first time, nor is it likely to be the last. Yesterday’s indictment was specifically for several crimes associated with conspiring to defraud Americans about the 2020 election (conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding). Each of these indictments is a sad day for the country. Last night, I was watching news coverage about the indictments, and one of the commentators was so giddy, like a child on Christmas morning, that it was disturbing. I know a lot of people will rejoice over the series of indictments against Trump, and I am happy he is facing consequences for his complete disregard for the rule of law. However, I also think each of these indictments are also an indictment of the American people. 

Trump never received a majority of the popular vote, but it still shows that there are a large number of Americans who do not care about the laws of this country or their fellow Americans but care only about having control over others. Supporters of candidates like Trump, Ron DeSantis, or Greg Abbott don’t measure the success of these politicians on what they have done for them but what they have done against those they hate, whether that means someone of a different race or sexuality (among numerous other groups because these same people strive on their hatred of those not like them).

Furthermore, I’m not going to rejoice just yet over Trump receiving his comeuppance, because indictments are only the beginning. I will rejoice (if you can even call it that)  only when he has been convicted and sent to prison. As one commentator said last night, that’s a long way away. Even if he’s convicted, it will be a long process, and sadly, Trump is likely not going to prison until he’s exhausted all of his appeals, if he is ever sentenced to prison time in the first place.

The saddest part of all of this is not only that it shows that democracy in the United States is broken, but that there will still be Trump supporters who will still be Trump supporters when he’s proven guilty and escorted to prison. They’ll see this as purely political. This is a dark period of American democracy. The fact that a Trump was ever elected in the first place shows how broken the United States is. History will not look kindly on Americans of this era. The question we need to worry most about is: Will American democracy survive this era?

I haven’t talked about politics in a while, but recent news just makes me smile. 

After flying back to Florida from New York on Tuesday, where he had been arrested and charged with 34 felony counts, the twice impeached and disgraced former president said, “I never thought anything like this could happen in America.” My response: neither did anyone else. The majority of Americans never expected a minority of Americans would elect a fascist wannabe, “billionaire,” reality television personality who ran on his “genius” as a businessman even after having most of his businesses go bankrupt because of his ineffectual business acumen. Who could have foreseen that in 2016, the Electoral College would elect a vindictive, racist, sexist, fascist, failed businessman as President? I know there are times in American history when that was desired by a minority of citizens (1930s or 1960s, to name two decades), but it had never happened. Those candidates failed. 

His speech Tuesday night was filled with lies and misdirection, just like most of his speeches. You can read CNN’s fact check on their website. Sometimes, he just used the wrong words, as in the case when he said, “This is a persecution, not an investigation.” I think he’s confused. It’s a prosecution, not persecution. Besides, the investigation is over, and the charges have been brought. I hope in the end, he will be wearing an orange jumpsuit that will match his fake tanned skin color. I hope justice will prevail. Honestly, I’m not sure it will, but this is not the end of the charges against him.

I stayed up and watched the President Biden’s State of the Union address last night. As a general rule, I hate listening to politicians speak; however, I have always found Biden to be more pleasant to listen to than most. He has a few phrases that drive me a little crazy because he uses them too much and it makes him sound folksy, although that is also part of his appeal. He seems like a real person unlike a lot of politicians. I thought this was on of the most masterful SOTU addresses I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t the usual self-serving drivel. Instead, he baited the Republicans and did two things. First, he got them to look like absolute fools, even though McCarthy had warned them not to heckle Biden. They did anyway and for some of the stupidest reasons. Second, Biden laid a trap to get them to agree with some of his policies and and stand and applaud him. It was an interesting tactic, and Biden was so forceful at time. He wasn’t “angry racist white man” like Trump always came across looking like, but he came across as a genuine defender of the people and democracy. Trump always pandered only to his base and shipped them up into a frenzy like the fascist he is. Biden didn’t say everything just like all those in his party wanted. Instead, he spoke to the people, and I personally thought he did a great job.

If you watched it, what did you think?

The US Senate on Wednesday advanced legislation that would provide federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, endorsing the measure in a bipartisan vote that moves it closer to becoming law. The 62 to 37 vote for cloture on the bill was a crucial test of support for the Respect for Marriage Act. I know we sometimes hear about cloture, but we don’t always know exactly what that means. Cloture is a Senate procedure that limits further consideration of a pending proposal to thirty hours in order to end a filibuster. Therefore, once the thirty hours are over, the bill will go before the Senate for debate. At this point, there is no longer a need for 60 votes to pass the legislation. 

The Respect for Marriage Act is expected to be put up for a final vote in the Senate tomorrow. Once that happens, it will go back to the House of Representatives for another vote. As long as the House does not change anything, the bill will go to President Biden for his signature. I honestly can’t imagine the House trying to change anything. If that were to occur, the bill would have to go to a Conference Committee to reconcile the differing language before being sent back to the House and Senate for another round of votes. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knows that she does not have time to waste with a Conference Committee. She knows that she has to put it before the House in the same form that it was passed in the Senate because Democrats will no longer have a majority on January 3. 

In a speech on the Senate floor before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Today, the Senate is taking a truly bold step forward in the march toward greater justice, greater equality, by advancing the Respect for Marriage Act. It’s a simple, narrowly tailored but exceedingly important piece of legislation that will do so much good for so many Americans. It will make our country a better, fairer place to live.”

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who was among the group of Senate negotiators, highlighted the broad public support for same-sex marriage and noted that for most Americans, marriage equality is a settled question. “We’ve shown here through this legislation that these rights can coexist, religious freedom on the one hand, LGBTQ on the other hand,” Portman said. “It is my hope that with the changes we’ve talked about today and we’ve all now agreed to, we can pass this legislation with the same kind of overwhelming bipartisan majority we saw in the Houses of Representatives and therefore settle this issue once and for all.”

The Respect for Marriage Act repeals the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and safeguards same-sex and interracial marriage by requiring the recognition of valid marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity or national origin.” The bill was introduced after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. There have been concerns from Democrats that a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas left decisions from the high court protecting the right to same-sex marriage under threat. The bill easily cleared the House in July with support from 47 Republicans. Though several GOP senators initially expressed support for the plan, Schumer agreed to postpone a vote on the legislation until after the midterm elections after some Republicans worried it would endanger religious freedom.

To assuage their concerns, the amendment ensures nonprofit religious organizations will not be required to provide services, facilities or goods for the celebration of a same-sex marriage, and protects religious liberty and conscience protections available under the Constitution and federal law, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It also makes clear the bill does not authorize the federal government to recognize polygamous marriage and safeguards any benefit or status — such as tax-exemptions, grants, contracts or educational funding — of an entity so long as it does not arise from a marriage. 

The amendment “recognizes the importance of marriage, acknowledges that diverse beliefs and the people who hold them are due respect, and affirms that couples, including same-sex and interracial couples, deserve the dignity, stability and ongoing protection of marriage,” according to the bipartisan group.

With the amendment, the bill will have to be taken up by the House once again before going to President Biden’s desk for his signature. The White House urged passage of the measure.

“The right to marriage confers vital legal protections, dignity, and full participation in our society,” the White House budget office said in a statement of administration policy. “No person should face discrimination because of who they are or whom they love, and every married couple in the United States deserves the security of knowing that their marriage will be defended and respected.”