In years past, through authors and filmmakers, Americans have enjoyed reducing the world’s dictators to laughingstock status. There are many playful examples, three of which I’ve greatly enjoyed.
I’m not quite old enough to have been among the first to view Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” (1941), but was an adult when these two sent me into hysterics of laughter: Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” (1968) and Woody Allen’s “Bananas” (1971).
Now we’ve got nothing to laugh about as we realize our democracy harbors about half its population in support of the takeover by the Trump-Musk-Vance team of apparent insurrectionists and coup devotees. Then there are those among us who not only voted for this team but apparently worship and pray to the threesome as though living gods, replacing freedoms with what we’ve appreciated here in America with what looks to be a new national religion and worship of a strong man leader.
What both fascinates and depresses this citizen are the number of Americans who’ve announced that they are willing to die for him. These same persons, presumably for the most part, come from an American population that, a mere 75 years ago, eagerly signed up for and were willing to give their lives to stop fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany from taking over the world.
Yes, these same Americans whose past relatives gave their lives to save America now prostrate themselves at the feet of a mere mortal who is generally recognized to be in the nation’s top office to enrich himself, his family members and his already wealthy friends.
What can we – who already ache for the lost democracy we and U.S. ancestors struggled to improve for almost 250 years – do about it all?
Well, here’s a suggestion: We’ve learned in the last month that the team in the White House has been very busy decimating the ranks of federal employees and seeking to eliminate federal agencies and officers who protect and serve my family and millions of other American families. Without evidence, they say they’re going about their work to reduce and eliminate waste, fraud and financial abuses throughout our federal agencies.
At the same time, Elon Musk repeatedly says he will buy the elections of those who slavish serve him and therein drives a stake into anything in this country that still resembles a democracy.
Meanwhile, as a result, massive cuts and firings are underway. Yet, how are all these former GOP officeholders (now MAGA Senate and House members) who work in D.C. only to say “Yes, Master” to every POTUS demand, justifying their huge salaries, perks, free medical and dental care, staffs, cost-free travel and all manner of salary-enhancing benefits? I would argue they are not, whatsoever, justifying themselves in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, a few Democrats in D.C. appear to whine, complain and criticize but accomplish zip to support and protect U.S. citizens. They do nothing, it seems to me, about the Trump-Musk-Vance abuses. My humble opinion thereby finds most of these “representatives” a disgrace while others are go-along-to-get-along fools!
Send all of them packing, cut the supply of big bucks to them and by these savings the Trump administration and his unelected commandos-of-excessiveness can deliver their-identified rewards of sparsity and diet to the American people.
What Trump and company demand, they say, we must have NOW! However, what if we don’t cotton to the outcomes by a dictator and one-man-rule style of government? Well, then, we’ll just have to take back from them their form of dictatorial, autocratic, self-serving governing, and then strive again as true patriotic Americans – the ones who love their country, and have committed for 200-plus years to the effort to attain Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill.”
Gene H. McIntyre is a Keizer resident.
Note: Readers can send letters to the editor at [email protected].
