i really hope the voting public of the USA step up and protect their democracy from the fear, the lies, the hatred and the scapegoating of the trump administration.
i'm not sure what to expect, because there is clearly a section of the population (worldwide - not just in the states) who seem to think fascism is a good idea, and that human rights aren't important and that ecological conservation is a conspiracy concocted by jews or witches or commies or something.
i hate to say "i told you this would happen" - especially when it is something as dark and unpleasant as this, but i've been saying for quite some time that when politicians promote bigotry, they open up a pandora's box of fear, resentment, paranoia and hate - which leads to violence.
in the last couple of weeks we've seem at least two racially motivated mass shootings, a fucking "incel" mass shooting and an attempt to murder more than a dozen of trump's critics.
let's not equivocate here - trump took the coward's approach to gaining political power; he used division, hate and lies rather than leadership - and the impacts of the toxic seeds hie's sewn into the political landscape are only beginning to be seen.
i won't be shocked if people don't reject the trump administration by voting against the GOP in the midterms - but i (like millions of people across the world) really hope that people can see how much this one foul-mouthed dunce has divided their country and poisoned democracy.
i hope that people can see that they are being pandered to, and that trump's defiance is not kicking back at an unjust system - it has more to do with his contempt for average people and the great efforts he has gone to in creating an environment where he is not held accountable for his words or actions.
he's not a plain-talker - he's simply a liar.
he's not a political leader - he's more like a mob boss who performs low-rent political theatre in the highest political office in the world.
he's not a trail-blazer or a revolutionary - he's a saboteur, a muckraker, a nepotistic kleptocrat.
regarding the hatred he preaches to the nation and the world - he's not a misunderstood patriot, and propagating hate was not some innocent rookie error he made with good intent.
he's well aware of the power he wields and the potency of inflammatory rhetoric when it is beamed into every citizen's home, and the way it reverberates through communities.
trump supporters have been committing acts of politically-motivated violence and murder in his name with increasing regularity - and it is time to take off the blinders and realise that these people are terrorists, and it is not enough to ignore them or tolerate them.
trump is not just president - he is also the revered figurehead of a tangled web of fascist terrorist networks.
to be perfectly clear: once they have established authoritarian control, fascists aren't removed by voting.
that hasn't happened in the USA
yet, but if people don't vote in these midterms, and don't seize this opportunity to oppose trump's agenda in the ballot box, they may not get another opportunity to do so.
the longer trump is in power, the more he well deconstruct the USA's democratic institutions and laws which hold governments accountable to the people.
this might sound alarmist, but i think anyone interested in democracy and freedom (which used to be everyone right?) should be concerned at what is going on.
this isn't about "us and them", "red vs blue" or "conservatives vs liberals" those are just tribalist labels and boxes.
have no doubt - this is about democracy vs authoritarian oligarch rule.
i mean - russia still has elections, but they are certainly not "free and fair" - they are
rigged (and putin gets 75+% of the vote) - so he has a political stranglehold on the country and its people, who are effectively powerless to stop it.
a big shout out across the pacific to all those who will be voting against the GOP in the mid-terms - we stand with you in solidarity whether you succeed or not in crippling trump's agenda.
no matter what happens, resisting fascism is a struggle that will go for as long as it needs to be done.
some people believed the conventional wisdom that fascism vanished from the world with the defeat of the axis powers in 1945, but as trump has proven, demagogues can still harness the political power of long-disproven pseudo-scientific racist belief systems.
get out there and vote, people!
obviously i don't live in the USA, but close to half of my family will be voting in the mid-terms - but still, i'm used to people online getting defensive that a foreigner like me has opinions about their country's politics (i'm sorry if you feel that way

)
sometimes non-americans take a lot of interest in US politics because of self-interest - ie "are they going to bomb us?"
but a lot of the time it is because the implications of US politics are global.
it is certainly the case in australia - the USA is our closest ally, and the relationship that is very uneven, so we are often affected by changes and shifts in america's politics. but that's what happens
normally - and everything that has happened since trump took office is far from normal - the concerns about america's democracy are global.
but on a personal note for me, i'm also tired of worrying about my family, and wishing my siblings and their families would get out of a country that is slipping rapidly into a very frightening political situation.
i don't mean that as some kind of fear rhetoric - it is genuinely how i feel about the matter.
i care about everyone who gets singled out by trump and his friends on the far right - and i'm especially concerned at the idea of my nieces growing up in a country led by such a vile misogynist as trump.
no country is perfect - certainly not the one i live in - but there is something very unsettling about how rapidly the trump-led political devolution happened in the states.
now that trump-inspired killings have become an increasingly regular occurrence, it seems that many of the problems he has helped create will continue long after he has tweeted his last incoherent 3am rant.
i think it would be naive to assume that trump is just a blip on the political radar, and that the end of his presdidency - however it happens - will be a
return to "normalcy" (a phrase which essentially coined a 'new' word in american english, as uttered by
another lyin', cheatin' [and apparently dimwitted] GOP president).
trump hasn't just "energised his base" with blatant racism and bigotry - he has empowered a movement which, as we are now seeing - is prepared to murder innocent people for the sake of some dubious ideology.
it's not going to go away overnight - defeating fascism is typically a long journey - but the most important step in that journey in the immediate future is to vote in the midterms to pull the rug out from under the most dangerous man in the world.