Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

As Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a woman asked: “Well Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin’s retort has been passed down through history: “A Republic, Madame, if you can keep it.”

Fast forward: A hundred years ago, H.L. Mencken observed:

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

As it turns out, both statements were prescient.

Donald Trump’s administration is a graveyard of failure, misconduct and broken promises presided over by a demented, totalitarian monarch-wannabe.

His cabinet is a ship of fools—a junk drawer full of cronies, by one description–sailing onto the shoals of illegality and unconstitutionality at every turn. Indeed, as Hanna Arendt noted in Foreign Policy:

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Trump struts around as a conquering war-time, hero-President, the bold Commander in Chief; renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War; naming military installations and ships after Confederate generals.

Yet, he weaponizes our Military and uses it as a “training ground” in our cities and against us, the citizens. Apparently We the People are now the enemy.

Trump the corrupt, insurrectionist leader and 34-times convicted felon, ironically declares war on crime and criminals, but, transparently, in only Blue states and metropolises.

He enlists his gestapo of ICE Brown Shirts to harass, arrest and deport people of color whose only crime was to come to this Country for a better life, and for the opportunity to work (and pay taxes) at jobs beneath the dignity–and probably the ability–of the members of the Dear Leader’s lickspittles.

In response to Demonstrators rallying near Great Lakes base and in the Loop to decry potential ICE action, Trump proclaims “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’”– a meme referencing the 1979 Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now.” where Robert Duvall’s character Lt. Col. Kilgore says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Lest Americans forget, however, Trump is no war hero, no generalissimo. In fact, he is a draft-dodging coward—Captain bone-spurs–calling our own wounded and missing warriors “suckers and losers.”

He relishes beating up on the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable, LGBTQ and trans people–anybody without a voice, and without the ability to fight back. He is racist, misogynistic, homo and trans phobic and xenophobic. He is the epitome of hatred and discrimination.

He wreaks economic vengeance on our allies and friends. Yet, when it comes to standing up to America’s actual enemies and the world’s dictators, he welcomes them on the red carpet and fawns for their adulation and approval.

In truth, he is one of them–a weak and gutless bully–the fascist dictator he promised to be from day-one.

The damage Trump has done and will do to our formerly democratic republic will take decades to repair–if we can ever repair it. Indeed, to the question, can we keep our constitutional republic? It appears that we have, for the first time in 250 years, lost it.

Our inner soul has been fulfilled. The White House is finally adorned with a downright moron.

And, the worst is, that Trump is involved in a coup right under our noses; he is finishing what he started on January 6, 2021.

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