Bill Clemens is a resident of Magnolia.
Everyone except the members of the Trump administration realizes that one size does not fit all. Donald Trump’s longtime and obsessive defense mechanism is “projection.” He projects that everyone is always wrong but him. One wonders how his party can tolerate him. The answer is because he can secure massive amounts of money from his wealthy donors to secure their victories if they profess their loyalty to him. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., praised Trump for scolding the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the alleged peace negotiation bargaining table. This meeting was “Trump’s way or the highway.” Zelenskyy was strongly criticized for asking how they were going to pursue diplomatic negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He advised that Putin has a long record of reneging on mutual negotiations with Ukraine. Zelenskyy was then promptly thrown out of the White House.
Trump will long be remembered for pardoning all the Jan. 6, 2021, protesters. They came to the Capitol, after weeks of planning and Trump’s urging, to protest what Trump claimed was a stolen 2020 presidential election. Sixty of the 61 lawsuits he filed were dismissed, due to lack of any evidence that the election was stolen. (The Supreme Court disallowed some votes in Pennsylvania because they came in a day after voting ended.) Pardoning all the Jan. 6 intruders who invaded the Capitol was OK with Trump, since he somehow reasoned that it was too bad that the police defending the building were assaulted by the protesters. Rule of law was discarded. “Trump’s way or the highway” once again.
Bear in mind that Trump was impeached by trying to force Zelenskyy to find criminal evidence on Beau Biden before the 2020 election against Joe Biden. Otherwise, Trump would not release the funds that were appropriated for Ukraine. Zelenskyy refused to be bullied. Since Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, it was inevitable that the chickens were going to come home to roost. He is losing one court case after another by continuing to discard the “rule of law.”
Cutting the U.S. Agency for International Development funding has left thousands of tons of critical medicines and food supplies on the shipping docks, instead of being delivered to the millions of people who need them to overcome illnesses and starvation. Man’s inhumanity to humanity is evident, as our reputation for promoting goodwill worldwide is being badly tarnished. The result will be that the elevated level of deprivation in these foreign countries will inevitably lead to an elevated level of anger and violence, then terrorism on the rise again. Trump does not understand this future development.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.