GO AWAY — The Weekly Opine

Somebody needs to pack his bags. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

The time has come

Let’s be honest. The United States government has a history of eradicating real and perceived threats to American democracy. Threats ranging from leaders of sovereign nations, like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, to homegrown activists like Black Panther Fred Hampton have been killed by American authorities.

It mattered not whether the individual posed a bona fide threat to literally destroy our way of life. What mattered was that government officials, under the premise of protecting democracy, justified the killing of said threats. The notion that the American government has “taken out” certain threats is not some figment of the imagination. It is real because it happened.

In my opinion, the government was at least complicit in the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Considering the amount of wiretapping and surveillance X and MLK were subjected to, somebody high up had to know the civil rights leaders would be murdered.

The Nation of Islam and James Earl Ray did for J. Edgar Hoover what the FBI director probably would have liked to have done – take down two high-value, perceived threats to our democracy.

So, today I ask, who is the biggest threat to American democracy? (Not perceived, but a true threat to literally extinguish our country.)

Who is most responsible for fomenting the divisions that have Americans at each other’s throats? Who has driven American democracy to the brink of collapse with lies about stolen elections?

What single person used the platform of the highest office in the land to sow doubt about the pandemic? Who repeatedly used his enormous platform to throw shade on the effectiveness of mitigations (e.g., mask-wearing) and openly question the trustworthiness of science experts and honorable healthcare professionals?

Whose cavalier, criminally negligent lack of action caused the deaths of 925,000 Americans from COVID-19?

What ex-president committed felonies including insurrection, tax evasion, election fraud, perjury, and has been credibly accused of sexual assault and/or rape by nearly two dozen women?

Obviously, the opinion here is not to take out Trump. That most definitely would not be cool. Despite the degree to which many of us hate Trump, knocking him off would absolutely and practically be morally wrong, unethical and illegal. So, please, do not leap to that conclusion because that is not where I am coming from.

However, Trump should be eliminated from American life, i.e., removed from our everyday landscape.

Located in the South Pacific, Tonga is 6,500 miles from the U.S. A one-way ticket might be in order. (Photo credit National Geographic Society)

The Biden administration should offer Trump a choice. Remain in the United States and be legally prosecuted, and then Trump would spend the rest of his natural life in a maximum-security prison, in 24-hours-a-day solitary confinement. Or accept reassignment to a rural, austere compound, in a secluded location on one of the islands of Tonga. Trump would have no TV or internet connection, or any other means, to communicate with or otherwise influence anyone in the world.

If Trump chose the option to leave the U.S., he would be under constant surveillance, with no travel privileges beyond his small, barracks-like housing. Trump’s treasonous, anti-democracy cohorts, specifically his entire immediate family and thugs like Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, Peter Navarro, Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan, would be given the same choice. A lifetime in prison or deportation to Tonga where they would live in Gilligan’s Island-style, hellish isolation.

Everybody knows if a Black man, say, former President Barack Obama, had committed one-tenth of Trump’s transgressions Obama long ago would have been sent away and locked up.

So, it’s time. Time to remove Trump. Not from the face of the Earth, but from the face of America. Not by firing squad but by extreme isolation either in prison or faraway, remote exile.

Three Obama miscues

President Obama recently made headlines. OK, maybe not headlines but his advice for Democrats was featured on those chyrons that scroll across the bottom of the screen beneath the omnipresent words, “Breaking News” on cable news stations.

The former president, impersonating Captain Obvious, advised Democrats to focus on telling the American people what Dems have accomplished. And I agree, the Biden administration has accomplishments such as generating jobs at 3x the rate as did Trump. Biden’s infrastructure plan is law and is now embraced by desperate GOPers who voted “no” but ride its coattails hoping to be re-elected. The infrastructure plan means struggling, low-income constituents from all states have a shot at good paying jobs.

Also, Biden, while struggling to manage the evasive pandemic and its ever-changing variants, has done a thousand times better than Trump. If nothing else, just the sheer fact Biden believes in science, taking the coronavirus seriously, puts him miles ahead of Trump’s failures.

A globe-leading more than NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND Americans are dead because of the Trump administration’s criminal negligence. Trump’s and Mike Pence’s ignorance should never be forgotten or forgiven, no matter how much Pence tries to reinvent himself for a 2024 presidential run.

If President Obama was granted a re-do at the White House, surely he would correct three costly mistakes. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

When Obama’s suggestion surfaced the other day, I couldn’t help but think about three big Obama miscues that helped get us to where we are today, i.e., crazed MAGAs running amok.

First, Obama made a colossal error not telling the American people that then-candidate Trump was compromised by Vladimir Putin and Russia. When acting Attorney General Sally Yates confirmed this with Obama, he should have, in August 2016, made everyone aware that the Republican nominee carried serious baggage. Undoubtedly, some GOPers who’ve become Never Trump Republicans would have taken back their support for soiled Trump prior to the 2016 election.

Second, Obama’s “you can keep your doctor” whopper, which proved to be untrue, sullied and continues to stain the not so affordable Affordable Care Act. Obama’s lie encouraged distrust of the healthcare industry.

Third, nominating Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court was another big mistake. Granted, Mitch McConnell was not going to proceed with hearings, regardless of who Obama nominated. But Obama trying to play nice by nominating a moderate Republican, for such a pivotal position, continues to haunt Democrats. Another example of Democrat nice-ball when hardball was required.

Biden, mimicking his former boss and friend, placed Garland in the attorney general slot. So far, this has proven to be a costly miss. Garland’s Department of Justice plays paddy-cake with January 6 insurrectionists and refuses to prosecute Trump and his henchmen. Rather than place a Republican in such an important role Biden should have named a tough-minded, no-nonsense Democrat as his attorney general.

I’ve said it before and will keep saying it; none of Biden’s accomplishments matter much if Trump and his authoritarian thugs are not thoroughly punished.

All bets are off, if Trump and the MAGA clan take over our government and turn America into a cheap, western version of Russia or North Korea.

Good day.