TIME TO STAND UP

I Know the Only Way to Stop Trump Calling Foul on Election

The president has rightfully claimed he had a mandate to rule. Now it’s time to take it away.

Opinion

We have all been to dinner parties, social events, and chats over the yard fence where we have shrugged our shoulders and said, “What can we do?”

The sheer scale of Donald Trump’s grift and corruption has sometimes seemed too big to challenge.

The president has paralyzed his own party, prosecuted or terrorized his detractors, penalized the media, and upended the rule of law.

He has disgusted our allies, cozied up to autocrats, lined his family’s pockets, and turned our melting pot nation into a grab bag for billionaires.

Even worse, he has created a climate of suspicion where people are afraid to walk down the street or turn up for work for fear of being arrested or thrown out of the country. Trump’s administration bristles at Nazi comparisons, but how else would you judge a government that blames the weak and treats honest, hard-working people with such cruelty?

The Republican Party has failed us, and so, up until now, have the Democrats. Even the courts have politicized our lives, ruling largely along party lines. The Trump-heavy Supreme Court, supposed to be our savior, ruled that the president was immune from criminal liability for his actions. No doubt he will also pardon the rest of his henchmen. Where does that leave us?

It leaves us with Tuesday.

Finally, after the chaos of DOGE, the destruction of the White House, and the craven conflicts of interest, the American people can render their verdict on Trump.

To those who voted for him last time, we ask: did he keep his word to make your lives better? Interest rates are up, and so is inflation. The illegal, foolhardy war with Iran has pushed prices up at the pump, put farmers out of business, and the weekly grocery bill continues to rise. The only reason Trump can call the affordability crisis a Democratic Party “hoax” is because he doesn’t have to worry about such things with $7 billion in the bank.

Perhaps a vote for Trump in 2024 was worth it if you started with little. But now you have less. It’s time to cut losses.

LOST BOYS

Trump Voters Reveal Brutal Regret on Eve of Election

Ewan Palmer

For those with a lot of money who just want to make more, it’s a matter of conscience. Maybe you can live with another vote for Trump. But the markets faltered on Friday. The gravy train may be growing cold.

Perhaps you can cite the malevolent, ungracious, 80-year-old in the White House as a role model for your children. Unlikely.

The Republican Party has failed us, with notably few exceptions, in standing up to a president who has destroyed everything it stood for. It is inconceivable that a president overseeing a $40 trillion debt would promise $5,000 to every adult American—at a cost of $1.3 trillion—as a bribe payable only if his party wins the House and Senate in the midterms. But that is exactly what Trump has done.

Republicans with long, distinguished congressional records confirmed ridiculously unworthy characters like Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and RFK Jr. to some of the highest, most important positions in the land. And they are forever tainted for that.

ALL IS FORGIVEN

Trump Reveals Shock Sweeping Pardon Plan for His Goons

Will Neal

The Democrats failed us, too. Unprepared to lead and ill-equipped to oppose, they couldn’t organize drinks in a brewery. Extremism isn’t the best antidote to extremism, but it is certainly a symptom, and we shouldn’t expect otherwise. The danger is in reaching too far left to balance out the pain of Trump’s fascist leanings. It’s a conundrum the Democrats have yet to solve.

Now it’s our turn.

The president made it clear that Tuesday’s election is all about him, and so it is. Make no mistake, it is a referendum on Trump.

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And, as much as the Democrats have stumbled in the past two years, they are our best hope to turn things around. They cannot turn the clock back, but they may be able to call Trump to account and, at the very least, use the power of Congress to end this great national nightmare.

A blue wave is not enough. It has to wipe away everything in its path and be sizeable enough to wash away any attempts by Trump and his MAGA minions to cry foul and claim the ballots were rigged.

WIPEOUT IS ON WAY

Why Flailing Trump Will Suffer Crushing Defeat

The Daily Beast Podcast

It has to send Trump the message that we’ve had enough.

For many years, Holocaust survivor Werner Reich, who settled in Long Island and died in 2022, spoke to communities to explain some of the lessons he learned from the horror of Auschwitz.

One lesson was not what many expected. He told me he didn’t blame Adolf Hitler or his blackshirt sidekicks for the evil that turned a proud nation into a hell on Earth. He blamed the German people for allowing it to happen.

We should remember that on Tuesday.

It’s up to us now.

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David GardnerChief National Correspondent

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