It seems to me that both the Democrats and Republicans see this 2024 election as an Existential War - if the wrong side wins, the very existence of America will be destroyed.
The MAGAs see this as a battle between a "Godly" and a "Godless" nation.
The Democrats (and many appalled former Republicans") see this as a battle between Democracy and Authoritarian Theocratic despotism.
It seems to me that the MAGA Theocratic extremists are terrified of any sexuality that is not inside a marriage of one man and one woman - homosexuality, transgender, abortion, birth control, pornography, etc. It must seem to them that "God" will surely Smite the Nation if such debauchery is allowed to persist. (Sodom and Gamorah don'cha know)
And the Republican Oligarchy has long crusaded for unfettered and unregulated Big Business - pollution, environment be damned - full maximum profits ahead!
To Democrats, it is very clear that Trump is promising to end the Rule of Law, and end Democracy (end the democratically elected Republic). Why do I think that? Trump has promised to use "his" Department of Justice to unleash maximum punishment on all those who have offended him - judges, prosecutors, witnesses, juries, news organizations that tell the truth he doesn't want us to hear, former Cabinet Members who have confessed that Trump is Stupid, Ignorant, a Moron, Unfit, etc. etc. etc.
And Trump is clearly intending to be president beyond the 2024 election. He has a lot of helpers to show him how to do this, starting with his actual boss, Vladimir Putin and including by a multitude of MAGA extremists. I take him at his word.
MAGA extremists are very clear that they are fully intending to get rid of Democracy and install a Theocracy - the greatest violation of the First Amendment that I can think of. Supreme Court Justice Alito - and his rabid wife - have clearly stated that America is going to be either a "godly nation" or a "godless nation". Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, has promised to end contraception, criminalize gay sex and marriage, end pornography, etc all in accord with his extremist Catholic dogmas.
To the Christian extremists "Godly" can mean only one thing - Christian - not Muslim, not Jewish, not Morman, not Buddhist, not Hinduism, not Sikhism, not Taoism, not Native American religions, not New Age spiritualities - Christian and only Christian. (By the way, pretend that they win and establish America as a "Christian Nation", which of the many Christian religions will win out? Didn't the first arrivals on the shores of America come to flee the persecutions of competing Christian faiths? Might we not reasonably expect violent rages between the various "One True Faiths"?)
Thanks to the extremist anti-democracy Supreme Court of Justice Roberts, we see MAGA fanatics establishing a new "Jim Crow" America where, golly gee, who would have guessed, black folks just seem to have a tougher and tougher ability to vote, just like the Jim Crow South that had no actual democracy for almost a century. The Jim Crow folks already know how to make sure that only the Right People (white Christian men primarily) actually get to have their votes counted. This disgraceful Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act of the Civil Rights Movement, and as fully expected, the former Confederate states have already severely restricted black voting in their ever-racist states.
By the way, it will not only be blacks and browns and yellows and reds who will find it more and more difficult to vote, WOMEN are big, big, big targets as well for the MAGA fierce desire to control. At the heart of the MAGA movement, I believe, is a fear and hatred of feminine power. To the Theocrats, women are supposed to be like the Alabama Senator, Katie Britt, an obedient housewife and mother dedicated to spending her life supporting her superior husband and proclaiming to all how blessedly happy they are (nothing wrong with choooooooosing to be a mother and housewife - let women choooooooose - something that terrifies White Supremacist Christian men).
The Constitution is on the side of a democratically elected Republic and a country free from the tyranny of religion. The Founders wrote it down.
This should not be hard to figure out.
I believe in the goodness of America. I believe this sad and dangerous episode of America will be defeated and will fade into one of the dark times of American history - it should never be forgotten, and never be repeated. But, of course, the history of America has always been about the choice Americans have had to make between "All Men are Created Equal" and "Don't worry, we superior men will take charge, don't worry your pretty little heads, just go smell the roses, we'll take care of everything."
Barf.
