Let's save something. I know, howzabout everything?

So many judicial rulings recently have not favored the strange ex-president so he’s obviously alarmed but just as he has for most of his life, he remains somewhat confident of his stage management and propaganda skills. That’s how narcissism works. I anticipate that will ultimately have to yield to the growing sense of desperation that will come as more indictments occur with more trial dates set.

He’s long depended on secrecy, with NDAs and confidential attorney-client privileges part of his shields. With the presidency, that gave him an additional secrecy tool, executive privilege. Lately, though, those tools have been swept aside by judges, appointed by Democrats and Republicans and even some he appointed. He’s starting to learn that laws and judges are more complex than he ever knew before.

He can manage a stage, he can convince people to toss money his way and he can influence the perceptions of quite a few. But he’s in over his head trying to manage the law or persuade the judges administering them.

I also can’t recall any other politician in US history that has exposed so many employees to such harm. Lawyers get censured or lose their right to practice law. His personal attorney & fixer plus his accountant, imprisoned. A few others who’d be in prison now, but he pardoned them. Some of his staffers continue to face legal perils and it’s a reasonable assumption that more will face indictments. And hundreds of his supporters have been prosecuted and convicted with hundreds more facing the same.

It’s got to be costing him a bundle to keep hiring new attorneys willing to take on the risks of working for him. He’s also learning he can’t snap his fingers and get his most aggressive and violence-prone supporters to show up like he could one or two years ago.

He’s completely destroyed any comity he once had with leading GOP Senator McConnell and his wife, along with numerous former Cabinet Secretaries and staffers. Most of his Congressional support is found in the House from a motley crew of 8-10 mostly incompetents in extremely Republican districts.

Will he be convicted of crimes? Absolutely. Will he serve time in prison? Nobody knows. I’ve made it clear that I think too many on social media direct too much attention to that and there’s far more pressing needs requiring more attention than what happens to Trump. The chief goal for the good of us all is only that he be defeated - and soundly - in 2024.

The second short term goal is not to create a blue wave in Congress and state legislatures but to see to the creation of a red, white, blue, black, brown multi-hued wave of citizens breaking the grip of dirty dark money on our government. In 27 years nearly 3 billion people on the planet will experience water shortages. We’re already experiencing major weather extremes that will worsen with added delays by political gamers.

Tired jokes and funny memes attacking the likes of (and looks) of certain Republicans is losing its effectiveness. That doesn’t mean sarcasm and satire need to be discarded but greater emphasis and impetus needs to be directed in more effective ways.

And the fastest, most effective thing we can do is to aim for 60 vote majorities for Democrats and Independents in the House and Senate - and state legislatures - plus an overwhelming win to the White House that shreds the viability of Trump to hold any office again and shreds his elective support base.

I’m well aware that any one party rule can eventually get corrupted so I’m not seeking these as permanent changes. But they’re desperately needed in 2024. The biosphere we live in has to be saved. The War on Women’s Rights and LGBTQ rights has to be stopped in its tracks. Public health standards have to be maintained and our nation’s healthcare system requires massive upgrades.

The Republican Party has convinced 50% of US voters to elect their candidate only once in the past 8 presidential elections. Only twice have they gained a plurality of popular support in that time. Their support is in decline and will continue downhill as key parts of their base are being lost to attrition. Older conservatives are dying while younger demographics that lean moderate and liberal are growing.

A political party facing that has very few options:

1. they can stage a coup, militarily, and install a dictator.

2. they can stack the top national court to throw an election their way, as the GOP did in 2000.

3. they can discredit election systems entirely, disenfranchising and suppressing tens of millions of voters.

4. Or they can offer and deliver more promising and popular solutions to problems and win by actually competing, instead of by cheating and gamesmanship.

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Anyone out there willing to bet on #4? That argument’s been tried and has fallen on deaf ears repeatedly.

Instead they’ve created rules that limit Democratic leaning voters. They’ve reduced the number of polling places in Democratic neighborhoods. They’ve attacked voting machine companies, attacked the completely innocent hard workers at polling places, and they’ve tried to stack state Secretary of State positions with election-denying kooks. And they’re getting blocked by more courts than ever before for illegal gerrymandering schemes.

They’re trying to stack more courts to keep their gerrymandering schemes in place. They’re passing laws to try and increase the birth rate of more conservatives. They’re even moving people from Arizona and Texas to try to keep them from becoming blue Democratic majority states.

Appealing to the ethics of a corrupted party hasn’t worked in the past 30 years. Logical debate is impossible with a party embracing Q-Anon lunacy. And they’ve continued to shield Trump who won in 2016 with the hacked emails of Clinton’s campaign team, who won by embracing Putin’s assistance, who won by paying money to cover up his affair with a porn star, who won with Republican Congressmen repeatedly investigating Clinton for a terror attack on an embassy where 3 people died.

They defended Trump who illegally blocked military aid to a country that was under attack by Putin for 6 years, trying to extort them into providing fake dirt on Biden’s son to cheat his way to a second win in 2020. They defended him despite his cockamamie schemes to downplay covid which multiplied the early deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans (one of the worst records of any first world nation). They tried to kill mail-in voting despite its long record of accuracy (and despite the reality that many of their own down-ballot candidates won with those same mailed votes).

And Senate Republicans refused to convict him after he incited a bloody and brutal insurrection effort that nearly got the second-in-line and third-in-line to the presidency killed. They’ve tried all the crooked options to win the presidency. They won 50% once in 32 years, didn’t win the two major wars that their one winner started and that same one also caused a housing bubble collapse that nearly rivaled the Great Depression.

There’s only one way left to convince them that #4 is and always has been their best option. Beat them. Beat them convincingly, across the board, like was done in 1964.

That’s where social media and offline activists have to double down their efforts at messaging and organizing.

A democracy in decline can’t stop the catastrophic effects of continued global warming. Our streets won’t be safer if Trump wins again and releases all the insurrectionists from prison. Or if he continues to advance the growth of hate groups. Winning tiny majorities elsewhere isn’t enough. Aim for 60% across the board.

Only a blow-out loss by Republicans can ever convince them to serve the country well and compete fairly. A few took notice that their midterm red wave never came. We have to win bigger in 2024 to have any chance at all of keeping the planet habitable with equal rights for all. Your daughters and granddaughters and neighbors deserve no less.

Merrick Garland and Jack Smith are methodically getting to the point the majority of Americans want. Dominion voting machines is doing it’s job against Republican propaganda machine #1. Let them do their jobs. And let’s do ours. CONVINCINGLY.

The time to save the world is NOW.

And for the next 19 months, we have to keep our efforts and eyes on this goal.