The Mr. Donald J. Trump of the United States of America recently said that he does not have a racist bone in his body.  The only way that this can be true is if he is a mollusk: is Mr. Trump a mollusk?!  Does he have all of that racist mushy stuff sloshing around inside of an external bony shell that looks human?  That’s as scary as what all of the hatred and divisiveness that constantly flows out of his mouth has the potential of doing to America!  Mr. Trump is a United States race war looking for an opportunity to happen, he is a war with Iran desperately seeking a reason to explode onto the scene, he is chaos personified and that chaos is yearning to be free to express itself so that all eyes will be on Mr. Donald J. Trump no matter how great the resulting mayhem that follows and resounds far beyond its wake!

Mr. Trump has so many ‘acting’ officials in his administration that they are almost impossible to keep up with and the litany of scandals that have occurred on his watch are almost just as hard to track.  Real governance under his watch is at best rare and at worst (hopefully) the punch line of jokes for the late night comedians.  None of this seems to bother Mr. Trump in the least and if it has any impact on congressional Republicans, they steadfastly refuse to show it.  Their willingness to sell their soul to Mr. Trump followed by their blind loyalty to him is astounding.  Once they enter his orbit they are ultimately sucked into some kind of an indescribable black hole and into his control; a control that allows him to manipulate them to the point to where they will do almost anything for him.

A perfect example of how this strange phenomenon works is reflected in the new version of Senator Lindsey Graham.  He has morphed into someone who is totally unrecognizable when compared to the man that he was when he was a close associate of the late Senator John McCain.  When he was associated with Senator McCain he was a reasonable man who made reasonable decisions.  Even when he ran for president in 2016 he called Mr. Trump out as a kook and conman who was unfit to hold the office of president.  Now, he is a complete Trump toady who seems to like nothing better than carrying Mr. Trump’s water.

As I continue to watch Mr. Trump and these Republican congressmen it brings to mind a movie that I watched not too long ago called ‘The Best Of Enemies.’  This movie is based on fact and depicts things that actually occurred in Durham, North Carolina and it is playing out in America right now in the way that the Mr. Donald J. Trump of the United States of America conducts himself.  I am not going to spoil the movie for you by expounding on details in the event that you have not already watched it.  But even if you have not already seen it you are likely at least familiar with the events on which it is based that actually occurred in North Carolina.  So I am going to try to share my thoughts about it as it relates to the Trump administration without spoiling it for you should you decide to watch it.

In this movie as I picture it, Mr. Trump is the mayor who presided over the city council, the Republican congress members are the city council members, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is the council member who represents Ms. Ann Atwater’s district and Senator Lindsey Graham plays the part of the KKK president C.P. Ellis.  For those who have already seen the movie, you might not agree with me on who plays the various characters.  And for those who have not already seen it – after you watch it – you might not agree with me either.  But that does not matter because it does not impact on what my point is.  My point is that, under this imaginary scenario, America needs more Republicans in congress with the courage of C. P. Ellis.  And she also needs more Americans, particularly our elected government officials – especially those elected officials in Washington, to be willing to regularly and seriously participate in these ‘charrette’ type meetings regardless of what they call them (perhaps bipartisan negotiations?).  If you have absolutely no idea of what I am talking about, watch the movie.  Then everything will come into focus.

Americans need elected leaders and all other elected government officials who are seeking to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves and their political party; elected officials who are serious about protecting the constitution, governing and keeping America great.  This is not something that can be done through hatred and divisiveness but through love and togetherness: we are stronger together!  Far too many of us have already willingly journeyed much too far down this rabbit hole and toward the abyss while led by the Mr. Donald J. Trump of the United States of America.  But those Americans who are concerned about the direction in which America is traveling must not be discouraged and throw up their hands and give up because they feel that we have traveled too far down this path to turn back.  We must remember that hope is always present!  Hope, change and faith is in our DNA and most if not all of us believe that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Keep the faith!  Stay in the fight…and win!

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line

‘The Republican Mad Triad’ (TRMT), which consists of Mr. Donald J. Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr and Senate Majority Leader Addison Mitchell (Mitch) McConnell Jr., has a nefarious game plan that it is working to perfection on the American people.  These politicians are assisting Mr. Trump in moving America backwards as quickly as they can.  And they are not alone in helping him.  Almost every Republican in the United States congress is assisting him either directly or tacitly.  And those congressmen are being led by Senator Lindsey Graham who appears to be one of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s key lieutenants.

The silence of the tacit toadies is deafening!  Mr. Trump is boldly spouting the old familiar words of racist and white supremacists from many years gone by: his rhetoric sounds like words taken directly from a KKK rally.  And the stench of those standing silently by and not challenging him is as bad, if not worse, than that of those human beings that Mr. Trump is having held in cages at America’s southern border in inhumane conditions!  He is not providing them with soap or toothbrushes, he is not providing them with access to showers and some of them have been told to drink water from the toilet.  Vice President Mike Pence continues to stand by Mr. Trump and support his position in the way that he is handling the situation at the southern border.

Mr. Trump knows exactly what he is doing and it seems that he has successfully lulled the American people to sleep.  While the press continues to say that there is no way that Mr. Trump can be reelected with only the support of his base and not expanding that support to the broader electorate, they fail to take into consideration or mention the other things that he is doing to tip the 2020 election scale in his favor: things like gerrymandering, eliminating early voting, eliminating Sunday voting, the purge of voters from eligible voters records, states implementing new voting laws that have a disparate impact on people of color, intimidating potential voters, intimidating voters at the polls and more!  They fail to give serious consideration to all of these things that he is doing in the way of voter suppression!  They fail to consider what the combination of the support of his base and voter suppression can do; and this scenario does not even include the closet Trump voters who find much of what he says and does disgusting but like the affect that the things that result from his acts, no matter how disgusting, have on them.  It is an “I am not that (I do not adhere to that and do not condone those things) but I like this” (the tax break, the trend of the economy, how the resulting outcome will effect white people and etc.) kind of thing.

Wake up America!  Mr. Trump is telling Americans not to believe what they see and/or hear but to believe him.  And many Americans are buying this load of crap that he is selling them although they know that he is a proven liar and conman.  They are buying it because he has trampled on the press and worked to discredit it ever since he entered office and his tactic has worked.  One need only to look at the countries with despots and strongmen where a small percentage of those in power control 90 percent of the population or more to realize that this is not something that is impossible.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with looking at things from the perspective of how is this going to affect me; we all do it!  But at the same time that we look at “how is this going to affect me” we need to also look at what price is America and our fellow Americans going to have to pay for it and is it worth that price.  America has always been that kind of a country and it still is even with a Mr. Donald J. Trump leading it.  We Americans simply need to let him and his enablers know in no uncertain terms what we absolutely will not tolerate!

Mr. Trump recently attacked four U.S. congresswomen of color (a.k.a. “The Squad”) and in essence accused them of hating America and Israel and being un-American.  After accusing them of this he told them that if they did not like it in America that they should go back to where they came from.  Based on Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, he was not just addressing those four Democratic congresswomen but he was addressing all people of color.  It just so happens that I am a person of color and I say who the hell is Mr. Trump to tell me to go back to where I came from as if this is his country and not mine too?!  I am an American!  I am just as much an American as he is!  Perhaps he should go back to where he came from; that is, if where he came from would be willing to accept him after witnessing how he has been conducting himself as the Mr. Donald J. Trump of the United States of America!

Before I leave this subject, “The Squad” does not get off totally free here.  I have a message for them as well.  Mr. Trump did not attack you just by chance just as he did not defend Speaker Nancy Pelosi against you by chance.  Mr. Trump is using you to foster tension, descent and internal problems to hurt Democrats and their 2020 election chances.  He is using The Squad’s quarrel with Speaker Pelosi to promote himself and bolster his chances to be reelected.  There is no doubt that The Squad deserves respect but you must also understand why all organizations have leaders, how leadership works, understand the proper protocol to resolve problems with the leader and you must respect the leader and their right to lead.  You likely already know all of these things better than I do, but you need to do more than know them you must incorporate them into how you conduct yourselves.  Because I have no doubt that someday in the future one of you will be the Speaker or even the Senate Majority Leader.  I also have no doubt that somewhere along the way that there will be controversy on your watch and that you will want and even demand that members follow proper protocol.

With this in mind, you should resolve right now that you will not allow anyone in the TRMT to use you and the mandate that you have from your constituents to harm the Democratic Party and your chances to win the presidency, retain the House and win the Senate.  With the way that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – the self proclaimed Grim Reaper, is packing the courts with conservative judges to Mr. Trump’s liking and blocking bipartisan legislation that Mr. Trump does not want to pass no matter how beneficial it would be to America, Democrats will need all of the leverage that they can get in order to set policies and pass legislation that will help America to heal.  Senate Majority Leader McConnell obviously fully supports Mr. Trump and all of the things that he is doing and he says that The Mr. Trump of the United States of America is not a racist.  Based on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of racist, from my perspective, Mr. Trump could be the poster child for “racist.”  I wonder what Majority Leader McConnell’s definition is for “racist.”  A reporter should ask him that question.  Of course if the Majority Leader’s response turned out to be not to Mr. Trump’s liking, we all know that he would call it “Fake News.”

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line

Is Alabama Republican Representative Mo Brooks a hypocrite, coward or both?!  Perhaps he is a sleek well-integrated model of both.  Because Colin Kaepernick said that Nike should not sell sneakers with a Revolutionary War-era flag on them Representative Brooks suggests that he should move to another country where their laws might be better suited to him?!  Is he speaking only to Colin Kaepernick or is he speaking to all people of color while using Mr. Kaepernick as his whipping boy just like the Mr. Donald J. Trump of the United States of America did when he attacked him and all other athletes of color for kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem?  And speaking of Mr. Trump who is one of the most lawless Mr. Donald J. Trump’s of the United States of America – if not the most lawless – ever, where is the voice of the Republicans who swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States when they took office?!  With everything that Mr. Trump is doing to dismantle the institutions and laws of this country while defiantly thumbing his nose at America and those branches of government that are his co-equals, where are their voices; where is Representative Mo Brooks’ voice?!

I am not saying that I agree with Colin Kapernick as regards his opinion on the previously mentioned Revolutionary War-era flag issue.  What I am saying though is that Mr. Kapernick has a right to his opinion and the right to express it without being relegated to anyone’s “not a patriot” heap and who should be banished to another country no matter that offended person’s political affiliation.  Is Representative Brooks a coward?  Is he a hypocrite?  Is he both?  Does it even matter which he is?!  What does matter is that he is not honoring his oath to the Constitution or his responsibility to the American people.  Representative Brooks and all of those other congressional Republicans who are supporting Mr. Trump while winking at his antics for whatever reason are assisting him in ruining this country and all of those great things that it stands for.  There is no legitimate excuse for doing that!  I am not suggesting that the right choices that they must make are easy ones but I am suggesting that they must make those choices; that is what they were elected to do!  That is what they swore to do to the best of their ability when they were installed in office!  It is obvious that they are not doing that.

I want to be clear.  I am not saying that Representative Brooks is a bad human being or that he should be punished for his way of thinking.  But I am saying that he is a hypocrite, a coward or a combination of the two and that he needs to clean up his act.  None of us is perfect and the majority of us are not faced with making such grave decisions with regards to our democracy as is Representative Brooks.  But the majority of us are not officials who were elected to represent the American people as a whole.  So come on Representative Brooks, stop posturing for reelection and do your job.

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line

At least two supporters of former Vice President Joe Biden are obviously very angry at Senator Kamala Harris because she challenged Mr. Biden on his comments as he reminisced about his warmhearted relationship with two segregationist senators during his speech at the Jesse Jackson Rainbow PUSH Coalition.  According to an article in POLITICO by Carla Marinucci and Natasha Korecki, when one Biden supporter, Lee White, was asked about Senator Harris’ challenge he said; “She played low ball, which was out of character.  And he didn’t expect it, nor did I.  She should not have gone that route.  She’s much too intelligent, she’s been able to be successful thus far, why do you have to do that.”  Another Biden supporter from California, which is Senator Harris’ home state put it in harsher terms when he said; “It’s going to bite her in the ass.  Very early on there was a buzz… Biden-Kamala is the dream ticket, the best of both worlds.”  After this week, “That s—t ain’t happening.”

Every reasonable Democrat – and everyone else, knows that Joe Biden is not a racist and that he has fought hard for civil rights during his entire career as a politician.  Having said that, It has been proven time-and-again that politics is a tough game that tends to get into, and far too often, beyond the grey areas of what some Americans find to be beyond the pale; that is why so many of them find politics distasteful and refuse to follow it.  I don’t know if some consider what Senator Harris did to Mr. Biden to be an unfair attack that was beyond the pale; I certainly don’t think that it was: and I respect the previously mentioned Biden supporters’ right to say that she “played low ball” and that “it’s going to bite her in the ass.”  But what I do know is that what she did exposed Mr. Biden, whom I greatly admire and believe to be a man of principle and integrity, as a person who might struggle to deal with the current Donald J. Trump of the United States of America, Mr. Donald J. Trump, in a one-on-one debate and defeat him.

I am still closely watching and weighing all of the primary candidates in an effort to determine which one of them can best handle Mr. Trump, a man with no moral compass and who has no bottom when it comes to how low a human being can go when it comes to winning and/or getting their way.  After the most recent Democratic debate if the choice to be the Democratic nominee boiled down to Senator Harris or Mr. Biden, I would be compelled to give Senator Harris the edge over Mr. Biden.  I would give the edge to Senator Harris because she demonstrated some very sharp and unique skills in taking Mr. Biden apart in this debate.  And even if he did not expect her to come after him in the manner that she did he should have been able to think on his feet and avoid or, at least, greatly mitigate the amount of damage that she would be able to do to him.  He did not do that and he made matters worse in the way that he tried to defend himself.  If he was taken by surprise by the way that Senator Harris attacked him, what would happen if he were face-to-face with Mr. Trump who has no boundaries and no bottom as regards how low he can go when he plays “low ball?”

Not only did Senator Harris manage to throw Joe Biden off balance in her attack on him during the Debate but she used these same skills previously in taking down United States Attorney General William Barr when she questioned him during his testimony to the senate: she left him confused and virtually speechless during his responses to her questions.  And it was not because he did not understand the questions that she asked him.  Instead, it was because with the skill and precision with which she asked these questions he was unable to effectively be evasive and obfuscate in his responses.  These are precisely the kind of skills that the candidate who will eventually face Mr. Trump will need.  During a debate they will need to remain focused and cut through the bluster of a bloviating imposter and conman who, according to records, has lied over 10, 000 times thus far during his time in office and force him to deal with facts and the truth.  Not “alternative facts” or Trump facts, which exist only inside his private bubble of Trump World; but real facts and real truth that exists in the real world.

The Democratic primaries have really only just begun so there is still plenty of time for all of the other candidates to have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills so that voting Americans can decide who among them have what it takes to confront Mr. Trump in debates and defeat him in the 2020 general election.  Once we decide who those candidates are we can then select the very best one and throw all of our support behind them and do everything within our power to help them defeat Mr. Trump.  It is impossible to overemphasize how important it is to defeat Mr. Trump for numerous reasons.

Among those reasons why it is so important to defeat Mr. Trump are; 1) He has completely ignored the emoluments clause in the Constitution.  2) He has refused to present his income tax returns to the appropriate organizations and personnel for review so that they can assure the American people that all is well which will allow them to be comfortable and confident that he is protecting the country’s interest first rather than his own personal interest.  3) He has ignored the traditions regarding nepotism.  4) He has openly obstructed justice on many occasions and defied congressional subpoenas for materials.  5) He has instructed those who are and were a part of his administration to defy subpoenas.  6) He has caused and/or allowed children of immigrants to be separated from their parents and then placed those parents and children in detention facilities (cages) under inhumane conditions on America’s southern border.  7) He has done many other things that are unbecoming of a Mr. Donald J. Trump of the United States of America including his current apparent attempt to ignore a U.S. Supreme Court ruling by way of an Executive Order.  The bottom line is that he has already done what might be irreparable damage to America including ruin her reputation around the world in the eyes of our allies and enemies.

With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by his side enabling him in everything that he does no matter how lawless or crass, the Republicans in congress and the senate remaining silent at all costs and refusing to hold him to account Mr. Trump is conducting himself as if he is invincible.  With each thing that he does for which he is not held accountable he becomes more bold in thumbing his nose at the rule of law and all American institutions that will not bow down to him and kiss his ring.  Let there be no doubt that Mr. Trump is not alone in these atrocities.  He and all of those Republicans in congress who continue to support him and wink at the way that he is conducting himself should and must be held to account.  We can assure that they are through our vote.  So always remember, whether you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent, your vote is the most important one of all…unless you don’t use it!  If you value our democracy as we now know it and want to preserve it for posterity, be sure to do your civic duty and vote!

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line