It’s Crazy That Trump Is Running Again… Right?

I very rarely have posted anything publicly regarding politics, but I absolutely need to say… it’s crazy that Trump is running again, right?

I’m writing this following the events of Super Tuesday 2024. For those who don’t know, Super Tuesday is when a majority of the states in the United States choose their primary candidate for the two main political parties.

And what the heck, after acing so many other states already, Trump is the top of the GOP once again.

Now, here’s the thing. I’m not American, but I would describe myself as right wing/conservative. I tend to vote alongside some of these sorts of policies, and in my country of Australia I usually tend towards the right leaning political party or representative, as it isn’t always as clearly left or right wing in Australian political parties – sometimes they swap, which is probably also true of the US. I’m a white married Christian and a father and not politically aligned or involved in any party, and if you look through this site you’re scarcely going to find anything too political here.

Until today, because this is crazy that Trump is running for office again… and succeeding. Right?

Now I do have to make it clear – Trump running in 2016 was a real surprise to a lot of people, including me. The American billionaire who seemingly owned every casino, fired everyone on The Apprentice and gave Kevin bad directions in Home Alone 2 was running for office. The memes were everywhere and somehow, he pulled it off.

And I think it’s worth mentioning that Trump did a decent job while in office. I didn’t have any real issues with him running in 2016, as his business focused policies seemed to resonate with a lot of people in the United States, and he achieved a measure of success, as all presidents do to a certain extent. In fact if I were an American in 2016 I may have surprised myself and voted for him for his strong economic promises.

I also think from my standpoint that Joe Biden has done a great job on a number of different issues, especially international ones, and now when I rewatch Parks and Rec and see him pop up a few times I’ll remember how he stood up for Western interests internationally during some very trying times.

But my concerns are with the 2024 run, and I am absolutely shocked this is happening. I just… don’t get it. And even though I’m in Australia, the potential of Trump winning has very far reaching consequences, this time more than the previous run, that could forever shape what happens in our world.

Maybe you’re a MAGA Republican or a Trump supporter or a Republican Lifer who just always supports the GOP regardless of what they’re doing because it spites the left or the Democrats. That’s fine. Most of us live in democratic societies where we get a magical thing called choice, and we can co-exist with people who have different worldviews than ourselves. You’re more than able to agree or disagree with what I’m writing about today.

I just want to voice that I think it’s absolutely 130% crazy that Trump is running for office again, and worse, that it’s being allowed to happen. Here’s why.

January 6

In 2020, Trump lost to Joe Biden and the Democrats. Whether you have problems with the Electoral College or the number of votes or whatever, the democratic process that has been in play for hundreds of years in the US selected a different winner.

And… you’ve seen the videos right?

Here, watch it for yourself. Undoctored, unaltered, Trump told everyone he was going to join them (which he didn’t) to enter the Capitol.

I mean, are you serious that someone actually got away with this? At the time of writing, the Supreme Court and several states had been blocking Trump from being able to run again for committing insurrection. And the argument from Trump and his team has not been that their actions were justifiable, or right, or constitutional – the argument has been that Trump had immunity as a former president.

Let that sink in people – not an argument that his actions were right or noble, but that he could get away with whatever he wants. In other words, “I did the wrong thing but it doesn’t matter”.

Are you serious that you don’t think that is a fatal character flaw and a very dangerous, borderline autocratic attitude to have in a democratic leader? The treatment of Alexey Navalny and Boris Nadezhin may not be that far off from such an attitude. Maybe Trump and Lukashenko should hang out some time.

It seems that people who are still pushing for Trump either have a view that January 6 was fake or doctored or justified, or that the Left is just so evil or unvotable that people will vote for the leader no matter what. Either way, I do not understand how in a world of smartphones and media where this event has been recorded from every angle, that we all have to pretend like this never happened.

Issues in Europe

Oh boy. I have been following the Ukrainian conflict daily since it took place and I have a lot to say on this one.

If you look throughout history, the events taking place in Europe are eerily familiar to the events of 1938 and 1939. We have the world’s largest invasion of a major power into another country since Hitler stormed Poland, with Russia invading Ukraine initially with over 290,000 troops (estimates of current troop contingent are over 780,000 currently), with both countries suffering a death toll militarily (and in the case of Ukraine, civilian casualties) that exceed the losses of the United Kingdom DURING ALL OF WORLD WAR 2 (!!!).

I know there are terrible conflicts in Yemen and Israel-Palestine and Sudan and others, but none are on this scale or magnitude of death and destruction, or mirror the World Wars so closely in their origin or trajectory. Not to mention 20 million Ukrainians (50~% of the population) turned into refugees and millions of men who have fled Russia fearing mobilization in a conflict they don’t believe in.

I was kinda glad when an ultra-right wing interviewer in Tucker Carlson published a video of Putin talking for over 2 hours, because a lot of people on the Extreme Right haven’t actually heard what we has to say, even though he’s been saying a lot of things for a lot years. However, to my horror, they didn’t seem to listen to him repeat multiple comments he has made for several years, including that Poland started World War 2 by making Germany invade them (same argument he used to invade Ukraine), that because a country was part of another country in history that you can take it back, or just so many other of the crazy things happening in Russia and Europe at the moment. They just interpreted it as a good thing to hear from the other side.

Defenders of this behaviour need to think about their perspective on the doctrine of Hitler and whether or not they would have agreed with him in 1938. They need to think that the line of logic means that Australia is Britain, Thailand is France, Pakistan is India, and Africa is still divided up by a bunch of Europeans and they can hold a vote to turn those countries into a literal part of the parent country.

They need to think about Dmitry Medvedev, head of the Russian Security Council and former Russian President, who recently posted a map illustrating the planned Russian Empire’s borders disbanding almost all of Ukraine as well as Moldova. Here’s the map if you’ve been staying out of the loop, and Russian troops are currently maybe still years off actually pulling this off if uninterrupted:

It’s not just Crimea, Donbass, Kherson or Zaporizhzhia – the goal is all of it.

They need to listen to Vladimir Solovyov, Margarita Simonyan and the state owned media (where all other voices and media have been deliberately censored or shut down by the government) and all their comments regarding bombing London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, taking over the Baltic states, pulling Transnistria and Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Gagauzia into the main Russian mainland… just so much World War level imperialism being repeated. And then these two individuals keep receiving meetings and medals from the president.

And what is Trump doing? He is publicly telling people that he would encourage Putin to invade and take over NATO countries who didn’t spend 2% of their GDP on military without invoking Article 5, and he is behind the significant delays in funding relief since October 7 via the likes of individuals like Speaker Mike Johnson. Multiple Republicans have gone on record saying that they want to solve the Ukrainian crisis after the election because if they solve it now, it’ll make the Democrats look good.

He’s also said he’ll let Putin take over Ukraine to solve the conflict, without having a look at very recent history for this tactic of “they want to be part of Russia” being used in Moldova in 1992, Chechnya in 1999, Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine previously in 2014.

This is almost exactly what happened in some of the larger world powers when Hitler (and two weeks later, Stalin) divided up Poland without opposition or true support for the Poles.

I read a tweet once that said “If you ever wondered what you would have done when Hitler invaded Europe, you’re doing it right now”.

Trump has backflipped on a few of his comments in recent weeks, and perhaps he would actually give the right support to keep Europe stable.

Not to mention all the other pending invasions countries have flagged – Taiwan, Guyana, all the turmoil in and around Mali.

If you’re not convinced of the danger, have a look at Russian Media Monitor for unfiltered presentations of their state TV programming, or read Russian news outlet RIA Novosti. These reflect Russian sources directly if you’re worried about foreign bias. Find out what they’re saying on a daily basis, and then come back to us and tell us you want Trump at the wheel at a time like this.

Republican senator Mitt Romney gave an excellent GOP based speech regarding this topic as well, I’d encourage you to check it out here.

He’s not that Christian re: The Christian Vote

Okay here’s something important to a lot of Republicans – the Christian vote. I mean I get it – I’m a Christian, I’ve got kids, I have some concerns about a number of approaches being adopted across the world and their impact on the current and future generations and the shocking mental health of Gen Z – I get it.

But folks, Trump is an appalling representation of the Christian faith. Some people saying he should be voted back in is because of their faith concerns, but really if you are of faith his actions should concern you.

First of all, Joe Biden and a number of other people in both major parties are of the Christian faith. It’s a weak and basic position that you should vote for the Christian person that should instead be balanced against party policies and approaches.

But after a 4 year term and everything that came up afterwards, I think it’s clear that this guy speaks like a Conservative at some rallies but lives like an absolute disaster. In a post #MeToo world, Jeffrey Epstein and Kevin Spacey get smashed, but Trump gets to win primaries?! He has well documented multiple cases of sexual assault and indecency, and does anyone remember the “grab the p###y” comments?

Not to mention fraud and tax evasion that he has publicly said he’s happy to have carried out.

Now call me naive, but as a Christian looking to make a faith based decision in voting, shouldn’t you pick someone of character? Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly the prophet said. Between January 6 and his track record with women and money, I don’t know how you reconcile Christian values against his character.

He might be in jail

This is driving me nuts. The dude is in multiple court cases, several of which could land him in jail for hundreds of years. He keeps winning primaries seemingly ignorant of this reality. What happens if he does get arrested and you’ve bumped out all your other Republican candidates?

He’s old too

I get it. Biden is 81, old, and can forget things during some interviews (although his showing on the Seth Meyers show was a great counterpoint to these concerns).

But Trump will be 78, older than Biden was in 2020. And he forgets his wife’s name and a lot of other things.

Plus you know voting for Biden includes a vote for Kamala should anything go wrong. What younger or alternative person would take it up if Trump was unable to perform?

Read his social media

Trump’s Twitter feed and his Truth Social pages. You cannot be serious that you’re okay with these.

Immigration and the Great Wall

I seem to remember something about a giant wall being built.

Or as Saturday Night Live would parody later, “I meant a great mall”.

Trump had his shot at immigration and yet the GOP is using this to block Congress from running during peak time (invoking a 2 week recess in February) and to stall other aid packages that are almost completely unrelated. The Republican party also put together a bipartisan immigration/border package that as soon as it was presented, was then immediately rejected by the Republican party who helped put it together.

These are dangerous games at dangerous times to have one or two more campaign points when there’s already hundreds of other things that the GOP could be campaigning on and get equal amounts of resonance and support from people on. And Trump seems to be making it happen.

There were alternatives

Let’s say that you absolutely refuse to want to vote for the Democrats. You don’t want anything remotely Left wing, you have a certain perspective on reproductive issues or gender or whatever.

You know what you should do?

Pick another Republican representative. There were heaps, and almost all of them had similar political stances.

I don’t understand how Nikki Haley or any of the other candidates are getting swept away by Trump. The GOP has been around for hundreds of years and surely you can pick the person who definitely won’t be in jail, who definitely isn’t in multiple court cases or fighting the Supreme Court, who won’t block bipartisan packages or encourage shutdowns or invasions, who won’t disparage other world leaders to get a bit of extra press.

Seriously, there’s still time to…. ah dang it Nikki Haley pulled out as I was putting this one together.

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This really was a bit of a rant, but I really can’t get passed how absolutely insane and crazy that Trump is running again seems to me. The implications could be significant, and it just seems like the window is gone for any other Republican nominee to stand a chance of being the party representative.

Maybe Trump will win, and maybe the world will be okay. But the actions of today should be sounding alarm bells to the entire world.

Or at least it sounded mine.