Alan Zendell, January 23, 2025

It has been responsibly reported that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6^th perpetrators who were convicted of crimes was not analyzed or deliberated over, but was an impulsive decision made by him alone, designed close the issue. It was a terrible decision, as hundreds of very dangerous and well-armed people who openly threaten civil war are back in their communities angrier than ever. Worse, Trump’s action has clearly inspired them to keep up their fight to overthrow the government with even bolder actions.

I have to ask: what’s worse, a president who makes bad decisions because either he is not competent or unwilling to listen to expert advisors, or one who acts irrationally without regard to consequences? This is an urgent matter for all Americans. People guilty of insurrection, murder, and assault will be freed because an angry narcissist who is unable to control himself wants the support of these extremist militias. We’ve seen what they are capable of. Imagine if they attack the Capitol again, but this time they have more allies than adversaries within the Trump administration.

It’s appalling to me that my country could have placed its future in Trump’s hands again after seeing what he did during his first term. In 2016, people frustrated with the government could be forgiven for being taken in by his lies and delusions. It was also not unreasonable for them to hope that President Trump would behave differently than either candidate Trump or businessman Trump, but that hope is no longer credible. As President, he showed the same disdain for laws, rules, and appropriate behavior that he always had in the past. And he proved that George Orwell had been correct when he predicted that the more outrageous the lie, and the more often it’s repeated, the more likely people are to believe it.

The truth that the world witnessed with its own eyes and ears is that Trump was willing to put the entire nation at risk because his ego couldn’t accept defeat in the election. Anyone who thinks the radical right-wing militias he pardoned aren’t serious about their threats of revolution and civil war needs to wake up and smell the roses. They are dangerous and they are angry as hell. If you’re not convinced, ask why state and federal law enforcement won’t enter places like the northern Idaho panhandle or the Siskyou mountains along the western border of California and Oregon. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it’s real.

Given the callous disregard Trump displayed in forgiving the crimes of the insurrectionists, why would anyone expect any of his other present and future actions to be different? He knows perfectly well that America became great on the backs of immigrants, and the overwhelming majority of them are hard-working honest people who are grateful to be Americans. For every drug dealer who slips through our border there are thousands of decent people just trying to raise their families in peace.

So, why slander them? Why tell America that they’re all murderers and rapists, as he famously did on his escalator? I’m not a fan of undocumented people entering our country, but the reality is that the economies of at least half our states depend on them. If our immigration system is broken, and it is, it’s because of greed and corruption within our own borders. Too many people profit from the work done by undocumented workers, including Trump’s own family, for them to change the system. The reason Trump slandered and degraded immigrants is simply because his lies resonated with his base.

Now it’s the turn of scientists, health care researchers, teachers, and every Democrat. Trump is angry because he seriously mismanaged COVID and cost the lives of at least a half million Americans. President Biden, before leaving office, thought it necessary to issue pre-emptive pardons to people like Anthony Fauci and the entire Centers for Disease Control, because they spoke the truth in the face of Trump’s lies.

The strangest irony in all this is that Trump has surrounded himself with some of the smartest, wealthiest and most successful people in the world because he has always believed that wealth and power are the only things that matter, which actually boils down to just wealth, since power can be bought. But all is not well in Trump’s fantasy oligarchy. It’s clear that his billionaire supporters like Elon Musk have little or no respect for him, but he promised them all the one thing he’s sure to deliver with a Republican Congress. They’ll never have to be burdened with taxes again.

So far, this administration is looking like a bunch of loose cannons all firing at random, as often as not at each other. Only 1,458 days to go.