Burke: A refresher on who Trump is and what he’s promised

Before you mark your ballot for primary or general, ask yourself if this is who you want as president.

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

I sometimes wonder if we have become so inured to what Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican acolytes say that we forget, or ignore, most of their pronouncements, promises and threats.

We’ve heard their BS so many times, and it comes at us at such incredible velocity in almost unmanageable volume that we simply pass it off as, “just Trump being Trump.”

But as that old cliché goes, “When they tell you who they are, believe them.”

So here is a compendium of what Donald Trump, increasingly likely Republican presidential candidate, and his down-ticket Republican cohorts have, directly and publicly, told us about who they are and what they plan to do if elected in November.

(And no — as you mark your March 12 presidential primary ballot — it’s not too early to track this stuff; and no, we shouldn’t forget they did what they said they’d do in the past; and yes their agenda will directly affect you. Really.)

So, if you’re considering a vote for Trump, or any of his MAGA Republican horde, here’s a little reminder, no, make that a big warning, of what you’ll get.

If you vote for Trump you’ll get a dictator from Day One.

If you vote for Trump you’ll get the Insurrection Act with the military stamping out dissenting protests and Trump unilaterally sending soldiers into Democratic-run cities.

If you vote for Trump you’ll get Christian nationalism and its extreme values forced throughout government and into your public and private life. (Like Pastor Bobby Leonard of the Bible Baptist Tabernacle in Monroe, N.C., who said about women wearing shorts, “if you dress like that and you get raped and I’m on the jury, he’s going to go free … a man’s a man.”

If you vote for Trump you’ll get a national abortion ban and restrictions, and a ban on birth control and IVF.

If you vote for Trump you’ll get “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” with millions forcibly sent somewhere (?); sprawling concentration camps holding undocumented detainees; and the end of birthright citizenship.

If you vote for Trump you’ll get:

• A president who wants total immunity for any crime he may commit (including, says his lawyers, sending Seal Team 6 to assassinate political rivals).

• The destruction of the federal government infrastructure when he fires tens of thousands if they do not fully buy his agenda or show sufficient “loyalty.”

• Trade policies with a new so-called “universal baseline tariff” (meaning a tax on most imported goods) that would raise costs for U.S. consumers and manufacturers buying foreign goods, resuming inflation.

• A Justice Department stripped of its independence and used as Trump’s personal vengeance police to exact revenge on his opponents.

• An end to surrogacy, sex education in schools, and no-fault divorce as part of the Christian nationalist agenda Trump will implement.

• More corporate tax cuts and greater tax burden on regular folks.

• The end of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid as we know it.

• The United States’ exit from NATO so Russia/Putin can, “Do whatever the hell he wants.”

• Abandonment of the Ukraine.

But wait; there’s more:

• No more vote-by-mail or early voting.” (Only same-day voting with paper ballots and voter ID.)

• A new Muslim ban.

• More Hitler-like language, such as, “We pledge to you we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” (If you vote Democratic, that means you.)

• The execution of the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Miley “for treason!”

• The indictment, by Trump, of political rivals. (Here’s the quote: “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them, mostly they would be out of business. They’d be out. They’d be out of the election.)

• Trump’s refusal to spend authorized congressional funds on projects he deems “unwanted.” (A practice banned by lawmakers since the Nixon era.)

• A Christian nationalist immigration agenda, where a person’s background doesn’t define who can enter the U.S., but rather, citing Biblical teachings, whether they “accept[ed] Israel’s God, laws and understanding of history.”

• A plan to wage war in Mexico with unilateral military strikes and troop deployments against a sovereign U.S. partner and neighbor.

• The abolishment of the Department of Education.

• Pardons for all the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrectionists, or as Trump calls them, “J6 hostages.”

• Repeal of all LGBTQ+ rights and an end to “subsidization of single-motherhood” because Christian nationalist notions of “gender identity” threaten “Americans’ fundamental liberties.”

• Increased surveillance of abortion and maternal mortality reporting in the states, compelling the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of “chemical abortion drugs,” and protecting “religious and moral” objections for employers who decline contraception coverage for employees.

• More book banning.

• The “termination” of the Constitution.

To be blunt, what you’ll get by voting for Donald Trump or any of his Republican minions running here in Washington state (or anywhere else) will be, according to the opening speaker at the Trump-endorsed 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference , “the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely.”

Let’s repeat the Trump MAGA plan again, “We are here to overthrow it (democracy) completely.”

Think about that. From now until November.

And pay attention to what they say; it really, really is what they’ll do.

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.

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