All ears, Trump is back

Predictably, millions of people from across the globe were glued on Monday to their television sets, radios and whatever internet gadgets, audio and visual, they could lay hands upon to be witnesses to history in the United States of America. It was the return of Donald Trump to power, absolute power as much as a human being is capable of.

He scaled through the Electoral College effortlessly; he is in control of the Senate; he on his own gave crushing defeat to the opposition in the popular vote. Today, it can be said of him, literally speaking, that he can turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man. And that picture was painted all over him at his inauguration, an unsmiling face, cold countenance, brimming with angst and vengefulness. And he wasted no time in baring his fangs to, in his words,”reclaim our Republic.”

He said: “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and, indeed, their freedom…Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken.”

He said all this with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in attendance and listening. He recalled his close shave with death through assassination. “I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”

He signed no fewer than 100 Executive Orders, featuring reversal of the re-enlistment by Joe Biden of the membership of the World Health Organisation (WHO) later in the day of his inauguration. He has pardoned his jailed supporters that invaded the Capitol on 06 January, 2021, seeking to violently overturn the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden in his favour. Destruction was caused to parts of the hallowed chambers, the cradle of the American democracy. Police officers were attacked and legislators fled for their dear lives.

On his first day in office, Trump signed his Executive Order proclamation ending Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Immigrants, withdrawing from Paris Climate agreement and end government programme promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Federal Agencies as well as reversing Electric Vehicle mandates. He has rechristened the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. Already transgressions are being drawn up against by his compatriots.

A letter to the Editor of The New York Times has permitted us a glimpse of excerpts from the newspaper’s editorial captioned ‘Saying No to Fear’ published on the eve of the inauguration, reads as follows:
“I kept your thoughtful and pitch perfect editorial nearby while watching the inauguration. It helped to be able to look away and reread your advice for a dose of sanity and calm. You highlighted the ways our institution can ‘meet the moment’ by showing courage and using their powers to resist and override illegal and unjust acts, and speak the truth even as we think deeply about the anger and distrust of many who voted for a second Trump presidency.

“But the confluence of what was arguably the most disturbing Inaugural Address in our history on the very day on which we honour the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—a man so different, in every respect, from the one who now is our 47th president—helped me see that we must indeed stand strong and keep our faith in the system, not search for our passports, if together we are to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.” (Author of the letter: Meredith Minkler, Kensington, Calif.).

Another letter by a retired New York City Criminal Court judge, Gerald Harris, goes as follows:

“Whatever wisp of hope existed for a more rational and conciliatory President Trump was completely extinguished, and the threat of the onset of an autocratic era assured, assured, by Mr. Trump’s Inaugural Address, which mirrored but far exceeded his worst campaign rants.

“The speech must serve as a dire warning and a call to arms for every American who still believes in a democratic form of government, a binding Constitution and the rule of law.

I should have asked Joe Biden in advance for Presidential pardon for seeking to cull from major U.S. newspapers their editorials and letters to the Editors to feel the public pulse over the emergence of Mr. Trump. The pull to feel American public mood and gauge international blood pressure is irresistible in moments like this when the world seems to be in dire straits.

Consider some of the letters in The New York Times reflecting some of the feelings of the American public towards Mr. Trump: “If President Trump’s idea of law and order is to grant clemency to insurrectionists who attacked and damaged the Capitol, assaulted policemen and threatened to hang Vice-president Mike Pence, this country is in big trouble!” (Writer: Elaine Sloan, New York).

“Hypocrisy is taking the same oath of office you broke the last time with a straight face. Obliviousness is believing that this time is different.” Writer: (Richard M. Frauenglass, Huntington, N.Y.).

“America is back. No, it’s not that Donald Trump is again President. It is that the world witnessed the most important and enduring part of our democracy: President Biden shaking hand of our new president, Mr. Trump, in a celebration of the peaceful transition of power in presence of all our living former presidents. Unlike four years ago, the world saw that America is back.” (Writer: William Goldman, Los Angeles).

“Instituted in 1787 by the constitution, checks and balances were to ensure the separation of powers among the three branches of government. What the next four years portend –in place of checks and balances—are toadying and cronyism.” (Writer: Penelope Ross, Westport, Conn.).

“In answer to the ‘soul-shriveling shame’ a January.15 letter writer and so many of us feel as Americans, and the despair, as our country inaugurates a duly elected but convicted felon and amoral demagogue as president: our ethical response as citizens must be sustained in civic engagement.

“Shame and despair, while appropriate, by themselves are disempowering –as every demagogue knows. We must not remain disheartened by such emotions. What the historical moment now asks of us is righteous anger, powerful hope and principled courage to stand together in civic action by word and deed against every attempt to debase and degrade our political culture and institutions of democracy and law.” Writer: (Rev. Sheldon W. Bennett).

As it is not usual to have letters all expressing disappointment and reservations, there will be some flying flag of exhortation to keep hope alive. One of such letters reads: “We are living in exciting times. What was thought to be the impossible dream has been realised. Donald J. Trump is back in the White House as our 47th president. Millions of Americans are thrilled by his comeback. My sincere hope is that those who didn’t vote for Mr. Trump will eventually be convinced that he fits the bill. No doubt he will deliver on all his campaign promises.’’ (JoAnn Lee Frank, Clearwater, Fla.).

The Washington Post posture was not any dissimilar to New York Times’ position. The newspaper draws attention to the comment of a Bulgarian political commentator, Ivan Krastev, who “likened the current moment to 1989…” The mood in1989 was internationalist and optimistic; today, it has soured into nationalism, at times even nihilism.” Krastev went on, writing in the Atlantic: “The United States’s postwar political identity has vanished into the abyss of the ballot box. This Trump administration may succeed or fail on its own terms, but the world will not return.”

In 2016, the major American newspapers did not think much of Mr. Donald Trump before he mounted the throne nor highly of him in the discharge of his assigned roles as the President of the United States of America. The New York Times described his nomination as the presidential candidate as “The Republican Party’s trek into the darkness.” The authoritative newspaper said “Mr. Trump, who would be the most volatile and least prepared presidential candidate, was nominated by a major party in modern times. A man once ridiculed by many prominent Republicans will become the G.O.P. standard bearer. This is a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party. It’s incumbent on its leadership to account for the failures and betrayals that led to this, and find a better way to address them than the demagogy on offer.”

The New York Times continued: “Republican leaders have for years failed to think about much of anything beyond winning the next election. Year after year, the party’s candidates promised help for middle-class people who lost their homes, jobs and savings to recession, who lost limbs and well-being to war, and then did next to nothing. That Mr. Trump was able to enthrall voters by promising simply to ‘Make America Great Again’—but offering only xenophobic, isolationist or fantastical ideas—is testimony to how thoroughly they reject the politicians who betrayed them. Now, myopic as ever, Republican leaders are talking themselves into supporting Mr. Trump.” It accused the Republicans of stamping what they still called the party of Lincoln with the brand of Donald Trump.

Washington Post at the time said: “It’s beyond debate that Donald Trump is unfit to be president.” “Even if Trump manages to conduct himself presidentially for an hour and a half, that could not undo the many, many instances…in which he has insulted, acted out, lied and countenanced violence beyond even some of the most rough and tumble precedents of modern American politics.”

The Chicago Sun-Times at the time said it was reversing a 2012 decision to stop making presidential endorsements, explaining that “the best way to avert a train wreck is to wave a warning flag as soon as possible.” And so it endorsed Hilary Clinton.

USA Today in its own case did not explicitly endorse Mrs. Clinton. All it said was: “Resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. By all means vote, just not for Donald Trump.”

The Arizona Republic endorsed Clinton, the first time the paper backed a Democrat since its founding in 1880. Same for the San Diego which in 2016 had 148-year history behind it. The Atlantic, said to be a bastion of journalism since 1857 “does not usually endorse presidential candidates …except when doomsday is near.”

The question today that Mr. Trump has newly been swept to power is: What has changed? Is he now above what the New York Times reported as part of his character deficits which it listed as: xenophobic nationalism, unapologetic sexism and inconsistency, positions shifting according to his audience and his whims. It mentioned his defunct university, failed casinos in Atlanta City and questionable global investments in Russia. New York Times said: “His right to spew nonsense is protected by the constitution, but the public doesn’t have to swallow it.”

With so much knowledge about what can be described as open peccadilloes of Trump how come that he had such a harvest of votes. It could mean the public does not know enough about him. With yearning emptiness of their souls, the Americans are undoubtedly longing a strong arm to ferry them across dark alleys to spiritual deliverance. And they have found that strong arm in Mr. Trump. A great many resonated with Trump’s doctrine of separate development: Immigrants should go back to their lands. Time will tell whether his doctrine of separate development by different homogeneous peoples is the right and helpful one or not in the eyes of Nature.

What is unmistakable is that having risen through the ranks of his people and they signified their preference for him through their votes, they have held him up as their mirror, mirror held to their face revealing who they truly are, not outwardly but deep within. In view of the pressure of the Light bearing down in all nations and on peoples, felt with varying degrees each at their own time, the rays of forces squeezing and separating the good and the bad, awakening all that slumbers and is dead, as the features of these times, the worst at our sins will be leaders in nations, one after the other.

Purifying flames are sweeping through all lands with unmistakable intensification and acceleration of events. Do we not have enough warnings by the Guardian of the universe, Ephesus, in the revelation of John? “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” (Rev. 2, 4 and 5).

We learn from the incomparable Work for all mankind in these times, The Grail Message by Abd-ru-shin: “The Laws of God, thus the Will of God, do not concern themselves with the opinions of these earthmen…Whatever is not in harmony with the Divine Laws; there also the blow of the sword will now strike! “

Rejoice; for this Divine Justice is near! It is already working in every country on earth! Look at the confusion! This is the effect of the approaching Will of God! It is the setting in of purification!

“For this reason everything that is wrong among men is already now meeting with its doom, be it in economics, the state, politics, the churches, sects, peoples, families and also in the individual! Everything, everything is now dragged before the Light, so that it may reveal and simultaneously judge itself therein! Also, what has hitherto been able to remain hidden must reveal itself as it really is, must become active, and thus finally, despairing of itself and others, disintegrate and turn to dust.

“Even now there is a boiling up under the pressure of the Light in all countries, everywhere. Every kind of tribulation is increasing to the point of despair until finally nothing remains but hopelessness with the realisation that the would-be saviours had only empty words besides selfish desires, but could offer no help! Spiritual warriors are sweeping over all humanity, and striking sharply where a head refuses to bow!

“Only the man who lives in the Laws of God is free! Thus and not otherwise does he stand unoppressed and unconstrained in this Creation.”

The world will definitely watch whether with Mr. Trump’s return to the presidency, the Golden era for America is truly now beginning, even with antagonism already to U.S. neighbours such as Canada and Mexico. Already 22 states in the country have indicated their decision not to carry out his orders on undocumented immigrants and the forfeiture of the citizenship birthright of their children.