DEI – As American as Apple Pie

Dr. Common Good

I am truly fed up with the constant barrage of DEI demonizing and (to borrow a certain person’s language) “DEI derangement syndrome.” Efforts to implement DEI, or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, have become a primary punching bag for the so-called “anti-woke” crusade of the MAGA folk.

And why is that? Like so much of this blowhard rhetoric, the reality is far different than the MAGA media hype. Actor Whoopi Goldberg summed this up passionately and concisely in a retort to Trump press secretary Karin Leavitt’s strident anti-woke comments at her first press conference on Jan 28, at which she asserted, “there will be no wokeness here.” In response, Goldberg said “Let me explain something to you, because without that wokeness, you might not have that job”…”because women were not invited to that table. Women were not invited to many tables in this nation.” “The reason we fought and busted our behinds [was] to make sure that you didn’t have to worry about this. And now to hear you talk about it, and to hear anybody talk about ‘the wokeness,’ the wokeness was put in place for a reason: because Black people couldn’t get into colleges, because women could not get into the colleges they wanted to go to. This is all women, see. This is not Black, Asian women. This is all women. Women were not invited to this party. It was a man’s world, and we busted our a**es to make sure that this was a person’s world. So please, please stop using that phrase and talking about this because you don’t understand what you’re saying.”

QED.

In short, “wokeness” (including DEI efforts) is actually a hyperbolic, pejorative term for what Martin Luther King described as the “arc of justice,” the gradual progress of American society towards the ideals expressed in the founding documents and so many of our most essential statements of American values. In the Declaration of Independence, equality of all is a self-evident truth, the 14^th Amendment guarantees equal justice for all, and principles of equality are enshrined in the 19^th Amendment (women’s right to vote), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, among other laws and Supreme Court decisions. These were all reactions against threats and barriers to those founding principles of equality. The vocal detractors of DEI and related approaches cannot deny the historical truth of those threats and barriers, so what is the real issue?

Disagreement with the MAGA distortions of DEI also comes from another quarter — American business. In late January, 98% of Costco shareholders voted down a proposal to question DEI policies at the company, in a testament to the value of these policies. A recent CNN report (January 31) found that many businesses consider DEI practices, which focus on recruiting strategies and employee training, as a way to broaden the talent pool and qualifications of potential employees. The CNN report also cited a study, based on data from 16 countries and 27,000 employees, showing that DEI initiatives boost profits, reduce employee attrition and increase employee motivation. All of this, of course, makes sense. In a globalized economy, where products and services are often developed for a broad and diverse market, wouldn’t a smart business want its employees to reflect and understand that market?

The anti-DEI, anti-woke and, for that matter, anti- “critical race theory” crusades are, sadly, yet another threat to American progress and essential principles. You may dislike how a particular DEI policy or approach is implemented. Fair enough. Criticize and fix it. But to disparage the basic essence and goals of DEI and related movements, to use them as targets of vitriol and retrograde policy, is not only ignorant but deeply un-American in spirit.

So I say to all those anti-woke and anti-DEI crusaders, don’t wrap your hate and your bigotry in the American flag, because that just won’t fly.

UNDER THE RADAR: TRUMP’S ABHORRENT MIDDLE EAST POLICY EMERGES YET AGAIN

Dr. Common Good

While we have been distracted by the shotgun blast of craziness during the Trump administration’s first week, Trump’s stance and emerging policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict represents a disgraceful approval of the extreme right-wing takeover of Palestinian land, rejection of a Palestinian state, and the ongoing, forced removal of Palestinians from land and homes that have been theirs for generations, long before the influx of Jewish settlers via the Zionist movement beginning around the turn of the 20^th century, and well before the existence of Israel as a state.   

Let’s start with two key Trump officials up for nomination. Former Representative Elise Stefanik, up for UN Ambassador, testified in a January 21 confirmation hearing that she agreed with Israeli hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s and former Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir’s claims that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank. She also dodged and did not answer a straightforward question about Palestinian self-determination. Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel, millennialist, evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee, has regularly supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the biblical justification for such settlements, calling the West Bank Judea and Samaria. He has also stated that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

The flurry of executive orders on Trump’s first day included one that rescinded Biden’s sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have committed violence against Palestinians (Why, we ask, would he do that?). This early action, combined with his choices for UN and Israeli ambassador, signal a rapid return to Trump first-term policies, which included moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Jerusalem – a unique, multi-denominational city — as Israel’s capital, deciding not to recognize the repeated UN declarations and legal rulings that settlements are illegal under international law (also the conclusion of a 1978 State Department legal opinion), cutting aid programs to Palestinians, and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

While we cannot say that Biden’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been either productive or admirable, with virtually no attempt to restrict Israel’s grossly disproportionate destruction of Gaza, at least there was some recognition of the need for a two-state solution and acknowledgment of the terrible toll exacted upon innocent Palestinians – a toll that now stands at about 46,000 fatalities, along with 1.9 million displaced from their homes. [Who can possibly claim that such a toll is a rational military response or justifiable retribution for the Hamas attack, as brutal as that attack clearly was?]

Thus, the second Trump administration brings back, once again, an appalling ignorance and disregard for history and human rights. Dr. Common Good supports the safety, security, and self-determination of both Palestinian and Israeli peoples, which is the only route to peace. Both peoples have long histories in these lands and no claim to exclusivity has any merit whatsoever. This cannot happen with Trump administration endorsement of current Israeli right-wing, bigoted and nationalist aims under the Netanyahu government. Right now, these actions are being overshadowed by the barrage of outrage in Trump’s first week. So, pay attention, because the United States should not be party to such injustice.   

TRUMP AND AMERICA THE UGLY

Dr. Common Good

It is only two days into the administration of this travesty of a president, and here is just a tiny sampler of the ugliness he has wrought:

• He blanket-pardoned 1500 people who were charged with crimes in relation to the January 6, 2021 insurrection, including at least 200 who were convicted of violent attacks on capital police officers.
• He is attempting to change the language of the 14^th amendment to the Constitution by executive fiat, stripping it of the birthright citizenship provision.
• He issued an executive order rescinding the order signed by President Biden that would have lowered prescription drug costs for patients on Medicare and Medicaid. (I ask, what possible reason would prompt that other than a big wink and nod to Big Pharma?)
• He pulled the US out of the World Health Organization – a completely stupid and malicious move, since our participation in WHO helps prevent, among other things, future pandemics.
• He issued an executive order overturning Biden’s sanctions on Israeli settlers who are committing violent acts against Palestinians and blatantly stealing their property.
• In a petty, spiteful move, he pulled the security detail that had been assigned to former Trump national security advisor John Bolton, who has received threats from Iran (Mr. Bolton is not a favorite of this blog, but this is completely uncalled for).
• He has ordered ICE to go into churches and schools to find undocumented immigrants. Churches and schools!

And that’s just a few. In summary, Trump, in very short order, has covered this country in a coat of slime. He is utterly incapable of making America great, and his single-minded pursuit of retribution, vengeance, and unchecked power is driving this country right into the gutter.

To you who voted for Trump – Is this what you voted for? Do you know he is doing these things? You may not, because it won’t be reported on Fox or Newsmax. But these are the things he is focused on. The economy? Well, as he said even to Sean Hannity yesterday in an interview on Fox News, “I don’t care.”

How’s that vote looking now?

THE LYING PREMISE IN TRUMP’S NEGATIVE PORTRAYAL OF THE BIDEN YEARS

Dr. Common Good

In his farewell address and final remarks, President Biden noted the long list of achievements during his presidency. Whatever your views are of his administration, or of specific policies, much was indeed accomplished. This stands in stark contrast to Trump’s bleak portrayal of decline in his inaugural address, which primarily served as a justification for his claim to be “restoring” or “saving” the country. Some of these Biden-era achievements include:

• Basically, saving the country from Trump’s disastrous neglect of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to distributing masks and vaccines (the largest mass vaccination campaign in US history), and facilitating testing for millions, the US was one of the only nations in the world to rebound economically after COVID-19 (via the American Rescue Plan Act). The US, in fact, reached a record low child poverty rate in 2021.
• In contrast to Trump, restoration of US alliances in the EU, NATO and around the globe, and rejoining the Paris Climate process.
• Marshaling allies in Europe to coordinate sustained support for Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion.
• Securing the first bipartisan infrastructure deal in a generation – something Trump promised, but never delivered.
• Creating the most jobs ever in a single term, and dropping the inflation rate from around 9% in 2022 to under 3% when he finished (though the cost of many goods has remained high).
• Making the largest investment in climate and green energy in world history (Inflation Reduction Act).
• Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug costs for the first time in US history (Inflation Reduction Act).
• Passing the first major gun violence prevention bill in a generation.
• Passing the first bill to ramp up production of semiconductors and computer chips here in the US (The CHIPS and Science Act).
• Protecting and preserving the largest amount of land of any President.
• Insuring a record number of Americans through the Affordable Care Act.
• Confirming almost 250 Federal judges, including the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
• Recognizing, for the first time, the Equal Rights Amendment as law of the land.

In short, and to be blunt, decline my arse. There were certainly some less-than-stellar moments during Biden’s time, but I challenge Trump and MAGA to top this list, or even come close.

TRUMP’S CLOWN SHOW – EXCEPT IT’S NOT FUNNY

Dr. Common Good

I ask, is this the United States of America? One wonders. A brief look at the roster of Trump’s bizarrely unqualified or at least inappropriate, undemocratic, dangerous, and sycophantic nominees cannot help but raise the question. Here are a few of his “gems”:

Pam Bondi for Attorney General?

This committed Trump loyalist and personal lawyer offered some stunning testimony in her confirmation hearing:

• She still does not admit that Biden won election and still claims there was fraud.
• She seems either strangely unaware of well-known facts about Trump’s election manipulation attempts (especially for a lawyer) or is falsely denying knowledge – for example, claiming that she was not aware that Trump asked the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” votes that would overturn the election results in his favor, or that he had any role instigating the January 6 insurrection attempt. How could she not know this? She even claimed that there was a “peaceful transition to power” in 2021.
• She says she will “look into” birthright citizenship. Really? It’s in the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution, clear as day.  

On top of all that, she made over $3 million from the creation of Trump’s Truth Social parent company and has invested millions in Trump Media. Last year she earned over $1 million lobbying for companies that have a direct interest in Justice Department affairs or have been the subject of recent DOJ investigations (Pfizer). She also earned over $500,000 consulting for the Trumpist America First Policy Institute. How can she possibly serve as an independent AG?  

Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary?

In addition to all the significant allegations of sexual abuse and alcohol abuse, even while on the job, Hegseth is patently unqualified:

• He has no experience with global organizations, regional organizations, security organizations, or managing any government agency. He was even kicked out of several small nonprofit veteran’s organizations for mismanagement. And during his hearing, he could not even name a single member of ASEAN, or the range of security arrangements to which the U.S. is a party.
• He has no apparent commitment to the US Constitution — refusing to say whether or not he would order troops to shoot protesters if Trump told him to, and stating that he would not rule out using invasion forces to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal in line with Trump’s expansionist fantasies. Generally, he would not answer whether or not he would obey an illegal order from Trump.

How can this man be Defense Secretary?

Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI)?

Although this born-again Trump loyalist and new MAGA star served four terms in the House, she has never held any senior government role and has no intelligence experience. And even more troubling:

• She was a public supporter of brutal Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad, even meeting with him in 2017 and denying that he was responsible for the atrocities so clearly linked to his regime.
• Russian media have praised the choice of Gabbard for DNI, hailing her public rationalizations for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and her opposition to the Biden Administration’s support for Ukraine’s resistance.

Our allies are not likely to share intelligence with the US if she is DNI. So, what possible reason is there for her to hold this office?

RFK Jr. as Director of HHS?

There is just too much here to cover. He is so flagrantly inappropriate and unqualified for HHS Secretary it defies explanation:

• He has no science or public health background, and does not apparently understand the nature and process of scientific research, and he has no experience in government.
• He has been a leading promoter of misinformation and lies about vaccines and their consequences – promoting the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, the purported danger of COVID-19 vaccines, and that there are generally no safe vaccines, ignoring the vast body of medical studies that have demonstrated that the opposite is true and that vaccines have been one of public health’s greatest success stories.  
• He has dangerously promoted numerous unproven and demonstrably ineffective alternative therapies, including raw milk (a transmission vector for H5N1/avian flu) and the use of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19.
• He even promoted the racist and antisemitic theory that the COVID-19 virus targeted white and Black people but not Chinese or Ashkenazi Jews.
• He has stated that he would shut down infectious disease research for eight years and fire 600 NIH employees on Day 1.

HHS is a massive organization overseeing 13 agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and others – all highly important for the nation’s health.  RFK Jr. has no business whatsoever leading this agency.

Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary?

While he does have some of the background common to Treasury Secretaries, his policy positions are clearly oligarchic:  

• As a billionaire hedge-fund manager, he supports extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are estimated to increase the deficit by $ 4 trillion over the next ten years (per the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget).
• He opposes raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour, a rate that has stayed the same since 2009. A person earning that amount makes just over $15,000 annually. It is not a living wage.
• He opposes raising taxes on high income earners at any level as a means to pay down the deficit, making the age-old and many times debunked claim that these are job creators.

TRUMP ENERGY POLICY – A RECIPE FOR AMERICA LAST

Dr. Common Good

Trump announced on January 7 (as reported by The Hill) that his administration would oppose all wind energy production, saying “we’re going to try to have a policy where no windmills are being built.” His rationale, apparently, is that wind energy requires a subsidy and he pretends not to favor subsidies, though of course he has also opposed wind energy for some time based on entirely unfounded and ridiculous claims about threats to whales, cancer risk, and other purported problems. Meanwhile, fossil fuel actually continues to receive extensive subsidies — increasing by 85% to an all-time high in 2022 according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), and totaling $7 trillion in 2023, as reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). So, on that point alone, Trump’s rationale is specious, without merit and baseless.

But this is just one alternative energy source. He also wants to roll back regulations favoring electric and hybrid vehicles, open or re-open land for drilling, and again stay away from global climate change agreements. His repeated “drill baby drill” mantra speaks for itself. So here we are in 2025, and Trump’s understanding of the energy landscape remains retrograde, ignorant and foolish. What is it about big gas-guzzling vehicles that he finds so compelling? As yet another symbol of the dominance he craves?

As much as one might want to make some sense of this, there isn’t any. Like almost everything else Trump asserts, it is lunacy, founded on nothing, though in the case of fossil fuel, he may have a myopic sense that there is short-term money to be made.

If Trump, or his MAGA minions, really represented anything like America first, with a goal of advancing American interests above all, the opposite position should actually follow. A smart businessperson would understand this, because any minimal observation of energy trends, markets and needs would clearly indicate that global leadership in the energy sector will come from being at the top of the game with respect to green energy. China knows this. The EU knows this. Even oil-rich countries know it.

But Trump and his sycophantic MAGA-world? They cling to the drill mantra, against all real-world evidence, against any rational foresight. And we have not even touched the environmental and climate-change consequences of fossil fuels in this post, because that is yet one other major real-world phenomenon that Trump and MAGA-world just don’t believe in. Yes, they insist, the world is flat.

So ask yourself, whether you are a Republican, independent, or anything else, even if you are sympathetic to an America first stance, does Trump’s irrational, regressive energy policy put America first? No, it does not. It puts America last.

THIS IS CRAZY! TRUMP AND THE IMPENDING TRUMPVERSE

Dr. Common Good

Just listen to recent Trump pronouncements as his second term approaches. Here are just a few:

• Trump wants to gain American control over Greenland and Panama, and he “does not rule out the military” in achieving those objectives.
• Trump says that “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.”
• Trump threatens that “all hell will break loose” if the Israeli hostages are not released by his inauguration.

On top of that, his servant-judge Aileen Cannon just blocked release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the investigation into Trump’s well-documented and unconstitutional efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Judge Cannon previously prevented the cases from going forward because she ruled that the special counsel’s appointment was unconstitutional, an absolutely absurd ruling and egregious conflict with the unchallenged appointment of special counsels over many years and across multiple administrations, Republican and Democrat.

And then there is the absolute and shameful kowtowing of Mark Zuckerberg, who has now said Meta will get rid of fact-checkers in favor of user-generated “community notes” similar to what is on X. That, of course, means even less control over the wild disinformation that already confounds any notion of fact or truth. This, on top of the abject self-subjugation of media owners, including Jeff Bezos and others, who have censored content favorable to Democrats or critical of themselves and/or MAGA influence over information.

People, this is crazy. Way out there. Unprecedented. And not the America that once stood as an idea, at least as an aspiration. The unchecked sociopath that many warned about is now out of his cage, and his followers see no guardrails. Caveat emptor.  

SHUT UP AND FIGHT BACK

Dr. Common Good (https://dr-common-good.com/).

Dr. Common Good is sick and tired of all the whining, handwringing and self-flagellation that has been rampant since Vice President Harris’ loss to Trump in the election. There is nothing to apologize for. So I am going to lay out the following:

• Regardless of whether or not he got elected, Trump is an amoral pathological liar, with no interest in democracy or the Constitution, ignorant of American or world history, a convicted felon who is guilty of much more than he was convicted for, a wannabe authoritarian dictator, and generally a sociopath who has no business governing anything. If the voting public ignored all this, well, good luck. But it’s the truth, and well-documented, and I for one will not back off on that characterization.

• Trump manipulated and benefited tremendously from a right-wing mediaverse that is the dominant source of information for a substantial portion of the US population. This mediaverse effectively ignored all the significant achievements of the Biden administration (called the envy of the world by The Economist), and painted a grotesquely false picture of an America in deep decline, both culturally and economically, overrun by immigrants, plagued by crime, and threatened by increasing diversity. This daily fearmongering provided the perfect platform for Trump to declare himself the savior of America.

• Trump’s wild and phony claims for achieving global respect and achieving the greatest economy the world has ever seen would be laughable if they were not believed by so many people who allowed their minds to be dominated by the Trump-supporting mediaverse. He was not respected globally. He was either viewed as a joke, a fool, or, in some cases a dangerous fool. The latter characterization will unfortunately be more common now.

• All those legal and often treasonous transgressions for which Trump was impeached and charged in Federal court were no hoax, despite the mendacious denials by Trump and spineless claims to that effect by boneless sycophants like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio (I’m not even counting the out-and-out crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene). I mean, as just one example, he did call the Georgia Secretary of State and ask him to “find 11,780 votes.” It’s recorded, and it is a crime, period. He did obstruct compliance with a legitimate Justice Department request for classified documents that he carelessly stored at his Florida home. It’s on video, and it’s a crime. And he absolutely did share information and communicate with the Russians during his elections, who were only too glad to help him get elected in 2016 and even more so in 2024. This is well-documented.

• And his Neville Chamberlain-like approach to Ukraine, a total appeasement to Russia – who attacked Ukraine and in doing so threatened NATO countries –.is revolting, and should make all those who fought and died to fight tyranny in WWII roll over in their graves. People should know that appeasing Putin threatens Europe’s well-being, and ours. Supporting Ukraine is in our self-interest. But people don’t know that, and hardly even know the historical context. Trump certainly does not, and doesn’t care in any case, because he wants to be in Putin’s good graces.

• Many progressives, Arab-Americans and others are angry at the Biden Administration’s support for Netanyahu’s horrific mass-killing of Palestinians, even as we all can agree that Hamas’ October 7 attack was brutal, indefensible and inhuman. But Trump will be much worse. Trump is a Netanyahu bootlicker with no concept of Palestinian rights and history, who does not in any case care one whit about the fate of Palestinians. He will unapologetically give Netanyahu and his far-right allies carte blanche to go as far as they want to clear out all Palestinians and expand the borders of Israel. 

• Trump is the entry door for a whole army of anti-government radicals (Project 2025) who aim to gut health care, Social Security, Medicare, the Departments of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, and countless other essential federal agencies – all in the name of some imagined effort to cleanse out the phantasmagorical “deep state.” Well, voting public, good luck when there are no more food inspectors, safety inspectors, people to monitor occupational safety or water quality, and much more.

• And there is absolutely nothing wrong with increasing the equity, inclusivity and diversity of our social institutions and social life. Calling it “woke” is just a cheap schoolyard name-calling trick. It is actually a logical extension of American values, and the American promise that animated the civil rights movement, Brown vs. Board of Education, the women’s suffrage movement, and so much more of what has made America a country that people admire, even with its flaws. It is truly pathetic to see Nikki Haley join the MAGA fever in criticizing Democrats post-election for being too “woke.” Give me a break.

• Finally (for now), where are all the critics of election fraud? Nowhere to be seen or heard from, because of course Trump won the election. That should tell you all you need to know about the validity of all that hyped nonsense and the violent January 6 attack. Oh, and notice that neither Kamala Harris nor Joe Biden stooped to such accusations in this election. They conceded, and promised a peaceful transfer of power, as should occur in a democracy.

The bottom line is this. Trump is a threat to American values, the constitution, and the American idea, regardless of the election. We should not apologize in any way for opposing this abomination of a president. It was and remains justified and critical. We should resist, anywhere and everywhere possible, to preserve the United States as a democracy and a just society.     

A MESSAGE TO MAGA FOLK

From Dr. Common Good

As a fellow American, I am concerned. You think Trump is the candidate who stands up for you? You think he is the one who cares about you and your values?

My friends, I ask you to take a look at his life and who he is. He is none of that.

If Trump lived in your town, he would be the guy that…

• Owned a used car dealership that sold defective cars, using fraudulent papers.

• Caused your grandmother to lose her house because the bank run by his buddies raised interest rates and canceled her mortgage with false accusations of default. Then they would repossess the house and sell it to someone else for a profit. Your grandmother may even try to sue to get her house back, but Trump and his buddies would use their fat-cat lawyers to overwhelm her.

• Tried to rape or molest your niece, who thought she got a good job working for his company. Then he would deny it, and force her to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

• Secretly teamed up with a construction company that aimed to build a housing development on land that had been family farms for generations – by planting false information about groundwater pollution and buying up the land for cheap.

• Pretended to be tough, saying he would be happy to confront anyone who opposed his people on the town council, but then chickened out, using an excuse.

• Avoided meeting with, or being seen in public with one of your sons or daughters if they were an Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in combat – while in public saying how much he loved our military.

And more.

You think this is bullshit? Look at his actual life. These are the kinds of things he has actually done, over and over. If he makes any other claims, he is lying to you, and treating you as a fool. Don’t let him do that to you. If you are Republican, all power to you. But for the sake of this country vote for a different Republican, one who is not a self-serving, manipulating coward who does not care about you, your town or your country. Trump cares about one thing – himself. No matter what he says, the minute he doesn’t need you for his own purposes he will drop you like a stone. 

THE WAY IT IS  #1 (as of April, 2024)

from Dr. Common Good

I don’t care if you are Republican or Democrat, or anything else. In these fact sheets, we are going to talk about our country – the one we ALL live in! If you are a Republican, there are a lot of good Republicans out there you could support for President. And you should do that. But Donald Trump? He is not a Republican or a Democrat, or anything else. He believes in one thing – himself. And to him, that is more important than his own country, more important than you, more important than democracy itself. There’s a lot of junk out there in the media world, so let’s just look at the real situation:

Donald Trump and the U.S. in the world — No matter what he likes to say, Donald Trump did not make the U.S. respected or stronger in the world, As President, he did the exact opposite, and he will only sink us lower if he is President again:

• Trump nearly ruined our relationship with NATO, an alliance that has helped to keep us strong and safe since World War II. Partly this is because he doesn’t even understand NATO, its history, or what role it has played in our defense. [The Biden administration had to do a whole lot of work to fix that relationship, and was successful in strengthening NATO against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.] Since WWII, every U.S. president, Republican and Democrat, has valued and supported the NATO alliance – except Trump.

• He crawled, and still crawls like a puppy dog for dictators like Vladimir Putin. Remember? He valued Putin’s opinion over our own defense and intelligence agencies, and said so in public. He is willing to throw Ukraine under the bus to make Putin happy, saying that, as President, he “would let Putin do whatever he wants.” He invited the Hungarian dictator Victor Orban to his own home! And he sent “love letters” to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, an absolute dictator who gets rid of opponents by shooting them with anti-aircraft guns. What President in the history of this country has done such things? We have fought wars against kings and dictators, not crawled to them like a little child who wants to be just like them. Those dictators all know that Trump is ignorant, a pushover, and can be manipulated easily. Believe me, he is not tough, though he loves it if you think he is.

• The U.S. used to be a leader, in global climate talks, in the U.N., and (most of the time) a supporter of democracy and freedom around the world. Trump threw that reputation and world leadership down the drain. He pulled the U.S. out of climate talks. He openly supported authoritarian governments and dictators – like Putin, Orban, Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia. He went against hundreds of years of American values in doing so.

Donald Trump and the U.S. economy – Trump, despite what he likes to say, did not create “the greatest economy in the history of the world”:

• When Trump came into office, the economy was already on an upswing, after the terrible Great Recession of 2008-2009. If you compare key economic indicators from Obama’s second term in office to the first three years of Trump’s time (before the pandemic hit), the data show a continuation of trends, not a dramatic shift. So, Trump didn’t build anything new; instead, he inherited a situation that was already improving. The numbers show that average quarterly economic growth under Trump, 2.5 percent, was almost exactly what it was under Obama’s second term, 2.4 percent. And on average, there were more jobs added monthly in Obama’s second term than there were in Trump’s first three years.

• His big accomplishment? He and the Republicans passed a tax cut, which ended up adding to the national debt, something that Republicans used to oppose. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that these tax cuts, mostly for corporations, have added more than $100 billion a year to America’s $34 trillion-and-growing national debt. While the tax cuts did lead to some increases in investment, and small gains in worker pay, the gains were nowhere near enough to cover the loss of national income.

• Were everyday prices lower? Sure they were. But don’t let that fool you. That was before COVID and the invasion of Ukraine, two situations that raised prices and inflation everywhere in the world, not just in the U.S. Look at the situation now, under the Biden administration. When Biden came into office, inflation had risen to just over 9%. His policies helped drop that rate back to 3.8% in February 2024, including gas prices. It will take a little while for everyone to see those drops in everyday life, but those are the facts. And even the stock market under Biden has gone up a lot higher than it did under Trump.

• On economic legislation: Despite all of Trump’s loudmouth talking, he never passed any infrastructure legislation, which is very important for the economy because it means improved roads, bridges, railways and Internet connections, among other things. By contrast, the Biden administration passed the largest bipartisan infrastructure bill ever. That bill has brought funding for infrastructure improvements all over the country, in both Republican and Democratic states, and created a lot of jobs. The Biden administration also passed the CHIPS and Science bill, investing in the production of advanced computer chips here in the U.S., creating a lot of jobs in the process and making the U.S. less dependent on China and other countries for these very important parts. And the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which has reduced health care costs and supported the growth of jobs in the expanding renewable energy economy.

• Speaking of jobs — Under Biden, U.S. employment is now 10% above what it was when he was sworn in, even higher than in the Clinton administration, and more than twice what happened under Trump (4.4%). It is a fact that Biden has the strongest record of any recent president on increasing manufacturing jobs, and it is a fact that under Biden, the unemployment rate has been below 4% for the longest stretch in 50 years of American history.

• Trump and trade: Pretending to be “tough”, Trump started a trade war with China that actually hurt Americans the most. That is partly because Trump didn’t and doesn’t understand how tariffs or trade work. When he raised tariffs on goods coming from China, it wasn’t China that paid, but Americans. This is because the companies importing those goods are the ones who pay, and they just pass those costs on to consumers through higher prices. According to a Council on Foreign Relations study, U.S. consumers felt the most pain from those tariffs, paying a total of $48 billion, with half of this amount paid by U.S. companies that rely on intermediate inputs (meaning parts) from China. Basically, as stated in a report by the United States International Trade Commission, the cost of the tariffs was passed through to U.S. importers.

Donald Trump and immigration – Trump has treated immigrants and immigration in a way that does not represent long-held American values, and he continues to throw out lie after lie about the situation:

• Trump uses the most repulsive language ever heard from a U.S. government official to talk about immigrants. He calls them “animals,” and says “Nobody has any idea where these people come from. We know they come from prisons, we know they come from mental institutions, insane asylums. We know they are terrorists…it’s poisoning the blood of our country.” That is a dangerous lie. Immigrants are not coming from prisons or mental institutions. Most immigrants are fleeing from terrible situations in their home countries, whether that is civil wars, gang violence, government repression, natural disasters, or extreme poverty. In recent years, for example, immigrants trying to get into the U.S. have come from Venezuela (due to the crisis there), West Africa, and even China.

• He lies constantly about immigrants and crime in the U.S. You can find the data yourself, but there is no evidence that immigration is associated with increased crime. It is in fact the opposite. A Cato Institute (not liberal) study showed that, in Texas, illegal immigrants were 47% less likely to be in prison, and legal immigrants were even less likely. A study published in the journal Criminology concluded that “increased concentrations of undocumented immigrants are associated with statistically significant decreases in violent crime.” Generally, though the data are complicated, the available research that estimates the relationship between illegal immigration and crime generally shows an association with lower crime rates.

• Immigration and immigrant workers actually help the economy thrive. They don’t take away jobs that other Americans want; they actually fill jobs that Americans don’t want, and contribute to economic growth. American companies have publicly stated this multiple times. 
• Help is definitely needed to process and manage the flow of immigrants trying to get into the U.S. But when Republicans and Democrats got together and finally negotiated a bill that would provide more resources to immigration courts, the border patrol and for border security, Trump told Republicans not to pass it. Why? Because it would give the Biden administration a “win.” As you see, Trump cares less about fixing the immigration situation than in winning office for himself.

Donald Trump and the Nation’s Health – Trump was a disaster for public health, during the COVID-19 pandemic and in general:

• Trump infamously denied the existence of COVID-19, and when he finally admitted that it was a problem, he showed contempt for basic preventive measures like masks, and peddled ridiculous “cures” like Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and bleach. The consequences? Thousands and thousands of Americans died when they did not have to, causing tragic losses for so many families.

• By contrast, Biden immediately passed the American Rescue Plan, supporting a massive nationwide effort to make COVID testing available, and creating a national infrastructure for vaccine access. Also in the plan was a wide range of supports for small businesses and other economic aid that clearly stimulated the economy after COVID and prompted the recovery we have seen.

• Trump has consistently sought to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, which has expanded health care access for millions of Americans. Biden, by contrast, expanded its availability.

Donald Trump, Democracy, and the American Way – Trump is by any measure the most un-Democratic president in American history:

• No president or past president has been criminally indicted. Trump, by contrast, faces four criminal indictments and a total of 91 felony charges.

• No president has ever sought to overturn the legal results of a national election in order to keep himself in power – this includes the attempt to coerce the State of Georgia to falsify votes, the fomenting of an insurrection to prevent a lawful vote count in Congress, and the manipulation of the Justice Department to support his attempts.  

• No president has ever violated the Espionage Act in the way Trump has, withholding classified documents from his time in office and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.

• No president has ever courted the help of nations who would otherwise be our enemies in order to help him win an election. That help, whether one calls it a conspiracy or not, is irrefutably documented in the Mueller Report.

SO, DON’T LET TRUMP’S TRASH TALK AND BRAGGING FOOL YOU. HE WAS NOT AND IS NOT GOOD FOR AMERICA, WHETHER YOU ARE A REPUBLICAN OR A DEMOCRAT. HE DOES NOT MAKE AMERICA GREAT. “MAGA” SHOULD ACTUALLY STAND FOR “MAKES AMERICA GO AWAY,” BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT HE REPRESENTS.

TRUMP. NOT GOOD FOR YOU. NOT GOOD FOR AMERICA. NOT GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY ITSELF. AND NOT GOOD FOR THE WORLD.

TRUMP LIKES TO CALL PEOPLE LOSERS AND SUCKERS. DON’T BE ONE.