Like many in the world, I’m wondering where we go from here. Fourteen months ago, I couldn’t imagine Americans going to the polls and voting for anybody in the race for president and vice president except Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — but it happened and it’s still hard to believe. Just listen to what’s going on now that the same people who ransacked the U.S. Capitol are still around. Those were Trump’s friends breaking windows, trashing the Capitol, injuring and killing D.C. police, threatening members of Congress and calling to hang Mike Pence.
I think about how hard-working people have had their health plans put out of their reach because the man occupying the White House decided to take it away just because he could. Never mind Jan. 6 and how much damage had been done — up pops the man who now occupies the White House, calmly giving a message not to the American people about what was going on, but assuring everything was OK with him, that he loved the rioters, and just asked them to go home now that they had done the job for him.
After ICE killed Renee Good, he led his staff to make up and tell an untrue story about why her death was justified. It’s like they think we didn’t see what happened the day Ms. Good was killed. Trump had already made it clear that we didn’t see what we saw when ICE blew into Minnesota uninvited.
María Corina Machado, the opposition leader from Venezuela, came to visit Trump at the White House, and what does he do? He takes her Nobel Peace Prize while threatening to take over Greenland and taking over her country.
I wonder how non-voting citizens explained everything about Trump since he urged people to destroy things, when they could have made a difference if they’d just voted last November or if they had voted against what we now have. What kind of man takes a woman’s Nobel Peace Prize when she did the work to get it, while he was starting wars?
When asked about his invasion of Venezuela and whether anything limits his power to invade or coerce other countries, he brushed off international law and the very idea of accountability, saying: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” We thought we had a democracy and worked hard to preserve it, praying that our country would ultimately overcome its racist past and present. We received a glimmer of hope when President Barack Obama was president, but it soon evaporated once he was out of office. Until we acquired the current man in the White House, we were taught that no one is above the law, not even the president.
Now, the one who is a multiple-time criminal is “investigating” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — two of the many sane people trying to make life better for their constituents.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela and their response to the ICE killing in Minneapolis and shootings in Oregon show that they believe themselves to be above the law. That is both anti-democratic and incredibly dangerous. Where are our Supreme Court, community leaders, Congress? Wherever they are, every one of us is still responsible. We must stop accepting this craziness as it gets worse. We must do something to hold those in power and contributing to the chaos created by Trump and his minions accountable before more lives are put at risk. Trump has been rewarded, instead of punished, for his reckless disregard for the Constitution.
He was asked about his family’s expanding business interests, from which he still profits. Here’s what he said: “I found out nobody cared, and I’m allowed to.” We, the people, must show him otherwise.
Williams is president of The Dick Gregory Society (www.thedickgregorysociety.org).