November 2020 – Author Rick Fuller

Trump’s subversion of our democracy

There is an account on Twitter that has millions of followers, and that, since the election, has sent out 355 Tweets and Retweets regarding the election — more than twenty per day, or nearly one per hour. Of those 355 Tweets and Retweets, more than 200 of them insinuate or flat-out declare that the election was rigged or fraudulent. Victory for President Trump has been declared more than twenty times, about once per day, and these Tweets have been censured and blocked by Twitter on more than a dozen occasions for distribution of false information.

Whose Twitter account is it?

You’ve probably guessed. President Donald Trump’s, of course.

The first Tweet that Donald Trump sent out following the close of the polls on election day came at 12:45 a.m. on election night, and it read this:

“I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!”

Four minutes later, at 12:49 a.m., he sent out this Tweet:

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!”

It’s not that this should have been a surprise to anybody. Despite what has become a clear victory for Joe Biden, Trump refuses to concede that he’s lost the election, turning to more and more frantic and dramatic assertions of fraud and theft. His allegations are fully in keeping with his declarations all along that he would be a victim of tremendous fraud and that he would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power. At a rally August 20^th, in Pennsylvania, Trump declared:

“So, this is just a way they’re trying to steal the election, and everybody knows that. Because the only way they’re going to win is by a rigged election.”

At a rally September 13^th, in Henderson, Nevada, Trump said this:

“The Democrats are trying to rig this election because that’s the only way they’re going to win.”

The harm that Trump is causing to America and our democracy is intentional and systematic. He is deliberately eroding American’s trust in our institutions through the spreading of lies, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. Trump is essentially a QAnon conspiracist spewing misinformation while he is the sitting President of the United States.

Let’s be clear about one thing: there is no widespread, significant voter fraud. There will probably be fraud on a greater scale in this election than ever before, but that is simply because more people voted in this election than ever before. The fact is, that our system doesn’t allow for the possibility for significant fraud to that extent claimed by a madman and his cult of lie-spewing sycophants.

Donald Trump is a charlatan. He’s an entertainer. He’s a conman. He has no interest in the health and viability of our democracy. He’s acting in bad faith by pretending that he’s the victim of massive election fraud when he himself doesn’t actually believe that. This stand allows him to walk away a winner in the eyes of his core supporter group.

He’s making a concerted effort to undermine our democracy, and the endgame is difficult to see. He may be attempting to hold on to power illegitimately. He may be setting up a future run at the presidency. He may be attempting to create a media conglomerate for the far right upon vacating the office. He may be simply fund-raising for the Republican party.

Trump hates to lose. He is incapable of admitting defeat, of admitting failure, of admitting he was wrong. He’s pathetically and irredeemably ego-centric. His casino bankruptcies were not failures at operating money printing machines, but just simply the best path forward in exploitation of the tax laws available to him. These actions he is taking are his only path to winning, and he set this entire scenario up months ago. In fact, he set up more than this attempt to subvert our democracy through claims of voter fraud, he also attempted to set up the potential path for him to not only win this election, but to earn an additional four years in 2024! Here are a couple of quotes from him where he lays out this path to a constitutional challenge of his term limits:

August 17 rally in Oshkosh, WI: “We are going to win four more years. And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years,” he said.

September 13 rally in Henderson, NV: “And 52 days from now we’re going to win Nevada, and we’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that,” he said.

This behavior is illegal, it’s subversive, and it’s reprehensible, and those adjectives would describe behavior of this type from a normal person. I’m not sure the right adjectives to use when the sitting President of the United States makes statements of this nature. It’s totalitarian and dictatorial for a start, and downright terrifying as well.

All I know is, as a voter who was marginally concerned about not voting for Trump, I can now say with certainty that I’m thankful I didn’t. The man’s actions these last three weeks have been a complete and utter embarrassment to our nation.

Let’s make one thing very clear here. Trump and his team know they lost the election. They are fully aware that they’ve been beat, and by a pretty clear margin. In fact, when the dust finally settles, the numbers will make this appear to have been an electoral landslide for Biden. It wasn’t, and we know just how close some of the key state races were, but the electoral vote is going to look like Biden won handily. So, since Trump is a massively egocentric narcissist, his only path forward is to try to subvert our democracy and hold on to power. His team marches out their puppets, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell to spew forth a random string of never-ending conspiracy theory buzz words that would give a QAnon Tweet writer a hard-on.

Here’s a Tweet from Sidney Powell, a raging conspiracist and QAnon supporter who is also one of Trump’s attorneys: – “We are not going to be intimidated. We are not going to back down. We are going to clean this mess up. President Trump won by a landslide and we are going to prove it. We are going to reclaim the United States of America.”

Sidney is sticking to her word and not backing down either, not even with the Trump legal team running a resounding 0 for 30 on their court challenges in the various states they are claiming they lost due to fraud. Less than a week ago, (November 14^th) on Lou Dobbs, Sidney claimed to have a mountain of evidence that would be a bombshell that would wreck the Biden team. She said that she couldn’t wait to, “Release the kraken.” Here’s the clip if you’d like to take a listen: https://youtu.be/SFCXPw1t17o?t=401

This entire mess is dangerous, it’s intentional, and it really probably falls into the category of seditious. Although Trump has every right to challenge the results of the election in court, and although he has every right to decide to not concede the election, his actions are not those of a man who has any desire whatsoever to protect our democracy at the risk of a hit to his own personal ego. Trump has become a deranged maniac who currently, and for the next 60 days, sits in the most powerful seat in the world.

And this is a problem of epic proportions.

How the Liberal Left created Donald Trump.

In the novel, Night Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko, we meet Anton Gorodetsky, an agent for the Light, the powers of good who patrol the streets of Moscow during the darkness to combat the forces of Dark. Lukyanenko spends a lot of time describing a concept of a balance of power between good and evil. In the novel, a motley collection of magicians, shape-shifters, werewolves, and vampires on both sides of the line between good and evil try to maintain and preserve that balance in keeping with an ancient treaty between the forces of Light and Dark. The main character, Anton, is a magician in the titular Night Watch, responsible for keeping the forces of evil at bay through the long, cold Moscow nights. Despite the treaty that demands balance, each side consistently searches for loopholes that will allow them to gain an upper hand against the other. When the strength of one side threatens to shift the balance of power, an unknown, magical and omnipotent force creates a powerful character on the other side called a “mirror” designed to shift the balance of power back to the center.

If you’re a Democrat, you probably think that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are like the guardians of the Night Watch, responsible for keeping the forces of evil at bay. In your version of this story, Donald Trump and his “basket of deplorables,” the red hat wearing, flag waving, bible thumping, big truck driving, MAGA crowd would be the evil characters, the Others who seek to do harm and create chaos. And, if you’re a Republican, you likely think that Trump is like the leader of the Night Watch, a good, pious man whose sole mission is to fight the evil ambitions of AOC, Crazy Nancy, Hidin’ Joe Biden, Pocahontas, and the rest of the lazy, capricious, “Do Nothin’ Democrats” who want nothing more than to undermine your proud democracy, give everybody everything for free, and thrust us all into a Socialist state.

When Barack Obama beat John McCain in the presidential election of 2008, for many Republicans, this was their worst nightmare. In their view, Obama was a black man with unknown, uncertain qualities who very well might erode the foundation of everything they stood for. He was a Muslim who would seek to bring down Christianity and in fact, his birth country and eligibility to even run for the presidency was in serious doubt. He was weak, and not only wouldn’t stand up to terrorism, he likely secretly sympathized with their cause. All of this in addition to the fact that he was a liberal Democrat who planned to take away their guns, open the borders to foreigners who would seek to change the official language of America from English to Spanish, or maybe Arabic, install free abortion clinics next to the Chick-Fil-A on every other corner, and remove God from their currency and Jesus from their hearts. From the perspective of many Republicans, it’s maybe not a surprise that Obama was considered to be the anti-Christ.

Donald Trump was, if not the first, then definitely one of the most prominent and vocal proponents of the “Birther” movement that sought to question the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate and his eligibility for the office. Trump was quickly elevated to hero status to the masses of Republicans centered in the south, the bible belt foundationalists who not only created and enforced “Blue Laws,” but fervently believed in the moral righteousness of their purpose.

As Trump became more and more vocal with his criticism of Obama and his policies, liberals sank further into the morass of woke liberalism in what seemed to become a competition to prove who could be the most enlightened, least racist person in America. Every single issue, every single statement, every single cause became about racism, and sexism, and transphobia, and homophobia. Liberals could no longer hold back their disdain and contempt for the right, for conservatives who wanted to be left alone and in peace to worship their God, hunt for their food, and to protect the sanctity of marriage. As conservatives dug in their heals and pushed back against the ideals of their woke enemies, liberals pushed even harder, insisting that gender was fluid, that early assignation of gender identity was tantamount to child abuse, and that even a hint of Obama critique was racially motivated and driven. As the left stiffened their backs and refused to budge, Trump’s following became even larger, his calls to patriotism more ardent and more persuasive. This resulted in further scorn from the left, further arrogance, unrepentant derision toward anybody who would question the things they knew to be true, all culminating in the now infamous statement from Hillary Clinton about Trump’s “basket of deplorables,” one of the most conceited, divisive, insulting, ill-advised statements ever made by a presidential candidate in reference to nearly half of the electorate.

And, all of this widened the gulf even further, creating a vast chasm of indeterminate depth, a colossal gap that seems unbridgeable at this point in time.

There is nothing redeemable or laudable about Donald Trump. And yet, nearly half the country loves him. Despite what was arguably one of the worst, most contentious, most divisive first terms in presidential history, by the time the counting is done he will have received more votes than any president running for re-election has ever received, and somewhere north of 49% of all voters will have cast their ballot for Donald Trump. And why is that? How is that even possible?

This is a question that seems to have stumped the vast majority of intellectuals on the liberal left and has led them to believe that this country in general, and the middle to southern states in particular, are completely lost and unredeemable. They think (and often state) this with no regard to the further divide that this creates. Without thought to the idea that they themselves are the root cause of the divisiveness.

I voted for Donald Trump in 2016. I voted for him because I believed that the government needed a shakeup. I believed that a businessman would be good for the country. I believed that he would indeed drain the swamp that folks on both sides of the aisle agree has become a despairingly wretched ocean of putrefaction. Unfortunately, President Trump did none of the things I hoped he would do. He divided instead of healed. He showed himself to be a person of low intellect who was filled with hatred, vindictiveness, and a complete lack of social civility. His stratospheric ego and his utter disdain for dissenting opinion combined with his actual power as President of the United States was a real danger to humanity on a global scale. His arrogance, his chronic, almost pathological lying, his charlatanic statements of his own worth and abilities made the United States a laughingstock. His unpresidential, callous, cruel, petty Tweets and statements at rallies were not just uncouth and embarrassing, but dangerous in this unstable world.

And, despite all of this, I nearly voted for him again in 2020. I didn’t, couldn’t actually bring myself to cast a vote for a man of his immoral stock, but I admit, I wanted to find a reason to do so. I was soul-searching and somewhat undecided up until just a few days before the election, in spite of scornful, derisive statements and Tweets from my friends on the left that it was impossible to be undecided at this point, and that, by extension, indecisiveness could only be indicative of racism, homophobia, or xenophobia.

Why was I indecisive and searching for a way to justify casting a vote for Donald Trump, a man I absolutely hate in his role as president? Man, what a good question. The answer to that question can be found in a brilliant podcast by Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, philosopher, and PhD. Here is an excerpt from his podcast, “Making Sense” episode #224, titled, “The Key to Trump’s Appeal.”

A significant part of Trump’s appeal is that he has flaws. Despicable flaws. Obvious, blatant flaws. Flaws of character that cross the spectrum of every aspect of character that we have a word for. He lacks virtue in nearly every aspect of life. While he demands loyalty, he’s an incredibly disloyal person. He’s a paragon of greed, narcissism, pettiness, and malice.

So, what is his appeal?

Trump can only be understood by comparing him with the messaging of his opponents on the liberal left.

One thing that Trump never communicates, and cannot possibly communicate, is a sense of his moral superiority. The man is totally without sanctimony. Even when his every utterance is purposed toward self-aggrandizement. Even when he appears to be denigrating his supporters. Even when he’s calling himself a genius, he is never actually communicating that he is better than you, more enlightened, more decent. Because he’s not, and everyone knows it. The man is just a bundle of sin and gore. And, he never pretends to be anything more. Perhaps more importantly, he never even aspires to be anything more. And, because of this…because he is never really judging you…he can’t possibly judge you, he offers a truly safe space for human frailty, and hypocrisy, and self-doubt. He offers what no priest can credibly offer; a total expiation of shame. His personal shamelessness is a kind of spiritual balm.

Trump is fat Jesus. He’s “grab them by the pussy,” Jesus. He’s, “I’ll eat nothing but cheeseburgers if I want to,” Jesus. He’s, “I want to punch them in the face,” Jesus. He’s, “Go back to your shithole countries,” Jesus. He’s no apologies Jesus.

And now consider the other half of this image. What are we getting from the left? We’re getting exactly the opposite message. Pure sanctimony. Pure judgement. You are not good enough. You’re guilty not only for your own sins, but for the sins of your fathers. The crimes of slavery and colonialism are on your head. And if you’re a Cis, white, heterosexual male—which we know is the absolute core of Trump’s support—you’re a racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, sexist barbarian. Tear down those statues and bend the fucking knee.

It’s the juxtaposition of those two messages that is so powerful.

President Donald Trump would have never been possible in the Ronald Reagan era of Republican politics. President Trump would have never been possible in the George H.W. Bush era, nor even in the George W. Bush era, and really not even as a result of the Bill Clinton era of democratic governance. President Trump became possible only because of the Barack Obama era. To be clearer, President Trump only became possible because of the rise of the far left.

Now, it might be asserted that racism and Islamophobia were the seeds of a Trump rise to power, and it’s at least credible that this is true. However, it was the actions of the far left, the sanctimonious, hubristic judgement that caused the right to rebel. It was the ridiculous revolution against capitalism, reason, and common sense that created Donald Trump. The fraudulent, malicious, opportunistic dogma of groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa that led to Trump’s rise to power. The dangerous echo-chamber rantings and ravings of far-left Socialists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that continue to instill fear into moderate conservatives and liberals alike that continues to give power to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a mirror. He’s the right’s answer to the far left. He’s the extremist that the right needs to combat the extremism of the social justice warriors.

Vindictive, belligerent, bullying, and petty. Who am I describing? Donald Trump, certainly, but also the far left. The vast majority of people in this country don’t agree with or even like ultra-liberalism. We don’t like Donald Trump but we have a hard time bringing ourselves to vote for those of you who align yourselves with those ideals. The reason that I almost voted for Donald Trump despite my hatred of that man in that office is because a vote for Biden meant aligning myself with those on the far-left. And that was despicable.

Defund the Police is killing the Democratic party. Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the riots, the rhetoric, the cancellation of anybody who says anything deemed racist, sexist, or whateveraphobic by those enlightened few is killing the Democratic party. Voters in the middle of the political spectrum have a very difficult time allowing people like this to take over the country. And that means that Donald Trump will continue to have power, even though he has lost this election. Unless Democrats recognize that Donald Trump is nothing but a mirror and that they need to tone down the far-left rhetoric, disavow themselves of those dangerous ideals, and separate the core of their party from that ridiculous nonsense and abhorrent behavior, then you can expect to see Trump or another of his ilk in 2024.

And centrists like myself might be forced to cast our vote that way. Because far-left liberalism is one of the most dangerous, most existential threats this country has ever faced. The current leaders of the Democratic party need to seize back control from the lunatics. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi need to disavow the dangerous ideals being pushed by their compatriots or else they will once again lose to someone like Trump.

Sometimes we need a mirror to restore balance and sanity.

The possibility that we sit on the brink of a second U.S. Civil War

The idea of an upcoming second U.S. Civil War has been floating around for more than a decade. However, its only in recent months that the idea seems to have ballooned in many chat rooms and forums across the internet. And, there’s a good reason for this: according to numerous polls conducted by the Pew Research center, the United States is more politically divided today than at any point in our history, including during the time leading up to the first U.S. Civil War in 1861. This widening division in political values began its polarization during Barack Obama’s terms in office, and then exploded during the first three years of Donald Trump’s term.

Extreme political division doesn’t necessarily predicate a descension into civil war, of course. Its merely one of the indicators of the potential of civil war. Very few civil conflicts in history have ever been merely because of political divide. In order for a prosperous society to descend into the madness of civil war you need additional pressures. Things like: extreme unhappiness with the current political leadership, troubling financial problems or poverty, social stress due to outside circumstances or fear of an uncertain future…you know, sort of like all the things we’re currently experiencing.

Not only are we more politically divided than ever in the history of our young country, thanks to Covid-19, our financial future as a nation has never looked more in doubt. Skyrocketing unemployment and ballooning debt with a cavernous and widening wealth gap between the 1% and the 99% has left our society with fear and anxiety about such an uncertain future. Our national debt is teetering into uncontrollable territory. Brutal and draconian lockdowns due to the virus, along with divide as to it’s seriousness and the effectiveness of a wide array of protective precautions have left so many people bewildered and paralyzed by doubt and fear. Politicization of mask wearing and social distancing has spread discontent and anger almost polarly along party lines. Each of these things immersed into a society with a constant influx of agenda-driven news and views have drenched our society in a fuel of discontent as severe as if someone was pouring gasoline upon us.

And, while people like Donald Trump on the right and Black Lives Matter on the left are busily dousing us in gasoline, the media is throwing lit matches in our direction.

In 1861, discontent and political divide had been brewing for years, and was at a high that hadn’t been seen since before the Revolutionary War. When Abraham Lincoln, a republican, won the presidential election of 1860, and before he even took office, seven southern states banded together in outrage and announced their secession from the union. The height of the discontent was with the right of states to self-govern without interference from the federal government, mostly with regard to their rights to continue the practice of slavery. Although Lincoln promised during his inaugural address to not interfere with the southern states’ rights to slavery, that solace wasn’t enough. Confederate forces seized several forts in the new confederate territory and Lincoln ordered the commander of Fort Sumter in South Carolina to hold his ground. Shots were fired by confederate raiders who attacked the fort, and the civil war was born.

The fuel for the first civil war was the divisive position taken between slave owners in the south and activists in the north. As tensions grew, both sides dug in their heels and solidified their positions. Lincoln’s presidential victory was the final straw, and, although Lincoln was committed to avoiding war and peacefully solving the differences, the shots fired at Fort Sumpter was the match that exploded the country into the most devastating war we’ve ever seen.

When political division and discontent are at such extreme levels, the catalyst for the birth of war can easily be something minor and almost laughably insignificant. The Revolutionary War started when a British garrison was sent to destroy a colonial arms depot. World War 1 started with the assassination of an otherwise politically insignificant and unimportant archduke by a lost and mostly incompetent assassin who got extremely lucky. In both of these instances, the rumblings of discontent were building and boiling, but neither of these wars were unavoidable.

The current conditions in the United States feels like a boiling cauldron ready to tumble over. Protestors spill into the streets almost nightly at the faintest slight, stirring up violence, looting, and burning. The media fans the flames, enticing and encouraging the actions of the mob in an effort to get clicks and views. The Coronavirus continues to kill Americans at an unprecedented and increasing rate, while lockdowns cycle back around, killing small businesses and widening the wealth inequality. These types of incidents sow discord and distrust at levels that leave us teetering upon the brink.

Immigration, government aid to the needy, racial discrimination, military spending, and religion have divided us along partisan lines that have coalesced from lively talking points to unbreachable walls of self-righteous indignation. These views transcend demographics and rigidly follow party politics, and this inflexible heel-digging is killing us. Hardly a day passes without Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of actions that betray the nation’s values. Party allegiances have fractured America, trickling down to divide families, friends, and spouses. The American Civil War was well known for pitting “brother versus brother,” and things seem no different now.

A recent Nielsen poll showed that 70% of Republicans and 60% of Democrats agree that the opposing party is a serious threat to the United States. A SERIOUS THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES! Because of their party affiliation and differing views on the various subjects listed above. If you seriously thought that somebody was a serious threat to your nation, what steps might you be prepared to take to protect your beloved country? There are a number of people out there fully prepared to take any steps necessary, and they look upon the other party as a serious threat — an enemy combatant even.

A civil war today, almost 160 years after the first will look far different than that brutal conflict. There will be no Mason-Dixon line separating one side from the other. Red states and blue states seceding along present state lines will not be possible. Even California, the bastion of liberalism in this country is not without conservative strongholds, and many states are contentious hotspots of nearly equal numbers of liberals and conservatives. States will be split, with battles and skirmishes spreading throughout the cities and the countryside. A military sent in by President Trump will be a threat to liberals, and a military deployed by President Biden will be a threat to the heavily armed right-wing militants. Guerilla tactics will be deployed, and battles will rage, with each side winning and losing victories. The military itself may fracture. After all, for every General Mark Milley or John Hyten, there’s a General John Kelly or Mike Mullen. Never has there been a more divisive U.S. president than Donald Trump, and military personnel are not immune to strong opinions and side-choosing. In what would seem to be an almost uncontrollable spin toward a bleak future of conflict, fractures and divides will only widen as battles rage.

How do we pull ourselves back from the brink of civil war, if indeed that is where we are? With discontent and political divide at such extremes, there is no easy answer. The U.S. election is tomorrow. If Trump wins a second term, the leftist mobs will riot, that is almost assured. Stores across the nation are already boarded up and bunkered in place, hoping to protect their property from violence. Walmart has pulled all guns and ammo from their floors in preparation for the inevitable looting that will occur. The White House has bolstered it’s perimeter by installing an unscalable fence, keeping the public at bay at a distance never before seen. Police departments across the nation are piling up on less-than-lethal chemical and impact munitions in unprecedented stockpiles in anticipation of the inevitable civil unrest.

If Biden wins, the right is ready to rebel, with Trump already sowing the seeds of revolt on numerous occasions with his statements indicating that he will not accept the results of an election that he claims has been filled with fraudulence from the start. He will almost certainly not concede, even in the event of a landslide against him, and definitely not in the event of a close contest. He will still be the president, with all the powers that office bestows upon him. His words to the White Supremacist group the Proud Boys during the debate a month ago ordering them to “Stand back and stand by,” emboldened his far right-wing observers, with many seeing the message that he might need their support in the near future. Gun and ammunition sales have skyrocketed in the past few months with stores completely sold out of the most popular weapons and ammunition calibers. These guns have mostly landed in the hands of right-wingers, and as Kyle Rittenhouse showed recently in the Kenosha, Wisconsin riots, they aren’t afraid to use them at the slightest provocation.

It would seem that no matter who wins tomorrow night, or whenever the results are finally tabulated, the United States is set to descend into madness and mass hysteria. A Biden win will throw the far-right into denial-driven fury led by the actions of a president who will not concede and will fight the results all the way to his politically stacked Supreme Court. A Trump victory will throw the far-left into a tizzy that will spill onto the streets with riots, destruction, and death across the country. Into this chaos only a small flame will be needed to destroy the country we know today. A shot fired at police, a federal building overrun, a mob cutting through the White House perimeter fence, a homemade bomb detonating at a governor’s mansion, a National Guard barracks under fire from a sniper position…any of these things and a thousand others could trigger a descension into madness that might result in a devastating and nightmarish civil conflict.

Think of the words of the Pledge of Allegiance: “One nation, under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” Never have any of these words seemed so despairingly inapplicable to the conditions we find ourselves in right now. God has never seemed further from our country. Our nation has never seemed less Indivisible. Liberty and justice for all has never seemed like such a farce. Our country is in a lot of trouble, and we need a savior. It may already be too late. If you’re not prepared, or you think such an action as civil war is an impossibility, you’re setting yourself up to be blindsided by a result that may indeed be already inevitable. One thing that is for sure is that extremist groups are fully prepared for civil war across the nation.

It just doesn’t seem like there’s anyone who will arrive in time. The savior our nation needs is certainly not Joe Biden. And, it’s undoubtedly not Donald Trump. Tomorrow may well be the start of a period of strife and conflict that will take us over the edge. “Now is the winter of our discontent,” wrote Shakespeare to start his play, Richard III. I hope this winter doesn’t prove to be the beginning of the end of our “more perfect Union.”