By Frank F Islam & Ed Crego, October 29, 2024 (Image credits: Tom de Boor, DALL-E 3, Adobe, et al)

At his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, President Donald Trump infamously said, “This American carnage ends right here and ends right now.”

As usual, Trump was wrong. Due to his presidency and his destructive behavior since he left office on January 20, 2021, American carnage has grown.

Given this, an overarching question as we approach the presidential election of 2024 is: Will the American citizens vote to bring carnage back to the presidency by electing Donald Trump, or reaffirm their commitment to courage by electing Kamala Harris to be president.

That question will be answered on November 5.

In this blog, we examine the nature of American carnage and the key requirements for American courage to combat it.

American Carnage: MAGA and MAD

In 2016, the Trump campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again (MAGA)”. Because of Trump’s tapping into a distinctive voter segment and his marketing and promotion abilities, that slogan gave birth to the MAGA movement comprised of Trump’s original supporters.

While Make America Great Again (MAGA) was the slogan, making America great again was never the true intent of Trump’s presidential campaign nor his activities since. The primary purpose has always been for Trump to win, no matter the cost or consequences for America and its citizens.

Trump’s approach for attempting to win for himself has been and is MAD. MAD has three central components:

• Make America Divided
• Make America Delusional
• Make America Dangerous

Make America Divided

Trump did not create the divide among the American people. What he was able to do in his candidacy in 2016 was to recognize the divide existed, channel it, and then exploit and magnify it.

Trump’s initial appeal as a candidate in 2016 was primarily to right-wing populists who tended to skew male, older, whiter, and less well-educated. His appeal to them was driven largely by his “outsider status,” railing at the Republican political elite and party leadership who had not treated its “working class” members properly; and speaking out loudly and frequently on wedge or hot button issues such as illegal immigration.

Trump channeled the outsiders’ anger and gave it his voice. He thought their thoughts, and said things they wanted to have said about people other than themselves.

In 2016, Trump also added “Republican diehards” to his group. They were loyal Republicans who would never leave the Party nor ever vote for a Democrat or a third-party candidate. They included single or wedge issue voters such as corporate executives, business owners, gun owners, and evangelical Christians.

During his tenure as President, Trump governed and communicated in a manner that increased his support with this core group, and added new constituencies such as white-supremacists and right-wing conspiracy theorists. He also solidified his control of the Republican party and converted it to the Party of Trump.

A large percentage of those in the Party of Trump — especially its MAGA members — are not interested in reaching across the aisle and working with their fellow citizens to pursue the common good. They are committed instead to embracing all messages from their savior Donald Trump, and to doing whatever it takes to make and keep America divided.

Make America Delusional

The extent of Trump’s mind control over his faithful is evidenced by the fact that approximately 70% of Republicans believe that he won the 2020 presidential election with absolutely no evidence to support that assertion. This means that tens of millions of his followers have made his delusion their delusion.

And that’s just the tip of the Trump delusional iceberg. During his presidency, Trump told more than 30,000 lies, and has lied with impunity since he has been out of the Oval Office. Those lies serve as delusional fodder for his supporters.

Trump’s primary venue for communicating his and others’ falsehoods and outrage now is his incorrectly named Truth Social media platform. Given Trump’s posts there, that platform would more correctly be called Lies Antisocial or Trump’s Tirades.

In spite of its lack of veracity and venomous language, Truth Social undoubtedly has a substantial impact on the values, attitudes and beliefs of a devoted group of supporters, as it has nearly 7.5 million followers of Trump and 2.5 to 3.5 million visitors monthly.

Trump extends his delusional reach beyond this core group through his public comments, which are frequently drawn from conspiracy theorists. The most notable example of this during this campaign was his claim during the debate with Vice President Harris, and in later press interviews, that Haitian immigrants who were in Springfield, Ohio legally under temporary protected status were catching and eating local citizens’ pet dogs and cats.

In his delusional state, Trump has also seen fit to travel the campaign trail with, and speak kindly of, the far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer who, among many other provocative things, has proclaimed herself “a proud Islamophobe,” and posted a video declaring 9/11 an “inside job.” The association with Loomer has caused even Republicans to push back against this relationship, because they believe it not only endangers Trump’s re-election chances but impacts their chances as well.

Make America Dangerous

Trump’s political allies have reacted quickly when his affiliations and demagoguery endangered the possibility of his winning the election in 2024. They have been much slower to respond when his inflammatory rhetoric before, during, and after his presidency put others in America in danger — but not when it endangered Trump.

The January 6, 2021 insurrectionist invasion of our nation’s Capitol Building, and the violence undertaken by those who came at the invitation of then President Trump, demonstrates what danger his unconstrained words can cause. To date, more than 1,500 of the J-6ers have been charged with federal crimes and over 900 have been convicted and sentenced for their actions on that day. Trump, in his own inestimable style, calls these individuals “patriots” and “hostages,” and says he will pardon them when he is re-elected president.

What Trump did not anticipate is that his rhetorical attacks and calls for violence on those on the other side of the fence might prompt individuals to try to assassinate him. Trump, his running mate J.D. Vance, and other Republican elected officials have attempted to place the blame on Democrats calling Trump an existential threat to democracy for those assassination attempts on him.

This deflection is a common ploy of Trump — accuse others for what you have said and done. It works with his base.

But even Neil Cavuto, Fox News Anchor, after describing Trump’s lies about pets being eaten, babies being executed after being born, and vile attacks on Vice President Harris and others, warned, “The only reason I’m making any [mention] of this is doesn’t extreme rhetoric work both ways and that Donald Trump himself should be careful with this?”

Trump has never been cautious in his comments, but has frequently been dangerous. Consider that in 2020, after a summer of violence, he called upon the far-right Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by,” and for citizens in Michigan to “Liberate Michigan” when the state was keeping places closed due to COVID-19.

In September of that year, members of a small extremist group were foiled in their plan to kidnap Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer. After that, at a rally in Michigan in October, he told the audience, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, I’m the one, it was our people that helped her out with her problem. I mean, we’ll have to see if it’s a problem. Right? People are entitled to say maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn’t.”

In 2024, Trump’s repeated remarks regarding Haitians in Springfield, Ohio have prompted potentially dangerous problems for that city and its citizens of all ages. In September, there were more than 30 bomb threats that led to the closing of schools, government buildings, and locking down of hospitals. Because of the risky environment, the annual arts and culture festival to be held on September 27- 28 was cancelled.

CNN reports that:

Rob Rue, the city’s mayor, told CNN’s Dana Bash that he and other officials have personally received threats, adding “it would be helpful” if politicians “understood the weight of their words and how they could harm a community like ours.”

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) has deployed three dozen troopers from Ohio State Highway Patrol Mobile Field force to Springfield to protect children in city’s schools. On PBS Newshour, when asked by Anna Nawaz about the “baseless comments” about Springfield of former president Trump and Senator Vance, Governor DeWine replied, “…the statements are wrong. I have said they were wrong. The mayor has said they were wrong. And, frankly, they need to stop.”

Governor DeWine is absolutely correct. Those statements and others like them should have stopped — but they have not.

That’s because they are part of Trump’ MAD agenda. That agenda is designed to Make America divided, delusional, and dangerous. It is designed to appeal to his MAGA base — especially those who do not vote regularly. The “maddening” nature and extent of that appeal was demonstrated at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on October 27. As the New York Times reports, “By the time the former president himself took the stage, an event billed as delivering the closing message of his campaign, with nine days left in a toss-up race, had instead become a carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.”

It is being implemented in the hope that it will result in a victory on November 5 for Donald Trump because, as stated at the outset of this piece, winning is the only thing that matters for Donald Trump.

American Courage: The Antidote to American Carnage

As we wrote earlier this year, the people who can stop Donald Trump from winning will be concerned citizens voting in sufficient numbers across this country — and most importantly in the battleground states — to enable his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris to win.

Harris’s victory will ensure the triumph of democracy over autocracy in this presidential election. That triumph will not be the finish line, but it’s essential in order to continue the evolutionary process in these United States toward becoming the more perfect union envisioned by our nation’s founders.

Vice President Harris has made it clear that her policies and leadership will take this nation forward rather than backward. As, she has proclaimed throughout her campaign, “We can’t go back. We’re not going back.”

While Donald Trump’s agenda is designed to drive America MAD, Harris’ agenda is structured to go to BAT for America. She will Build America’s Team, Build America’s Trust, and Build America’s Talent.

Build America’s Team

Vice President Harris will Build America’s Team by focusing on the American people rather than herself. That is no idle promise. Her life’s work has been one of public service. As she explained in her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention,

And every day in the courtroom (when she was a District Attorney in Sand Francisco), I stood proudly before a judge and I said five words: “Kamala Harris, for the people.”

And to be clear — and to be clear, my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.

And so, on behalf of the people; on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language your grandmother speaks; on behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey; on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with — people who work hard, chase their dreams, and look out for one another; on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.

Harris will use her “unifying” perspective to bring Americans together on the same team on the playing field, as opposed to her opponent, who will divide us into tribes and set us on the warpath against each other.

Build America’s Trust

An integral component of Vice President Harris agenda will be to Build America’s Trust. She will do that through three primary means: telling the truth, proposing solid plans and policies, and governing in a measured manner.

As a former prosecutor, Kamala Harris understands the importance of solid evidence and facts. That doesn’t mean as a politician she will be completely impartial in the presentation of information. She will undoubtedly choose facts and evidence that make her case. Unlike her opponent, however, she will not be a bold-faced and prodigious liar who, through his constant repetition, converts falsehoods into reality for his followers.

Harris has proposed plans and policies such as: supporting building three million new housing units, a tax credit for small business start-ups, down payment assistance for first time home-buyers, and an expanded child tax credit. Some in the media have asked her for more details her plans. That is a more appropriate request for her opponent who, during the debate, said he had only “concepts of a plan.”

Harris has a reputation for doing her homework and being methodical in her research, analysis, and decision-making. She can be counted on to bring those skills to the Oval Office. By contrast, when he was president, her opponent was known for not reading briefing books, rejecting well-constructed plans that he didn’t like personally, and shooting from the hip on what to do to address serious problems such as COVID-19.

Build America’s Talent

Vice President Harris recognizes that America’s got talent — and the talented ones are not just those who make it to the TV show with that name. It’s the citizens in small towns, cities, and rural areas across the country who she will invest in as president to Build America’s Talent. As she said during the debate, “I believe in the ambition, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people, and that is why I imagine and have actually a plan to build what I call an opportunity economy.”

Her plan is targeted to remove the obstacles to those in the middle and working class who need some assistance in order to succeed. As noted above, that plan includes: support for small business start-ups. It also includes tax cuts for the middle class and lower income individuals.

By contrast, when he was president. Harris’s opponent made irresponsibly large and inflationary tax cuts that primarily benefited large corporations and the very wealthy. When he was a TV CEO on The Apprentice and then The Celebrity Apprentice, Trump’s primary role was not to help people realize their ambition, but to watch some very talented individuals try to win his approval and then gleefully tell those who did not, “You’re fired!”

A Trump Loss: American Carnage Redux

In summary, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are opposites. He brings American carnage to the table and she brings American courage. She speaks people and policies and he speaks petulance and polarization. She spreads joy and hope and he spreads fear and anxiety.

If Kamala Harris loses this election, she will continue to operate in the courageous mode. She will congratulate the winner. She will do all that is required to ensure the peaceful transfer of power. And she will encourage her supporters to do the same.

If Donald Trump loses election, he will continue to operate in his carnage mode. He will not concede. He will proclaim the election was stolen and try to stop the proceedings moving toward the confirmation of the results on January 6, 2025. If he is unsuccessful, he could well, once again, call upon his supporters to interrupt the transfer of power on that date.

Donald Trump has been setting the stage for avoiding a potential loss through election denialism since he announced his candidacy for re-election. At the heart of this avoidance is restructuring state and local election boards to try to make them Trump-partisan and making it more difficult to vote.

The Brennan Center reports that since the last presidential election “voters in almost half the country will face new voting restrictions. The Center also reports that it will be harder to vote in the three swing states of Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. It would have been more difficult in Wisconsin as well, had the governor not vetoed voting restrictions passed by the Republican state legislature.

While some of the new rules are problematic, the altered composition of some state and local voting boards is even more so. Elaine Godfrey provides excellent insights on this in her Atlantic article, “How the Election Deniers Mindset Works,” focused on Georgia.

In that piece, Godfrey notes that “a new far-right majority is changing the rules mere weeks before a national election that might hinge on Georgia.” This five-member state board has “three outspoken Republican members…” At a rally last month the former president called the three his “pitbulls” for victory.

Godfrey reports that this summer, those members changed Georgia’s election certification process to include “one rule that allows local board members to conduct a “reasonable inquiry’ into results before certifying them.” She proceeds to state,

Even if partisan local officials can’t throw out vote counts, election experts fear that the new rules could be used by rogue board members as an excuse to delay certification — and for unhappy voters to pressure the officials who won’t play along.

Following this, Godfrey observes that “Delay is a gift for a chaos agent like Trump…” And quotes David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election and Innovation, as saying that these new rules enable the loser “to falsely claim an election was stolen so he can raise money, and incite anger and violence.”

Anger and violence were what we saw from the insurrectionists and right-wing protesters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It could be even worse there in 2025, and in cities and states across this country.

What held the country together after the presidential election of 2020 and during and after the violence in 2021 was American courage — the courage of those who were willing to stand up and defend our American democracy and its institutions against those who would make this the divided states of America instead of the United States of America. It appears that same courage may be required in 2024 into 2025, as well as going forward, if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election.

We wish it were otherwise. We wish that these were not such trying times. We should always remember, however, that this democratic republic was founded during trying times, and has prevailed during numerous trying times through its nearly two and one-half centuries of existence.

It has done this because of American Courage — the courage of we, the people, committed to working together to form a more perfect union. In 2024, the answer to the question of American courage or American carnage must be American Courage.

John F. Kennedy stressed the importance of courage in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, published in 1956, in which he wrote:

In a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office’; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.

Nearly seven decades later, the need for courage to ensure that we get good political leadership for our nation is more critical than ever. A healthy dose of unique American courage will provide the basis for moving this democratic republic forward, and continuing to make it a better and fairer place for all the people.