Robert McNamara. Actor, writer, singer… husband, father… union member: AEA, SAG/AFTRA, WGA… believer in democracy… native New Yorker… now a New Mexican

He blogs

. This is some of what he said today.

“Trump now feels that his barrage of Executive Orders demonstrates he is all powerful and that he can openly and corruptly use his position to increase his family’s wealth. He seems to think this “shock and awe” approach to governing will overwhelm the opposition, that we will retreat to safe spaces and disengage. It is a serious miscalculation.

First, we must remember that Trump is a narcissistic sociopath with no impulse control. He is not strategic but impulsive. In less than 24 hours, he has already overreached. He will continue to do so. It will be his undoing.

To be clear, Trump will cause a lot of damage to our democracy, but he is not the only problem. The entire Republican Party is complicit. They are willingly riding the Trump MAGA tiger to rescind all the significant advancements of the 20th Century in America. It’s now clear that “Make America Great Again” is about returning the US to the late 19th century when the wealthy robber barons controlled the economy, when “Jim Crow” ruled the Deep South and when women didn’t have the right to vote.

Trump’s first miscalculation is that he does not have a mandate.

To be clear, Trump won the Electoral College and the popular vote in 2024, but his victory margin was only 49.8%. That means 50.2% of the voters wanted someone else to be president, including the 48.4% who voted for Kamala Harris. Any smart leader would try to find a middle ground to advance their proposals. Trump is not smart. He is arrogant and a self-centered wannabe dictator.

The other fact we must remember is that the US is a vast country with 50 different state governments. The decentralized structure of our democracy, which often stymied Biden’s agenda, will work to our advantage. For those fearing the start of a German-style dictatorship, geography is against it. By way of comparison, Hitler’s Germany was just a little larger in size than the state of New Mexico.

And despite the outrageous immunity ruling by right-leaning Supreme Court, the US still has a robust court system filled with extraordinary federal judges who have lifetime appointments.

I do hope this is how things will play out. Voices sich as this give hope in dark days. I found this link on the blog of a courageous American Black woman whom I follow. She and her family are a delight and her writing is often inspirational and always interesting.