I struggle to get my head around what’s happening in this country. President Donald Trump and his supporters have a grip on power that is hard to ponder, and it’s harder to predict where it will lead us.
As November elections approach, I must wonder: Will Republicans, principally the Trump administration, accept defeat or deny and contest results as if democracy is a meaningless roadblock in their demand for unrestrained control?
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been weakened piecemeal by the U.S. Supreme Court through a series of rulings over the last decade. A recent Trump executive order is an effort to seize control of mail-in voting that reportedly would restrict it only to those on newly created federal voting lists.
Add to those worrisome facts:
It’s hard to fathom the scale of corruption occurring since Trump took office in January 2025. He has enriched himself and his family by billions of dollars. He has pardoned criminals, including those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and injured police on Jan. 6, 2021, and is trying to compensate many with $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds. He has made pay-to-play deals for such things as his cryptocurrency ventures and his behemoth, yet-to-be-built White House ballroom.
His presidency surpasses anything this country has ever seen in its deviance and self-dealing. It’s been abetted by a supine Congress, an overtly conciliatory Supreme Court, grab-and-go Cabinet members, and a Democratic Party slow to offer effective opposition. Trump has blasted through loopholes in the law and has not lost his determination to make anyone who has ever opposed him pay for it, no matter how worthy their opposition.
Consequently, for me, waking up most mornings brings dread of what might come next. I’m not young. I’ve lived to see segregation and a fledgling civil rights movement tear apart and ultimately strengthen this country, a misguided Vietnam War create ugly homefront cultural divides that left slow-healing scars, assassinations that felled beloved leaders (a King and two Kennedys), a Watergate era that opened many eyes to government corruption like they had never seen, and another two arguably misguided wars − Afghanistan and Iraq.
But the Trump era stands out as possibly more gut-wrenching and disquieting than any of these blasts from America’s past. It seems to be shaking the nation’s foundations as none of them did.
Solutions? Speak out, vote, show a love of country, write your Congress people and talk to your local officials, attend meetings, demonstrate if you must, keep yourself informed with good sources, talk to and listen well to people who might not agree with you, and seek to know why.
You can still do all that in this country. Let’s hope you’ll be able to for generations to come.
David Caudill lives in Mount Lookout.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: I fear where Trump is taking America | Opinion
Reporting by David Caudill, Opinion contributor / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By David Caudill, Opinion contributor | USA TODAY Network
