November 1, 2024
By now just about everyone has either voted or decided who they’ll vote for, so the Gazette‘s endorsement isn’t intended to influence anyone’s vote for President. Rather, in keeping with the Gazette‘s mission to provide a “first rough draft of history” the aim is to document this pivotal moment. Since 2016 this newspaper has been creating a primary source record that will hopefully help historians and researchers in the future get a more complete understanding of this period. The Library of Congress has recognized that the historical record would be incomplete without the Gazette‘s inclusion.
With that said, the Gazette considers the epic dishonesty of Donald Trump absolutely disqualifying for the office of President. No company in the World, no organization however big or small, would knowingly place a person they knew to be dishonest in a decision-making or public facing role. Trump lies as effortlessly and continuously as he breathes. When informed that his claim is false, he doubles down or attacks the one who points out his lie. He sends out spokespeople to lie for him and claim it’s something they call “alternative facts,” or something that we used to call “made up bullshit.” He’s told far too many lies to catalog here, from “Mexico will pay” to “eating the pets.” But his two biggest, and most enduring, ones bear directly on this endorsement.
The first one, Stop the Steal, claims that he really won in 2020. It’s obviously false on its face and notable for its supreme contempt for the tens of millions of Americans who fired him that year. Had the popular vote been close, as it was in Florida in 2000, he’d have had grounds to raise every objection in the pursuit of truth. But in 2020, Biden got 7 million more votes than Trump. To have attempted to overturn that very loud and clear expression of the Will of the American People is just insulting. With what mandate could he have governed had he been successful in reversing the outcome?
The second, and even more ridiculous Big Lie, is that Americans were better off 4 years ago. Really? 4 years ago the LA Dodgers also won the World Series, but the games were played after a Covid-19 shortened season, in a stadium which neither team called home, before a very small live audience. That’s because we were better off 4 years ago, right?
“I don’t take responsibility.”
4 years ago the economy was on life support. Stimulus checks, a fraud-ridden “forgivable loan” PPP program, and extended unemployment benefits were the economic indicators of just how much better off we were 4 years ago. Empty supermarket shelves practically scream “booming economy” after all. There was a pop up hospital in Central Park, ER personnel were wearing garbage bags and reusing masks and gloves because PPE was unavailable, and we were burying people in mass graves 4 years ago. A Navy hospital ship was docked on the West Side because our hospitals were over capacity. Much, much better off 4 years ago.
Covid-19
4 years ago there was a Muslim Ban and Family Separation policy. The 1st Amendment literally prohibits our government from disfavoring any religion, but Trump didn’t care. For a dishonest person like Trump, the Constitution is something to ignore when it’s in his way: “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
Muslim Ban
There was a massive mobilization of young Americans against endless mass shootings and he did nothing. The peaceful, take a knee protests by NFL players against extrajudicial police executions of mostly Black Americans were mocked by Trump. ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ This is what better off 4 years ago looks like?
So, in short, Trump has disqualified himself. He’s a liar, a cheat, and he was a lousy President who badly bungled the Federal response to the biggest public health crisis in living memory. His approval rate never touched 50% but his unemployment rate nearly hit 15%, the highest since the Great Depression. Better off? He famously took no responsibility for lack of Covid testing. When a Saudi Prince had a US based journalist killed and carved up with a bonesaw, he just looked the other way. He pushed quack cures and scorned rudimentary precautions amid a deadly pandemic. He still hasn’t divested or provided his tax returns, 8 years after promising to do so. His NY convictions would disqualify him for a job Enumerating the Census or Carrying Letters, two humble yet honorable government jobs that demand personal integrity and honesty. And he wants to be the Commander in Chief?
Insurrection
He’s promised to be a dictator on Day One, as if that’s an acceptable thing for an American President to ever say or even joke about. His closest aides have said he’s a fascist wannabe dictator, and that he’s divisive and a danger to Democracy. An eyewitness claims he replied “so what?” when, on January 6th, he was told his VP’s life was in danger. He calls insurrectionists “patriots” and calls Liz Cheney a traitor…because she defended Democracy and the Constitution instead of him. His VP Mike Pence said he should never be President because he “puts himself over the Constitution.” He cozies up to dictators and attacks the very concept of Democracy regularly.
January 19, 2017; NYC
In short, he had his chance. In modern history, unless a President really screws up very badly, they generally get that second term almost automatically. Trump didn’t and for good reason: he failed the test of leadership. He drove the economy into a ditch, he left the country divided and angry, and he’s made whining a virtue instead of a weakness for too many Americans. Presidents from Nixon to Carter to Reagan and W Bush have screwed up and owned it. They’ve humbled themselves when they were wrong or had failed, and they came before the American People to admit it. With a lifetime of business failures, political losses, civil and criminal convictions, failed marriages, and broken promises to his name, Trump has never been man enough to do what decent people do: accept responsibility for his actions.
Therefore we, the American voters, must do it for him. We must send an undeniable and unmistakable message that we demand better from our leaders. If a person can’t tell the truth and puts their self interest above that of our country, they simply cannot represent or lead this great nation. As Kamala Harris says, “We’re not going back.”
The Gazette looks forward to the inauguration in January of our country’s next President: Kamala Harris.
Photo: “Bigger Hands.” Antifa protest against Trump in NYC, March 2016.