Donald Trump, America's Savior?

Last November, President Donald J. Trump tweeted: "I am the candidate of...hard-working, law-abiding patriots of every race, religion and creed!"

How law-abiding and patriotic were those who stormed the Capitol building in D.C. on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 when the Congress was in the process of counting and finalizing the Electoral College votes?

The right-wing, Pro-Trump, Edmond,Oklahoma-based religious magazine The Philadelphia Trumpet declared, in a January 2021 article by Stephen Flurry ("The Radical Left's Ongoing Coup"), that "The radical left is making a coordinated, sustained, powerful, illegal, immoral effort to seize power over the United States!"

That description more accurately fits those thousands of white nationalists who terrorized and threatened elected officials and vandalized government property. All of this happened because they were unhappy with the 2020 presidential victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and felt that the election was stolen from Trump.

"Donald Trump," writes Gerald Flurry, the editor-in-chief of The Philadelphia Trumpet and writer Stephen Flurry's father, "certainly has his problems, and God sees those--but He chose him as a SAVIOR, temporarily, for America!" (Cover story, "Why Donald Trump Will Remain America's President," The Philadelphia Trumpet, January 2021.)

Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, would scoff at that idea. In her book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (Simon & Schuster, 2020), she describes her uncle's mindset--"the person with the power...got to decide what was right and wrong. Anything that helped you maintain power was by definition right, even if it wasn't always fair." Also, she writes,Trump believes that you must "be tough at all costs, lying is okay, admitting you're wrong or apologizing is weakness."

Does any of that make you feel that Donald Trump is America's savior?

Bill Whitaker, Newsman And Voter

This past Tuesday, November 6, I was a poll worker at one of the poll sites in my neighborhood. This was the seventh election that I worked. While sitting at my assigned table, Bill Whitaker of CBS's 60 Minutes newsmagazine show came to the table to sign the Voter Registration List. When I asked if he was Bill Whitaker the newsman, he quickly nodded and continued signing his name. One website noted that Whitaker "never stops to flaunt his media talent." That statement is very true.

I hope he plans to write a memoir of his world travels as a journalist. It would be compelling reading. Meanwhile, I'm following him on Twitter.

Alt-Right Fake News Regarding Alec Baldwin?

Bill Tate, a white, 67-year-old, very conservative pro-Trump co-worker at a national opinion research firm here in New York, sent me the following text message (sent @8:38 pm, 10/15/2018):

"Secret service agents took alec Baldwin [sic] into custody @3pm today; he publically [sic] advocated the overthrow of U.S.A.=SEDITION!"

This sounds like alt-right fake news and wishful thinking. And if true, is a Gestapo reaction of the Secret Service.

Here's what Alec Baldwin actually said per The Hill.com, a political website, and time.com:

"The way we implement change in America is through elections.We change governments here at home in an orderly and formal way. In that orderly and formal way and lawful way, we need to overthrow the government of the United States under Donald Trump."

Baldwin did not advocate a violent overthrow of the government. He was talking about the use of the ballot box to change the government.

Working The Polls In Upper Manhattan

Yesterday I worked as a New York City Board of Elections poll worker for 17 and a half hours. We started one hour before the polls opened at 6 am and finished an hour and a half after the polls closed at 9 pm. The polling site where I was assigned, in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, was non-stop busy. Fortunately we had two one-hour breaks.

Election Day Reminder

Today is election day in New York City. Don't forget to vote.