Now, admittedly, Trump says a lot of crazy shit. In fact, his rambling, incoherent speeches are so full of crazy shit it’s sometimes hard to figure out what he means. And, if you were charitable enough to (a) remember politicians on the stump say many things they don’t actually follow through on and/or (b) a narrow reading of his statement simply says his audience could take a break from voting in 2028, you might not be concerned.

But I am. And you should be, too.

When it comes to Trump, I offer little or no charity. He’s Example Numero Uno of something I’ve remarked on many times over the years, namely, that while I might be able to sympathize with someone in a particular situation, sympathy is a finite resource, and their particular situation is so far down the list of Problems That Should Be Addressed that I doubt I’d ever get to it in my lifetime. After all, Trump is wealthy, apparently still in robust health (even if his mental acuity is clearly in decline), has a credible chance of becoming President, and beloved by millions.

So should reasonable people cut him some slack and give him the benefit of the doubt? One could make such an argument.

But here’s the thing. We’ve all seen countless examples of people revealing their real motivations — which they themselves aren’t always consciously aware of — in remarks they make. Any given set of words, particularly spoken ones, can only communicate a limited amount of concrete information.

But their tone, the particular imagery behind the words, the way they’re delivered, where they’re delivered, and to whom they’re delivered, are as important — and sometimes more important — than the words themselves. Not to mention how they fit into the broader context of all the things that particular person has said and done.

When a guy who:

• tried to keep power in a coup;
• chastised his Vice President for following the Constitution and his VP’s sense of duty;
• stood by while his cultist followers threatened to kill the VP;
• encouraged those same cultists to storm the US Capitol;
• stood by, for hours, while they did so;
• has said he’d be a dictator if re-elected (but only for a day or so -!!!);
• is supported by many powerful people who have drawn up a blueprint for destroying representative Constitutional democracy in the United States; and,
• says to his supporters they won’t need to vote again after re-electing him

you’re damn right there’s something to be concerned about!!!

There are fascinating — and horrifying, to any reasonable person — parallels between this pattern and the rise of Adolph Hitler. Who was elected to the office of Chancellor before proceeding to destroy the struggling representative democracy of post World War I Germany.

So, please, don’t sit this election out. And don’t just cast your vote. That’s important, and critical…but it may not be enough.

Talk to your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues. Share with them your deep concern for the future of American democracy. Speak out against the unending stream of exaggerations, misstatements and outright lies being spewed, constantly, by the Trump campaign and its Republican apparatchiks. Reach out to voters around the country, through phone banking and mailings (VoteForward is a great way to do the latter, BTW, but there are plenty of others). Give whatever money you can to defeating Trump.

Some would argue this isn’t an existential crisis. And you know what? They might be right. But here’s the thing about existential crises: you generally don’t know for certain they’re going to blossom, and how horrible they are, until after they’ve happened.

By which point it’s too late for simple — relatively simple — actions to make a difference.

Please. Please, get involved. As quickly as you can, and as much as you can. Biden dropping out and Harris stepping forward gives those of us who don’t want to see the grand American experiment subverted, however our opinions differ in detail, a chance. But it’s only a chance. To make it a reality, we must all get involved to make it happen.

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A brief note on the images used for this post…

A few of them I found online. But the majority of them were generated by AI, on playground.com. Which is definitely a site I will be using more of in the future (and not just to create scary images of His Rapist Fraudster Convicted Criminal Former Majesty).

But before I stumbled across playground.com, I tried a bunch of other sites, including Google’s gemini.

Interestingly, none of those other sites were willing to generate images based on the keywords Trump and Hitler. Fear of being sued? Fear of being attacked in the marketplace? Who knows?

But it sure was an interesting tell.