Even if this is under our Fun section, this is more on the serious note on how the country has been changing over the last years. And not for the better.

(It’s all in the eyes of the beholder, and for someone not living in the midst of it, it probably can be seen as “crazy, wacky, can’t believe it, can’t be true, really?!? – fun. Some kind of Bizarro World, spinning backwards.)

The Second Term (2024 Election)

Why Heartbroken after US Presidential Election 2024, Nov 2024
Inauguration on Mon 2025-01-20.

The below started during the first era, 2016-:

“The Trump Era” (2016-Ongoing)

This is our own (J&P) description.

Trump, Trump-Related

After some decades in the US, we can see the more active downfall of ‘US as a good place to be in‘ starting around 2016 with the presidential primaries. Ok, it started earlier but became more escalating around 2016, when new levels of acceptance of lying and general behaviors that previously never had been seen in public US politics or society in general.

It has been going downhill since then.

Area	Brief explanation, clarification	Examples	Trump Era
Values	the foundation of an individuals ability to judge between right and wrong. values include a deep-rooted system of beliefs that guides a person’s decisions, including topics like integrity and commitment	a person who values integrity admits that they stole a piece of candy someone who values friendship drops everything to help a friend	Individuals ability to judgement between right and wrong seems completely twisted – listen to Trump-supporters…
Morals	system of beliefs that emerge out of core values; what individuals feels are “good” or “bad”	It is bad to steal candy (based on a value of honesty). Helping a friend is a good thing to do (based on a value of friendship).	Follows the twisted world with Values, for some it now seems completely ok with lying, being straight out demeaning to handicapped people and immigrations from poor countries, impropriety touching others, and so on.
Ethics	determines what behaviors are “right” and “wrong”	Doctors are held to a strict code of ethics Employees often sign a code of ethics,	Please, try find ANY example of Ethics among Trump supporters – would love to hear some example.

The Washington Post has a database of Trumps false or misleading claims, while he was in office, and had 30,573 false/misleading claims per 2021-01-20, the last day of his presidency, the day when Joseph R Biden was inaugurated as the 46th US president.

(And this with four years – one single term – with Donald, including his TWO impeachments and an extremely polarized US society. “One year after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, American Facebook users on the political right and political left shared almost no common interests”)

As one reaction to all sorts of adverse trends, a yard sign started to pop up all around neighborhoods around the US.

Democracy: US is decreasingly any form of democracy: many states (e.g. Florida, Georgia, Texas), have or are in process of making it even harder to vote, which disparately affects lower-income people, more likely democratic voters. google.com/search?q=disparately+harder+to+vote
Legal: anyone can sue almost anyone around abortions…
- texastribune.org/2021/09/10/texas-abortion-law-ban-enforcement/
  - “While abortion patients themselves can’t be sued under the new law, anyone who performs or aids with the abortion can be sued — and by almost anyone. Legal experts interviewed by The Texas Tribune have said the law dramatically expands the concept of a civil lawsuit and is aimed at keeping providers from using the constitutional right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade as a legal defense.”
- google.com/search?q=abortion+law+texas

More also in “Only” in Texas – what the f*ck are “we” doing?!? /fun/us/2109tx/ (email sent Fall 2021)

Scattered Fun and Less-Fun Mtrls

Mommie, what is a Canadian? (Timeless)

Endorsements Client v. Trump (2016-10)

Angels! Sent By God! Er, Actually … (Rep v. Dem)

More a republicans (small and weak government) versus democrats (more for a stronger public sector).

Trump: Russia Did Not Help Me (2017-09)

A reminder of all the fishy handling of Russia that Trump did…

Bill Kristol: “What is Happening?” (2017-11)

For the ones that doesn’t know Bill Kristol – google.com/search?q=bill+kristol.

He definitely was NOT anyone J&P had too many common grounds around before ‘The Trump Era”, a very conservative writer and speaker, but as it turns out one of the few (it feels) like of old republicans that still hold fast to ethics, morals, values, and what a democracy actually means.

“William Kristol is an American neoconservative writer. A frequent commentator on several networks including CNN, he was the founder and editor-at-large of the political magazine The Weekly Standard. Kristol is now editor-at-large of The Bulwark.” Wikipedia

He has become a starch advocate for truths, in an increasingly false-narrative US environment.

“The GOP tax bill’s bringing out my inner socialist. The sex scandals are bringing out my inner feminist. Donald Trump and Roy Moore are bringing out my inner liberal.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?”

And remember, this from a neoconservative individual…

Norway v. USA, on Immigrants (2018-01)

Jan 12, 2018: ‘In the Thursday meeting in which President Trump complained about “having all these people from shithole countries come here” — and singled out Haiti, El Salvador and Africa as examples — he also added that, “we should have more people from Norway.”‘ [npr.org]

More google.com/search?q=immigrants+from+norway+trump

Seizing Kids at US-Mexico Border (2018 Spring)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy

google.com/search?q=us+seizing+kids+border+2018

On the Topic of Reading

Obama Reading List (2018-08)

On Trump and Reading

Not a reader… Or person really looking for knowledge and learning in any form. A more gut-decision person.

President’s Daily Brief (PDB)

Trump become known to (at least seemingly, what can be concluded from outside the White House), not care too much about these daily briefing, which arguably are among the most important and secret communications to a sitting president – about the national security of the US.
google.com/search?q=trump+daily+intelligence+brief

“President Donald Trump largely eschews the written version of his daily intelligence briefing in favor of an oral presentation with lots of pictures, according to a Washington Post piece published Friday. So is that necessarily a problem?

In and of itself, arguably not. With this specific president? Probably.” [usnews.com, Feb 9, 2018]

intelligence.gov/publics-daily-brief/presidents-daily-brief

Trump threatens to tax French Wine (2019-07)

No own experience what so ever, “I just like the they look.”

Decisions made on how things looks?! That’s the basis for international trade disputes…?

On Trump and TALKING

Language Expert: Donald Trump’s Way Of Speaking Is ‘Oddly Adolescent’| The 11th Hour | MSNBC, 16 Sept 2017

Columbia University professor of linguistics John McWhorter joins to discuss the unique way Donald Trump speaks which is unlike any president America’s had before.

“Donald Trump, linguistically, is unadorned, this is the basics, this is what language was undoubtedly like when it first emerged among people who didn’t have writing”…