In the interest of full disclosure, I’m pretty sure I’m suffering from TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. Stage 4, I think. So, fair warning.
A recent opinion piece in a national newspaper fretted about brain drain in academia. It was kind of concerning. But the brains that worry me are the ones that were rattling around in the heads of the voters who put an incompetent Donald Trump in the White House in 2016. I think of that as strike 1.
And then there are the brains of the voters who, incredibly, compounded that mistake in 2024 and put Trump − as incompetent as ever, and likely demented to boot − back in the Oval Office. Strike 2.
Just consider what those two swings and misses brought us: tariffs and higher prices; a big, “beautiful” bill to lower
taxes for billionaires while making it harder for the poor to get Medicaid and food assistance; immigration-related cruelty and needless fatalities caused by ill-trained government agents wearing masks; Trump’s broken promise to release the Epstein files; a Department of “Justice” for Trump, but no one else; a stupid war with Iran, which has depleted our munitions, made us less safe and increased our fuel costs; relentless attempts by Trump to rig elections to protect himself from his continued ineptness and increasing unpopularity.
Can our country survive another two years of Trump unchained, unchecked and enabled by a cowardly, sycophantic Republican majority in the House and Senate?
The answer to that, whatever it is, keeps me awake at night. I fear another swing and miss − a strike 3 for our republic based on liberty and the consent of the governed. I fear the lights of the “shining city on a hill” are about to go dark.
Dan Adair, Knoxville, 37921
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Can U.S. survive another 2 years of Trump unchained? | Letter
