Donald Trump and Marco Rubio
Let’s start with some questions today, before we arrive at the answer.
What if Kamala Harris had become president, promptly leveled the historic East Wing of our White House, and then spent each day like a petrified drama queen shrieking that taxpayers should purchase her a new ballroom?
What if Harris had spent her time in office plastering her face and name on inanimate objects, while food prices she promised to lower spiraled out of control, and then belittled the people who dared mention this?
I’m not done.
What if Harris and her administration had spent their time attacking science and vaccines and then did nothing as Measles — MEASLES — made a deadly comeback across America?
What if Harris had become president and picked silly and insulting fights with our NATO partners who have been with us since WWII, while threatening to invade Greenland like some petulant child?
What if after running a campaign on no new wars, Harris appointed a drunken, racist talk show host to be her Secretary of Defense, who then proceeded to commit a series of war crimes, shared top-secret intelligence with God knows who, brazenly blocked military promotions of women and people of color, and then led a moronic war in Iran that has only succeeded in making America a more dangerous and expensive place?
Sorry, I’m not done yet.
What if instead of supporting Ukraine during their heroic fight on the frontline of democracy that benefits America, Harris berated its leader and then rolled out the red carpet for the murdering fascist, Vladimir Putin, on U.S. soil?
What if instead of prosecuting law and order, Harris appointed HER personal lawyer as OUR attorney general and then went about spending billions of taxpayer dollars to reward the traitors who attacked us on January 6, 2021?
Can you imagine?
What if Kamala Harris had become president and leveled idiotic tariffs on every country she could locate on a map that resulted in making things more expensive for Americans?
What would all those sanctimonious MAGA farmers say about that?
What if instead of answering questions from the media, Harris called them names like piggy, and enemies of the people?
What if after becoming president Harris stayed awake at night hate-posting unhinged bilge directed at 70 percent of America?
What if Harris had become president and got into a bitter feud with the Pope?
What if we found out Harris had been mentioned more than 30,000 times in the Epstein Files, and was a longtime friend of the child-rapist?
What if Harris had become president and spent the first 17 months in office spending more time at Walter Reed Medical Hospital than she did with her husband, and then publicly bragged about passing basic cognitive tests while being held up on swollen ankles?
Can you imagine????
What if Kamala Harris had become president and invited thousands of Blacks to immigrate to America from South Africa, after saying she was closing our borders?
What if Kamala Harris had become president and led a government-wide attack on rural white voters by making it as hard as possible for them to vote?
What is Harris had become president and depicted herself as Jesus Christ in a social media posting?
What if Harris had become president and filled her cabinet with unqualified rightwing talk show hosts and billionaires, whose only talents are filling their bottomless pockets with our money?
What if after becoming president, Harris did everything in her power to strip people of their healthcare, and medicare and medicaid benefits to benefit corporate raiders?
What if after becoming president, Harris set about putting actions in place that will pollute our air and drinking water …?
OK, I’ll stop there, my friends, because we all have things to do this morning while we carry on through the most insane, destructive timeline in American history.
The truth is none of those things would have happened had Harris — or ANY — Democrat been elected president, because we — Democrats and Left-Leaners — would have never allowed it, nor elected anybody — much less a convicted felon — who even hinted at these appalling attacks on America, Americans, and our standing in the world.
It must be said often, andout loud that in 2026 America, our two major political parties are publicly held to completely different standards.
In fact, one of them is held to absolutely NO standards at all.
Read that again.
This is indisputable, and we simply must get to the point where we accept at least this much, or we are done for good.
Finished.
That this ongoing and brutal numbing of our sensibilities has somehow been normalized to such a truly terrifying degree by our media, as well as the people and institutions who are charged with monitoring the America condition and the threats facing her citizens, is a terrible, terrible tragedy, it really is.
The annihilation of the barriers that used to separate good from evil and right from wrong have transformed America and its insane military might, into the most dangerous country in the world. When anything can be justified — even an attack on OUR OWN CAPITOL — everybody is in deep trouble.
We are spiraling out of control, and on the brink of losing our democracy for good, and the people who dare to pay attention — the blessed woke — know it.
That is most likely you.
This disregard of the truth, and just plain human decency is taking a terrible toll on average, good-hearted people in this country who have watched, jaws dropped, the past decade as millions have been given permission to willingly surrender to their very worst instincts, while following a grotesque man and party that are leading us to our bitter end.
That many of them are friends and family has been almost too much to bear and comprehend. How long have they carried this disease inside them? Can they be cured?
Either way, they and their debilitating weakness, and a busted media that tries to understand and excuse them, are to blame for our demise.
We feel powerless to get through to them to stop their madness, because they have been provided cover and coddled by the people and institutions I mentioned above, who have somehow accepted this as our new normal.
They are weak in mind and heart. They are the lowest among us, and refuse to lift themselves up, or even consider the damage they are doing to a country that they think even less of than themselves.
Well let me tell you something: I have no trouble stepping on them to get to higher places where we can properly survey the damage they have caused and set about repairing it.
I will not get over this or them. I will call them out and our condition in America for what it is: hideous.
The normalization of this ongoing rot inside our White House simply has to stop — or bare minimum be recognized for it is — if we are to have any hope of carrying ourselves as a half-decent nation making an honest run at once again searching for the common good.
That starts with recognizing the truth, and shouting it out, instead of normalizing chaos and odious behavior.
And if that truth hurts the people who are wrecking our society, then there is still a sliver of hope, because at least we will know they aren’t completely dead inside.
These aren't normal times we are living in unless we just surrender and accept that they are, my friends.
Well, I just can’t let that happen.
Can you?
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.