Back in 2013, I attended President Obama’s inauguration through the White House Press Corps, in part. I applied for and received credentials. And The Hues was on the White House press list. We received notifications when the president would be in the Midwest and received copies of his speeches as well as policy pronouncements. The press of color was treated as a peer recognizing that there is a pecking order among the press beginning with the broadcast networks and national correspondents. But we were at least in the game.

But after Donald Trump was elected president, all of that went silent. I haven’t received anything from the White House in four years. It was a different ballgame.

And them Trump revealed himself in stages, like the little kid pushing the pencil off the counter, seeing how many times he could do it before the “parent” in the room would stop tolerating the behavior and push back. He began with the inflated numbers of those who attended his inauguration, exclaiming that it was the biggest crowd ever. When I saw the U.S. Park Service photos, I knew that Trump was flat out lying. And he has been lying ever since on increasingly bigger and a more crucial level.

Trump operates the U.S. government like he has run his businesses. His word and wants are primary and those who stand in the way are history sooner or later. We have seen this through the revolving door at the White House.

And Trump feels that he should be able to hire and fire whomever he wants unilaterally. And so it seems that half of the people who work for him are unconfirmed. Trump just ignores the rules because, in his mind, he is greater than the rules. Private businesses can be autocratic and Trump has brought that feature to the U.S. presidency.

Trump also counts on confusion. Trump’s white supremacist attitude and philosophy is an extension of his world view. Reality is what he makes it. And so there really is no such thing as science as there are his dictates. And so Trump can say black is white and white is black and the world is flat and he could shoot someone on a New York street and get away with it. Reality is what Trump says it is and he gets angry at — and will fire — anyone who dares to contradict him.

As the autocratic ruler — king if you will — everything is about Trump and his power. And so he chose to ignore the COVID-19 pandemic because it interfered with his re-election efforts. He still believes that the end of COVID-19 is right around the corner. And why? Because he says it is and the science and the 220,000 deaths be damned.

And Trump is a white supremacist. He has encouraged everyone from the KKK to The Proud Boys. When the plot to kidnap and eventually murder the Michigan governor was discovered, Trump criticized the governor and not the right wing militants behind the plot. Ever since David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan endorsed Trump in 2016 — and Trump feigned ignorance of who Duke was and didn’t immediately toss the endorsement back in Duke’s face — Trump has been winking and nodding at white supremacists, white nationalists, QAnon followers who find conspiracy in every news item and right-wing militias because they are his base and are active and a threat to any level-headed Republican legislator who dares to oppose Trump.

Trump is antithetical to everything democratic. He is a threat to this democracy and the sometime compromised freedoms that we enjoy. Yes things could get worse with an unchained Trump second term.

I believe if everyone votes in the same numbers and percentages that they did in 2012 and even a little bit more than in 2018, Trump and some of the Republican Senators who support him will be swept out of office.

And I think Trump sees the writing on the wall and so he has become increasingly angry that this ultimate failure is before him.

Trump is no longer trying to court independents and others who may have supported him in 2016. Trump is solidifying his base. While he will lose the election if everyone shows up — everyone — Trump will be viewed as the “pure” representative of the millions in the right-wing lunatic fringe who never gave in to the “deep state.” He will be adulated by millions and that is what Trump desires: the prospect of high “audience” ratings into the distant future.

And who knows, may be Trump will form his own political, right-wing party that will shift the landscape of American electoral politics.

But whatever you do, take yourself and every eligible voter to the polls to break the overtly racist hold on the Republican Party and turn this pretender president out of office. It won’t happen unless you vote!