MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

The most vulnerable nominated Trump secretaries testified this week.  

• Kash Patel (right) for FBI director is the most likely to be confirmed, for he played the game.  Tossed in one anti-Trump position to show some minor independence (didn’t think violent Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted law enforcement deserved a break) and soft-peddled his MAGA flamethrower persona.
• Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence head could not say Edward Snowden was a traitor, and this could hurt her.  Plus, did not quite provide satisfactory answers to softball questions by Republicans.  But her reputation is not severely toxic like Pete Hegseth, and she was reasonably composed.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, continued to show a controversial position on vaccination, has a general personality which is flawed (he looks guilty all the time) and confrontation with committee chairman Bill Cassidy (who is a physician) make RFK Jr. the most likely to fail.
• Only one Republican no vote on the committee would doom a nominee.
• However, Donald Trump has so strong an influence that all three will probably get to the floor, and squeeze by the Senate vote with no more than three Republicans voting no.

I've authored, co-wrote or edited nine books.  They were all pretty scientific, so I've not yet dallied into novels.  I have mostly completed a tenth, Pearl's Ashes, and have the storyboard for The Venus Syndrome, which is a docu-novel. I haven't got to this one because I can't seem to come up with a satisfactory ending.

However, over the past few weeks I thought of a good book to write:

     Mayday! Mayday!:  The Plot to Save American Democracy

As you know, MAYDAY is an internationally recognized distress signal used to indicate a life-threatening emergency and request for immediate assistance.  Mayday is a French phrase that translates to help me.  Note, however, that this word is pronounced MA (like in mom) DAY in France.  Same pronunciation in Portuguese.  Different in the USA.  So there is some confusion here.  

I've been saving this posting since the week Donald Trump got re-elected, for it was clear to me that once he re-gained office, he would do everything he could to build a dictatorship and destroy American Democracy.  But then, it occurred to me that he is so flawed, with batty cronies, that things will not go as they plan.  Then I thought, for sure, Trump would be using the Vladimir Putin strategy to maintain power.  Find ways to throw any opposing media types in jail, if not outright assassinating them.  A scary thought, then, for me to risk my life by even posting this article.  So I waited. 

It's not safe these days to criticize President Trump.  Maybe just the beginning of more to come, but it was today announced he is leaving MSNBC.  He merely indicated that Trump's triumvirate control will only have a shelf-life of two years until the 2026 Congressional elections, for Clinton, Obama and Trump himself lost at least one house of Congress after two years in office.  To quote:

The contentious vote for Mike Johnson for House speaker offers some clue as to how this could come apart on Trump. The biggest problem Trump has is that while the party is united around trying to make his presidency a success, the party is not united around how to do that.

Thus, my thoughts on how Democrats can save Democracy.

• First, gain control of the House and Senate in the 2026 election.  Not an easy task, but there is hope that Trump will so alienate the voting public, that this could occur.  Details?  Just wait and see.
• Remember the TV series, Designated Survivor, when a low-level cabinet member, played by Kiefer Sutherland, became president?  Series ran from 2013-2016.  President, vice president and congressional members were killed in that explosion.
• Democrats wouldn't want another Republican to become president, but there ways how this can be avoided.

Here is a summary of the plot for my politico-science fiction novel.  That graphic to the right is one incorporating 16 of them, from H.G. Wells to Robert Heinlein

• Remember, now, the objective will be to maintain democracy in the U.S. by fighting off an attempt at dictatorship.  Donald Trump almost succeeded in a coup on 6January2021, so he and his cronies  now better know how they can succeed this second time.
• If I were to hint about an assassination, that would not be appropriate for now, but Scott Galloway says there is a 33% chance that Trump dies in office.  Galloway is a professor of marketing at New York University (who donates his salary to the university) and author.
• This is where I thought a science-fiction theme would be the least provocative, for in this book, aliens kidnap both the president and vice-president.   The whole concept is a bit outrageous anyway, thus, why not.  One might argue that just taking Trump might be enough, for Vance does not seem like the type to want to become a dictator.  But, just to make sure, kidnap him too.
• 
  So the book, which would  hopefully become a film or series, would unfold as follows:
• President Trump does all that he and Project 2025 promise and push America away from democracy towards dictatorship.

• 
  Some Republicans with patriotic conscience in both the Senate and House make Congress ineffective, which further allows Trump to do what he wants.
• Protests and riots erupt throughout the nation.

• 
  Trump won't be able to become a dictator in two years, but he will try to legally and illegally skew the mid-term elections for Republicans to maintain control.
• So what can Democrats and dispirited Independents do to prevent that from happening?  That would be part of the plot.

• 
  However, this is a book I am writing, so some good news.  Congress flips to Democratic control in the 2026 election.
• Here is a weak part of this effort. and why the publication is partly science fiction.  Extraterrestrial intelligence aliens kidnap Trump and Vance, and they disappear forever.

• 
  Why would they do this?
• I'll come up with a good reason.
• I worked on a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project at the NASA Ames Research Center, so am familiar with this subject.  

• 
  Can't think of anything better at this time, so until I do, this ridiculous requirement remains irrational.
• Requirement in that if the president and vice president both disappear (or die) at the same time, the current presidential line succession would be in order.

• 
  Thus, Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) becomes president of the U.S. and Patty Murray (D-WA) becomes vice president.  You all know what Jeffries looks like.  Above, Senator Patty Murray.
• They save democracy from possible dictatorship, making voters happy, and Democrats sweep the White House, Senate and House in the 2028 election.  That  book to the right, incidentally, was written in 2012 as a guide for some countries then having a dictatorship to uprise and fight for democracy.

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