Opinion: Donald Trump is destroying America, a land that once held promise of hope
We were warned. The daunting task of reading 880 pages of legalese pushed the urgency aside, and therefore, we heard of only a few of the plans to dismantle our democracy but could not take in the enormity of what was being proposed.
Yet, the majority of voters focused on the key talking points that the nebulous authors of Project 2025 wanted Americans to believe … that the election was only about the economy, which they said was terrible, about the hordes of illegal immigrants committing unspeakable crimes (eating cats and dogs? False), and stopping women from making decisions about their own bodies. Oh, how we were led to believe we needed someone who would be tough on crime, someone who would make America great again, someone who would put America first.
And here we are in August 2025 standing in the ashes of what was once a beacon of light, a hope for the immigrants who believed what is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.”
What has happened to this once proud nation? Every single day since Donald Trump took the oath of office, a new assault on our democracy is issued from his gilded cage where he gleefully signs an executive order proclaiming that this or that right is being taken away. In total in just eight months, he has signed 188 executive orders chiseling away rights of Americans.
Don’t think for a minute that he is smart enough to have created all of these orders. Trump is the puppet, the marionette that the authors of Project 2025 anointed as the face of right-wing Christian Nationalism. To call him a Christian is a mockery of that religion. Trump worships at the altar of DJT and no other god does he have before him. His minions, Bondi, Patel, Kennedy, Hegseth, Rubio, Rollins, Noem, Bessent, McMahon, Turner, Duffy, Wright, Vance, Leavitt, the Republican House and Senate, and Supreme Court Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett all bow at his feet not because they believe in him but because of the riches they are mining with him in office.
Donald Trump has broken constitutional law over and over, and yet, Congress is mute. Because of the Republican majority in the House and Senate, NOTHING is done to stop him. Now, at HIS request, Texas is breaking protocol and trying to gerrymander five more seats for Republicans in the House in order that mid-term elections will give him a nice cushion. Pay Attention America! This is a direct dictatorial take-over of the government.
Any student of history can see the parallels between what is happening here in America to what happened in Germany when Hitler took over in 1933. Within Hitler’s first 100 days, he had stripped the rights of Germany’s Jews, made himself the ultimate authority over all of Germany, established Dachau — the first of many concentration camps, blamed Jews and Communists for all of Germany’s problems, and he created the Decree for the Protection of the People and the State, which permitted the restriction of the right to assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, among other rights, and it removed all restraints on police investigations. As a result, the regime was free to arrest and incarcerate political opponents without specific charge, dissolve political organizations, and suppress publications.
Echoes of Hitler’s actions are replete throughout what Trump has done thus far in 2025. ICE arresting people without due process being just one example. I fear that the right to peacefully assemble, a constitutional right provided by the First Amendment, will become illegal under this Trump regime. Huge protests happening throughout America will be policed by ICE, the National Guard, or the U.S. military. Oh wait, we have already seen this in California and Washington, D.C. As for concentration camps, that is already happening-Alligator Alcatraz is just the beginning!
I have to admit that I am afraid for our country. This daily assault on the soul of our country is designed to wear us down, to make us give up and not protest. BUT, we must not let these forces of pure evil do that. Let us remember that we used to be the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Stand up for America, a land that once held the promise of hope.
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Sharon Thames is a retired educator who moved to the Asheville area in 2011.
