What if he dies?

By Toni Tweedle Healy

My biggest fear right now is that the Donald will die in office.  Think about it.  We don’t know anything about the man’s health.  Remember that phony doctor’s letter?  “Donald Trump would be the healthiest President ever.”  Really? He’s overweight and he eats steak every day. Has he had a stress test?

Why do I fear that he’ll die in office?  President Mike Pence.  Remember him?  He’s the guy that signed into law the Religious Freedom Act to allow people in Indiana to legally discriminate against gay citizens.  I don’t think we spend enough time considering what life would be like under the rule of the Ayn Randian ideology of Pence, Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Leader Mitch McConnel.  McConnel is not as rigid ideologically, but the turtle man doesn’t have the political courage to stand up to the cooks in his caucus. Goodbye Social Security. Goodbye Medicare. Goodbye Medicaid expansion. Goodbye abortion rights.  Goodbye Obamacare.  Replacement?  What replacement? These are the guys who have normalized the idea that only Republican Presidents get to nominate Supreme Court Justices. What other policies Americans have come to rely on are in their crosshairs?

Trump has peopled his cabinet with billionaires, corporate lobbyists, neo-cons, climate change deniers, Fox News commentators, and conspiracy theorists.  He has chosen people to run agencies they have publicly vowed to shut down. He has demonstrated complete ignorance of long standing international relationships between the U.S. and its allies. He very well could bluster us into nuclear war.

But heck, as between Trump and Pence?  I’ll take Trump.