In January 2016 – months before Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency – Roswell published an article on our old site with a simple plea: “Dear America, please don’t make Donald Trump your president.”
It went viral almost instantly. When Occupy Democrats shared it, it racked up 300,000 views in just 20 minutes. But its viral reach isn’t why we’re sharing it again today.
The article read less like political commentary and more like a warning – one that foresaw the chaos, division, and authoritarian drift of Trump’s first term, and even hinted at the dangers of a second.
Now, nearly a decade later, that “prophecy” is playing out in real time, with frightening precision.
Here’s what Roswell wrote before Trump was even elected – and why it still matters. It’s not just a look back at history; it’s a mirror held up to the present, and a reminder of how dangerous it is to ignore the signs when they first appear.
Read it – and remember: the warning signs are flashing again.
Dear America, please don’t make Donald Trump your president
So Donald Trump wants to be president.
Well I would implore all Americans to think long and hard before casting a vote in his favour. Do you really, really want him in the White House?
I love America. One of the great things about America is that it embraces religious freedom. Take that away and not only will you diminish as the ‘land of the free’ but it just might not have the results that Trump hopes for. However, I’m not here to talk about that. There’s something else I want to warn you about.
I will begin with a quote from an astute reader on one of our earlier articles:
I remember the first couple of weeks of Trump’s campaigning.
There were those who said that it was funny. They insisted the buffoon was in it just for publicity, he’d be gone in a month. The man was so ridiculous that common sense would prevail and people would dismiss him.
Rather than burn out, Trump has dragged the Republican candidates to [a] dangerous group … he has normalised ideas that should be abhorrent … he is desensitising the mass media. His comments draw much less outrage than they should.
Letting Trump spew his relentless, loathsome rubbish has not caused people to turn away in disgust. Rather, it has placed him as a front runner to be the next US president.
As a nation [Australia] we took a laid-back attitude … And how did that turn out? Well, as usual, the politicians resorted to pandering to the lowest denominators … fear and ignorance.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
The underlying message there is that we in Australia know exactly how it turns out. We’ve had a glimpse of what life under a Trump-like disaster can be like.
And that’s how it was under our recently dethroned prime minister, Tony Abbott. In two short but destructive years Tony Abbott completely turned on its head the character and soul of our nation. In two frightening years under this manipulating dangerous man we saw the rise of patriot groups, supported by rogue politicians … encouraging racists to whip up fear and hatred with a passion never before seen in this country. And that, simply, is what changed us.
Dangerous, powerful men – supported by an obliging media – can easily change any nation. If they can change an easy-going, laid-back nation like Australia one can only shudder what they might do to a nation that has been on edge since the terrible events of 9/11.
You’ve been lucky not having a leader anything like Abbott: One that has made us frightened of shadows; of having us fear anyone with a long beard, a tanned skin, or a different religion. Of making us afraid that these people, at best, will take our jobs and security. At worst, slit our throats.
He turned us into a nation of nervous, frightened, angry vigilantes. Vigilantes who have set fire to homes belonging to people who speak Arabic; who threatened to kill people just because their skin was dark; who wanted people expelled from this country simply because they spoke a different language; who assaulted people in the streets because they wore a scarf around their head. No questions asked. Anyone who looked ‘different’ was a threat to our national security and had to be dealt with. Attacks on these people have become more daring, more devastating, and more frequent as each week passes.
It hasn’t helped us or ‘saved’ us one little bit, because to put it simply, the threat wasn’t there in the first place. If anything, payback might be on the horizon. Or worse still, blowback.
Tony Abbott was removed from office a few months ago but the seeds of hate he planted are now growing uncontrollably wild and unchecked.
It is as if overnight we were no longer a tolerant and welcoming nation. Fear mongering prime ministers (or presidents) don’t succeed in such nations. Their political survival hinges on maintaining their political capital: fear. And then more fear.
Yes, there are troubles in the world which must be addressed, but are they being addressed by turning people against their neighbours, their work colleagues or people sharing the same bus? Are the troubles of the world being addressed when a young Muslim lady is bashed in a busy street in your city by stirred-up punks? Punks who, only a couple of years ago, would not have batted an eye lid at the same lady.
What good is it when the public discourse is one of hatred and violence? When talk around the local bar, the restaurant table, the coffee break at work or at family get-togethers is filled with nonsense at how people from other lands or other religions are obsessed with destroying us and our country. Yes, it’s nonsense, but people are frightened into believing it to be true.
Abbott frightened us and feasted on it. Trump will do the same to you.
And like Australia you have the same gutter-dwelling media who will keep boiling the pot of racism and bigotry for their own selfish needs.
Having said all that, I must say though that we’ve been lucky to date in that only kicks, punches and threats have been flowing. Blood has not been spilled. And that’s probably because of the one big difference we have with you. We don’t carry guns.
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I have had some concerns with our political system, but one that can even consider Trump being a suitable candidate – let alone electing him to the highest position – is deeply flawed.
I don’t blame Abbott as much as the Lying Rodent.
Ieefe.
Ditto.
Same powers behind Trump’s GOP in fossil fuel oligarch donors for ‘segregation economics’, immigration restrictions & population control, with dollops of Christianity and compliant media to promote at their ageing audiences; same across the risible Anglosphere and parts of Europe.
I blame Howard for just about everything that is morally wrong with the country, but on this occasion my choice of Abbott was the right one:
Roswell
All purely based on anecdotal experience, but for what its worth (nothing really but I want to see if anyone else felt this way), I felt that from the time of Holt, and especially when Labor replaced Arthur Calwell with Gough that racism increasingly became frowned upon and kind of driven under ground.
Along comes Howard, and to my mind he legitimizes racism, racist feelings and racist speech. The result of which was to bring racism back into mainstream conscientiousness.
If we’d had a Hewson or a Nelson instead of Howard, I don’t know that Abbott would have gotten to the top job anyway. For me Howard opened the gates for an Abbott to walk through(am I making Howard sound like Moses, I hope not.)
Gong,
It’s all irrelevant now. I wrote this in 2016 and I was unaware it was being republished now.
We can’t change what was written nine years ago.
I stand by my decision to use Abbott.
Roswell
Yep, in the context of warning the US about Trump, Abbott and not Howard was the right person to use.
Thanks, buddy. All good.
when the rabbott was raving about debt every day at every interview he was wrong. Labor failed to attack the man with stats from uk, usa, japan, each, at least 400% worse than Aust and his own new house about 2000% worse or even bring up the lying rodent’s failures as treasurer. They just gave the rabbott and the morning shows free rein. Sadly, the rabbott’s real friend was the bandit who orchestrated Gillard’s demise.
There’s no way Trump is coming up with all the shit he’s been spruiking,as long as he’s self enriching and wreaking vengeance on his perceived enemies,he’ll be happy to foghorn the desires of the real puppeteers.Tool of the powers in the shadows.
Little wonder all the super rich are building their fortresses.
The gormless jabbering turd, Reagan, thinking he was gunna lose the election, through Christian rehetoric, he enfranchised and unleashed the fringe religious extremists for votes. And that, like a rolling ball brought the hugely wealthy evangelists into political play.
The political power balance was teetering, and the GOP appeared to be losing it’s way, with old traitorous denizens like the Bush family, void of domestic policy, but keeping it hugely corrupted, particularly in a war-mongering, resource thieving, subjugating foreign policy.
And so began the unraveling of any semblance of cultural civility, with the rise and rise of the Heritage Foundation, the advent of Al Queda, 9/11, intensified incursions into the Levant, the lunacy of the Tea Party, Breitbart et al, and Steve Bannon ‘flooding the zone with shit’. And by them, America (already militarized, xenophobic and paranoid) was well on the way to becoming a Christo-fascist state. All it needed was ‘foghorn’ T-Rump to read the recipe, then blow the tiny minds of the celebrity/Holywood obsessed numbskulls of the already brutal, exceptionalist America. They didn’t care how their flag of supremacy was waved, they just wanted more.
And now the ordinary citizens have got what they didn’t bargain for – less and less, with hostility and isolation to boot.
What a plan! Like those of the lords of feudal Europe – an inextricable plan (six hundred years later and still not rinsed clean).
Yikes for America, and the alsoran Oz numbskulls who latched on. Keeping cautious and at a distance is tough, given the new T-Rump-pumped tentacles reaching out.