The First Inaugural Address of President Ron DeSantis
"Either this nation will kill racism, or racism will kill this nation" (S. Jonas, Aug., 2018)
Ron DeSantis & Kari Lake: What a Team!
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You might say: "Aren't you getting ahead of yourself? Ron DeSantis' First Inaugural? What? Are you kidding me? Trump is so far ahead in the polls, and more-and-more Repubs. are getting into the race for the nomination. [As is being said widely around] by muddying the waters, that is making it all the better for Trump."
And I would reply, "no, I'm not kidding you. Some time ago, I predicted that at some point, when his legal problems got more and more intense and threatening, the he would flee the country. And now, with the latest tape-recorded revelations about what he knew about the documents he had (illegally) taken to Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster, the prospect of indictment on one-or-more felony counts becomes ever more clear. Forgetting about the substance of the indictment(s), a major additional problem for Trump is that a felony indictment may well require that he surrender his passport.
If the DOJ attempted to that, the howling would be immense. But that does not necessarily mean that they wouldn't do the lifting, especially since they would not have to have physical possession of the document. They can just invalidate it electronically. But for sure Trump thinks "paper," and would get out with his in his possession, while the getting is good. (Of course, who knows? Trump may have more than one passport, including one or more from other countries. But I am not going to go there at this time.)
Trump has been a gambler all of his life, but in the overwhelming number of cases he has gambled with other people's money. If he took the chance that his passport wouldn't be lifted upon a felony indictment and stayed in-country, but if it then were picked up, he would have been gambling with his own money. And that would be some considerable sum (although no one outside of a very small circle of family, lawyers, and accountants knows exactly how much that it is. See the "Trump Flees" column for more detail on this one.).
In any case, I am predicting that a) Trump will flee and b) that for a variety of reasons DeSantis will get the nomination, and then go on to win. Obviously, I shall discuss those prospects in detail in future columns. For now, let us just say that DeSantis is running his campaign on just three letters: RRS (and no, that is neither "Road Runner Sports," nor "Really Right Stuff," nor "Resource Recycling Systems"). It's "Racism, Religion, and [the wrong kinds of] Sex." That platform (or "platform" if you will), combined with some really high level vote-rigging/election-fixing/voter-suppression (which the Repubs. are already planning to do for 2024 in considerable detail), will, in my view give DeSantis a very good chance of becoming the next U.S. President.
As I have said previously, I regard DeSantis as much more dangerous for the future of democracy in the United States even than Trump. (As it happens, on that matter I now find myself in agreement with former Repub. Congressman, from Florida, David Jolley.) But for the purposes of this column, without getting into other important matters, I am simply assuming that I am right about his becoming President on January 20, 2025, and I am putting forth a draft Inaugural Address for him. Where I got this text, I will reveal to you at the end of this column. And here 'tis:
The First Inaugural Address of President Ron DeSantis. December 25, 2024
(Do note the date. DeSantis will actually be giving his address twice, first on Christmas Day, from the pulpit of the National Cathedral [which will have been commandeered for purpose], and then again on the current official day, Jan. 20, 2025. As soon as feasible, DeSantis and the Repubs. will have the legal date changed to the former.)
Mr. President, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Speaker, my fellow Americans under God. I stand here before you today, on the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, in all humility awaiting my time to do His bidding. And I can tell you that his bidding now is to fight the good fight, for the Lord, and for you the American people under God.
For there is a religious war going on in this country. And we, the Americans under God, must win it. We must take back our cities, and take back our culture, and take back our country [Buchanan]. To do this, we must return to our Christian roots. If we do not, we will continue to legalize sodomy, slaughter innocent babies, destroy the minds of our children, squander our resources, and yes, sink into oblivion [Robertson].
We are in an eternal battle. The battle is between right and wrong, between truth and lies, between life and death. And if we ever forget what it is about, if we think we are in a battle for electing people to hold office, simply controlling political parties, then we will not accomplish what we are to achieve. We need to hold to our principles, and stick to them regardless.
The real enemy is the secular humanist mindset which seeks to destroy everything that is good in this society. The fight that we are fighting, the battle we have joined, is one that encompasses our entire life span. Re member, you have God. You have your families; you have your community, your church community, your neighborhood, and all the things you are concerned about. They have only power. That's all that matters to them. They will fight with everything that's in them to keep that power [Weyrich].
Today we face what I believe is an even greater threat to our lives. The enemy is more insidious, more chameleon-like than a Hitler. And this enemy is even more deadly. The enemy is lethal and must be stopped [Fournier].
So far from having ended, the cold war has increased in intensity, as sector after sector of American life has been ruthlessly corrupt ed by the liberal ethos. Now that the other 'Cold War' is over, the real cold war has begun [Kristol, quoted in Starr].
Yes, we are engaged in a social, political, and cultural civil war. There is a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But you can't have a society whose highest value is merely live and let live. The bottom line is somebody's values will prevail. Somebody is going to win this civil war. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe about things like life and death, love and sex, and freedom and slavery.
As I have travelled the length and breadth of this great God-given land of ours, I have often run into skeptics. They say, "Well, R.D., if there is a civil war going on, where are the two sides?" And my explanation is that on one side there are men and women that are Americans under God. People who believe that God is. And believing that God is, they are required to, they are obligated to, take the positions they take on a whole host of issues. And on the other side of this great conflict there are people at very significant positions in our culture who begin their thinking with the belief that God isn't. They are our enemy [Bauer].
Yes, it is time to take America back, from the liberal politicians who are attempting to erase every evidence of God from public life, from government official who present the twisted view of "the separation of church and state," from gay and lesbian radicals who not only claim the right to lead their Godless lifestyle, but demand that we support this abominable behavior, from the radical feminists whose "right to choose" has caused the murder of mil lions of innocent unborn little babies, from the militant left which is the fount of all evil" take her back from every group or individual that refuses to recognize our beloved nation for what it truly is --- a nation under God![Falwell]
We are the only society in history that says that power comes from God to you . . . and if you don't tell the truth about the role of God and the centrality of God in America, you can't explain the rest of our civilization. I look forward to the day when a belief in God is once more at the center of the definition of being an American [Gingrich, 1].
As to the future, if you think about the notion that the great challenge of our lifetime is first to imagine a future that is worth spending our lives getting to, and then, because of the technologies and the capabilities we have today, to get it up to sort of a virtual state, although that's done in terms of actual levels of sophistication, all that's done in your mind.
And that takes leadership. Most studies of leadership argue that leaders actually are acting out past decisions. The problem when you get certainty with great leaders is that they have already thoroughly envisioned the achievement, and now it is just a matter of implementation. And so, it is very different. And so, in a sense, virtuality at the mental level is something I think you find in leadership over historical periods. But in addition, we are not in a new place; it is just becoming harder and harder to avoid the place where we are [Gingrich, 2].
In fighting this fight to avoid this place, we face an increasingly militant, radical, socialist left. And this is how we are going to win the war against this left. We will use the same strategy General Douglas MacArthur employed against the Japanese in the Pacific in World War II: by-'pass their strongholds, then surround them, isolate them, bombard them, then blast the individuals out of their power bunkers with hand-to-hand combat. The battle for Iwo Jima [Author's Note: the penultimate major battle of the Pacific War in 1945] was not pleasant, but our troops won it. The battle to regain the soul of America won't be pleasant either, but we will win it [Robertson].
Yes, with your help and God's blessing we will win it. Thank you and good night.
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And so, folks, that's it. And so, where did it come from? You might ask, do you, (the other) Dr. J., have access to one of the most highly kept secrets that the DeSantis campaign could have? Well, no. As it happened, I actually put this totally fictional speech together when I was writing a book of future-historical fiction in 1994-95 (first version published in 1996). It is entitled The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. The components of the speech consist of real statements/writings from the 1990s that were made by the real people identified in the brackets in the text. It was the Address that was put together by staff for the 2004 Inauguration of the fictional candidate of the fictional Republican/Christian Alliance, (which subsequently became the American Christian Nation Party), one Jefferson Davis Hague. It's all from that book that I originally published in 1996. The 3rd version --- not a new edition --- which has just some relatively minor additions/emendations to the original text --- was published in 2013. That version is entitled: "The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S. 1981-2022." (And yes, it is [advertisement] still available on Amazon).
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The references for the statements/writings used in this "inaugural" are as follows:
Bauer, G., "Speech," Christian Coalition Road-to-Victory Conference, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, 1991.
Buchanan, P., "Speech," Republican National Convention, 1992.
Falwell, J., Fundraising letter, May, 1993.
Fournier, K., Fund-raising letter, American Center for Law and Justice (Virginia Beach, VA), April, 1995.
Freedom Writer, "Stealth? Deception? You decide," April, 1994, p. 7.
Gingrich, N., 1, quoted in a fundraising letter, American Humanist Association (Amherst, NY), Summer, 1995.
Gingrich, N., 2, quoted in Kelly, M., "Rip It Up," The New Yorker, Jan. 23, 1995.
Marsden, G., "The Religious Right: A Historical Overview," Chap. 1 in Cromartie, M., Ed., No Longer Exiles, Washington, DC: Ethics and Pub lic Policy Center, 1993, p. 4.
National Vanguard Books, Catalog No. 15, PO Box 330, Hillsboro, WV 24946, 1993.
RNC: Republican National Committee, The Republican Plat form: 1992, Washington, DC: August 17, 1992.
Robertson, P., quoted in fundraising letter of the ACLU, 1993, Freedom Watch, March/April, 1994, Vol. 3, No. 2, and Right-Wing Watch, Vol. 2, No. 11, Sept., 1992.
Weyrich, P., quoted in "The rights and wrongs of the religious right," The Freedom Writer, Oct. 6, 1995, p. 6.
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Post note: There is no relation between the K. Fournier cited above and Evan Fournier, the little used shooting guard for the New York Knickerbockers pro basketball team, who will (via trade) hopefully find a more welcoming home for himself next season.