TUCSON — The world honored Jimmy Carter in the Capitol rotonda, which a deadly insurrection besieged four years ago. He had spent most of his 100 years waging peace and working to keep an imperiled planet habitable for humanity.

At the National Cathedral, Joe Biden lauded his old friend's character, a trait he himself displayed during a single term. He led a Covid-crippled nation to historic prosperity while keeping embers his predecessor left behind from flaring into global war.

Both men belong atop Mount Rushmore. Donald Trump belongs on a forgotten molehill elsewhere in the Dakotas. Mount Flushmore.

Carter, though scorned at first, departed with gratitude and glory. A spiritual man of deep faith, you could imagine him choosing the moment — just weeks before Trump's self-deifying Inauguration — to snap a misguided nation out of its stupor.

Many with short memories still disparage Biden. He will likely be gone before history makes the record clear. But his eulogy set the tone for the fight ahead he plans to join from the sidelines. "The greatest of sins," he said, "is abuse of power."

Early signs provide hope that concerted, sustained action can stop the United States of America from sinking into Trumpistan.

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TUCSON — World War II allies laughed off Tokyo Rose. We howled at Hanoi Hannah's clumsy agitprop in Vietnam. Now the United States is about to face global derision. Donald Trump's choice to run Voice of America is Arizona's own Kool-Aid Kari.

This will be brief. Americans need some time out for family, food and football. But day one in Trumpistan is three weeks away. Of all the creatures in a bestiary that shames a diminished nation, Kari Lake is hardly the worst. Still, she epitomizes the lot.

First, the big picture.

We old guys recall "His Master's Voice," the ubiquitous logo for RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, founded in 1919 as the pioneer in broadcast communications. A dog named Nipper peers quizzically into the huge trumpet-shaped speaker of a wind-up gramophone.

RCA, among others, marketed a one-way version of reality. Today, have-it-your-way "news" is everywhere, and big money spews big lies nonstop. Much of America, like ol' Nipper, is transfixed.

We all know the domestic impact of a weaponized X-Twitter. A multitude of rightwing "influencers" twist truth while guessing about distant events few of them understand. An un-silent majority equipped with hard facts can limit the damage at home.

But consider the irreparable harm if a boorish, self-obsessed America turns its back on the wider world.

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TUCSON — I flew direct to Phoenix from Paris just before elections. Barely seconds after approaching a Global Entry face-recognition camera, an immigration guy 100 feet away yelled, "Mort?" I nodded. He waved me through.  

Cool, I thought. With such streamlined technology, new leaders could help steer America and the world beyond toward prosperous sanity. But voters chose authoritarians with different plans.

I flashed back to all the times some uniformed goon studied my passport, ran his thumb down a list, and said, "Step this way." Whether that was followed by sir, monsieur, señor or just a hard look, bad days would likely follow.

Gloating buffoons who think they "own the libs" need to read Orwell. Pigs who walk upright rule an Animal Farm by duping beasts of burden. They expel unwanted species and keep order with free-rein attack dogs rewarded for their zeal. 

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(This election post-mortem is my Sunday column in the Arizona Daily Star followed by an important update as the real Donald Trump gobsmacks a worried, wary world.)

TUCSON -- A basic fact underlies the aftermath finger-pointing and thumb-sucking. Democracies get the government they deserve. A treacherous felon seized unthinkable power in America because so many voters fell for his blatant, cruel savaging of truth.

Donald Trump intends to let billionaire backers plunder natural wealth and fleece workaday families like flocked sheep. Faux-Christian ideologues plan to surveil wombs and classrooms of constituents they swear to serve. "Rule of law" will be a laugh line.

Fires that Trump sparked off in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia already flare toward unstoppable conflicts. He favors despots and aggressors while undermining alliances that have prevented global war since the 1940s.

The "border crisis" he exploits with preposterous lies reflects a worldwide tragedy he worsened by denying climate collapse, refusing aid to desperate "shitholes," weakening international organizations and condoning tyrants who oppress their own people.

Trump, addled at 78, and a young vice president pledge to turn America's back to the world, depriving eight billion people of the largesse and leadership they badly need as Earth alternately dries up and washes away. Blowback at home would be devastating.

So far, the Constitution remains intact. If sentient citizens protect democracy at every turn, 2026 elections can take back Congress and state legislatures, then build a groundswell to rescue what is left of America in 2028. That is a very big if.

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