I grew up in Miami listening to the stories about the Castro show trials in Cuba. Not even in my worst nightmares would something like that ever happen here in America.
But it did.
Over the past seven weeks, a former president was held hostage in a New York City courtroom. On an absurd indictment by a far-Left prosecutor infamous for being lenient with violent criminals. In a trial presided over by a judge who donated money to his political opponent in 2020 and whose daughter used the trial to raise money for Democrat politicians. And a jury drawn from a pool of voters in one of the most liberal Democrat counties in America.
It was a sham political show trial like the ones Communists used against their political opponents in Cuba and the Soviet Union. But it's just the latest episode in what is now a deranged eight-year effort by an American ruling class in both political parties to prevent, at any cost, the election of someone who puts the interest of everyday Americans first.
In 2016, Democrat operatives hatched a plot to convince 37 Republican electors to "reject their oaths—and in some cases, state law" by voting against Donald Trump. Three years later, Democrats impeached him. They did it again in 2021, this time after he'd already left office. Fast forward to 2024, there was an attempt to kick him off the ballot—an effort so insane it was rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court. And now, there are unprecedented efforts to jail, bankrupt, and otherwise prevent him from campaigning.
Why is this ruling class so desperate to sideline Trump? Because voters like him better than Joe Biden. Poll after poll makes it clear that Trump is very likely to be the next president. The reasons why aren't a mystery. Life was better, America was stronger, and the world less chaotic when Trump was President.
Now under a weak and failed Joe Biden, Americans feel that we're a nation in decline. We aren't respected or feared abroad. And we aren't thriving at home. Wages aren't keeping up with rising costs. Men aren't working. Families aren't growing. And young people are more lonely, isolated, and hopeless than ever.
Either because of incompetence or Joe Biden's obvious senility, or maybe both, it seems the ruling class is actually trying to destroy America.
How else do you explain letting 10 million illegal immigrants into our country in just three years? Known terrorists, violent gang members, and sex traffickers roam our streets. Violence plagues once quiet neighborhoods. Small communities are overwhelmed. And innocent Americans are being killed and raped. All of this because of Joe Biden's policies.
How else do you explain the burning of American flags and cities? The current Vice President raised bail money for thugs that destroyed small businesses and assaulted police. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Biden staffers sided with Hamas as campuses erupted in anti-Israel violence. All Biden could say is that there were good people on both sides.
And how else do you explain a coordinated legal effort to deny Americans the ability to vote for a former and very likely future president?
In the face of all this, it is puzzling to see there are still some Republicans who refuse to support Trump and talk about how they plan to "write in another Republican." Maybe someone could rationalize that position in a different time and place. But now, a vote for anyone other than Trump is literally a vote to normalize the weaponization of government against political opponents and criminalize the traditional American way of life.
Not long ago, we still lived in an America where political campaigns ended in November and people who disagreed politically did not consider those with different views as inherently evil. But sadly, that is not the America we are living in right now. Today, political campaigns are year-round. And we have a bipartisan ruling class willing to do anything to shut out at least half the country from our political process, even if it means tearing the country apart.
This is the unfortunate reality we now face. Any Republican who stands up for the interests of ordinary everyday Americans will be hated, vilified, and now perhaps even indicted and jailed. Because on issue after issue, what hard working Americans care about and want isn't just different from what our ruling class of oligarchs and alleged experts want; it is threatening to them. And they will stop at nothing to destroy anyone they view as a threat to their power and wealth.
None of this began in 2016. It had been building for over two decades. With a growing sense then that we weren't living in a new American century, but rather that America was tearing apart from the inside. With communities destroyed first by globalization and deindustrialization and then the drugs that followed. By a culture war that targeted and stigmatized traditional values, patriotism, and people of faith.
This feeling of loss is why Donald Trump's message—Make America Great Again—connected with voters in 2016. And it is why he is leading in the polls again now in 2024.
The difference between 2016 and today is that now Americans remember what a strong America looked like. Hardly mentioned and largely forgotten is the fact that Trump had a 49 percent approval rating in January 2020. Because as president, the steps he took then—and plans to take again—were good for our nation and our people. He helped restore a sense of pride, patriotism, and hope in the future.
A pandemic from China and four years with a senile, weak, and dishonest Joe Biden destroyed all that. But in November, we have what may be our last chance to save this country. Our last chance to not just make our country great again, but to make it greater than it has ever been.
Deranged far-Left Democrats will not do. And old school Republicans afraid of losing their membership in the ruling class club won't either.
But Donald Trump already did it once. And if we send him back to the White House this November, he will do it again.
Marco Rubio, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Florida.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
