Next Monday, Donald Trump will become president of the United States for a second time. He has promised and threatened to be a dictator on "day one."

None of this was fated or preordained. An alternate version of this reality and timeline could easily exist if two million Americans made a different choice on Election Day. This is especially true if Kamala Harris received the same number of votes as President Joe Biden had in 2020 (Biden received approximately 81 million votes in that election. Harris received only 74 million votes in the 2024 election).

Trump will return to power on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance Day. This is a horrible coincidence of dates; Trump and King are two men whose lives and missions are antithetical. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King emphasized how we are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Trump rejects such principles and values of social democracy and human dignity and rights. Trump’s life philosophy is based on selfishness, self-interest and corrupt power

-Chauncey Devega in Salon.com