Here we are, watching the snow pile up, while millionaires and billionaires who have always determined the fate of our country and the sum of their wealth dine with that convicted criminal who managed to fool enough people to obtain more winters sleeping at the White House.

Make no mistake, were it not for the painstaking, time-consuming legalistic approach he took as attorney general, Merritt Garland could have allowed existing constitutional law, prosecutors, judges, and juries to convict Donald Trump of treason, abuse of power, endangering national security, financial crimes, abuse of women, and other charges. His sentence would have him sleeping out his remaining nights in the narrower confines of a prison cell. It would likely be in one of those prisons for the “select,” who are allowed to play golf and get Big Macs ordered in.

This has always been about money — Trump’s first run for president, an office for the first time in our history viewed as ripe for dollar harvesting by him and his family. Now his bosom buddy, trillionaire Elon Musk, will be tasked with eliminating government regulations that attempt to provide health, safety and fairness, to instead increase corporate profits. Government cash is to be acquired by cutting programs that serve children, the ill, and the elderly, in order to reduce taxes for the wealthy.

Incompetent persons, loyal to Trump, are lined up to ruin government as we’ve known it. The voters may by then realize false news from the web and lying micro media led them to vote for false promises by a charlatan, but we can’t count on the 2026 ballot to produce an opposition Congress. Trump has made clear the country doesn’t need elections any more.

Candidate Kamala Harris promised U.S. policy review with respect to the stateless Palestinian people, and the long-exiting $10 million-dollar-per-day support of Israel. Trump, by contrast, arranged for Israelis the movement of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city of Jerusalem.

U.S. foreign policy come January is a troubling blank slate. We know from history only that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be provided the usual allowance to do whatever he pleases. And it is this U.S. attitude with respect to the Middle East that is most dangerous.

Iranians have long had reasons for bitterness toward the U.S. There was the 1953 CIA removal of their democratically elected government in favor of a king, U.S. support for that despised king, opposition to revolution against that evil king, U.S. support for Iraq in an eight-year war against Iran, U.S. support of Israeli bombing of Iran, and U.S. failure to comprehend Iran’s evolving history.

As happens under such circumstances, radical elements defending Islam and hostile to Israel and the U.S. took power and contemplated nuclear armament. Instead of seeking dialogue, in 1984 the U.S. classified Iran as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

President Obama initiated discussions with Iran that led to reduction in its nuclear progress and might have led to deeper mutual understandings. As a journalist in Iran, I visited the city adjacent to Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, meeting wonderful people there, all of whom would be lost under plans for an Israeli bombing. In 2018, President Trump deliberately reversed Obama’s opening with Iran.

At the heart of all Middle East problems lies the Zionist Israeli element’s dismissal of Palestinian-Arab rights and claims in historic Palestine. The Zionists claim right to all those same lands because Jews had once lived there. Every day of his life, Benjamin Netanyahu plots ways to confiscate Palestinian farmland and homes, sends settler occupants there, designs annexation of territory, and carries out airstrikes and ground military operations without regard for how many civilians will be killed.

It’s been credibly charged that he knew the October attack by Hamas on Israel was coming, and allowed it to happen so he could launch this new conquest. Osama bin Laden said 9/11 was his response to treatment of Palestinians.

According to a British Lancet report, 44,758 Palestinians have either died of starvation or been killed by Israeli bombing, shelling, and small arms fire in Gaza. Another 179,032 remain unaccounted for, presumably buried beneath collapsed housing. Coming away from the Hamas war, Israeli settlers and some police have killed 808 Palestinians in the West Bank.

President Biden bears responsibility for providing Netanyahu with bunker-buster bombs that destroy city blocks, and for not halting support for Netanyahu. Netanyahu has committed genocide.

Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an investigative journalist and historian, currently editing his newest work, “Breaking the Silence: Revisioning the the American Narrative.”