Now, more than ever, I sometimes need a day or two to detox from writing about the news and what is going on in America and the world. I lived through the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. I lived through the Vietnam protest era. I lived through all the Civil Rights protests, marches, arrests, and murders. I have been around a while, but I have to say, I have never been as distraught at what is happening to America as I am today. The entire U.S. Constitution, government administration, foreign policy, education system and strategic alliances are being thrown on a bonfire while the likes of Trump, Musk, Vance, and their Republican sycophants and adversaries like Putin are standing around roasting weenies and making Smores!
The most distressing thing for me is that I believe that most people and many Democratic politicians are continuing to underestimate what this regime is actually capable of and are in a reactionary, defensive mode rather than coming up with a cohesive strategy to combat the ongoing coup that is taking place. As I have said before, I believe we are in a knife fight and there are no rules in a knife fight.
Tons of lawsuits have been filed, and some courts have ruled against the Trump/Musk regime. That is important but it is only a deterrent when all sides agree to abide by the court’s ruling. If Trump and his regime just ignore the court, what happens then? Just because a group sues the Trump circus and wins in court, does not ensure victory or that things will change. It is a 100 percent probability that Trump and his cronies will just ignore some court rulings. Don’t forget that Trump and his toadies are still claiming he won the 2020 election despite losing over 60 cases in court! That is what I mean when I say we are in a knife fight. The courts might slow things down a bit, but they ultimately will not save this country from Trump’s tyranny.
I see ads asking for money so the collective ‘we’ can mount campaigns to support Democratic candidates who can hopefully win the midterm elections and take back the House and the Senate. Frankly, I’m not convinced there will be midterm elections or that they will be elections in the normal way that America has conducted elections in the past. We could very well have elections that serve as window dressing to the world that we are a democracy but are conducted such that the results are predetermined before any vote is ever cast. We all need to get out of this ‘it could never happen in America’ mindset and start dealing with the reality that there is a coup taking place in this country. And people who stage coups do not play by the rules.
I can easily imagine Trump and his Republican abettors already planning on ways to upset the midterm election cycle. Imagine for example that shortly before the elections, Trump does something so outrageous that it triggers widespread protests across the entire country. What would he do? Perhaps he would use that as an excuse to declare martial law, deploy Federal troops and call off the midterm elections. People who are more knowledgeable than I will say, “He can’t do that. It’s unconstitutional!” And my response is simply that Trump and his sycophantic, pro-Putin, circus do not give a damn what the courts will say or whether it is legal or not. They could do it anyway.
That is exactly what I mean about being in a knife fight. The Democrats, Independents, and the few surviving real Republicans, need to think about the worst possible things Trump can do and try to figure out how to stop those efforts before they can take hold and get some traction. Thinking that Trump will play by the rules that have governed this democracy throughout its history will prove to be a fatal mistake. We need to ask ourselves, “What would Putin do? What would Orban do? What would Hitler do?” Once we can answer those questions and clearly understand what is coming, we might have a chance to save this democracy.
