Trump threatens, feints, and strikes at the core defenses of American democracy in an effort to find and exploit weaknesses. Lately he has found no shortage of opportunities and has revealed our much vaunted system of checks and balances to be in taters. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, right to privacy, right to due process, our system of checks and balances, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, an apolitical military… in short, all the elements of our democratic system that make us different from a dictatorship, are under systematic and relentless attack.
Everywhere that Trump has pushed he has found those willing to yield, ignore, and accommodate. All their reasons may be different, but the results are the same; namely that the dike holding back the flood of his treason and usurpation of power is beginning to erode, soon to be over topped. If you don’t feel a sense of peril and impending doom, you simply are not paying attention.
Trump’s first attempt at a coup on January 6th, 2021 was clumsy and a last minute act of desperation. But, in the four years that elapsed since then, he has allied with those more capable than he, those with equal disregard for the law. These are planners, not the dunces, suspects, and wackos in his cabinet.
This time with new purpose, namely avoiding the consequences of his illegal acts when out of office, he is taking an organized and methodical approach to dictatorship, and is likely to be successful, without some unforeseen intervention by the fates. Up to this point, opposition has been weak and disorganized. Trump has attacked the news media with threats of lawsuits.
He has attacked legal firms with threats to baselessly revoke their security clearances. He has given free access to the private information of all the nations’ citizens to Elon Musk and his platoon of punk hackers which invaded the Social Security Administration and the IRS. He has threatened and now piloted the tactic of arresting sitting judges.
He has deported legal immigrants without hearings. He has kidnapped and deported people based only on hearsay. He has refused to comply with Supreme Court orders by playing dumb and quibbling about the plain meaning of their directives.
In all these tactics he has found some success as people cave in to pressure. Trump is thus encouraged to continue ever more aggressively. He is putting together a phalanx of proven tactics to gain authoritarian control over the country through fear.
This is much like proven authoritarian tactics throughout history. Everyone in America… Democrats, Republicans, legal immigrants, workers, business owners, the wealthy, and the super wealthy need to WAKE UP NOW, be afraid, and let their well deserved fear guide them to the bravery that Americans have shown since 1776. Otherwise, our fate will be that of the country ruled by Trump’s most admired “friend”, Vladimir Putin.
That country, Russia, is a land where the poor are fed to the war’s front lines in “meat waves” to attempt to conquer their neighbor Ukraine. Consider the one million soldiers Putin has sent to be dismembered or die in an unprovoked war of conquest in Ukraine. These included both skilled professionals and the hopeless, and disadvantaged of Russia’s eastern provinces.
But, in Russia, its not just the poor and unfortunate who are at the mercy of dictator Putin’s will. Russia is a country where even the most wealthy and well connected are subject to extrajudicial killing for merely disagreeing with their leader Putin. Witness the fifty plus oil company executives that have “committed suicide”, fallen from windows, or been poisoned since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2020.
These are people who dared express sympathy for Ukraine and regret for Russia’s aggressive actions. So, wake up, pay attention, be afraid of what is coming to America, and show the bravery of which you are surely capable. We must all be ready to resist authoritarian lawlessness and stand together at every opportunity.
