What greater outrages will Dem leaders endure before battling serial MAGA assaults on rights? Will it be this weekend’s “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”?
If Gestapo detentions of elected Dem leaders do not trigger the emergency call to “seize the barricades,” what will? Or the brutal murder and shooting of two elected, liberal Minnesotans backing procreative rights? How about an unprovoked, unjustified, rogue bombing of a country not about to attack us? Or the unConstitutional command for combat troops to invade L.A. against massive defiance? That legal residents are kidnapped and imprisoned by nameless, faceless, merciless ICE enforcers? That the worst federal budget perhaps ever is getting jammed through GOP-controlled Congress, on top of the horrific DOGE demolition squads out to defang the administrative state? What a list of unmatched political opportunities, so shocking they make Trump’s illegal tariff wars look almost tame.
When do Dems pull out the stops and do whatever they must to obstruct serial challenges and abuses? With or without a full sh-t fit, resistance looms. As John Stoehr points out (my b.f.), Dem passivity is so bad
that when a Democrat is targeted, he won’t fight back. . . [like] Alex Padilla, handcuffed last week for the offense of asking a question of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem . . . On the Senate floor Tuesday, Padilla spoke of his experience, how it was wrong and unjust, and how it could happen to anyone if it could happen to him. But, frustratingly, he stopped short.
He did not say what he’s going to do concretely to prevent it from happening to anyone else. He could have said Kristi Noem has to go and until she does, I’m going to object to unanimous consent in the U.S. States senate . . . . He could have said I’m going to blue-slip every nominee for the judiciary. He could have said I’m going to exploit the rules. He could have said I may pay a price, but it’s worth it in order to force the regime to back off its illegal and unconstitutional scheme for power and control.
Wimpy leader Schumer also had no blueprint, echoing that Noem is “just derelict in her responsibilities as secretary of Homeland Security.” Just? Really? How about uncivilized and authoritarian? Passivity fits too many establishment Democrats who 1) don’t seem to understand why they were swept, mortified in 2024; or 2) have the backbone or savvy to know how to fight fire with fire, how to leverage power and public opinion. Sure, come together as a party on the best plan of attack before Trump’s troops start using even more violent means—disappearing Never Trump foes. What in the world will it take to “stop the steal” of governance?
Fight fiercely Bernie shows the way
When do top Dems (ex-presidents) act like Bernie Sanders, personally leading national targeted protests, even daily resistance (civil disobedience), not farm out rallies to Invisible and others? Where are the collective national party statements and speeches, presented by a skillful orator, that rail against appalling disruptions to governance, legality, justice, and civil rights? Where are full page ads of trusted experts to contextualize that what is happening here and now is dire, getting worse before it gets better? The U.S. doesn’t have to parallel pre-Nazi Germany to broadcast the opportunism of harsh authoritarians on display.
There are so many levers for John Lewis’ good trouble. We need formidable Stop signs, in and out of Congress, to impede decision-making. That means calling for boycotts, talking up impeachment, even regional and national strikes. Any self-respecting party without a suicide urge must do more than make angry speeches. At least Bernie (email Friday), still free at large, is hitting stride with his grassroots, working class mobilization, “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Convinced “the Democratic Establishment is incapable and uninterested in mounting grassroots working class movements,” Sanders is orchestrating a protest movement with targeted meetings, professional organizers and thousands of inspired volunteers in red, GOP districts. He knows what’s at stake—and how to enlighten public opinion so more know what’s at stake:
The Fighting Oligarchy tour is on the road again. So far, we’ve held 198 events in 12 states – speaking to over 260,000 people. Now, we’re adding 3 more states to that list.
Tomorrow, I will be in Texas for the first of three events. We will also be doing events over the weekend in Louisiana and Oklahoma – including some very rural areas [in red states]. We’ve got to educate, organize and mobilize working people in EVERY state in the country to fight oligarchy, authoritarianism, kleptocracy and the massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition and education that Trump is proposing.
Undeniable: Trumpism exploits flimsy guardrails
Need I ask, “why is only he and AOC and perhaps a dozen others willing to take risks and court controversy by confronting this existential threat to what distinguishes America”? No doubt, Democratic donors anxious about civil unrest, even open conflicts, seek to restrain such forceful, dramatic protests. How many reps in purple Congressional districts fear what some see as noisy, “socialist” revival meetings?
Consider this one undeniable truth, whatever your perspective. The MAGA Trump barrage has brought to light innumerable, underestimated vulnerabilities in our legal, political, moral and institutional guardrails. Few (except scholars of authoritarian regimes) imagined how well Trumpian politics (and billionaire bucks) could exploit so many structural gaps. Hardly ambushes, countless, authoritarian threats are those 1) Trump promised for a decade, and 2) is now executing with vicious, merciless cruelty and magnitude. It turns out even a dreadfully crude, willfully ignorant, criminal hustler, who telegraphs his sucker punches, purposely finds barriers he can blow apart, then waits to see if he’s stopped cold before pulling off the next shocker. A big fail—the overwrought justice system thwarted by money, sleaze, technicalities, and elections—deflected from even finishing conspicuous trials of a multiply-indicted suspect with a criminal record.
Only the heroic, long-suffering, fabulously successful E. Jean Carroll confirmed Trump guilt—and not even about inciting illegal insurrections (on TV), or (taped) blackmail of the Ukrainian president, or (taped) blatant voter fraud to corrupt top Georgia election officials. Certainly not the restraint of a once marginally respectable party that couldn’t stall a jackass and worse from making a mockery of primaries, then getting nominated (twice). Certainly not benighted, played right-wing voters who couldn’t see through a phony, “non-politician” messiah so grossly dishonest he makes Pinocchio look good.
So, having scoffed at thresholds that once dispatched a lord of misrule owned by the highest bidder, the Authoritarian-in-chief is doing all that the well-informed expected: destroy the administrative state so that maximum power flows to one desk; slander, then punish anything in his way (even a Trump-appointed Fed chief); and pommel unwanted FOX polling, even cohorts like Rand Paul rebuking a federal BUDGET bill, wholly within Congress’ purview. Against the most serious threats to American integrity, we need far more than mice that roar but don’t bite.
“Impossible until it’s done”
Buoyed by the Sanders/AOC bravery, and other heroic reformers, time to shift from complacent rhetoric to direct political activism. Upwards of ten million citizens showed the way with No Kings protests, week after week. It’s not as if there aren’t massive internal MAGA contradictions (like on Iranian bombing) – political softballs. Dems need huge trenches in the sand, otherwise MAGA Trump forces will batter on, scoffing at law, traditions or elemental civility. The Trump cult will push all limits to power until stopped by a greater coalition, like 200 judicial rebukes and a political surge no amateur insurrectionists can deny.
At least Dems are (today, Sunday) calling for a Congressional vote on Trump’s terror attack against Iran. Right. They could pull a Khrushchev at the United Nations, altogether pounding the table with their shoes. Do SOMETHING! Let’s try everything (short of violence) to halt the horrendous abusive assaults/detention against public officials, a modern version of putting deviants in the stocks. Has the same mindset demanding “to hang Mike Pence” gone away—au contraire, it’s juiced up? If anything, such seditious threats and an increasingly desperate Trump are on the march.
So, if not now, when? If not here, in our backyards, where? How many Trump sucker punches will it take before officials with means and power find ways to throw the maximum wrenches into the nasty MAGA machine. The great, modern liberation leader Nelson Mandela led with unshakeable vision and inestimable courage: “It always seems impossible until it is done.”
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