The Fascists only control SOME of the levers of government - we still have hope

This past month, we have seen the murders of 2 American Citizens by Trump's Gestapo, ICE. His henchmen are labeling these killings as people wrongfully interfering with law enforcement activities in their propaganda releases.  But the public is starting to see through these lies.

Right now, we have both a worthless Congress and corrupt Supreme Court who are more than willing to make this country a fascist state. The rights given to all Americans under the first, second, and fourth amendments to our only apply for our 21st century Nazis.  For the rest of us, the Bill of Rights and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are worthless as long as the Trump is in power.   

What is happening in Minnesota can be seen as cruelty designed to intimidate the American public, something meant to trigger anticipatory obedience to authoritarian leadership.  This is exactly what happened in Germany during the 1930's.  Gradually, laws were implemented so that people wouldn't notice the erosion of their civil and human rights.  We're seeing that in the USA right now.  First, the Snowflake attacked Transgenders and their history.  (Look at what happened to the Stonewall national monument.)  Next, he started to erase the history of Blacks, Latinos, and other Minority Americans from national parks and other federally administered historic sites. And now, he's trying to erase America's "Original Sin", Slavery.  It's as if the White race could do no harm, and that everyone else was a criminal class not fit for America.

Currently, ICE is paying recruitment bonuses of up to $50,000 to new recruits.  This wouldn't be bad if they went through the full training that State Police and the FBI goes through - months of in-person training.  With ICE, it's less than 8 weeks of online training from what I remember.  How can anyone deal with potentially dangerous situations that could escalate to violence by only online training?  It's as if the design of this training is meant to encourage dangerous escalations.

Why is this happening?  The Gurdian has reported that Trump has cut funding for ICE body cameras, as well as for personnel oversight.  Elsewhere, it has been reported that Trump wants control of Minnesota's voter rolls and its public assistance rolls.  So what is really going on at another level?  As I see it, Trump will try and disqualify as many likely Democratic voting Minnesotans from voting, so that he can engineer a GOP majority in the House.  Additionally, he could be waiting for violence to break out, so that he can invoke the insurrection act and make it impossible for people to vote, also preserving the GOP majority in the House.

For the most part, we still can regain control of the House this year if we work for it.  Yes, we will have to keep our cool and stay non-violent even though Trump's Gestapo imprisons and and tries to kill us to force submission.  We need to remember the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, and how Blacks gained de jure Equal Rights, albeit not de facto Equal Rights.  In my lifetime, we've seen people like Martin Luther King Jr. change from being seen as agitators to being national heroes worth honoring.  Trump wants to erase this movement.  We must not let it happen.

How do we stop him?  Simply make sure that as many people as possible see the truth.  Even MAGA loyalists are starting to say - "we didn't sign up for this."  There are some signs that even Fox "News" is souring on Trump as he descends further and further into dementia.  We must do our damnedest to prevent him from invoking the insurrection act, while also preventing him from asserting Federal control over state elections.  Once we gain control over one part of the legislative branch, we can cause Trump a lot of grief.  But first, we have to get there. 

 

The looming threat

Our former president's mug shot.  

No matter what they say about Trump, things could be worse.  The man was totally incompetant and not able to change the nature of our political system, but he came close to doing so.  He normalized being openly hateful of vulnerable minorities, and unleashed a movement of malcontents which will likely survive his potential incarceration. 

So why do I say that there is a looming threat?

Several things have happened as a result of this man's time in office.  First, this man has said that if he regains the office of president, he will attempt to consolidate political power in the executive branch.  This is dangerous, as our system was designed to work (or, not work, as of late) with the powers of each branch of government being checked and balanced by the other two.  Second, this man has only anger to propel him.  He has never forgiven the public, nor the honest officials that some may have elected, for not putting him in office for a second term.  What revenge would he try to take at the expense of his perceived enemies?  Most elected leaders in his party are afraid of his cult, and are following his mob to stay in office.

But what happens if this man is not nominated to be his party's presidential nominee?  Will the followers of his cult believe that the elections weren't rigged?  On 01/06/21, we saw the violence that his cult was capable of.  Could it happen again?  What if the man were convicted in one of the courts? Even worse would be the chaos that might happen if the election were close.  For years, Americans have been self-selecting into like-minded communities.  People live in communication bubbles where they select news from sources that reinforce their views, and find it hard to imagine how others could have different views when "the truth" should be self apparent.  If you lived in Rural America, watched Fox "News" on a regular basis, and have been trained by your church to see the world in binary terms, would you be able to challenge the orthodoxy that you've been fed for years?  Wouldn't you want to defend your country from "criminals" from the left?

Years ago, Senator John McClain held a campaign rally where one of his loyal GOP constituents started labeling then Senator Barack Obama as a communist traitor.  Senator McClain interrupted this woman, saying that Senator Obama was a good man with whom he had political differences.  Could anyone see this happening today, where radicals from the far right are calling for President Biden's impeachment? The leaders of one political party have enough "sober" people to govern, while the other's leaders are afraid of the mob who elected our former president.

In 2016, our former president ran for office with the campaign slogan:  

Make America Great Again

Did any of his constituents ever ask: 

When did America stop being great?  

Why is America not great anymore?  

What needs to be done to make America great again?

I never heard any of these questions answered to my satisfaction.  Instead, MAGA anger comes from people who have lost their place in society.  They see our former president as someone who would (at least) give lip service to their feelings, if not restore their former positions in the larger society.

The next year, the former president held a campaign rally in Charlottesville, where he effectively said that there were good people in the neo-Nazi movement :

“You had some very bad people in that group,

 but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

Once a person implies that there some good neo-Nazis, where does permission to act on one's hatred end?  I can still remember chants of:

"Jews will not replace us!"

As if any self respecting Jew would want for his/her children to grow up with skills so limited that they could not earn a good living.  What successful person of any ethnic group would want for their child to become a bagger at the local Piggly Wiggly?  Many of the MAGAloons are poorly educated, resistant to change, and follow bombastic leaders without bothering to ask: "Does what they are saying make sense?"  They gravitate to "strongmen" who say things that validate their feelings, and not to people who understand the nuances of objective truths.

So, what is the looming threat?

In short, the threat is that our ex-president has unleashed a monster that can not be sent back to its cave before it causes a lot of destruction.  As I started writing this, Jacksonville, FL is dealing with the aftermath of a white nationalist killing 3 black people at a local supermarket.  What will it take to stop this?  I don't know.  But if the ex-president again comes anywhere near the levers of power, god help us.