If I were a betting woman, I’d
bet that trump’s wrecking ball to the East
Wing of the White House to make way for his
gaudy ballroom was his middle finger to the No
Kings protests. The wannabe dictator gives the
country a new gift daily to either
intentionally divide us or to show us his
unchecked power. We’re still asking questions
like “Is this legal?” or “How do we stop this
crazy man?” It means that our indecision will
cause us to lose more ground. It means that
the MAGA has time to inflict more pain and
suffering upon us.
The uncertainty, the pain, and
the fear are not created without purpose. The
trump regime is amassing and consolidating
power while we personally struggle and engage
in its distractions. The regime is creating an
untenable situation that pushes people to
their limits, where the anger and frustration
drive peaceful protests to violence. At this
point, the trap will have been successfully
laid for a complete MAGA takeover.
A constitutional crisis is
already underway as all three branches of the
government are bending a knee to trump. We are
consistently told that Democratic cities are
out of control and posing a national security
threat. Based on manufactured fear, sectors of
the country would support martial law to
maintain order. Given the impotency of the
courts and the legislatures, any legal or
political challenges would be moot. The
conditions for civil unrest and violence being
created by MAGA fit nicely into the plan for a
permanent authoritarian government headed by
none other than trump.
On Day One of the trump regime,
trump targeted some 200 federal agencies. He
let Elon Musk, his biggest campaign donor,
have the first crack at imposing arbitrary
misery with DOGE destruction. The changes
impacted several policy areas, including
health care, the environment, education, civil
rights, immigration, and scientific research.
One or more of these areas affect the working
class. Most protection or oversight federal
departments, such as the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, have been seriously
defunded and defanged. Tens of thousands of
workers were thrown into the trump tornado of
turmoil. While we’re struggling for basic
survival, the MAGA movement is fueling a
battle that pits us against the branches of
government and deepens the historic fault
lines among us.
Speaker Mike Johnson has refused
to call Congress into session or to swear in
Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, whose
vote could force the Epstein files to be
released. The second-longest government
shutdown is a critical piece of the
destabilization plan for the country. Offices
are closed and basic services have stopped.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center,
approximately 670,000 workers have been kicked
to the curb, and another 730,000 are working
without pay. Food stamps, WIC payments,
childcare payments, and energy assistance are
about to come to an abrupt halt. The dictator
has warned that Social Security, Medicare, and
Medicaid are ‘Going to Be Gone’ if the
Democrats don’t submit.
An heir to a robber baron has
allegedly come forward to throw in a few
dollars to pay active-duty service people.
Yeah, this country is heading towards a
calamity.
The world has watched in awe as
trump has decimated government, ignored the
courts, pardoned criminals, extorted millions
from universities and corporations, launched
military actions without approval, imposed
irrational tariffs that affect global trade,
used the office to enrich the trump family
fortune, turned the military on innocent
people, and much more. Citizen-led and
Democratic Party-driven lawsuits against the
government abound in attempts to slow down the
attacks.
All this to say that residents
have been put into a double-edged vice: we are
damned if we fight back and damned if we lay
down in submission. We who believe in freedom
and democracy must take a step backward to
take a sobering reflection on where we are and
plan the next steps. We will have a lot to
sort through as we organize and educate our
people for a struggle that determines the
democracy as we know it in this country. We
must be mindful of agent provocateurs who will
be pushing for violent confrontations that
have no strategic purpose. Ours will be a
vision of a just and equitable society, where
people can thrive because of the support
systems in place.
Let’s take a deep breath and
intensify the work necessary to create a world
that puts the development of people over the
concentration of wealth for the oligarchs.
Another world is possible if we are prepared
to fight for it - sooner rather than later.
