This didn’t just happen. This was a long term plan by a coalition of financial and Christian conservatives to subvert our democracy.
Part of this is the natural progression of society—those in power will do everything they can to keep the power, and no rights are ever given to others freely. We make progress and then there is a blowback and we fight back, and, given history, we do eventually win. But it’s never easy.
In modern American history, this all started when Reagan was elected, and the conservatives suddenly realized that they could get away with a lot of shit. They sold arms to our enemies, and gave huge tax breaks to millionaires and made poor people pay takes on their Social Security. And the Overton Window got moved to the right.
When George Bush senior ran against Michael Dukakis, he called Dukakis a “liberal” as if it was an insult, and liberals stupidly rebranded themselves as “progressives” and ran away from the liberal label instead of embracing it. And we moved farther to the right, while the rest of the civilized world went left.
One of the ways conservatives get away with this is by filling the courts, which most people don’t pay attention to. So when Bush junior lost the election, he got the Supreme Court to ignore the voters and place him in power. And more conservative judges were put in.
And each time, the conservatives realized they could cheat and lie and get away with crap because they were playing hardball with politics while we liberals clutched our hankies and refused to get in the mud and fight back. And then Trump causes an insurrection, gets found liable for rape, gets convicted of numerous felonies, and gets away with it all. No wonder they think they can do whatever the fuck they want and no wonder Trump thinks he’s a king.
So let’s cut to the chase: What can we do now, with an idiot President who ignores the Constitution and a House, Senate and Supreme Court that cares little about “checks and balances” and allows all this to happen?
Obviously, the most important thing is (I know you hate to hear this) is to vote. They have spent decades doing everything they can to keep us from voting because they know when we all vote, they lose. And when you vote, only vote for Democrats. Some liberals are so “pure” they don’t understand that their protests votes for third party candidates or their refusal to vote at all is one of the reasons we are in this mess to being with. (Trump won in 2024 by less than 50%, mind you – if those third party people and those who refused to vote for stupid ideological reasons had voted for Harris, we wouldn’t be in this mess. You have my permission to blame these people in the same way you blame clueless Trump supporters.)
But what we really need to do is put pressure on our representatives. Call them constantly. Phone calls are more important than emails or letters. Don’t ignore those who support us—they need to be called too, to remind them that they need to do their job and to thank them when they fight back.
And here’s the thing some people miss: You need to call your state politicians as well. Your governor, state house members, even local city people. The fight can be at the state level. We need to encourage them to say no to the federal government. We need a non-violent civil war here, with civil disobedience, with local governments refusing to allow the feds to come in and cause their destruction. We need to throw monkey wrenches into every bit of the federal political machinery.
And of course you need to financially support groups like the ACLU and unions and other groups that are actively fighting in the judicial system for our rights.
There are more of us than there are of them. Every public survey shows that our vision of American is supported by the majority of the population. Trump lost the popular vote the first time he ran, never even reached a 50% approval rating the entire time he was president, lost the second popular vote by a bigger margin, and won this time with less than 50% of the vote (and he has an even lower approval rating in the polls than last time). He has never had the support of a majority of Americans, and we need to constantly remind our politicians of that. But none of that matters if we don’t get involved and especially if we don’t vote.
This despite the fact that election fraud is not an issue and absentee voting doesn’t tend to favor either Democrats or Republicans. Basically he’s renewing his whole quid pro quo, threatening to keep help out of the hands of people who need it unless those people knuckle under to his demands. And why not? The GOP covered his ass in January, so he believes he can do whatever he wants with impunity.
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