The Crisis, No. 10
The People, sovereign
Something is forming.
You can feel it. In Minneapolis, where citizens stand in subzero temperatures. Where they refuse to leave. It’s in the protests that continue despite the killings. It’s in the judges who say no. It’s in the members of Congress who choose to stand with the people, who refuse to fund the tyranny against the people they represent. It’s Bruce Springsteen writing a song in three days and the whole country learning the names of the dead.
A formation is emerging. Call it populist energy. Call it democratic renewal. Call it the immune response of a republic under attack. The name doesn’t matter. The energy is real. People are waking up. People are moving.
This is the most dangerous moment. This is the moment of impact. We are no longer falling. We are on the ground. It’s very disorienting after so much weightlessness. So much unseriousness.
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These formations of popular passions are not inherently democratic. They are fuel. Energy looking for direction. And there are forces out there. Forces that have been preparing for years. They are already moving to claim that energy. To route it somewhere the People never intended to go.
The demagogue is not a risk on the horizon. He is a known force in the field. The one who has all the answers. The one who will ride the energy and name it after himself. This is the condition under which we must act.
The would-be feudal lords among us struggle to re-assert their merchants of pretense. To control a narrative that has gotten away. They have lost control.
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Republics fail in such ways. Not because the People lack energy. Because that energy gets routed into structures that negate their sovereignty. While claiming to embody it.
When energy meets capture, the result is always the same. The streets fill. The formations multiply. And someone arrives who says he speaks for the people. While building the machinery to ensure the people never speak again. This is not a historical analogy. It is a law of political physics.
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What is under attack in America right now is not a party. Not a set of policies. Not even a set of norms.
What is under attack is popular sovereignty itself.
They have seized the ballots in Georgia. The physical record of how the People voted. The Director of National Intelligence stood in a parking lot. Watched the boxes loaded onto trucks. Five years after the election. The evidence of the People’s will is gone. They seek to rewrite history, so that they may steal the future.
In Minneapolis, a city in occupation by an illegitimate elite. Three thousand federal agents. Loyal to a man. Not the people. The Fourth Amendment ignored. Citizens killed in the street. The People of Minneapolis elected officials who set certain policies. The federal government sent an army to override those choices. And a bullet in the face or in the back is what’s in store if you don’t kneel.
In Los Angeles, the journalist is in custody. Two judges said no crime had been committed. Not one. Two. The executive arrested him anyway. Because the president wanted it. Because the president said so on social media and his Department of Justice obliged. The People’s right to witness what is done in their name has been criminalized. You cannot see. You cannot know. You cannot govern.
The record seized. The governance overridden. The witnesses blinded.
Every action negating the same principle: the People rule here.
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One ideology says the People are obsolete. Sovereignty for sale. Democracy a problem to be optimized. Citizens are users now. Build your enclave. Buy your exit. Route around the People like they’re dead technology.
Another says the People can only act through the Leader. He embodies them. He is the movement. They do not need to speak. He speaks for them. He knows what they want. He is what they want.
Both arrive at the same place: the People do not rule.
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They stole his name. The Free Press—built on oligarch money, staffed by intellectuals who provide vocabulary for domination—calls itself by the legacy of Thomas Paine. Paine wrote to liberate. They write to obscure.
But the theft reveals the stakes. They know the principle they must negate. They know that if the People remember they are sovereign, the entire project collapses.
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The democratic option is not a party. Not a platform. Not a set of policies to be debated and refined.
The democratic option is the reassertion of the principle: the People are sovereign.
The ballots are sacred. Seizing them is desecration. The cities belong to the People who live in them. Occupying them is conquest. The witnesses are protected. Arresting them is blinding. The Leader serves. He does not embody. He does not transcend. He executes the will of the People as expressed through constitutional processes. Or he is a tyrant. Whatever he calls himself.
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The question is not whether there is resistance. There is. The question is what kind. Led by whom. Toward what end.
If resistance becomes about stopping one man, it gets captured by the next man who promises to wield the same power “correctly.” If it becomes about going back to the way things were, it gets captured by the people who broke things in the first place. If it becomes about burning it all down, it gets captured by those who already built their escape pods.
The resistance that cannot be captured is the one grounded in principle. Not “stop Trump.” The People are sovereign. Not “return to normal.” Build institutions worthy of self-governance. Not “burn it down.” Remember what we are building toward.
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The formation is already sorting people. Everyone is being asked, whether they acknowledge it or not: where do you stand on the question of who rules?
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This is not a revolution of replacement. Not a seizure. It is a revolution of recognition. Of remembering what was always true. And acting as though it matters. The People are sovereign. They have always been sovereign. The work is not to seize power. It is to remember that the power was always ours.
The cost of this revolution of conscience is being set right now. Every day the occupation continues. Every witness killed. Every journalist arrested. Every ballot seized. These are not the costs of defeat. They are the costs of victory delayed.
To those still deciding, I might suggest that the time of decision has arrived. These forces will pull you into history, whether or not you want to float downstream. These forces are now bigger than any one person. This is a revolution. It is already too late for many of us. Some have insisted on prostration. Including some people I care about, sadly.
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We are not the only sovereign people. The People are sovereign in Hong Kong and in Minneapolis. In Tehran and in Atlanta. The women killed for showing their hair. The students disappeared for their faith. The voters whose ballots are stolen before they can be counted. They are our brethren in the game of life. We do not claim to lead them. We claim kinship. They have seen this longer than we have. We are only now learning to recognize what they have long known.
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Three weeks ago, Renee Good was shot through her windshield. She was thirty-seven years old.
Eight days ago, Alex Pretti was shot ten times in five seconds. He was an ICU nurse at the VA hospital. His phone was in his hand. He was documenting. He was thirty-seven years old.
Thursday night, Don Lemon was arrested at the Grammy Awards. Two federal judges said no crime was committed. The president demanded it anyway. He is in federal custody for the crime of witnessing.
The People are sovereign.
These are the times that try men’s souls. And the soul of man has gone forth. Now we take a step.
ANOTHER DAY, SAME GOVERNMENT
Lying, deceit, distraction, testing our limits, and bullying, this is how to describe our government. Distraction, distraction, and more distraction. The magician's trick: watch this hand while I perform my illusion with the other hand. Day after day, one distraction after another, and our media keeps chasing these diversions. Did he have a gun, what kind of gun, and did he have a permit? Meanwhile, Trump is amassing billions, and Congress is too afraid to act as our representatives. Most importantly, Trump is testing the limits of when the Republicans might revolt. He is overpowering the courts and nullifying any attempts to control him. Gradually, he is examining how the legal and judicial systems will respond, and they have not; they remain paralyzed. As a result, he continues to violate our constitutional laws without facing consequences. He and his team of lying, brainless followers are constantly fueling the drumbeat of distraction, ensuring that the news media always have something to fill their 24-hour news cycle.
He and his ICE goons are bullying and scaring American citizens. My daughter is concerned that I use my name on all my writings, and she has scared me enough that I am considering getting a gun for my home. The people of Minneapolis are brave, maybe braver than I am, but I don't have the goons rummaging through my streets, and I am 93 and housebound. Perhaps if I were younger, I would have considered going there to offer support; I like to think I might have.
Where are we, America? What must happen for us to maybe act as a unified resistance to the enemies from within? There are massive demonstrations in support of the people of Minneapolis, but will that even matter to those in power? If Congress does nothing, then what?
I keep on trying to get our governors to act as the only force that can stop the avalanche slide of our country into autocracy. I keep on trying to educate people about soft secession or maybe a complete secession of the states. To reiterate, in a soft succession, the states will collect federal funds for their citizens and review how and when the federal government disburses them. That’s it! Nothing complicated. If things continue, unchecked and uncontrolled, taking people out of our neighborhoods and making them disappear eventually, like my worries, they may decide to personally protect themselves since our local police force is participating in this unlawful nightmare occurring in the streets of one of our cities. Governors must realize that their refusal to take arms against the overpowering federal government may eventually lead to organized resistance by their citizens.
Subject: Chaos Planned by POTUS: Subverting Historic Institutional Tenets (SHIT)
BASIS: Nazi Tactic used by Hitler and his murderous thugs.
EVIDENCE:
#1: "Many of the tactics Hitler employed to seize and consolidate power, Mussolini had adopted previously: the reliance on violent gangs, the intimidation of parliament, the strengthening and subsequent abuse of authority, the subjugation of the civil service, the affinity for spectacle, and the insistence that the leader, whether Der Führer or Il Duce, could do no wrong." Albright, Madeleine. Fascism: A Warning (pp. 44-45). Harper Perennial.
#2. His primary rules were never to allow the public to cool off, never to admit a fault or wrong, never to concede that there may be some good in your enemy, never to leave room for alternatives, never to accept blame, to concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.
Langer, Walter. A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler: His Life and Legend
Citation: Langer, Walter C. (1943–1944). "A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler. His Life and Legend". Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Washington, D.C., p. 219. Archived from the original on 8 October 1999—via Nizkor. With the collaboration of Prof. Henry A. Murr, Harvard Psychological Clinic; Dr. Ernst Kris, New School for Social Research; and Dr. Bertram D. Lawin, New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
Comment: What Americans are seeing, hearing, and reading should come as no surprise. It is time the press, be it reporters, newscasters, or those writing editorials, stopped acting surprised or asking why- it is obvious. What we are seeing is Trump's fascist narrative, be it his own verbiage or actions or those of the feckless executive cabinet and the vast majority of Republicans in Congress.
The chaos without reveals the chaos within the Tyrantosaurus Rex pathologic tissue of Trump. His ego never left fourth grade. He wants it all. He can never get enough. It is pathologic as is alcoholism where the alcoholic addict is defined as "one for whom a drink is too much and a thousand is not enough." No amount of gold will satisfy this bully. He is a parasite of the people of the US and the world.
Think about the trillions spent due to Trump's sick mind. Operations in the Caribbean and Pacific involving an air craft carrier, missiles, gunboats, personnel, etc. The News should report details every day:
Caribbean Operations (Operation Southern Spear)
Daily Cost: Approximately $31 million per day ($28 million budgeted, $3 million unbudgeted).
Total Cost: Estimates range from over $600 million to $1 billion for the deployment of 11-18 warships and related personnel.
Specific Costs: B-1 bombers flying near Venezuela cost $173,000 per flight hour, and carrier operations cost roughly $333,000 per hour.
Pacific Operations
Infrastructure: The Pacific Deterrence Initiative has driven at least $8.9 billion in new construction projects in the Indo-Pacific since FY 2020.
Regional Impact: Military spending in Hawaii alone was over $10 billion in 2023.
ICE Costs:
Number of ICE agents in 2026
As of January 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has expanded its workforce to over 22,000 officers and agents following a major recruitment surge that more than doubled its personnel from 10,000. The FY 2026 budget proposal outlines 21,808 positions and 21,786 full-time equivalents (FTEs).
New ICE Agents
ICE Announces Historic 120% Manpower Increase, Thanks to Recruitment Campaign that Brought in 12,000 Officers and Agents
Release Date: January 3, 2026
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today announced that its unprecedented nationwide recruitment campaign has shattered expectations, hiring more than 12,000 officers and agents in less than a year.
After receiving more than 220,000 applications to join ICE from patriotic Americans, ICE blew past its original hiring target of 10,000 new officers and agents within a year. In fact, we have more than doubled our officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000. With these new patriots on the team, we will be able to accomplish what many say was impossible and fulfill President Trump’s promise to make America safe again.
12,000 new ICE agents in the last year; sign-on bonus of up to $50,000. Total = $600 million dollars just for ICE salary.
Do we need 22,000 ICE agents for immigrations and customs enforcement with a 2025 budget of $29 billion dollars, while the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA or OBBA) calls for up to $49 billion dollars.
How much will the FBI raid cost as agents are diverted to analyze voting ballets that are six years old?
Will voter information from those ballots be used by the Trump administration to manipulate the 2026 midterms?
How does Pam Bondi have the balls to ask for voter information in Minneapolis and use it as a quid pro quo to remove ICE agents from that city?
The arrest of Don Lemon is another violation of the Constitution, that is, the right of a free press. This is the hallmark of fascism.
How much money has Trump spent on issues that are not pertinent to the health of this nation? And by that I mean economic health, medical health, overall health in terms of sense of well-being. Do we need a grand ballroom adorned with gold and probably statues of Trump? Do we need a makeover of a 747 gifted by a country that supports Hamas so that Trump can fly in comfort? Do we need our president promoting guitars and medals and who knows what to make more than a billion dollars in the last year? All of this should be shown every day on the major news stations.
Wake up, Americans. You are staring at fascism in real time. It will only get worse. Wake up.