I feel every word. I feel every example that you cited. I need a blueprint to offer resistance. Do you have suggestions for modes of resistance? Would billboards along the interstates help to wake up the populace ?
Mike, I began my journey and substack reading your article “ Plot against America dangerous ideology”. I am still befuddled as to why haven’t our Democratic leaders—senators, representatives, governors, and mayors—come together in a united, coordinated effort to defend the Constitution, the rule of law, and the integrity of our three branches of government? They offer us scattered statements—we need collective action. What are the tools of democratic resistance, your statement unless Americans recognize what’s happening and act accordingly. I believe I speak for a lot of people, what are the tools, what do those that recognize what happening do to act accordingly?
You have earmarked several useful resistance tools. . . However most people don’t react until they actually experience the pain of these democratic losses at a personal level. One would think that we would all cringe at the loss of citizenship threats and ICE detention & deportation for all; and yet our peaceful protests have been unsustained and therefore ineffective. As far as leadership, our Democratic leaders have called out, the lies, the propaganda, the dangerous political agenda both before, during and after each election and after the first administration. Was anyone listening? Much of the time they’ve been met with indifference and criticism. Resistance sustainability, will have a better chance of succeeding if we coalesce around one broad idea (e.g. against a totalitarian police state).
Thank you. It is important that we keep the word "normal" in perspective. I like what Sarah Kendzior wrote. Just because something is normal doesn't make it right.
Meanwhile, the current occupant of the Oval Office muses about taking direct federal executive control of the District of Columbia, and further muses about supplanting the democratically elected municipal government of the largest city in the country if its voters elect as mayor an immigrant member of the Democratic Socialists of America in preference to a Republican, the corrupt incumbent whose prosecution for said corruption was terminated by the current federal adminisration, or the former state Governor who left old people to die in care homes during COVID and (like said Oval Office occupant) has faced many allegations of sexual harassment and was forced to resign as Governor in part because of those scandals.
"The Department of Homeland Security and the officers and the agencies and the departments and the military people that are working on this operation will continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city. We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the, uh, um, socialist, and the, um, burdensome leadership that this Governor [Gavin Newsom of California] and this Mayor [Karen Bass of Los Angeles] have placed on this country, and, and what they have tried to insert into this city."
The message should be clear: if any voters have the audacity, the temerity, to elect to high office anyone whom this administration cannot control, cannot suborn, cannot compromise, anyone who would use legitimate Constitutional authority to resist federal overreach, then those voters must be "liberated" from their own democratically chosen leaders.
The current Basic Law of Germany forbids any amendment to the principle of federalism. Why? Because one way that the Nazi Party consolidated power was to abolish the government of each state as they took control of it and transfer governance of the region to Berlin. East Germany swiftly abolished its federal structure upon the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands taking power there. As Justice Antonin Scalia noted, one of the best bulwarks against tyranny is a strong federal structure, far better than any bill of rights could ever be, because by dispersing political power it prevents the accumulation of too much power in any one organ of government. Therefore, any authoritarian takeover of a federal country must include undermining and subverting that bulwark.
We have seen precursors of this tendency for decades in states in the southeast, and more recently other Republican-controlled states, where majority-black cities would elect municipal governments that would seek to ameliorate economic and social conditions through local policy changes, only for state legislatures, exercising legitimate authority in a unitary polity where municipalities are statutory creations and not entrenched with guaranteed powers, to strip the authority to make such changes (for instance, increasing the municipal minimum wage above the state minimum wage) from cities. It was only a matter of time before that same party brought the project to the country as a whole, electing despite clear Constitutional provisions as President a man whom every adjudicative body which considered the question on the merits found by majority vote did not enjoy passive suffrage, in direct defiance of that same Constitution which they have abandoned in favour of the rallying cry of "democracy"--and as every political theorist since Plato has known full well, this is how democracy collapses into tyranny, when the popular will is allowed to override any and all mechanisms intended to check its flow.
I’m at a loss at how few likes and restacks you have. You speak so clearly, urgently and with such coherence about what is happening. You give me hope but I still am filled with despair because so few are listening. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I am Canadian and can do nothing for America. I read and try to keep engaged because I am so fearful for Canada.
“The question is whether Americans will recognize they are in free fall and choose to deploy the tools of democratic resistance before they hit the ground,…”
PLEASE tell me what are the tools of democratic resistance? I protest, I write postcards, I make phone calls. It is not enough! We need leaders to tell us what to do.
Its a comfort to read theres someone else can see how precarious things truly are right now. I feel crazy that no one around me seems to realize what is happening. If this fascist rot is allowed to entrench itself into our culture permanently without rebuke we are all doomed. Losing the supreme court to the christian fundamentalists was the beginning of the end for this country. God help us all.
Sadly, "small business owners preparing for the holiday season" aren't ignoring the death of American democracy. An overwhelming majority of them are cheering it on. The same is true for white men as a group. Their support for Trump hasn't been shaken by his overt corruption and cruelty since he returned to office; if anything the reverse.
Another way to put this is that Trump hasn't engaged in a coup. In election after election at all , a majority or near-majority of voter have supported candidates pledged to end US democracy.
Until Trump voters like these can be convinced they have done something terribly wrong, there is no way back. I wish I had some ideas on this score, but I don't.
Great piece - but I take a bit of exception to the idea there is no Epstein documentation. On the day they raided his giant townhouse (a former school - just for scale) I remember seeing an FBI officer quoted (probably in the NYT, which I still subscribed to the) saying they had never seen such a massive, sophisticated electronic recording setup - which covered every room of that enormous building including bathrooms. I don't know or care if the guy was just a blackmailer (seems likely, considering the billions that rich men threw at him) or some sort of complex spy operator- but it does seem that somewhere there was a TON of documentation of whatever happened there.
Sorry - I know that's a side note to your much more wide ranging, cogent and comprehensive discussion here. But it has repeatedly struck me that this was never mentioned again in any media I consume... So it sticks in my craw.
Great read! It does seem like most democrats get this, and a growing minority of republicans are learning. But it is absolutely shocking and disgusting how congress and the courts are so cowardly. trump does not have any authority to tariff anybody, yet why is no one speaking up. No one! Same with the ice gestapo. It has no authority, yet no one in Congress is doing anything. Writing a letter is absolute BS. The checks and balances are cowards or in the case of the supreme court actively committing treason.
In fact, we are too late. For everything you describe to have occurred, and without mass shocking resistance, the animus of a democracy has already died.
Much like Adam’s said - the revolution was effected before the war commenced.
America has already acquiesced to the dismantling of its institutions. The fight will more likely be about what is constructed in its place.
We won’t wake up until catastrophe happens: military or police killing a large number of peaceful civilians, the US firing tactical nukes on another country, something grotesque to shock the White middle class awake. And even then there will be a large % who are risk averse and will do like the compliant Germans in the 1930s. Go along to get along. And so the remaining 1/3 of this country will have to fight the war of attrition against tyranny until a larger % people become sick of living in a police state where more and more people get disappeared, get thrown from airplanes over the ocean, get sent to gulags overseas, get shot walking to their car after work. We have to become Russia first. There will not be free/fair elections in 2026. Too many people face the orange jumpsuit to let Dems takeover Congress. They will pass the SAVE Act, redistrict, rig the elections again w Elon/Israel/Russia. And with no elections then it’s on to secession and whatever guerrilla/military activity results. Our best bet is that Cheeto succumbs to his horrible health in 1.5 yrs and the country sacks Shady Vance. But MAGA will support the cult leader to the grave.
I can’t sense the democracy dying but I can sure SMELL the rot of the inverted totalitarianism that we’ve had (à l’oligarchs) for decades. And the insidious creeping of fascism. Looking bleak. Dear Asteroid, please get here soon.
I feel every word. I feel every example that you cited. I need a blueprint to offer resistance. Do you have suggestions for modes of resistance? Would billboards along the interstates help to wake up the populace ?
Says it all. We have to wake up the large mass of people who don’t yet get it.
Mike, I began my journey and substack reading your article “ Plot against America dangerous ideology”. I am still befuddled as to why haven’t our Democratic leaders—senators, representatives, governors, and mayors—come together in a united, coordinated effort to defend the Constitution, the rule of law, and the integrity of our three branches of government? They offer us scattered statements—we need collective action. What are the tools of democratic resistance, your statement unless Americans recognize what’s happening and act accordingly. I believe I speak for a lot of people, what are the tools, what do those that recognize what happening do to act accordingly?
Nationwide strike is necessary but so is a class action suit against this renegade criminal transnational coup against democracy.
How does one respond to a class action suit brought by millions?!
Also international visitors SHOULD feel uncomfortable. Stop all sport competitions!!
You have earmarked several useful resistance tools. . . However most people don’t react until they actually experience the pain of these democratic losses at a personal level. One would think that we would all cringe at the loss of citizenship threats and ICE detention & deportation for all; and yet our peaceful protests have been unsustained and therefore ineffective. As far as leadership, our Democratic leaders have called out, the lies, the propaganda, the dangerous political agenda both before, during and after each election and after the first administration. Was anyone listening? Much of the time they’ve been met with indifference and criticism. Resistance sustainability, will have a better chance of succeeding if we coalesce around one broad idea (e.g. against a totalitarian police state).
Thank you. It is important that we keep the word "normal" in perspective. I like what Sarah Kendzior wrote. Just because something is normal doesn't make it right.
Meanwhile, the current occupant of the Oval Office muses about taking direct federal executive control of the District of Columbia, and further muses about supplanting the democratically elected municipal government of the largest city in the country if its voters elect as mayor an immigrant member of the Democratic Socialists of America in preference to a Republican, the corrupt incumbent whose prosecution for said corruption was terminated by the current federal adminisration, or the former state Governor who left old people to die in care homes during COVID and (like said Oval Office occupant) has faced many allegations of sexual harassment and was forced to resign as Governor in part because of those scandals.
"The Department of Homeland Security and the officers and the agencies and the departments and the military people that are working on this operation will continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city. We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the, uh, um, socialist, and the, um, burdensome leadership that this Governor [Gavin Newsom of California] and this Mayor [Karen Bass of Los Angeles] have placed on this country, and, and what they have tried to insert into this city."
The message should be clear: if any voters have the audacity, the temerity, to elect to high office anyone whom this administration cannot control, cannot suborn, cannot compromise, anyone who would use legitimate Constitutional authority to resist federal overreach, then those voters must be "liberated" from their own democratically chosen leaders.
The current Basic Law of Germany forbids any amendment to the principle of federalism. Why? Because one way that the Nazi Party consolidated power was to abolish the government of each state as they took control of it and transfer governance of the region to Berlin. East Germany swiftly abolished its federal structure upon the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands taking power there. As Justice Antonin Scalia noted, one of the best bulwarks against tyranny is a strong federal structure, far better than any bill of rights could ever be, because by dispersing political power it prevents the accumulation of too much power in any one organ of government. Therefore, any authoritarian takeover of a federal country must include undermining and subverting that bulwark.
We have seen precursors of this tendency for decades in states in the southeast, and more recently other Republican-controlled states, where majority-black cities would elect municipal governments that would seek to ameliorate economic and social conditions through local policy changes, only for state legislatures, exercising legitimate authority in a unitary polity where municipalities are statutory creations and not entrenched with guaranteed powers, to strip the authority to make such changes (for instance, increasing the municipal minimum wage above the state minimum wage) from cities. It was only a matter of time before that same party brought the project to the country as a whole, electing despite clear Constitutional provisions as President a man whom every adjudicative body which considered the question on the merits found by majority vote did not enjoy passive suffrage, in direct defiance of that same Constitution which they have abandoned in favour of the rallying cry of "democracy"--and as every political theorist since Plato has known full well, this is how democracy collapses into tyranny, when the popular will is allowed to override any and all mechanisms intended to check its flow.
I’m at a loss at how few likes and restacks you have. You speak so clearly, urgently and with such coherence about what is happening. You give me hope but I still am filled with despair because so few are listening. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I am Canadian and can do nothing for America. I read and try to keep engaged because I am so fearful for Canada.
“The question is whether Americans will recognize they are in free fall and choose to deploy the tools of democratic resistance before they hit the ground,…”
PLEASE tell me what are the tools of democratic resistance? I protest, I write postcards, I make phone calls. It is not enough! We need leaders to tell us what to do.
GENERAL STRIKE
Get involved with Indivisible.
Its a comfort to read theres someone else can see how precarious things truly are right now. I feel crazy that no one around me seems to realize what is happening. If this fascist rot is allowed to entrench itself into our culture permanently without rebuke we are all doomed. Losing the supreme court to the christian fundamentalists was the beginning of the end for this country. God help us all.
Sadly, "small business owners preparing for the holiday season" aren't ignoring the death of American democracy. An overwhelming majority of them are cheering it on. The same is true for white men as a group. Their support for Trump hasn't been shaken by his overt corruption and cruelty since he returned to office; if anything the reverse.
Another way to put this is that Trump hasn't engaged in a coup. In election after election at all , a majority or near-majority of voter have supported candidates pledged to end US democracy.
Until Trump voters like these can be convinced they have done something terribly wrong, there is no way back. I wish I had some ideas on this score, but I don't.
Great piece - but I take a bit of exception to the idea there is no Epstein documentation. On the day they raided his giant townhouse (a former school - just for scale) I remember seeing an FBI officer quoted (probably in the NYT, which I still subscribed to the) saying they had never seen such a massive, sophisticated electronic recording setup - which covered every room of that enormous building including bathrooms. I don't know or care if the guy was just a blackmailer (seems likely, considering the billions that rich men threw at him) or some sort of complex spy operator- but it does seem that somewhere there was a TON of documentation of whatever happened there.
Sorry - I know that's a side note to your much more wide ranging, cogent and comprehensive discussion here. But it has repeatedly struck me that this was never mentioned again in any media I consume... So it sticks in my craw.
Great read! It does seem like most democrats get this, and a growing minority of republicans are learning. But it is absolutely shocking and disgusting how congress and the courts are so cowardly. trump does not have any authority to tariff anybody, yet why is no one speaking up. No one! Same with the ice gestapo. It has no authority, yet no one in Congress is doing anything. Writing a letter is absolute BS. The checks and balances are cowards or in the case of the supreme court actively committing treason.
In fact, we are too late. For everything you describe to have occurred, and without mass shocking resistance, the animus of a democracy has already died.
Much like Adam’s said - the revolution was effected before the war commenced.
America has already acquiesced to the dismantling of its institutions. The fight will more likely be about what is constructed in its place.
We're not too late. But time is precious.
We won’t wake up until catastrophe happens: military or police killing a large number of peaceful civilians, the US firing tactical nukes on another country, something grotesque to shock the White middle class awake. And even then there will be a large % who are risk averse and will do like the compliant Germans in the 1930s. Go along to get along. And so the remaining 1/3 of this country will have to fight the war of attrition against tyranny until a larger % people become sick of living in a police state where more and more people get disappeared, get thrown from airplanes over the ocean, get sent to gulags overseas, get shot walking to their car after work. We have to become Russia first. There will not be free/fair elections in 2026. Too many people face the orange jumpsuit to let Dems takeover Congress. They will pass the SAVE Act, redistrict, rig the elections again w Elon/Israel/Russia. And with no elections then it’s on to secession and whatever guerrilla/military activity results. Our best bet is that Cheeto succumbs to his horrible health in 1.5 yrs and the country sacks Shady Vance. But MAGA will support the cult leader to the grave.
If one were honest, and took a complete accounting, they might conclude we are in the midst of catastrophe. And have been for some time.
I can’t sense the democracy dying but I can sure SMELL the rot of the inverted totalitarianism that we’ve had (à l’oligarchs) for decades. And the insidious creeping of fascism. Looking bleak. Dear Asteroid, please get here soon.
25th amendment: he will play the cornered rat to perfection but putting up a fight will only make the case against him stronger.