Only a madman wouldn't agree with your frustration, anger and fear about what is happening. RFK is one thing, but the insanity is everywhere: from breathtaking conflicts of interest (the FAA today is reported to be cancelling its $4 billlion contract with Verizon — to award the work to Elon Musk!!) to unimaginable insensitivity to human suffering (hundreds of thousands of people who depend on USAID for basic food/survival have been suddenly cut off and literally left to die. Research programs are stopped, whole departments are experiencing massive layoffs without plan or reason. Migrants are being treated like terrorists and locked up in Gitmo. Our allies are being treated like our enemies, and our enemies are being courted like allies. Tariffs will soon cut us out of all global markets, handing them to the Chinese. Musk's mission is being managed by a 23-year old and a 25-year old with no prior government experience, slashing jobs with their machetes (much like the Red Guard in China). History is brazenly rewritten with no thought for the truth ("Zelensky is a dictator! Ukraine started the war!"). Trump calls himself "King" and talks about a third term (although all that may be deliberate bombast from him). The EPA is being dismantled; so is the FAA. So is the FDA. The FBI and DOJ are now partisan arms of the presidency, positioned to pursue his political enemies with abandon.
God help us.
But when you say that the Dems are organizing to fight, I remain very skeptical. Lawsuits? Sure, bring 'em. But don't count on the courts to support you. Filibusters? Sure, they can work to delay pieces of legislation here or there, but the public hates it, thinks that's a big part of the problem, and they will not reward the Dems at election time for scorched earth legislative tactics.
Maybe there are emerging Democratic leaders who will make sense and draw support. I'm skeptical. I suspect we're going to be riding this madness for four more years and can only hope that the country holds together that long.
I responded to Rick:
I think resistance is necessary. Playing dead turns out to being dead.
What kind of resistance? I think it's got to be explaining what's happening. Understanding comes first. Find ways to communicate. Work hard at it. Find out who can do it, and how. Refuse to be suppressed. It's necessary to fan the flames of a popular movement, and find the leaders, and the group of leaders.
BTW - In making the case, I would show what happened in Hungary, and compare it to what is happening with Trump. It's also what happened in Putin's Russia -- the co-conspirators loot the public treasury. That's something people can understand.
One more thing - how do you convince people? You tell them, you tell them again, and you don't stop telling them. Did you even hit a nail just once, and see your work done? Nope - you have to drive it in again and again. It's the same with public opinion. Gotta drive it home.
Myself, I'd also do it not just with domestic issues, but with foreign policy. I know traditionally the public "doesn't pay attention," but I don't believe that's always true. "We are now lining up with our enemies, Communist Russia has become Oligarch Russia - and we're lining up with them! Who are our oligarchs - name them! What are they doing with the press - show the examples.
The problem of democracy is that it presents tools for a determined group of anti-democrats to take over the levers of power. That's what we're seeing here. The very last guardrail is public opinion, and that must be the aim of the resistance now. Public Opinion.
Budd Shenkin
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