Issue #822 REPOST The Choice, Thursday, March 13, 2025
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For obvious reasons, those of us concerned that we might be on the verge of losing what’s left of American democracy are focusing heavily on the disparate impacts of Trump and Elon’s rapid-fire destruction of the government. It’s hard not to pay attention to the floor when it is disintegrating beneath your feet, and there appears to be nothing but darkness below.
But as has already been pointed out by a number of others, the objective of rapid-fire destruction isn’t just destruction, but forcing the enemy (which in this case would be the American people from the point of view of Trump and Elon) to become distracted and unsettled to a degree where they are unable to function or adequately respond to the threat. Another equally damaging reaction to this so-called “shock and awe” tactic can be that the “enemy” will begin to question itself, and possibly even turn on itself, as it tries to fashion a workable strategy to defeat the folks responsible for all that shocking and awing.
Currently, the growing group of furious Americans actively devising some form of strategy is loosely being referred to as The Resistance. Although it does (thankfully) appear that more and more Republican-affiliated ordinary Americans on the ground are beginning to wake up to the fact that Trump being Trump isn’t what they thought they were voting for, the majority of Resistance-affiliated folk are more Democrat-leaning.
But as the Democrats are learning, this is not at all translating into a tidal wave of Americans who now praise the Democratic party and want to sign up to ride the donkey. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has dedicated significant amounts of her reporting to the large and ever-growing number of anti-Trump protests that are popping up around the country in red states and districts, including town halls where Republican representatives are either too scared to meet with their own mad-as-hell constituents, or are being roasted alive when they do show up, especially when they make the mistake of trying to defend Trump and/or Elon.
But Maddow has also featured more than a few town halls where Democratic representatives are facing angry constituents who are quite clearly not thanking them for being Democrats but who are asking them to do more. A lot more.
One clip that sticks with me is of a constituent telling his Democratic representative that (and I’m paraphrasing) he wouldn’t mind seeing that representative risking jail from protesting so hard – just like he knew the late civil rights legend John Lewis would have done as someone who consistently got himself into ‘good trouble’. That constituent also said that he would happily go to jail right alongside his representative. Because he recognized that this is now the level of protest required.
In defense of those Democratic representatives, there is only so much they can do as a minority party in the halls of Congress. And some of those Democratic constituents screaming about do more need to take a look in the mirror. Before we begin our finger-pointing, we need to ask ourselves why so many Democrats were happy to savage President Joe Biden as being too old (and boring) to run again, despite a remarkable record rivaling that of President Franklin Roosevelt, when the clear and present danger of the alternative was so clear. Or why more white women didn’t come out stronger in support of Kamala Harris after all those years of Black women going overboard to march with those same white women and in support of the Democratic ticket? Black women who are now openly saying they are no longer interested in marching with those white women because they feel betrayed? Or why anyone in their right mind felt that voting for a third party was a justifiable option?
On a broader level, how is it that nearly 90 million registered voters didn’t vote out of approximately 245 million registered voters?
So sure, Trump and Trumpism are the immediate threats. And it’s not even clear yet whether we will survive that threat intact. I would love to say there’s always hope, but the truth is that the only hope is if those of us committed to getting past this are equally committed to staying focused on that as the ultimate indisputable endgame goal and can avoid squabbling over dumb shit. Save the dumb shit for later once we’re safely on the other side of the divide.
Right now, we need to be grownups, which means we need to agree on what matters and realize we don’t have a lot of time for squabbling because squabbling erases time we don’t have. We need to focus on devising strategies that can literally save our lives, and focus on that. Because if we don’t?
Yeah, well. I suggest you read the following. If you don’t have time right now? Please find the time.
The following is an excerpt from a post I read this morning on Facebook from a woman named Melissa Moon, who is quoting D. Earl Stephens, retired managing editor of the military's daily newspaper, Stars and Stripes. It is more than simply a must-read. It is an imperative.
“It would be helpful if we stopped pretending this terrible chapter in American history won’t close without bloodshed …
It would be helpful if Americans, and our feeble Democratic politicians in particular, stopped implying by their comatose actions that Democracy is some damn American right and has no end date.
America very well might be arriving at hers because, yes, it really is that bad right now.
Rather than bringing Ping-Pong paddles and groovy little signs to a fascist hate-fest disguised as a State of the Union speech, it would be helpful if our meek, out-of-touch Democratic politicians at least pretended they understood the perilous moment we are standing in right now.
We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our country’s survival.
Everything changed on November 5th, but by the looks of it, very little has changed in the Democratic Party.
This country will never be the same, and the sooner we come to grips with that and start acting accordingly, the better.
The clock is ticking. The bomb is in place.
And, really, end of the day, it is not him who we have most to fear. It’s the stupid, goddam Republicans who are stubbornly in all of our lives. These are the people who have illustrated there is no known pain or sacrifice to our civil liberties or pocketbooks that they won’t absorb just for the satisfaction of watching some poor kid of color going without something they didn’t think she should have.
So the choice is yours: You can continue thinking there is some magical way out of this, or you can begin to take the threat to everything you hold dear seriously, and ACT accordingly.”
— D. Earl Stephens, author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.
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