AID has been shut down. Americans who happen to look ethnic are being rounded up.
DOGE is busy invading
Social Security, seizing private information and not understanding that some computers still run on
COBOL. Trump is calling for the removal of judges who dared follow the
law and blocked his decisions. Law firms that took on Trump are being sanctioned. Democratic appointees of supervising bodies of agencies are being fired, illegally and without
cause. The list is endless. We know this, we’ve seen a fresh offense each and every day. His sycophants are backing him up with loud noises and death threats. Trump is throwing punches, and they idea is to take down America, to overthrow Democracy itself and replace it with a dictatorship that serves Trump and allies. Americans have been slow to react, slow even to recognize the real danger. And it’s because we’re
normal.
Trump is using political violence in his attempt to overthrow America. Confronted with violence, an average person will respond to a punch in the face with shock, a lack of understanding. Normal people don’t do that sort of thing. We need time to process what's happening before we can think about how to respondm much less come up with an effective counter. But this isn’t a normal dispute, the knives are already out and Trump and Musk are drawing blood, and hoping to finish the job done before America has finished thinking out how to respond. That may sound absurd, but that’s what normal people react to violence. It isn’t part of the normal persons arsenal of choices, we just don’t think about that. Yeah, a lot of us, as least men, have been in a fight as a boy, but really it’s part of a social display designed to show we’re worthy of respect. It’s a socially bounded display. It’s not about the knockout, it’s about showing tough. But this isn’t about that. Trump is using violence, because violence worked until checked by countervailing power.
Trump is a disciple of his childhood mentor, Roy Cohn, one of ‘Tailgunner Joe’ McCarthy’s right-hand men and one of the few people who probably merited the death he received. Cohn taught Trump never to admit a mistake, or weakness to stay on the offensive. He’s doing exactly that, cheered on by the many Americans who hate modern society and want to bring back the McCarthy era, when all the good people were white, Jim Crow was the law and the Arabs were played by Omar Sharif. He’s been known as a bully who used his power and wealth to bully smaller players his whole life. Trump entered office in 2016 with a reputation for not paying smaller contractors, and putting many out of business. Mainstream Republicans cover their eyes and look away, hoping all this will simply go away rather than man up and take a stand for the Constitution they swore an oath too. Because in some ways they’re like us, only they swore an oath that now requires a spine they never possessed.
Trump is a bully, and he’s throwing punches. And normal people see this and respond with ‘why’ rather than start throwing their own. But this isn’t a playground shoving match, where each side just wants a bit of respect. Our country itself is at stake. Trump holds the rest of us in complete contempt, and he’s not looking for respect; he’s looking for our surrender.
Don’t surrender to a bully.