So I missed the second nationwide No Kings march to protest not only President Donald J. Trump’s directives but his entire administration and the authoritarian style in which our government is going. Lately I’ve been under the weather and figured I needed the rest this weekend especially with rain projected. But also there was a conflict with an online seminar I signed up for a few months ago on dreams. The irony is not lost on me, you know among my side, the collective if not Jungian ‘dream’ state we now live in of a better nation—the original United States of America that supported free speech, free press and freedom of and freedom from religion.
As for missing the No Kings protest Saturday, I have participated in a number of peaceful protests for years: supporting women’s reproductive rights (which were taken away), against the first Trump administration (and he somehow got re-elected), and for some reasonable semblance of gun control (and still in this country mass shootings occur faster than our brains can comprehend). So there is a bit of “What’s the point?” And the realization that I’m on the losing side. Which I’ve always been (voting for Carter my first election at 18 and every Democrat since). I don’t mind the Democrats losing favor at this point in history … because it’s the right side.
But our former internationally respected rational and loving nation has changed into a hateful, spiteful, vindictive little snot on the planet.
I’m not the only American ashamed of what the U.S. has become. We’re just not the majority. And the ones who are, I don’t know what to make of them; yet they’re almost everybody I know. But they’ve never been free thinkers or supporters of individualism. It’s because they always wanted to force the whole population to be just like them. They never wanted to be left the hell alone like me and tens of millions of other people, all fellow Americans.
Their silence is deafening
The first time Trump ran for U.S. president, on the Republican ticket, the party was split: half saying no way, half all in. The Democrats were the same with Hillary Clinton as the presidential nominee. But the parties chose Trump and Clinton in 2016. He won … because a lot of Democrats hated Hillary and/or her husband President Bill Clinton and so voted for Trump. She still won the popular vote but didn’t win the election.
During Trump’s first term, a few Republicans in Congress bravely countered and questioned his every move. Not anymore. They are lockstep with every measure:
wacky nonmedically-trained anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of our national health policies;
a professional wrestling businesswoman head of the soon-to-be obliterated U.S. Department of Education;
a dubious head of our military, now renamed the U.S. Department of War;
a novice prosecuting Attorney General indicting enemies of Trump, himself a convicted felon;
and every one of the president’s appointments looking like they came straight out of Central Casting.
Fears of damage to American democracy came true with Trump loyalty oaths demanded for the mass media’s government reporters who cover the White House (all obliged or quit) and the Department of War (many refused).
The National Guard called in to patrol ‘democrat’ cities like D.C., Portland and Chicago? We’re fine with this? The Guard isn’t. No catastrophes for which they are well trained.
U.S. universities—the GOAT the world over—were financially threatened by billions of dollars in government funds if they didn’t sign off on Trump’s demands, one of which was to control student protests on campus. MIT refused. Harvard eventually fought back.
Trump’s mandate that national museums remove exhibits and items that do not show white Americans in a favorable light? With our well-known centuries of bigotry, prejudice, misogynism and racism? Who does he think he’s kidding? The future?
Every county in the U.S. requested to give the Trump administration their voter rolls? Why? So all who vote in the Democratic primaries—their voter cards stamped as proof—will be hassled in future elections not unlike Florida in the 2000 Bush/Gore debacle?
Dozens of polling places closed across the U.S. meaning long, long lines for any citizen who wants to cast a ballot? Yes, the plan is to wear down citizens, to make them give up and forget about voting—like Trump himself before he got political and ran for president.
And as only Trump can do, one media outlet after another was sued into his submission. Trump got the FCC to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air, though after much outrage by the nation’s fearless political comedians was later returned. Lately it appears “Southpark” went too far in constantly making fun of this president as its season was quietly cut short without explanation.
Listen. Not a single Republican, elected or private citizen, has said one word against Trump in all these outrageous affronts to the U.S. constitution which still enshrines free speech. Universities cannot be trusted with research and findings that lead to cures and healthier lives, the greater good, if government funding in the billions is cut off. Employees at the Centers for Disease Control know their agency is now considered a sham to the American people, not to be trusted at this point in time.
There’s the God-only-knows numbers of brown-skinned people allegedly undocumented while working in the U.S. who were and continue to be rounded up and flown to jails overseas or in South America—never to be heard from again. If the U.S. is still a nation of laws, every human has the right to due process. And all those ‘disappeared’ by the Trump administration are humans. Sorry. Our country is either for or against human rights. It doesn’t matter if Republicans see undocumented workers as subhuman.
There’s the Trumpian effort to retract U.S. citizenship from people born here. How is that gonna work out? Won’t we all be illegal at some point?
And then there’s all the laid off D.C. workers. Americans were lied to by this administration which maintained these layoffs were necessary to balance the budget. Echoes of Reaganomics. A number of those fired were rehired because lots of work has to be done when dealing with 325 million people in this country. Government can never be run like a business.
We still have federal employees working without pay. We have air traffic controllers not going to work because they’re not getting paid. Because we’re in another government shutdown.
And now Trump calls for firing Democrats, employees who are registered Democrats. How is this possibly legal?
What kind of nation does exactly these things? A banana latte republic? A laughingstock because of inept leadership?
And where are the Arthur Millers who’ll stand up to this strain of poisonous politics specifically against Democrats, as opposed to communists in the ’50s, who’ll say to our know-nothing, fat-headed, ham-fisted, cut-off-their-nose-to-spite-their-face federal officials: I do not recognize your authority over me? Let me remind you that Democrats are still half the country, like it or not.
About the only good thing Democrats have going for them is their numbers, perhaps 120 million, not a minority like Jews in 1930s’ Germany or communists and alleged and presumed communists in 1950s’ show biz America or a few dozen kid-accused ‘witches’ in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts.
Not sure if we need any more protest marches given the results. The protests are being laughed at by the very people, our friends and family and neighbors, who are in charge of our nation. But the rest of the world supports protests against what appears to be a burgeoning authoritarian regime. Only the world’s dictators support Trump. After all, he’s using their playbook to achieve and maintain absolute power even beyond his own lifetime.