Joseph Aronesty (2026) Inspired by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776)
Introduction
In January of 1776, a short pamphlet began circulating through the American colonies. It was written not for scholars or statesmen, but for ordinary citizens. Its purpose was simple and radical: to explain, in plain language, why submission to concentrated power was neither natural nor necessary.
The pamphlet was Common Sense, and its author, Thomas Paine, did not argue that King George III was uniquely wicked. Instead, he made a far more unsettling claim—that monarchy itself was a flawed system, and that placing excessive authority in any single individual inevitably corrupted both ruler and ruled.
Nearly two and a half centuries later, the outward forms of power have changed, but the underlying dynamics have not. Titles evolve. Justifications adapt. The language of authority modernizes. Yet the temptation toward autocratic rule—and the willingness of people to accept it—remains a constant of political life.
What follows is not a historical reenactment, nor an argument about personalities. It is a modern restatement of Paine’s central insight: that free societies do not lose their liberty all at once, but by failing to recognize familiar dangers in unfamiliar forms.
Paine wrote to awaken his contemporaries to patterns they were already living through. The purpose here is the same.
On the Nature of Concentrated Power
There is a persistent belief among free people that power, once granted, will restrain itself. Human history offers no support for this belief.
Power does not seek balance. It seeks continuance, expansion, and ultimately immunity from challenge. Democracy dies not because of a moral failing of individuals so much as a predictable feature of absolute authority once it is detached from regular accountability. The problem is not that one person becomes all-powerful, but that many people slowly grow accustomed to absolute power.
The defenders of concentrated power often argue that a strong executive is necessary to protect the nation. Yet history repeatedly shows the opposite: such power rarely protects a people from danger, but very often protects the autocrats from the people.
Personal rule—whether it wears a crown, a uniform, or the language of popular mandate—rests on a simple inversion of responsibility. Citizens are told that judgment is a burden best surrendered. Loyalty is redefined as obedience. Dissent is reframed as weakness, or worse, betrayal.
This is how liberty erodes without being formally abolished. No proclamation announces it. No constitution need be rewritten at first. The shift occurs in tone, in expectation, in what citizens come to tolerate in the name of order. A free people does not wake one morning to discover itself unfree; it arrives there by degrees, persuaded that exceptional power is both necessary and temporary.
At this stage, the question is no longer whether power has overreached, but whether the public has forgotten why limits existed in the first place.
Those who argue that “this time is different” must answer a hard question: different from what? From human nature? From history? From every prior instance in which concentrated power promised stability and delivered submission?
A government of laws depends on citizens who understand that strength lies not in domination, but in restraint. When restraint is abandoned—when power is admired for its force rather than its limits—the transition away from self-government has already begun, whether it is acknowledged or not.
On Why Free People Surrender Their Judgment
The loss of liberty rarely begins with force. It begins with a sense of relief.
Democratic self-government is demanding. It requires attention, disagreement, patience, and the humility to accept that no single voice—including one’s own—is sufficient. In uncertain times, this burden feels heavy. When a confident figure offers certainty in place of complexity, many experience not alarm, but comfort.
This is the first seduction of personal rule within a democracy. People do not abandon freedom because they despise it, but because they are persuaded that freedom has become impractical. They are told that debate is weakness, that disagreement is disorder, and that unity requires obedience. The promise is simple: trust me, and you may rest.
What is surrendered first is not rights, but personal judgment.
Fear plays a central role, but not always in obvious ways. It is not merely fear of enemies, foreign or domestic, but fear of instability, fear of social conflict, fear of economic uncertainty. A population anxious about its footing becomes willing to trade liberty for reassurance, even when said reassurance is largely performative and offers no real relief.
Those who resist this trade are often caricatured as dangerous, radical, unrealistic and disloyal the leader’s cause. In this way, caution and protest are recast as cowardice, and submission as strength.
The most effective autocrats do not demand admiration; they cultivate dependency. They position themselves as indispensable solutions to problems they continuously emphasize and rarely resolve. Each new crisis reinforces the narrative that only extraordinary authority can preserve order, and that ordinary checks are luxuries of a calmer time.
None of this requires the suspension of elections or the abandonment of constitutional language. The words remain. The habits change.
The final psychological shift occurs when people come to believe that resistance is futile—that the trajectory is inevitable, and that adapting is wiser than objecting. At that moment, power no longer needs to coerce. It is sustained by resignation.
And so, a free society depends not on perfect leaders, but on citizens who retain the nerve to think, to question, and to withstand the discomfort of disagreement. When that nerve is lost—when convenience replaces vigilance—no external enemy is required. The erosion is complete from within.
On How Institutions Are Emptied Without Being Overthrown
Free societies often imagine that tyranny arrives by spectacle—tanks in streets, constitutions burned, courts shuttered. In reality, institutions are more commonly hollowed than destroyed.
The outward forms remain. Elections are held. Legislatures convene. Courts issue opinions. Yet their authority is gradually diminished, not by decree, but by disregard. When power is personalized, institutions are tolerated only so long as they comply. When they resist, they are portrayed as illegitimate, corrupt, or obstructive.
Another method of hollowing out a democracy is selective obedience. Rules are praised when they benefit the powerful and dismissed when they restrain them. Enforcement becomes inconsistent. Precedent is ignored. Over time, citizens learn that law is not a standard, but a tool—applied unevenly and explained afterward.
Once this lesson is absorbed, trust in government collapses. Faith in institutions declines, while faith in the authoritarian rises. The public, weary of complexity, begins to see institutions as theater and the individual leader as the only “real” actor.
At this point, institutional failure is not an accident; it becomes evidence used to justify further consolidation of power. The damage itself becomes the argument.
On the Myth That This Is Inevitable
Perhaps the most paralyzing belief in any republic is the belief that decline is unavoidable.
When citizens are repeatedly told that norms are obsolete, that restraint is naïve, and that past standards cannot survive modern pressures, they may come to accept erosion as adaptation. What was once alarming becomes familiar. What was once resisted becomes expected.
Yet history shows that inevitability is often an illusion created by momentum and fatigue. Systems do not collapse because collapse is natural, but because enough people conclude that resistance is useless. The belief that “nothing can be done” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Those who benefit from concentrated power rely on resignation. It discourages participation without provoking opposition. It replaces outrage with detachment, and engagement with cynicism. A disengaged citizenry is far easier to manage than an angry one.
The most dangerous phrase in a free society is not “this must be done,” but “this cannot be stopped.”
On the Duty of the Citizen in a Free Society
Thomas Paine understood that liberty is not sustained by declarations alone. It is sustained by citizens willing to accept the inconvenience of freedom.
Self-government demands more than periodic consent and voting, It requires continuous attention, the courage to dissent, and the refusal to confuse comfort with stability. It asks citizens to tolerate disagreement and to defend principles even when doing so is socially costly.
Liberty does not depend on optimism, but on memory—the memory that concentrated power has always justified itself as necessary, temporary, and benevolent. A government of the people is a historical exception, not the rule. It survives only so long as citizens remember that order imposed without consent is not democracy, but quiet submission.
A free people need not be perfect. But they must remain awake.
The moment citizens surrender their judgment in exchange for reassurances, they trade a difficult freedom for an easy dependence. History offers many names for this arrangement. None of them describe a democratic republic.
Something has changed in America, and pretending otherwise is no longer safe. If a sitting president can deny, delay, or obstruct the outcome of an election, then democracy itself is in jeopardy. And if one political team claims the right to question or refuse legitimate election results, then the opposing side logically inherits the same right. That is not a threat —it is a consequence.
If Team Trump were to deny, delay, or obfuscate the procedures or results of the 2026 midterm elections, then Team Democracy would face a choice: accept a broken system, or prepare a constitutional, collective response. The publishing of said conditional response should be made well ahead of the midterms.
One possibility is clear. The Democratic Governors Association — or a similar alliance of state leaders — could announce ahead of time that they will stand together to defend free and fair elections. An Article Five–style pledge — “you come for one, you come for all” — would signal unity and deterrence. The purpose would not be confrontation but prevention.
Let me lay out the logic plainly.
Many Americans believe the country is already in a political war — a conflict not of weapons but of institutions, trust, and power. Democracy, once a radical idea, depended on citizens choosing representatives who argued and negotiated within agreed rules. Authoritarian systems do not operate that way.
The Founders wrote about “self-evident truths” for a reason. Evidence comes from what we see. And many Americans feel they have seen enough. With the midterms approaching, the question is not whether citizens should reject legitimate results; they should not. Elections carried out by longstanding rules, with broad participation and lawful procedures, must be accepted regardless of outcome. Americans have done this before. Many disliked prior results, but the system held because people respected the process.
The fear today is different: that future elections may be contested not through law but through power. If attempts are made to delay or undermine the midterms, states should be prepared to respond lawfully and collectively. Governors could announce that, in the event of clear election interference, they would explore emergency powers to protect their citizens and institutions — including reconsidering how and to whom federal tax dollars are paid and managed until constitutional order is restored.
This would not be a declaration of separation, nor the creation of a new country. It would be a conditional safeguard ; a contingency plan meant to preserve constitutional norms if they are threatened.
Such a stance might resonate with many Americans across the political spectrum. Distrust of federal power is not new; it has appeared in movements from the Tea Party to modern progressive coalitions. The idea of states asserting greater autonomy has deep roots in American history.
And here is the strategic point: if citizens know there is a peaceful, organized, constitutional backup plan, attempts to manipulate elections lose much of their power. Deterrence works when the consequences are clear and there is a feeling of reassurance. History shows that would-be strongmen respect strength. Institutions survive only when people are willing to defend them collectively.
This is not a call for chaos or refusal to accept legitimate outcomes. It is a call to prepare calmly, lawfully, and transparently, so that no leader, from any party, can undermine the rules that make democracy possible.
Because if a sitting president can deny or delay the outcome of an election, then democracy itself is already in checkmate; and Americans of every political belief should refuse to accept that future.
A Call for a Union of Governors to Protect Citizens from Federal Overreach
And Continued Resistance
Across the country, people are watching federal power being used in ways that feel increasingly detached from constitutional limits: aggressive immigration enforcement without clear judicial oversight, sweeping tariffs imposed without Congressional approval, and rhetoric that treats political opposition not as fellow citizens, but as enemies.
When force replaces our Constitution, and subdues representation, democracy fails — not all at once, but quietly, via normalization, pressure and time.
This post is not about left versus right. We really are all in this together now. It is about whether our constitutional government will continue to function as it was originally crafted to do.
Waiting for elections may not be enough
Elections matter — but we are seeing blatant attempts to affect the midterms just like they do in Russia and other fascist countries around the world. We need to be fully prepared well ahead of the midterms to survive this. So all tools and strategies need to be on the table. Hoping for the best while preparing for the worst applies when all is at stake, and it is.
Further, elections are not the only safeguards the Constitution provides. The American system of governance was designed with the safeguard of shared sovereignty. States are not subsidiaries of the federal executive. Governors are not required to enforce federal actions that violate their citizens’ constitutional rights. In fact, they have a sworn duty to protect their citizens’ rights.
When executive power exceeds constitutional bounds, the states were meant to act as a stabilizing force, not as silent accomplices.
We have seen the Trump administration is willing to openly lie to the public. January 6th is being framed as a peaceful protest, and peaceful protestors are being called radicals and shot dead.
What will happen if the midterm results are framed as phony or rigged, and our purchased Supreme Court majority rules for the administration? We cannot wait for elections with this administration in power. Just as he has done all his life, Donald Trump cheats in public and buys off the heat. He shows no respect for our Constitution and is even on record saying he would like to end the Constitution.
Two peaceful, constitutional pressure points
There are two areas where unlawful federal overreach is very visible — and where lawful, non-violent resistance can restore balance quickly.
1. Immigration enforcement without warrants
Border security at the border is popular with most Americans. But federal agents do not have unlimited authority inside states. When arrests or detentions occur by masked men without proper judicial warrants, state governors are within their rights to refuse cooperation and even arrest said ICE agents. This is not obstruction of justice; it is constitutional compliance. Communities are safer when fear is not used as policy. Public safety improves when law enforcement operates transparently and lawfully. It is a governors sworn duty to protect his citizens.
2. Tariffs imposed without Congressional approval
The Constitution gives Congress — not the executive — the power to levy taxes and tariffs. When tariffs are imposed unilaterally, they function as a hidden national sales tax, raising prices for everyone while bypassing representation.
Sovereign state governors can decline to collect tariffs through their ports until Congress approves them as per the Constitution. Prices would fall on goods coming through their ports. One would think that could be good for those state’s citizens.
Citizens in these states would feel the difference with lower prices in real time, and red state citizens would get jealous very quickly. The tariff scam would be exposed in a way that Fox News can’t spin away. Note: As of February 21, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s tariffs were illegal, as if we needed a SCOTUS to decide that. It is clear in the Constitution. And this 150-day exception, we should have no respect for that. After 150 days, Trump can restart the 150 days again. Yep. And he will. So I give no respect for that workaround to tax the public, which is what tariffs are.
Refusing to collect tariffs is plan with teeth. It would get popular so quickly Trump couldn’t stop it and be the party pooper. Will he go to physical war about this money? I doubt it. But if he does, he won’t have public support and it would mean a physical war is happening at midterms anyway. So it’s better to initiate real resistance now. Talk in back rooms, but spring it suddenly.
And like Republicans, worry later about the legality of it all. The Constitution and the public are on our side on tariffs. If Supreme Court justices say no, we can say they are aiding an insurrectionist, hence disqualified to serve hence rule in our states; and it will be true. This is also pocketbook economics citizens in all states will appreciate. It’s populism in an FDR way; and he became a populist because he knew he was up against domestic enemies as well as foreign enemies, just as we are today.
Why this matters right now
Authoritarian systems thrive when people feel powerless and divided. Our enemies abroad has gotten influence here, and they want our population just as subdued as theirs are. Why? Because phones connect the world now, and people all over the world believe their eyes. The existence of well-functiong democracies, where people have a say in how they are governed, taxed and rewarded, makes it harder for autocrats to survive, as they want as little as possible to flow to the people; their prime goal being wealth for the ruling class.
Democracy survives this challenge only when its citizens insist — peacefully, lawfully, and in great numbers — that power flows from the Constitution, not from loyalty to any single leader.
Russia and Hungary do have elections, but their results do not matter. Democratic backsliding rarely ends at the ballot box. Democracy will prevail only when institutions and key agents in our government refuse to participate in illegal, unconstitutional actions. And that includes these tariffs which Trump has lied about. Citizens in all states know tariffs are a tax by now.
The goal is de-escalation, not conflict
This is a call for governors to reclaim their sworn duty to protect their citizens from federal overreach and create some constitutional equilibrium as the founders of our nation intended. This is not a call for violence. It is not a call for chaos. But if our enemies are going this route anyway, we need to prepare ahead of time.
If the unlawful ICE actions stop, street tensions will drop. After the unapproved tariffs stop and the savings passed on to consumers, prices will fall and financial anger will cool. When constitutional law replaces fear, democracy will begin to regain its footing.
America does not need a “strongman” or king. It was formed to get away from that way of governance. It just needs the Constitution to be enforced as written. State power to balance federal overreach is built in to the constitution to protect the consitution. So now, well before midterms, is the time for that governors union.
Why a union of aligned governors is critical right now
Imagine if Tim Walz announced he would no longer allow ICE agents to enter his state, nor be quartered in the state, if they came without warrants to arrest specific people. He would need the power to enforce said action if Trump sent ICE without warrants anyway. But Minnesota is just one state. They were over-powered and outnumbered. If the federal government knew 50% of the states, many of which surround Washington DC, were in a mutual self-defense union much like NATO, Trump would have cause to re-think military actions against Minnesota. There is real strength in unified numbers.
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin, 1776, as the Constitution was being crafted.
What governors can do today
Blue state governors and any others inclined to resist the debasement of our Constitutional can call each other and form a union. I like to call said union States United, dedicated to protect the member states from federal overreach. Announce said union. The announcement of its creation will be an instantaneous comfort to Americans in all states, blue and red. As we stand today, most US citizens feel there is no one in government to protect them from federal government overreach. Their plan is working because Democrats refuse to call this a war, and are going to gamble our entire existence on the results of an election run by a man who does not admit he lost 2020, which makes him a 3rd term president, looking for four, in his own fantasy. And that’s the only place this man lives folks.
What citizens can do today
Write your governor, online and on paper, and ask where they stand on warrantless federal enforcement. Ask them to form a union with other like minded governors, much like NATO, so that an attack on one is an attack on all.
Ask why your governor why he is collectingtariffs that Congress has not approved and if he will consider refusing to collect tariffs until they are approved by Congress as per the Constitution.
Ask your governor if he believes he has a duty to protect his state’s citizens from the dangers and costs of Trump’s unconstitutional executive actions
Make it clear you will not support your governor is he does nothing to stop tariffs and warrantless arrests.
Continue to protest peacefully.
Share this plea on social media. Get this plea to citizens and governors going viral.
About the author: Joseph Aronesty was a classmate to Donald Trump at Wharton in 1968 and worked in his orbit from 1986-99 in Atlantic City NJ. He has been warning Americans about the danger Trump poses for our country since 2016.
I just asked CHAT GTP if America will still be a functioning democracy in 2028. Go ahead. Try it yourself.
Chat GTP:It’s not guaranteed that America will remain a perfectly functioning democracy in 2028, but it is still within the realm of possibility if the country takes steps to address its most pressing challenges.
Even artificial intelligence knows we must act now to save our democracy. But all we hear now is surrender to a tyrant who won an election, though he was constitutionally disqualified, by his own words and actions, to hold the office he won – and wait to see if things get better. Better? How?
Donald Trump said he was running against some very stupid people. He is right about that. We will be very stupid people if we let him assume the great powers of the presidency again. And we don’t have to. Nor do we need an insurrection. We have the 14th Amendment of our Constitution to back us.
Under the cover of the 2024 holiday season, we are witnessing the end game of the 2016 Russo-Republican Alliance strategy play out and met with no real resistance. Trump has officially tipped his hand with his cabinet picks. They confirm that he is working to end America, as we know it. There will soon be a ruling class, chosen oligarchs based on their loyalty to Trump, and the rest of us. That’s how it is in China, Russia, Hungary, North Korea and all the countries run by people Trump admires.
Dictators wish the entire planet was one big autocratic, wild free-for-all. And on January 20th, they are getting their wish come true, if we do not stop Trumpism now. And we can. The presidential election of 2024 was a battle in an act of war we permitted to happen under our democratic rules.* It does not have to be our last battle, but that’s what our new rulers will want.
But, not all our rules. We have one rule that Trump and most of his party members violated: the 14th Amendment. Many candidates and current congresspeople are constitutionally disqualified to hold office under the 14th Amendment for having aided or comforted insurrectionists. Some also physically took part in the J6 event.
Joseph Goebbels was the German media czar during World War II. This is what he said about democracies that play by its own rules: “It will always remain one of democracy’s best jokes that it provides for its deadly enemies the means by which it can be destroyed.”
While we still have the power, we can and must use this tool written into our constitution during the aftermath of the Civil War, to prevent the enemies of our country from taking away our right to self-govern.
The 14th Amendment, sec 3, declares that no one may hold any office in our government, state, federal, judicial or military having been party to an insurrection, or having aided or given comfort to insurrectionists or the enemies of our country. All Americans should please google 14th Amendment, sec 3.
As tax-paying citizens, it is our constitutional right, and the current president’s sworn constitutional duty, to demand Donald Trump not be sworn into office on J20.
Many of his allies in the current GOP congress, and some of those who were elected, are also barred from holding office. Even Supreme Court members are included in the disqualifying statement of the 14th Amendment. But the most important person to bar from office is the ring leader, would-be dictator, and ally to our country’s foreign enemies, Donald Trump.
Absent of his J6 activity, Donald Trump would have every right to be president. Now, Trump has no constitutional right whatsoever to be president, even if he won the election. It’s as if the GOP ran a candidate who said he was thirty-five years old and we found out he was thirty. The Constitution is very clear about the qualifications to hold any office in the United States.
Why Trump is Constitutionally Barred from Being President
Donald Trump called a mob to Washington DC broadcasting “it would be wild”. We do not need FBI, lawyers, justices, or politicians to tell “we the people“ what we saw that day. There was an attempt to stop the election process, which included breaking into the Capitol and attacking officers, threatening the vice-president and congresspeople – and people ending up dead. Trump did not even try immediately call it off. He watched it on TV for hours, like we did. He said maybe Pence had it coming in so much words.
J6 was clearly an attempt at insurrection. We do not need to examine every curve and motive of this act. It was a bank robbery gone bad, caught on film. Trump’s actions and words on J6 made him constitutionally unqualified to serve in any government office, local, state, federal or judicial at any level.
We have little time. So, it’s now or never. There may not be a way back for the foreseeable future. Putin has held Russia for over twenty years. Hungary is no longer a democracy. Three times, Trump took election help from Putin, our enemy in a live war. For that help, he owes Putin for life. At least, that is how Putin thinks of his relationship with Donald. Putin does not allow people who deal with him to get away. Ask Prigozhin. Oh, we can’t.
If Donald Trump, a person constitutionally barred from holding any office in the USA, takes office on J20, by the end of January, we should know if he will be going into full-on fascist mode. Trump’s personal political opponents were targeted during his candidacy. If he verbally continues with that line of attack, we will know what he intends to do about the “revenge” he made a talking point during his campaign. It’s not a gamble we need to take, but Biden seems to be willing to overlook the 14th Amendment as if it does not exist.
Ask yourself this question: If your family was about to board a plane, and the pilot said there is a small five percent chance the plane would go down, would you let your family board that plane? Do you currently think there is a five percent chance we lose our democracy? Then why are we letting it happen, when we have the 14th to protect us? We are boarding that plane on J20, if we do nothing. AI also seems to think there’s a good chance we become something less than a functioning democracy by 2028.
BLANKET PARDONS FOR REPORTERS AND BLOGGERS
If Biden is not going to fight as if we are at war, then, at the very least, he should issue blanket pardons for all reporters and bloggers who ever wrote anything negative about Donald Trump, the president.
But, this post is not about surrender. It lays out the simple steps we can take now, to ensure we do not risk ending democracy in the USA. after all, oligarchy is what America set out to end when it broke away from the tyranny of King George.
FDR said there is nothing to fear, but fear itself. We have the power now to avoid this fate, if we are not afraid to use it. We must fight while we have the weapon called the 14th Amendment. These politicians have said they intend to destroy the “deep state”, a phrase they invented, and one they do not define. But they are ready to take our women’s rights away. Do you think they will care a whit about silencing dissent after we give them absolute power over us all? Biden saw fit to pardon turkeys, but so far, he has not pardoned the people who will need protection from Trump.
After Trump’s telling cabinet picks, more Americans today would be relieved if Trump were barred from holding office than they were on November 5th. There is even a chance it would be cheered on by the majority of voters on both sides, provided we demand a new special presidential election with no candidates permitted to run who are unqualified by the plain language of the 14th Amendment. That means no Trump.
And it means no Kamala Harris as well, but for a different reason. She did lose. We should not rub it in the faces of those who voted more for no black woman to be POTUS, than for Trump, to place her on the ballot again.
Once in power, the MAGA GOP crimes will naturally escalate to such heights that they will realize they must stay in power to stay out of jail. That’s why Trump could not afford to stop fighting to be president. The increase in government corruption is a certainty under Trump because his ambitious new administration people are given free for all passes, provided they protect the king.
In an April 2024 poll, seventy-five percent of Americans wanted neither Biden nor Trump. And to many, Harris was Biden, inside a female POC body.
An April 2025 special election, with two fresh faces would likely be cheered on by the general public. Trump’s cabinet picks even have many MAGA voters scared, as they should be. Billionaires who can pay off Trump, and loyalists, are getting top posts. MAGA people are figuring out they may have been duped.
To actually accomplish barring Trump from being president via #ENFORCINGTHE14th, we’ll need to do some things.
First.We immediately need vast public support for enforcing the 14th, sec 3. That’s why this manifesto should be submitted to newspapers and media people. Help me do this now. I am easy to reach. Pressure must be put on Biden, Harris and the Democratic Party leaders. They represent us. If we the people have surrendered to Trump and his allies, or are “tired” of fighting, which we should fear the most, our reps have no impetus to push for this.
Second.We need Biden or Garland to call for some of the worst 14th offenders in the House to be unseated, right now. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and a few others, are good starters. This will serve as a test balloon for Trump and SCOTUS members to be barred. Democrats could have the majority in the House now, if we unseat glaring House insurrection comforters. It’s crucial for line of succession too.
If SCOTUS members object, we can start unseating them. It is all constitutional. No one gets hurt. We just pack up their files and send them home and nominate new SCOTUS members.
We must treat this like a war, because what Trump has done is a war against the American way. And democracy’s enemies are not all domestic. Being engaged in a war with Russia through Ukraine, makes it easier for a president to do things to protect our country.
I’d also like to suggest Jack Smith should just release or leak evidence he has on Trump. If Mueller held anything back, he should as well. (Sadly, it looks like Jack Smith surrendered on 11.25 as well.) That should only amplify the need to act now. There’s no help coming past J20.
Third. We cannot be afraid of our SCOTUS. The importance of a Supreme Court majority was well understood by Putin, who owns his courts and Donald admires that. The Helsinki translator notes Trump being ripped up was a big tell. Trump quickly got three justices on his side, in preparation for what we are seeing now.
Women’s rights? Out the window. Separation of church and state? This Supreme Court is on the side of fascism and oligarchy. Pay them, and they do your bidding.
The Supreme Court super majority served like a move made early in a chess game. The goal being to seal the fate of the opposing king during the end game. However, if justices are on Trump’s side, they are also aiding an insurrectionist and subject to disqualification.
That is the attitude we must have. We need not fear the SCOTUS. The 14th does not say SCOTUS members are immune. It says no one shall hold any office under the United States if they even comforted an insurrectionist or the enemies of our country. It is plain language.
Justice Clarence Thomas is most vulnerable justice. He lives with a known insurrection planner. He comforts her every day. He has taken bribes from wealthy GOP donors. He needs to be told he will also be unseated via the 14th if he objects to the current administration using the 14th to remove insurrection comforters from our government.
No one needs to get hurt. The Sergeant-of-arms locks his files, removes them from his offices, Biden nominates a new justice. For unseated congresspeople, our current president just calls for special elections to replace them with candidates who are not on public record of beininsurrection supporters.
Fourth. We must openly discuss and prepare for the possibility of a national divorce. It’s possible the plan will not work, even though if implemented with the resolve that Project 2025 seems to have, I don’t see why it would fail.
In that case, the governors of Blue States must be ready to say they will not be ruled in any way – including by federal taxation – by an insurrectionist allied with Russia.
We should start serious discussions on splitting into two American tactically allied countries, bound by trade and travel agreements both protected by one military. Both countries pay a military protection and common infrastructure tax of about seventeen percent. Seventeen percent of budget is close to the amount we pay for military and infrastructure now. The rest of taxes are paid to the individual states. Since, red states rely more than blue states on federal funds, the citizens in red states will come crying back in a few years. This may actually be the fastest way back to a truly United States, if we allow Trump to be POTUS. Just say we want nothing to do with a president who organized an insurrection, and be done with it.
We cannot feel forced to accept the craziness of another four years of Trumpism. There is no telling it will just be four years. This discussion of a two-state will serve to temper the craziness of the GOP. If they cross hard lines, we implement the divorce. We are sort of culturally divided anyway. Maybe it’s best, for a while.
Joe Biden: You are still the commander-in-chief. Do so some commanding for god’s sake. You don’t have to go to battle with a gun and a helmet like our brave fathers did in 1943. Your tools are the Constitution you have sworn to protect, your resolve to defend democracy and the American people you profess to love, and your spoken words.
My father taught me the difference between men is primarily the words they speak. The nothing burger we have heard from you, post-election, feels like you have given up on democracy.
Are you afraid that the Republican Party will do the same thing if you bar Trump from being president? Spoiler alert. They are doing it anyway.
Republican voters and independent brothers and sisters: Today, Trump said he will be putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada on day one. That will cause the cost of mushrooms and avocados go up. He has chosen relatives with no experience to be ambassadors. He has billionaires as allies. Have you figured out yet, that Donald trump does not care about us. I knew him since age eighteen at Wharton. He never cared about others. Trump is do into his own self that as a billionaire he hardly ever gave money to charities. He speaks well of the dictators, Putin, Kim and others, who brutally kill their own citizens should they speak out. And worst of all, Trump accepted election help from Russia, three times. He now owes Putin for that help. Putin’s mission has always been to destroy America, and make it be more like Russia. I say no, thanks.
Joe Biden: The Supreme Court is not checkmate, unless you think it is. Do you want to be remembered as the cowardly, meek president who surrendered democracy to fascists? The plans in this post, along with what you know having been on the inside of government all your life, are all you need to save the American democracy. You said you would not surrender to Trumpism “over my dead body”. Is that body already dead, sir? If so, step down and give your VP a chance to defend this country.
We the people demand that you bar Trump from holding office, in accordance with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, and call for a new special presidential election in April, with no insurrection aiders or comforters allowed on the ballot as per the Constitution. Become a real commander-in-chief, the way FDR was, and you potentially will go from being the last, and therefore worst, president of the original United States, to one of its greatest commanders-in-chief. We are at war, sir. You seemed to know that. Act like a war president then, for god’s sake.
We The People: Tell your representatives to #EnforceThe14thNow. Start this conversation, today! That is how the ball starts rolling in a representative democracy. Talk to MAGA voters and independents as well. Tell them a new special election can be with two fresh faces. Call into talk shows. Organize #ENFORCETHE14TH protests. Use that hashtag. Trump has tipped his fascist bent agenda with his cabinet picks. The time is now, while we can without risking our lives, to resist Trumpism. Christmas can wait.
Our beautiful American women: Are you ready to surrender your bodily autonomy to a party that nominates rapists and racists to wield power over you? The holidays may be sidetracking you. But this is not the time to pretend all is well and holly jolly. We need to hear from you now about using the 14th to bar disqualified humans from holding office. It can happen, but only if we all speak up now! Use #EnforceThe 14thNow as a hashtag in all your SM posts. It’s not too late to resist Trumpism. The January 20th surrendering democracy date only happens. if we let it happen without using the 14th.
Thank You all and may God bless the American spirit.
Citizen-private first-class in the cyber war we have been in
12/13/24 :
PREPARE TO BE RULED IN THE NEW UNTIED STATES OF TRUMPLANDIA
We lost the popular vote. That tells me that more than 50% of our countrymen have succumbed the cancer of Trumpism. In a human body, 20% cancer cells is way too much to bear. The situation for our body politic is dire, to say the least. Hitler had 25% less people behind him on his day one, than Trump does now. (source: Dan Simon‘s brilliant piece )
Losing the popular vote will give these fascists the chutzpah to say they can do whatever they want. The alliances that those who don’t wish to be ruled by a fascist elite mob should be making right now are not with dems, but with the people who voted for Trump. Many are beginning to see they made a mistake. It’s no small percentage of people. I speak to many Trump voters who already know he’s not going to do much of anything to help them in their own lives.
Do some Google searching about Google searches. Things could change. We need someone brave enough to start the ball rolling. It cannot be Harris, of course. I wonder why it is not Jack Smith, sometimes.
Where have you gone, Jack Smith? A nation turns its weary eyes to you.
Jack Smith seemed like the guy who was not afraid to go on the offensive versus Trump. Did they get to him too? Doesn’t feel like anytime someone wants to uncover the real political truth, they suddenly surrender as if they were never that serious to begin with? That’s what makes people think all politics is dirty, and just back away from it all.
So I’d like to add Jack Smith to my list of cop-outs if he does not fully release all he knows about Trump’s crimes for his New Years Resolution. I wish Jack Smith find the courage of Michael Cohen, and just do what is right. Where is our Joe DiMaggio?
I am a mere citizen who had some contact with Trump in my younger days, but that was enough to inform me that 100% Donnie has been compromised by his intellectual superior, Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump simply does not have the kind of soul that can get close to another man with more power that he has, and not want to learn how to attain that power himself. His role model used to be his father, now it’s dictators, – not that there was that much of a difference. Why? With no allegiance to anyone but self, Trump’s life is empty without the adventurous scenes he creates in his mind. He was ripe for the picking.
I am sure Smith knows Trump has been compromised. We cannot have a compromised US president. There is too much to lose here. Smith can do a lot to start the ball rolling to save this country before it is too late. If J6 began their insurrection, J20 is their victory day. Do not surrender in advance.
And can someone open a government hot-line for MAGA voters who have been already turned off by Trump’s cabinet picks which includes sex traffickers ex-cons and relatives, – and sometimes the ex-cons are relatives? These people can be talked back into reality, especially after the cabinets picks. I called for this in June, but it fell of deaf ears. Everything we ever needed to keep America a free country has been posted in my blogs since 2016. I am not surrendering. But I will get off Twitter soon. Resistance is going to have to go underground soon. It’s not a good sign.
Putin’s war vs democracy began in 2016 with help to get Trump elected. His plan is working, – not only here, but now in Hungary, and today Trudeau said her would step down in Canada. Country by country, Putin is getting his way to become autocrat of the world. This will not end well.
I got to thinking about the most notorious leaders in today’s dictatorships: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, King and Mohammed bin Salmon of Saudi Arabia, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, and China’s Xi Jinping. Not one of them are stupid enough to be caught saying I grab women by the p*ssy because I’m a star and they let me do it. Trump’s total lack of class or dignity stands alone, even among despots. Sometimes his immature verbal potty mouth is touted by media as an attribute for his “fans”.
Access Hollywood was arguably the biggest gaff in presidential election history and it bounced off Trump like water off a duck’s back. People began to say in flyover over country they liked this locker room talk stuff – so it was a good thing for Trump. But that’s too easy. There is more to understand. Sloughing it off on Trump’s garish style truly misses the mark.
Americans have endured eight years of Republicans fighting with Democrats during our first not-pure-white president’s terms; then four years of a president who never thought a day in his life about serving anyone but his own self; then covid; then inflation, finally leaving us with high interest rates in a nation with too many debtors. Americans have gripes. Both sides. And to make matters worse, all of these crises are left to be dealt with by a seemingly intentional do-nothing Congress.
This is why the flyover country developed an appetite for a guy like Trump in the first place. It was not about trash talk and Trump’s divisive American vs. American hate speech. Many people were just weary and sick of the people in Washington DC for years of ignoring their needs and taxing them in so many ways, while giving back the bare minimum.
The vampires in DC are skimming our common wealth. It is corruption. That was the first gripe of middle America. It is still a valid gripe. The meme is: all politicians are corrupt so what is the difference? We hear of the Big Lie. Well this is the Big Gripe. It stretches back to the Reagan meme that the government is the enemy. It is why Biden does not get credit for being a better man and president than Trump.
And the corruption exists on both sides. We all know politicians – no need to mention names – whose family members reap benefits from advance knowledge of government dealings. That is corruption, and to make it legal is to day its is okay to be corrupt and that fuels an appetite for a new kind of politician – which Biden is not. Trump, in many ways, just does the quiet part of corruption out loud. In some ways, it’s less sneaky than what Biden does.
We have endured about forty years of government officials governing by the greed is good mantra. MAGA folks were unified in one thing; hating the people in our government, and the way government treats them. They wanted something that felt like change. Trump gave them that hope. But he had four years to drain the swamp, and instead it just got swampier.
Polls tell us the Democrats want change too. I do.I was one of the first to recognize Trump was allied with Russia because I knew him from AC NJ, and there was a Russian mob component active there in that “carney” town in the 80s. He fell in love with Putin during the Miss World pageants in Moscow. Everyone who knew him knew that. Atlantic City is a small town. Everyone knew what Donnie was up to.
2024 presents voters with the starkest contrast between two agendas since the Civil War. Biden is trying to preserve the functioning of the institution of free and fair elections – of people deciding who should make the laws we all must agree to live by. Trump is fighting for his life to stay out of jail, and says he will create an agenda to run America a new way. But most Americans know he is running to keep himself and his family out of jail for life.
I stand with the MAGA people on their complaint that we need a change. Most Americans do. My big gripe against the “establishment” is interest rates. Contrary to the FED, high rates will not curb inflation this time around. This is not the 70s. In the 70s people had almost no credit card debt. Credit cards were relatively new back then. Many owned their homes with VA loans post WW2.
This time, higher rates are raising financial pressure on working people by causing higher prices. The price of money, in a nation that is living week to week, causes the inflation high rates are advertised to curb. High rates favor those that have the money to lend. Landlords must raise rents to pay off their loans; and mortgages and college loan costs take up much more of a family’s income these days. It feels like a plot to destroy the middle class to me. Same thing the new American oligarchs will do if we elect Trump. Soon, banks will be foreclosing on properties due to these high rates.
SO yea, I have my gripes against the way the US government favors corporations over working people. That however does not cloud my assessment of Donald Trump. I know him too well to believe he cares about anyone but himself.
Economic justice should count as much as criminal justice; in fact more so because criminal behavior involves a small percentage of Americans, while economic justice involves us all. So, equal justice under the law is basically a lie. The word tax is a form of the word take. If a billionaire pays a lower tax rate than a working person, how is that equal justice under the law?
It’s not the institutions themselves that Americans disrespect. No one is going around saying free and fair elections is a bad idea. What we are all saying is that the people in government don’t work for us much anymore. And the the voices of the fully honest politicans are drowned out by the chorus of corruption that has existed in DC since anyone living can remember.
We know there is a better way. It starts with ending corruption. It does not start with making a president immune from criminal prosecution. The way out of this mess is to make Americans proud of the people in their government again. That begins with qualifications for holding office being upped and careful vetting of any candidates financial ties and past work ethics and experience. That cannot begin with a more authoritarian government.
We must never forget one of Trump’s first acts as president was to lower corporate taxes, which forces working people to shoulder a larger percentage of the expense to run a government.
Biden can function fine as the gateway to a new America. Unlike Trump, he knows he is mortal and takes pride in trying to turn the wheels of government over to a new generation. Then it will be up to the new generation to fix what is broken for working people in this country.
I do think Biden needs to grow a pair, as they say. Leaving Merrick Garland in as AG is something no real Americans respect. He’s done a lousy job prosecuting government corruption. Trump will not be tried for the crimes against this country before Novemeber. The biggest crime in US history was filmed live on January 6th. If the man Biden has in the position to see justice done for that crime cannot bring about a trial in three years, he needed to be fired. I ask all people who love this country to find a way to complian loudly about Merricak Garland staying on as our AG.
Trump knew how to fire people at least. Yes, for the wrong reasons, but he knew how to do it. Biden seems not to be able to fire anybody for the right reasons. All we can do now is hope the sheer unchristian ugliness of the Trump, his alies – domestic and foreign, and the spewing of their hateful, vengeful, divisive words will get Americans to wake up when it counts the most, in November.
Joe Biden took over a real mess in our State Department. Donald Trump only wanted loyalists to hold offices in his administration. Experience, knowledge and skills were not valued by forty-five, unless those attributes were accompanied with heavy doses of loyalty to whatever Trump wanted for whatever reasons.
In one year, Joe Biden has got our State Department functioning back close to the way it used to be – and just in time for the biggest challenge the world has seen since WW2. We have another madman in charge of a large war machine and he’s attacking a sovereign democracy and threatening nukes. Not one person on earth in their right mind likes being this situation. And yet it persists.
Biden quickly put heavy financial sanctions on Russia and their top oligarchs, including Putin. He also got NATO countries to join him in these sanctions. So far, Putin is not blinking.
Biden spoke with Xi of China this week, and Chi does not seem to want to help Russia, but so far, he is still buying Russian oil and is not sanctioning Putin. ‘Assertions that China knew about, acquiesced to, or tacitly supported this war are pure disinformation,’ wrote Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the United States in the Washington Post. ‘Had China known about the imminent crisis, we would have tried our best to prevent it.’
If Joe Biden could convince Xi to take a hard stance vs Putin, my sense is that would quickly be too much for Putin to survive. But I do think Xi has good reasons to take a hard stance vs Putin. Let me unwind this a bit.
There are only really two superpowers on planet Earth today – the USA and China. While the U.S. ranks as the world’s largest economy with a GDP of $23 trillion, Russia’s GDP comes in at $1.48 trillion. Russia takes up the most space, but its entire economy is about the same size as Texas’s. And there are logical reasons for that clear underperformance. Russia has become an incompetent uncaring oligarchy over the last 20 years of Vladimir Putin’s reign. Just imagine what would have happened to America had Trump stayed on as president for twenty years. Installing loyal cronies while ousting objective educated experts would take a heavy toll on any administration.
Now let’s analyze the performance of Xi of China. The Chinese presidency is officially regarded as an institution of the state rather than an administrative post; Under the Chinese constitution, the president serves at the pleasure of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the highest organ of state power and the legislature, and is not legally vested to take executive action on his own prerogative. But Xi Jinping has been the president of the only party in China with any real power for about 10 years now. In that position, whatever Xi says goes, if he really wants it that way.
But China has done a remarkable job with its economy under Xi Jinping – especially when compared with Russia. China’s economy totaled about $18 trillion in 2021 on export manufacturing growth and capital for new projects. China is the world’s 2nd largest economy now – and its basically a one-party capitalistic communist government.
USA and CHINA GDPs trending UP , while RUSSIAN GDP trends DOWN
Can Joe Biden ask Xi Jinping to not only castigate Putin with words from his Ambassador, but also get China to sanction Russia? I think so. The first argument I would use ( privately) is Vladimir Putin gives autocracy a bad name. After all, Xi Jinping is the top dog in the supreme powerful National People’s Congress of China. What he says goes. And yet, Xi’s governance has done so well over the last 10 years it’s hard to fault the Chinese for their system of governing over one billion people. Xi Jinping wants the world to know that one party rule can work out if the people at the top have the best interest of the country at heart. (It’s always all about the hearts of our “rulers”. )
The second argument to end Putin’s Folly is for the safety of all the people on the world. A wounded maniac with nukes can ruin Xi’s plans for the economic growth of China too. It’s not that far of a stretch to imagine human civilization being destroyed in a few days of nuclear exchanges. Some scholars think there is a 10% chance of a hot nuclear war this year.
Putin Has Created a Teaching Moment We Should Not Ignore
And that brings me to another reason to forge an alliance with Xi Jinping and China. Suppose we try pull a magic rabbit out of the hat this madman in Russia has us staring at? Ideally, it should. I think Putin’s Folly has created a global teaching moment large enough for a smart US president to request an alliance with Xi Jinping not only to sanction Russia, but to begin to disarm ourselves of all nuclear and biological weapons.
I am not going to pretend to know exactly how many nukes every nuclear country has and how to arrange and schedule their terminations and verify all are in compliance with this theoretical disarmament proposal . But a quick Google search shows about 1550 nukes for the USA, 1650 for Russia, 350 for China, 300 for France and 250 for the UK. I’d like to see those weapons dismantled at a rate of about 10% per year.
That gets the world to a survivable space in eight to ten years in the event of even an accidental nuclear war. If Joe Biden can forge an alliance with China using Putin’s irrational Ukrainian war of choice as the initiative, his madmen with a nuke status as the pressing need, Xi’s personal goals for Chinese GDP growth as the sugar – I think he’d soon be regarded as the greatest presidential diplomat of all time.
And it seems to be in Joe Biden to be that international diplomat. He’s done so well the European NATO country leaders. If he can do that with China, it will mark the end of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. This is the win win the entire world really needs right now. We need to get past this moment, then work ensure that there are not more moments like this in the near future and then use these new alliances to address the real problems on earth for its 7 billion people: climate change and the degradations in the standards of living for the majority of people everywhere.
(4 min ) If there was anything missing from Biden’s fiery Labor Day speech in was this visual. If our president is finally trying to reach people lost in right-wing information silos, kudos. But he needs to use techniques perfected by ad agencies: images, branding and repitition – to be most effective.
Look at the map. Red is autocracy; yellow is democracy; orange is democracy under attack. There are more people ruled by autocrats than governed by democracies. There is more land held by autocrats as well. And let’s face it, autocratic rule has been the norm on planet earth since the city-states of Babylon – 8000 years and going. Democracy is the newcomer in this struggle. If it were not for the USA’s nuclear arsenal and military superiority, I dare say the autocrats would have taken the entire planet by now. That is the autocrats’ goal, more so now than ever before. (The internet has something to do with that.)
The map was more yellow (democratic government) only five years ago. Brazil, Turkey, and Hungary have effectively flipped without shots being fired. Their governments went from democratic to oligarchal autocracy via their own people unwittingly voting in the oligarchs, much like we did here in the USA with Trump. And though Trump is on the ropes, American democracy’s functionality is still under attack by most GOP Congressmen. This phenomenon is global. Social media companies and soldout corporate media are fueling this fire … for profit.
Putin’s military aggression towards Ukraine is part of a grand plan. Putin knew he could not beat the USA with bombs. So he employed thousands of Russians to infiltrate our social media in 2016. There were Russian nationals present at the 2016 GOP Convention. And now, as we approach midterms, that alliance of the GOP and autocracies have midterm candidates who have openly said they will overturn democracy – the will of the people – if they don’t win.
The 14th Amendment Section 3 clearly says no one who was in an insurrection – or even comforts an insurrection can be in government, state, federal or judicial. The issue with the amendment seems to be that the last sentence says they can be removed by a 2/3 vote in Congress. But they did not anticipate that 50% of Congress would some day be insurrection supporters. I’ve long said a those who will not openly disavow the Big Lie and speak openly against the insurectionists do not deserve a vote in their own trial by 2/3 Congress. Where in law do we allow accused crminals to sit on their own juries?
The current United States administration, along with NATO countries, Australia and the other few remaining democratic countries rightly figure Putin’s grand plan is to help take the entire planet for the autocrats. That is the only way dictators can survive long term.
And make no mistake about who is the alpha-male in this brotherhood of dictators. That station is always taken by the most powerful in the group, just as it is with wolves. And though Russia is not a large force financially, Putin himself is worth hundreds of billions by virtue of him seizing the largest businesses in Russia. Putin’s vast wealth was one of the prime reasons candidate Trump never said one bad word about him.
And of course, after Trump won the 2016 election with much help from his Russian ally, Putin made it clear there was a debt due him. That’s how financial criminals operate. Financial criminals know they can totally escape prosecution by seizing their government. Payback due Putin, and possibly others, is the most logical reason Trump took top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago. I hope the DOJ knows that. Trump knew the risks. He knows what happened to the Rosenbergs. He does not need money so badly to risk his life or freedom. It figures he iisin a pinch, the way Manafort was when he did his crimes. it figures that Donald Trump was compromised and had classified documents. Trumpism is a national security issue now. It always was. The Biden administration knows it now. Good. Much better late than never.
The Russian Mob from the 80’s
I had business in Atlantic City New Jersey in the 80’s and became aware of an association of people known as The Russian Mob. Trump had many associates with Russian accents introduced to him by his first wife, Ivana. Some of them became my clients. Melania Knoss (Trump ) eventually became a client too.
The Russian mob had their fingers into basic crimes like store robberies, truck heists and, in time, they moved up the ladder into real estate fraud. Russian mob profits and booty were mostly taken back to the countries they came from. The Russian mob players were here in the USA to pillage, much like the Vikings did a thousand years ago. Most people don’t know that the first Russian king was a Swedish Viking named Rurik. (862 AD) . The lineage of the kings and queens of England also began with Vikings. William the Conqueror was from Normandy, France, but his grandfather was a Viking who was given Normnady by French aristocrats so he would not seige Paris. Vikings were rightfully feared. When they toolk a country, the killed the ruling men and forceably took their wives and children.
Autocrats are money launderers in their own ways. They need cooperation from foreign governments to provide safe harbor for their stolen booty because the people being robbed are citizens of their own country. That’s why Russian oligarchs own real estate in New York. They are keeping those assets safe, just in case the people ever regain power in mother Russia. And vice-versa. That’s also why Trump owns hotels in Turkey, and why his banks are rarely American. It’s why we use financial sanctions of autocratic rulers when they get out of hand. There is an informal association of autocrats based on their common goals. I call it “Dictators United”.
The Internet Changed Everything for Autocrats
In 1996, the internet began connecting the world at a blinding speed. I’m old enough to remember something called “The Iron Curtain”. This was a physical and communicative wall placed between the USSR and the NATO counties of Europe. The Berlin wall was part of that Iron Curtain.
Autocrats prefer their people be kept blind to the status of citizens in countries that offer a better standard of living for their citizens. People cannot seek better, if they don’t know better exists elsewhere. The internet has made keeping people blind to the status us other countries nearly impossible – though Russia, China and North Korea still do quite well at it.
Joe Biden’s speech on September 1 2022, finally made it clear that he knows what’s at stake. It’s six years late, but there is still time to save our democracy. ( I had wished Obama had made this speech at “Russia, if you’re listening”. )
But words alone are not remembered easily. That’s why advertisers use images and jingles to keep their products easily recallable. It’s the coordination of two senses that forges a pathway for better memory. Lyrics without a tune don’t stick in the brain. And words without an image are easily forgotten.
So if there’s one thing I want the Biden administration to do with all the blogs I have written over the last six years, it’s SHOW THE MAP. Fear is a great motivator. We need to feel afraid – as we did in WW2. US voters will know what’s at stake – at last – once they see that map over and over again. And yes, this will stick with MAGA voters that have not got totally lost in the rabbit hole of misinformation. Recreate the map if need be. Many don’t know what autocracy means – but everyone can identify with a Risk board.
Autocrats want America to go fascist more than any other country. Look at the map again. If the USA flips, they will roll over the rest of the world quickly and easily. Putin is trying to show the other dictators this strategy right now in Ukraine. He must be stopped. Trump must be stopped. None of this will change until they these two men are stopped.
That’s all I wanted to say today. SCOTUS Justice wife, Ginny Thomas, recently said “there are no rules in war”. We must recognize we are at war. The enemies of democracy are playing for keeps, as if this was a war. If we fail to do the same, I cannot yet imagine how the USA will still be a functional democracy after 2024. Time is not on our side. Midterms must be about democracy first.
Delay Is Not a Friend in the Cyber War Being Waged Against Democracy
Time is not a friend when fighting metastatic enemies.
Strategies to Defeat Trumpism Before Midterm Campaigns Take Root
Midterm campaigning will begin early in 2022. If Trump is not been indicted by by mid-July, he will remain the assumed leader of the GOP. Trump will then set the norms and talking points for GOP midterm candidates and the Big Lie and slow-moving coup attempts will continue through the midterms.
Why Timing Trump’s Indictment Matters
If Trump is indicted before July, it is possible that DeSantis will jockey himself to the front of the GOP power struggle. The timely indictment of Donald Trump will function like a grenade tossed into the GOP foxhole. A surprise early indictment will force the GOP to at least examine the idea of choosing other leaders to head the party during midterms. That then offers the real potential to end Trumpism before midterms. Indicting Trump no later than July is the easiest way to end Trumpism without an election or new laws. An un-indicted Trump will serve to further normalize Trumpism and distrust of the election results of the 2022 midterms, and chaos will be free to reign in 2022.
An un-indicted Trump will also serve to divide the Democrat Party during the midterms. We’ve just about had it. It’s getting to the point that many dems think Biden and his DOJ are either not up to the task or in on the status quo. The real reason Joe Biden’s polls are down is that after one full year there are no substantial indictments in the globally televised coup vs. the US democracy.
We must hold Biden responsible for the actions or inactions of his AG. By not indicting Trump by February, Biden will be strategically complicit in dividing the pro-democracy party and unifying the pro-fascist party. How is that supposed to work out for we the people?
Recognize Your Enemies and Defend Accordingly
About six years ago, candidate Donald Trump asked openly asked Putin to help get him elected. “Russia, if you’re listening” was a tell. Trump had to know Putin was listening to say that. There would have been no reason to even bring up Russia unless he was actively signaling an ally. No side of the American electorate likes Russia. Trump had a reason to say those words and only one reason makes sense. I called it an act of treason because inviting a foreign enemy to take part on our elections should have been viewed as an invitation to attack our most sacred institution. That’s treason. Benedict Arnold treason. Allying with our enemies to destroy and institution (fair elections ) is treason. The GOP is the party of treason now.
And there were Russian nationals at the GOP Convention in 2016. That means Putin was effectively there. And that means some sort of alliance was formed with other GOP in Congress. We saw it play out in the 2016 election with Russian disinformation campaigns, a phrase that was basically unknown until 2016.
I posted a democracy vs autocracy map (below) shortly after that statement. Joe Biden finally got around to stating that the world is deciding which form of government will prevail in the 21st century. Biden knows the stakes. But if he does not act as if he is at war, (cyber war is a war of words not bombs) the enemies of democracy will prevail even though their conventional war efforts could never be successful. That is Putin’s genius. I wrote about it here.
I still believe our Department of Defense should defend vs attacks on elections as they take an oath to defend our nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The DOD has an intel department. Why are they not even asked to help on the Jan6 Committee investigation into an attempted coup?
The Jan6 Committee should immediately ask DOD intel to join the effort to get to the full truth on the Jan6 coup attempt. It will inform all Americans – and our own internal enemies of democracy – that we are serious abo0ut defending free and fair elections in the United States. If DOD intel coud help with Jan6, even on the perimeters, it sends the message to the Big Lie supporters in Congress that attempting another coup is not such a good idea.
Why am I the only one showing this map? Pictures speak louder than words, especially these days. People may not know what autocracy means. But we all know what a RISK board looks like. I am asking Biden, Pelosi and democracy friendly media to amplify a version of this map ASAP.
Bust the Filibuster
Harry Reid first invoked the nuclear option November 2013, when the Democratic Senate Democratic used the procedure to eliminate the 60-vote rule for presidential nominations, other than nominations to the Supreme Court. In his honor, Democrats should unify to bust the Filibuster so that progress can be made for the American in our intentionally dysfunctional Congress.
Democrats should also know this. The right-wing base unified behind Trump because they felt ignored by both sides of Congress for years. Fly-over country was indeed ignored by Congress which has been functionally sold out to corporations since Reaganomics. Ask yourself this simple question. How is it that the billionaires and corporations who made most of the financial gains during the pandemic – while the working class struggled – still pay the least percentage of taxes to our government? This is evidence of corruption at work – and the citizens on both sides know it.
If Coingress (misspelled intentionally ) remains stalemated and dysfunctional in early 2022, it will create room for a new party to emerge. Vegas now says there is a 7% chance a third party could win the 2024 election. You can bet real money on it. Perhaps a new US labor party could be restarted here in the USA.
Busting the Filibuster is not new. Democrats did it first. Democrats should know if the GOP regains power they will bust the Filibuster to bust our democracy. How ridiculous that will be. Democrats would have created the tool and then allowed the enemies of democracy use said the tool they created to destroy the United States as we know it.
Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or Use the 14th Amendment
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is designed to set standards for fair elections that states cannot ignore national contests. We clearly need some form of regulation to ensure the midterms and the 2024 elections are fair and the results accepted by the American people at large. I hope they pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but it’s going to require a united Democrat party and that is not how things are due to Manchin and Sinema.
The 14th Amendment was created after the Civil War exactly for times like these. I’m tired of hearing lawyers tell me “it has no enforcing mechanism built into it and so has no teeth”. Can I remind such wusses that the 2nd Amendment clearly states gun ownership is a right “in order to maintain a well-functioning militia”. The GOP does did let a few words stand in their way. They’ve essentially let teenagers carry AK-15’s and fire them into crowds. They sell that amendment to the hilt and ignore its enabling clause. And once they had their base behind the idea of gun rights as constitutional right, it became a reason to vote GOP. We can create memes that get citizens to vote too.
This is the 14th Amendment, verbatim:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. …………….
But Donald Trump is not currently in Congress. He does not have to be voted out. And those secretary of state candidates who are Big Lie supporters and insurrection comforters are also disqualified by this constitutional amendment. Why on earth am I – a citizen with no real connection to government – the only one who sees the 14th Amendment for how it reads? Why does not out AG declare that those who support the Big Lie cannot run for office? Take that to the Supreme Court if need be. Because if it is okay to do that, then this place we call a democracy is doomed to fail. If we cannot pass new laws, we can use the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution to defend our elections.
And you know who respects the constitution the most? Trump’s base! So frankly, I think it’s better than the John Lewis Voting Rights Act ( John Lewis is not a hero to racists ) to defend democracy. Section 1 of the 14th states: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Does someone want to tell me how making voting harder for select groups is not abridging a privilege of citizenship?
We will soon know if Congress, Joe Biden, Merritt Garland and our DOD are up to the task of defending democracy. If I see neither Donald Trump indicted nor voting rights protected by new laws or the 14th Amendment by Feb 15th , I will conclude the democrats are okay with the status quo. This citizen, who voted for Biden in 2020, will then be looking for new people to support in the midterms and beyond.
Odds We Lose The Democracy in 2024 are Posted in Vegas – sort of.
There is a 42% chance we lose the democracy in 2024 according to Vegas pollsters. Let that sink in. And since Vegas takes money on bets, they have this number more correctly than most politicians. That’s 3 out of 7. It’s like a we are in the World Series down to our last game and winner takes all. Of course, all Vegas is saying is the GOP has a 42% chance of winning the POTUS election in 2024. But come on. With this GOP – that would mean democracy has died here. And Trump is the favorite to be the 2024 candidate, still. A 42% chance of having Donald Trump be president again is what Garland is riskingby not being pro-active. That’s a gamble no American shoul dbe willing to take.
All That Changes If We Indict Trump Before Campaign Season
We need a war room. Our enemies have war rooms. They know they are fighting WW3 with cyber weapons – words and laws. Biden’s AG must indict Trump soon. Summer will be way too late. We have the power to stop this now, but that power will wane dramatically if we lose seats in the midterms. And the GOP are willing to cheat to win because the guy who is in charge of the GOP spent a liftetime cheating to win. He gets off on cheating to win. Trump would rather win by cheating than win fair and square. Fair and square seems dumb to Donny.
Let me end this rant with a link to an article I found yesterday online. Germany already learned their lesson about allowing hate speech. I fear we will have to lose all to learn that lesson – and then it will be too late. 42% is not good enough for me.
It bodes well for 2022 that Omicron spreads fast but is not as deadly as Delta. This is the virus figuring out its own best path to survive. It’s learning to co-exist with humans to some degree. Many vax resisters are figuring out it’s to their own advantage to get that free vax or booster. When people stop crowding the hospitals, the crisis will wane and Spring 2022 should feel like spring at last. All this makes 2022 potentially the best year in a long while for Americans and a good year to be ambitious. *
*The words “ambitious” and “ambulance” share a root. They both have to do with urgent motion. 2022 can be a good year for momentous and ambitious projects.
the Etymologist ( in me )
The year 2021 can be viewed as a beginning for ambitious projects in the USA. We convicted two policemen, Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter. There used to be a protective shield that guarded police from prosecution. We took that shield away in 2021. And they were found guilty in a Trump state because a jury of people in that Trump state chose to speak truth to power. It tells me that Americans, right and left, are sick of letting the powerful run over us.
My wish for 2022 is that we continue to trust what we see with our eyes and speak truth to the powerful criminals that have long been entrenched in our government. It won’t be easy because government officials makes the laws and rules. But like Chauvin and Potter, we the people have seen their crimes and we can do it.
We Need More than Words from Biden and the DOJ
If Garland does not start prosecuting the criminals in our government, we will need to get out in the streets and demand it. The activist phase can wait for the holidays to pass and for the pandemic to peak which is supposed to be in January. But midterms dictate we can not wait further than mid- February to see indictments of the higher ups involved in the televised January 6th insurrection. In terms of a crime, we all saw the most egregious crime ever committed in US history on that day. If Jan6 had been successful, we would have lost what we fought to protect in both world wars. No robbery or mass shooting could have done more damage to America than what was attempted on Jan 6, 2020.
Sadly, if DOJ indictments of higher ups do not start by mid-February , it will be time to campaign against Biden/Garland and Trump – at the same time! There will be an opening for someone or some team to unify the right and left in a campaign to exact justice from the corrupt wherever they are found. The GOP clearly has no desire to clean up the corruption in government. They will plead the 5th and hope to deny justice by delaying it and fixing the 2022 midterms. But it is possible the Democrats in Congress also do not want accountabilty. They may have skeletons in their own closets. We will know soon. An independent effort or party may be necessary if the Democrats don’t show us they mean business by mid-February.
14th Amendment sec 3 – Google it
As written, the 14th Amendment sec 3 precludes Trump and any Big Lie supporters from running for office, especially if they are not already on office. That includes those secretaries of states that are being chosen for loyalty to Trump and the Big Lie. If candidates have even comforted insurrectionists, they are disqualified via the 14th. That creates a window to protect democracy without new laws. And again, since Congress has the power to makes new laws, or stall them forever, if Biden and Garland are in that “we in Congress are above the fray” fraternity, we will need to do this ourselves.
The Far-right Base was the Canary in the Coal Mine
The right base has long known there is a corruption problem with government officials. They were being ignored in fly-over country both by Democrats and Republicans in office. Donald Trump, a life-long charlatan and grifter, made believe he cared about their issues and fooled them into voting for him and even sending the Trumps their hard-earned money. It’s time to forgive the decent among the Trump base and work with them to make the United States better for all of us. I think they will be okay with it, if we address this properly.
Both sides now recognize we are treated like cattle by big businesses when they put their profits over the people that they serve. The door is wide open for someone to unify the right and left on speaking truth to power in business, government and wherever injustice and corruption exists. That’s the ticket for 2022. Whoever figures this strategy out will win the midterms.
The corrupt within our government are going to put up a fight in 2022. We must not waver. We will soon know if Biden is up to this task. We like Joe as a person. But we’ll need to see action – not just words – soon. Biden is on notice now. Rest assured, Joe Biden will see this post*. And Joe should know the real reason his polls are down is because a substantial number od Democrats think he is not up to the task of indicting Donald Trump and his cronies. He could not be at a 43% approval rating if he had all of the Democrats’ approval.
Finally, we will need to speak truth to one of the greatest powers on planet earth – Mother Nature. Both sides have witnessed first-hand what ignoring climate change can do. But to address that problem, we have to get the sold-out among the politicians that run our government out of power. We may need a new team with a new agenda to do that. We will know that by February.
We must also stop fighting among ourselves and be very suspect of those that encourage that division. Without togetherness, no country can survive.
Joe Biden says Build Back Better. I think the next big meme needs to be Build Back Together.
Joseph Aronesty
I have emailed this to the White House and to many others in government. Post this to your social media and amplify this message. I don’t care who you voted for in 2016. Together we can do this. Thank You.
When Donald Trump asked if he could meet with the Taliban at Camp David, he certainly did not want to talk them off their radical stances. He was looking to enroll them to do some violence for his own causes. That’s how he rolls. But though that meeting did not happen, Donald found other terrorists he could inspire right here in the USA to do his dirty work – his MAGA base. Now he is telling his base August is a time he will be re-instated.
Trump is clearly signaling his base to act out in August and if some heads roll that will be fine with him too. We have to ask ourselves how we would react if in Laden had said these words. Flynn said the base should overthrow the government as in Myanmar too. These words cannot go unpunished. Note that Trump’s base is armed with many more AR’s than the good people of this country who don’t define themselves by the number of guns they own. Trump is no longer just a threat to democracy. Trumpism, the GOP and Donald Trump are threats to the lives of “we the people”.
My father and many others offered their lives up in WW2 to protect this country from would-be dictators. If we don’t act now, while we have the power, what was that sacrifice for? The proper strategy is to escalate the January 6th investigation to the FBI and the military intelligence and reach some conclusions before August. The truth should find light in 60 days.
When we find the the higher up players that aided or comforted the mob, we must treat this like a foreign attack. We will need to march the GOP involved from their desks to the House jail.
We can be on the losing end or the winning end of this war. But please don’t expect Congress to be the heroes. Congress is infected. The cancer of Trumpism has metastasized to those in the Congress. The 14th amendment was created in 1866 to protect the country against what we are seeing right now. It’s like they knew it would happen this way.
The pushback against Trumpism will be up to four main groups. Our military intelligence, justice department, the media and we the people. Trump just leaked the plan, just as he hid when he said “Russia, if you’re listening”. But we did not consider than a form of treason, as we should have. Remember, the dodo bird went extinct because it could not recognize its enemies.
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Below are links to three very important posts. The first is about the 14th Amendment. The second is an early warning about Trump’s agenda and the Espionage Act. The third is about when Trump fired Esper and what that meant.
We Cut Out the Largest Tumor. Now Over Forty State GOP Chapters are Changing Voting Laws in an Attempt to End Democracy in the USA
The voter suppression laws being promoted by the GOP will not stop until their promoters are defeated, penalized and, in appropriate cases, jailed. There is clearly legal support in the 14th Amendment of our Constitution for removing lawmakers who support voter suppression and/or insurrection.
When Joe Biden said this was a struggle between autocracy and democracy, he was correct. And it’s about time. The struggle was evident at “Russia, if you’re listening.” The autocracy vs. democracy struggle is not unique to America. Autocrats know their own people suffer under their iron fists, and they look towards the democracies of the world for hope. That hope is a threat to the autocrats. Their ultimate goal is to end democracy everywhere and squash that hope. Look at this 2020 map and see how delicate the power balance in the world is right now. If the USA flips, democracy ends on the planet.
There are dark money alliances who fully believe they get ahead best by causing economic hardship for others. These dark forces have learned they can take power and hold it by dividing public opinion. They’ve aligned with our most ruthless American “businessmen” at the GOP Convention in 2016. They rallied behind Donald Trump, who now has the dirt on them all. They are fully committed to keeping the USA divided so their agendas advance at the expense of our collective needs.
American Democracy’s Enemies are More Domestic than Foreign Now
The American democracy’s enemies are more domestic than foreign now. Look how sick that statement reads on paper. But today, it’s 100% true. When a foreign entity attacks our lands and structures, we call it an act of war. If US citizens aid our enemies during war, we call it treason. But when citizens aid and abet enemies in cyber war, it gets treated at best like a white collar crime. What’s needed is a bill that makes attacking our institutions, like democracy and voting rights – an act of war. We can broaden the definition* of act of war to include acts of cyber war when such acts assault our institutions. That makes an attempt at voter suppression or at election fixing – an act of (cyber) war and treasonous. *The Constitution does not define what war is. It was assumed to be a military strike. Things have changed.
So we keep giving democracy’s enemies passes. Why is Louis DeJoy still Postmaster? Why are Roger Stone and Paul Manafort out walking free? These people participated in an attempt to overthrow the US government! No wonder the Governor of Georgia arrested a representative for knocking on a door. We let them get away with their crimes. They have no incentive to stop.
Start tapping phones and WhatsApp’s. Rules be damned. Our enemies certainly don’t respect our laws. Use Bush’s 911 terrorist act where the FBI could surveil phone calls.
Yes, we cut out the largest tumor, but it had already metastasized. Two hundred voter suppression laws are being discussed by local and state GOP chapters to end democracy for good in the USA. We must realize we are at war. Our enemies do. Start arresting those who attack our institutions, including those who create voter suppression laws. And for God’s sake, end the filibuster.
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The dictator map is not new at this blog. I have been posting this warning for 3 years now.
THE ENGLISH CODE 