Tag: midterms

If A Sitting President Can Deny or Delay the Outcome of an Election …


Something has changed in America, and pretending otherwise is no longer safe. If a sitting president can deny, delay, or obfuscate 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. Just like in a football game, there has to be an level playing field with the same rules for both teams in order for the true winner to gain the moral highground to take the reigns of government in a democracy.


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 democracy, or prepare a constitutional, collective response. The publishing of said constitutional, collective response should be created now, well ahead of the midterms, so there is no chance of getting caught flat-footed in November.


One possibility is for the Democratic Governors Association — or a similar alliance of state leaders — to announce today that they are standing together to defend free and fair American elections. An Article Five–style pledge — “you come for one, you come for all” — would signal unity and strength. The purpose would be to prevent foul play and its resulting mayhem in November.

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, depends on citizens choosing representatives who argue and negotiate within agreed rules. Authoritarian systems do not operate that way.

The Founders wrote about “self-evident truths” for a reason. Evidence literally means from what is seen; video hides in the word evidence. And today’s polls reveal most Americans feel they have seen enough. With the midterms approaching, the question is not whether citizens should reject results they don’t like; they should not, of course. 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 totally different: that 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 enact their 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.

Common Sense 1776, Revisited for 2026

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.

Relevant Prior Post

A Call for a Union of Governors to Protect Citizens from Federal Overreach

Common Sense, Revisited

By 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.

Paine’s genius lay in his restraint. He did not rely on personal attacks or partisan loyalty. He appealed to reason, history, and human nature. His aim was not to inflame, but to prepare: to help Americans recognize patterns of power they might otherwise accept out of habit, fear, or fatigue.

The authority of the crown, Paine argued, depended less on force than on consent—consent given gradually, often unconsciously, in exchange for promises of stability and protection. Once citizens surrendered their judgment, resistance became not only difficult, but unthinkable.

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 personal 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. Power does not seek balance. It seeks continuance, expansion, and ultimately immunity from challenge. This eventuality is not so much a moral failing of individuals as a predictable feature of 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 the all-powerful.

In every age, those who seek extraordinary authority insist that the times demand it. Crisis becomes their justification. Disorder becomes their evidence. Conditions of instability are permitted—and sometimes encouraged—to argue that ordinary limits can no longer apply. What begins as a temporary measure soon hardens into habit, and habit, once accepted, becomes doctrine.

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 itself 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.

But power granted in exception is rarely surrendered voluntarily. Once a single figure becomes the symbol of national strength, any limit placed upon that figure is portrayed as a threat to the nation itself. Institutions designed to restrain authority are dismissed as obstacles. Laws are treated as inconveniences. Norms are mocked as naïve.

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.

The great error is not trusting leaders, but trusting them too much—trusting them with powers that no individual, however well-intentioned, can safely hold. Free societies are not preserved by faith in men, but by suspicion of unchecked authority. That suspicion is not cynicism; it is civic maturity.

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 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 judgment.

Once citizens accept that independent thinking is divisive or dangerous, they begin to outsource discernment. Assertions are valued over evidence. Confidence is mistaken for competence. Repetition replaces proof. The language of strength becomes more persuasive than the substance of truth.

At this stage, loyalty undergoes a quiet transformation. It no longer means fidelity to shared principles or constitutional limits, but allegiance to a person who claims to embody them. To question the individual is presented as an attack on the nation itself. This confusion—between country and ruler—has undone republics before, always with popular consent.

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 uncertainty. A population anxious about its footing becomes willing to trade liberty for reassurance, even when the reassurance is largely performative.

Those who resist this trade are often caricatured. They are labeled unrealistic, disloyal, or dangerous. In this way, caution is recast as cowardice, and submission as strength.

Another psychological comfort soon follows: identity. When political loyalty becomes personal, it also becomes tribal. Agreement signals belonging. Dissent risks exclusion. In such an environment, many suppress private doubts rather than endure public isolation. Silence multiplies, and the appearance of unanimity grows—not because conviction is universal, but because dissent has become costly.

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.

Over time, citizens who once insisted on limits begin to argue against them. Safeguards are dismissed as outdated. Independent institutions are accused of obstruction. The rule of law is reframed as an impediment to decisive action. What once protected liberty is now portrayed as its enemy.

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.

Yet history suggests a different lesson: that resignation, more than rebellion, is what entrenches personal rule.

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.

This tactic is effective because it reframes accountability as interference. Laws are no longer the expression of collective will, but impediments imposed by distant or unaccountable forces. Independent judgment is recast as sabotage. Expertise is treated as arrogance. In this environment, the erosion of institutional authority appears not as an attack on democracy, but as its defense.

Another method of hollowing 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 collapses asymmetrically. Faith in institutions declines, while faith in personal authority 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.

This sense of inevitability is carefully cultivated. Each broken convention is framed as a necessary response to unprecedented conditions. Each expansion of power is justified as an exception. The accumulation of exceptions is rarely acknowledged, and their permanence quietly assumed.

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. 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.

The responsibility of the citizen is not to idolize institutions, but to insist that they function as intended. Nor is it to place faith in individuals who promise relief from democratic strain. The strain is the point. It is evidence that power remains contested and accountable.

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.

Relevant Previous Posts

A Call for a Union of Governors to Protect Citizens from Federal Overreach

The Install JD Vance Via 25th Now Strategy

Send this letter to Republicans in Goverment in your state.

Amplify this letter . Post it in editorial news. On social media. Any way you can.

Dear Congressman ___________,

I am writing as a deeply concerned constituent. Much of what I am seeing and hearing from President Trump in his second term has shaken my confidence that our government is acting in the best interests of American families.

The President speaks about tariffs as if Americans do not pay for them. But we do — through higher grocery prices, higher household costs, and increasing financial strain. He ran on making life better at home. For many of us, life is not better, either economically or in terms of community safety.

I support lawful immigration enforcement and the removal of individuals who pose a real danger. What I do not support is profiling people based on accent or appearance, or policies that undermine basic due process. I am a Republican, and I am not a racist. These actions do not reflect American values.

I am also deeply troubled by the continued lack of transparency around the Epstein matter, and by repeated statements from the President that contradict publicly available facts. Trust in leadership depends on honesty, and that trust is eroding rapidly.

Foreign policy statements and actions have added to my concern. Talk of acquiring Greenland, strained relations with NATO allies, and unexplained financial dealings abroad project instability rather than strength. America is less respected internationally than it was, and that has real consequences for our security.

I believe our country is heading toward either severe political backlash in the midterms or a broader constitutional crisis. Neither outcome is good for the Republican Party or for the nation.

One action I have imagined is to use the 25th Amendment and install JD Vance before midterm campaigning begins. Just say based on a year of what Trump has said and done in his first year of 2.0 we deem Donald Trump is no longer fit to lead our great nation, our military and be our commander-in-chief. Call it dementia if you must. As I see it, it comes down to finding a way to reign Trump in – or replacing him.

I am asking you to take seriously the constitutional responsibilities of checks and balances. The world is becoming more dangerous, not safer, and our leadership should be reducing risk, not amplifying it. I want a future where my children, my neighbors, and yours are safer and more secure.

If meaningful steps are not taken to rein in these actions, I cannot continue to support candidates who refuse to uphold constitutional norms. I believe many Americans — across party lines — feel the same way.

Name

Address

Image below is for us. Do not share. 🙂

Donald Trump: An Executioner Deployed To Defeat Democracy World-Wide

1/7/26 Today a citizen, Renee Nicole Good , was killed in Minnesota in her car, trying not to get detained by ICE. She was no danger to ICE. You can watch the clip. Of course, Trump is lying about it. Always this way, since college, where I first knew him. See clip at Trump’s Untruths Social site:

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115855701696773990

This will not stop until Trump is removed from office by popular demand. It does not have to wait for 2028. We won’t last that long. Below is the way out.

Once again, I plead with the governors of blue states and any red states that want to honor the true miracle of America – to form a union – and refuse to allow ICE agents in their states without warrants, and refuse to collect tariffs in their ports until Congress approves tariffs . Those two actions ( not words ) will end Trumpism in two weeks. How? Popular demand. We will all notice together the prices dropping by refusing to collect tariffs, and the peace in our streets, and no one will want to go back.

…..

In Des Moines, Iowa, on July 3, 2025, Donald Trump said “I hate them” in reference to Democrats. During his speech, he said Democrats did not vote for his “Big Beautiful Bill” because “they hate Trump” and added, “I hate them, too”. 

For the record, Democrats did not vote for his bill because it does very little to help average working-class Americans, and favors the uber-wealthy. But with the words, “I hate Democrats” Donald Trump officially declared war on the Democratic Party which represents 53.5%* of the registered voters in the USA. (*Gallup poll June 2025) That means Trump has declared war on 53.5% of American citizens of voting age and more like 2 out of 3 if you count children.

Why we must now declare war vs. Trumpism, and strategies to keep it a cold war, is what follows. First some history.

Before 1776, ruling kings had been the standard way to govern countries for the previous 5000 years. Some kingdoms and autocracies autocracies have done well for its citizens, but they have been rare. Most exaggerate and perpetuate wealth gaps. They all create tiered societies wherein only those who are loyal to “the king” or dictator can move up the social ladder. For the vast majority living under autocratic rule, life becomes harder. The middle and lower classes are subjugated, thrown under. That’s why kings called their citizens, subjects.

Oligarchy is rule by one man and his chosen businessmen. Oligarchy is what Donald Trump is in the process of executing right in front of our own eyes. He admires men like Putin, MBS, and Xi because they get what they want. That has always been Donald Trump’s goal: to get what he wants. Whether it was women, money or power, that has been the life of Donald Trump since I knew him at age twenty at Wharton.

I chose the subject word executioner, because Donald Trump is not educated enough to be the architect of this plan to end American democracy. But, because he is heartless and willing to do or say anything to get his way, he is an ideal executioner of this plan, which began in foreign autocracies many years ago.

The road map to supplant democracy with autocracy in not new. It has been paved by other dictators in recent history. Germany was a democracy in 1932. More recently, Putin took Russia, a country that recently had become a democracy, back to an autocracy, which it had pre-1917 and back to the Middle Ages.

Look at this world map . If America succumbs turns red towards fascism, the rest of the world has no chance of staying democratic. The fascists will have the planet. That’s been the goal, especially since 1996, when the internet made instant communication between peoples across the planet much easier. Fascists don’t want their subjects aware how things fare a little better for citizens in democracies.

In 2016, before being chosen to be the GOP candidate, Donald Trump was just a businessman. But he had been in contact with Russia years before during his Miss World contests. In June of 2016, right after he was the Republican candidate, he said” Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you find the missing Hillary Clinton tapes.” That means he knew they were listening. There was no reason to bring up Russia at that point, unless he knew Russia was going to be a player in the election. And in the 2016 presidential election, Russia was, at the very least, a substantial player in social media campaigns designed to convince Americans that Hillary was evil, and a pedophile – of all things.

In 2016, Putin sold Trump on the idea of becoming the first king of America. Donald had no clue where to begin that potentially very dangerous journey. But Vladimir Putin had done it before, and in the largest country on Earth.

Putin was a disciple of Khrushchev. In the fifties Cold War Era, Nikita Khrushchev said, “we will defeat the United States without firing a single bullet.” When Obama did not indict Trump for asking for foreign help in our most sacred institution, our elections, foreign interference in elections became normalized. Obama, like Biden, grossly underestimated how determined Russia was to defeat the USA.

Donald Trump openly admired Putin and indeed got Russian election help. He owes Putin for life now. Putin makes sure Trump knows he would never have become president without his help. You’ll never see Trump cross Putin on Ukraine, or anything. Connect the dots. Trump is the side of the dictators for life now, whether he likes it or not. This all sums to the undeniable conclusion that we have a traitor in the White House who must do Putin’s bidding.

Take a good lo0k at that map again. The dictators and monarchs have the majority of the land and the majority of the people. Those in power can change the laws of democracy and we have a traitor to democracy as commander-in-chief. In effect, we have already lost this war. If we proceed as if all is normal, our democracy will be pronounced dead after midterms 2026. Democracy is not the favorite to survive this disease.

So now we must commit to a war against the Trump “regime” to regain our democracy. If we are afraid to fight back, if we are afraid to die for this cause, the planet’s five-thousand years of autocratic rule will resume.

I’d like you to listen to this YouTube from 2017, which you may have seen on the news. Putin is at a hockey game, about to go on the ice. A reporter asks why Trump fired James Comey. Putin answers in effect, “he is just following the laws of his country”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1NKWYepioA

That’s how fascists pull it off when they are successful at taking over a country. It’s not done with guns. Certainly not at first. They say they are “following the laws”. Once they get enoough laws on their side, they can and will proceed a little further down the military autocratic road.

Being a traitor to democracy is worse than being a traitor in a war. In a war, democracy is what we are fighting to preserve. Trump is already dismantling the agencies that keep our citizens and children safe from human predators and nature’s wrath. Germany banned their fascists from holding office post WW2, and they cited the American constitution, while doing so. The blue states should do the same now.

The fascist goal is to make life harder for every citizen in America who is not part of the oligarchy. If people who are not okay with that don’t speak up and practice peaceful civil disobedience, democracy’s demise is inevitable. If our state governors do not band together and declare we are at war with this iteration of Republican Party and protect its citizens from unconstitutional executive orders, Trumpism will prevail. Waiting or hoping for elections is a fool’s game.

Today Pritzker seemed disappointed he did not get all fifty state governors to support Illinois over Trumpism. He needs to start thinking in terms of creating a second sovereign power until these MAGA nationalists are removed, en masse, from their seats, as per the 14th sec 3. We need a new temporary union of states that refuse to blindly follow Trump’s orders.

These fascists will never willingly surrender power. Their crimes are too large now. They fear reprisal if they lose power now, and rightly so. Citizens cannot challenge this power alone. It’s too easy for them to be whisked away, or sued, like you see happening to Adam Schiff, Leticia James and many others.

State governors have sovereign power. If governors will declare we at war with the fascists in our government, they can declare an emergency, and order, for example, that Trump’s tariffs not be collected in their ports until such time that the Congress votes on the tariffs, in accordance with the Constitution. They could declare the fourteenth renders the entire Republican side of our government unconstitutional and set up a union of states and a temporary new government to run our agencies the way they are supposed to run, and even divert enough taxes that their citizens pay to the federal government to fund such agencies.

And that union has begun. The West Coast Health Alliance formed by California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii was just created to issue unified health guidance that is grounded in science. I’d rename it the American Health Alliance and get Pritzker, Hochul and any other states that want health care run by scientists. not politicians, on board.

Then the only step left would be to ask their citizens, who are nationally 80% of board with scientists to run health care, to reduce their tax payments to the federal government by the percentage of the federal budget we spend on health, and also state they will defend their citizens from any suits or actions from the federal government regarding that underpayment. If 80% of Americans want scientists in charge of health care, not politicians, and Trump continues to place non-doctors like RFK Jr. as the stewards of their health care, that is not democratic representational government. That is funding the enemy.

Are governors beginning to talk quietly about a corruption-free new government? The talk of it alone, would be healthy. Maybe some on the fringes of the right would begin to think they don’t like how Trump is steering our government if they see states willing to financially divorce from the union.

Then, agency by agency, we can claw back our government until we can vote out the insurrectionists and traitors aligned with the dictators in the world who want Americans dead, without firing a single bullet.

Trump’s Tariffs Create The Seminal Event to Unify the Country

Campaigning for elections and waiting for election results is fine, but it’s not a war plan. We need to create a seminal event that unifies the country. It’s not Epstein. The country is united on justice for Epstein, but it’s not a pocketbook issue. Tariffs act like a sales tax on everyone. It affects the uber-wealthy the least. The first battle cry of American democracy was “taxation without representation is tyranny”. The desire to get government to serve us as a reward for being taxed is in the American DNA.

People will soon be feeling what I call tarifflation. It is inflation made worse by Trump’s tariffs. I am paying them myself in my own business. I believe the other proper strategy is for governors of CA, IL and NY to declare their ports will not collect these unconstitutionally enacted tariffs until such time as they are voted on in Congress.

If this were to happen, play out Trump’s predictable reaction in your mind. You will conclude, this action would create a seminal event, “the day Trump’s tariffs ended in blue states“, that logically ends with all the people unified against Trumpism. Trump will kneejerk respond and try to use ICE agents to collect tariffs. When the 80% of Americans see him trying that, even once, he is done, and so is Trumpism nation-wide.

Trump will take this bait and quickly. I cannot claim to know what tariffs are doing for Trump personally. He’s probably getting paid off left and right by countries and businesses. That is his style of being. So not collecting tariffs hits him in his Achilles Heel, his wallet. He won’t wait a day to send in his goons to collect tariffs. We need all Americans to see the specter of Trump using troops to raise their grocery prices.

We are in a war without bombs. We have been in that space since 2016. When Putin sent emissaries to the GOP Convention in 2016, an alliance was formed based on mutual interests, the Russo-Republican Alliance of 2016 . That is democracy’s real enemy. Donald Trump is not its architect; he is its executioner. This enemy’s weapons are words, executive orders and actions; not guns and bombs. We’d best get into that game now, as we are losing the funds and muscle to defeat this alliance every day we sit on the sidelines and pretend the demise of America is not unwinding in front of our eyes.

It’s not as if this is new. Trump has been trying to end democracy, as per his boss, Vladimir Putin, since “Russia if you’re listening.” When Trump took election help from a fascist, he became a fascist for life. There is no going back on that.

Relevant Previous Posts: Trump Passed on a Chance to Understand Putin’s Mindset at Penn

Putin Used a Trojan Horse to Gain Access to Our Government: Donald Trump
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin: Partners in the Biggest Crime in World History
Trump’s Firing of Mark Esper is Part of a Plan to Subvert Our Democracy

How Democracies Die: Lessons From Putin’s First Two Years

Putin’s Determination to Destroy America is Part of Russian History

State Governors Must Protect Our Citizens and Our Democracy Now

A Call for States to Unite Against Authoritarianism

Aug 29, 2025

Dear Reader. Trump’s tariff driven inflation is hitting Americans of all stripes right now and is about to escalate in the fall. Runaway inflation creates the perfect climate for expansion of fascism . A happy, secure, well-to-do citizenry has time, money, dreams and no good reasons to turn to fascism to upset their lives. When Hitler took over, Germany was experiencing hyper-inflation. Russia is a financial mess now. The people behind this unconstitutional insurrectionist coup, know these things. They have a big stake in things not going well for the middle class here.

What I worry about is democrats seem singularly focused on recapturing a majority in the House and Senate. I hope it happens, of course. But we’ve given this administration the guns and the purse strings. And I am 100% sure Trump will allowing cheating on the GOP side, and call the outcome a “steal” if he loses.

I spoke with Ted Lieu last night at the Kiwanas Club in Hermosa. He mentioned that the Trump administration is sensitive to public sentiment. They might be. But that won’t affect Trump’s resolve to stay in power. Trump cannot surrender. Putin will release what he has on him the day he is out of power, or betrays Putin. That’s also why he will never fully commit to Ukraine.

This plan to end Trumpism well before the elections is a two-step strategy. Step one is what Ted Lieu suggested: influence public sentiment. Just so you think about this properly, this is what Trump did in the weeks leading up to J6. J6 was Trump’s seminal event to return to power.

Step two is create our seminal event to rally all Americans to take up the cause to end tarifflation. The Boston Tea Party was the seminal event that led to the creation of the United States. A union of thirteen colonies was created based on a written set of rules called the Constitution, which literally means “stand together”. We need an event we can all stand together on. Ending tarifflation is the best candidate for that unity.

All Americans, left and right, can sense this now. And I hope media starts saying “end tarifflation“, because no one can credibly blame tarifflation on Biden. Trump fully owns that meme. That’s the big idea. We brand the financial stress of inflation in such a way that Trump personally owns it all. We sell it, the way Trump sold Build That Wall. But this meme actually helps Americans.

Once the meme spreads, – and these days that does not take but a few days, the governors of blue states with ports should announce they will stop collecting tariffs until such time Trump’s tariffs are voted on by and approved by Congress as it is written in the Constitution.

I have sent this plan to Newsom, Pritzker and Hochul – and now you have it too.

Gavin Newsom,

The U.S. Constitution grants the power to impose and regulate tariffs to the U.S. Congress, not individual states or the President. Trump has violated that law. 

States are sovereign powers. State governors can declare emergencies.  They can declare that ports of their states will revert to pre-Trump tariff status until such time that Congress votes to approve the tariffs as the constitution says. What can Trump do about that? Send in his goons to collect unlawful taxes, which is what tariffs are? No American will support that spectre.

Tariffs are very unpopular – both sides. The law suit versus tariffs route is way too long a process.  The courts are too easily influenced. Tarifflation is a unique meme four our unique times. The idea to stop collecting tariffs until Congress votes on it has not been floated or tested. Its time for fiscal resistance. Its time for blue state governors to put our money where their mouths are.

Red states may even go along.  Their citizens don’t like tariffs either and are beginning to feel the pinch. You end Trumpism quickest by ending his popularity with his own voters.

Tarifflation is a meme that can do this. It’s a cyber war. Words are the weapons.

By ending the collection of Trump’s tariffs and declaring them unconstitutional and illegal until Congress votes on them, you also force the GOP in Congress to cast votes against their own people.

Governors can cease collecting tariffs tomorrow, stating when Congress approves tariffs, they will abide with the all tariffs they approve.  That’s a meme that can help in the battle to end Trumpism and save our democracy. 

………. end letter to Newsom

There are smarter ways to end Trumpism than waiting for elections that may not be fair or accepted. Key Governors must now step up financially and be willing to organize for financial resistance. They’ll need to form a union, and have one message:

We will not fund democracy’s demise one more day!   

……….end tarifflation post

Rejecting ICE without warrants

This masked version of ICE is not popular on either side.  They don’t have warrants. They work for an insurrectionist comforter, which Trump became the moment he pardoned convicted insurrectionsists. You dont have to be in the insurrection, to be barred from holding offices in these united states. See Constitution, 14th amendment sec.3 . Many in media know about that, and don’t talk enough about it enough. But democracy’s enemies get it. That’s why Trump is going after Obama. They know this is the legal tree they may likely die on. It’s also why they ban books and want kids to be blind to history.  But it all adds to: it’s easier to start the resistance vs Trump as a resistance to ICE.

The justices that ruled J6 was not an insurrection, or that Congress had to vote on the 14th the amendment to enforce it, are also insurrection aiders. The rulings of at least two of nine can be ignored. And their seats should, by rights, be taken from them. Perhaps in due time. 

A STATE OF EMERGENCY MUST BE DECLARED IN AUGUST BY GOVERNORS

We need blue state governors to step up now, during summer, when more people are off, and state there is an emergency in their states, and declare they will use all the powers given to state governors to protect their citizens.

With the intention of protecting the peace, and their citizens, and using the 14th sec 3 and emergency power executive orders as legal backup, ICE agents can be met with physical resistance if they come without warrants.

And further, whatever the percentage of the federal budget that ICE is costing the citizens of the dissenting blue states, that same percent the governors can declare to be paid to the states and withheld from the federal government to be used to amp up the state’s defenses and police forces. And they must defend their citizens should the federal government sue. That’s just numbers, – dollars. Not an act of war. But it feels as different was what we are feeling right now about fasicm rising. It feels like democracy fighting back, at last. It should have starfted at “Russia, if you’re listening”. That meant he knew they were.

Ending warrantless ICE can be our seminal political event to end fascism, the way January 6th was to initiute it, and our Boston Tea Party was to end it, or the burning of the German capitol for Hitler, to kick off WW2. Big cycles.

Lesson: New political movements need seminal events.

What’s Trump really going to do if we stop paying for ICE ? Did he worry about what dems would do if he asked people to attack police on J6? He can’t win if he sends the army in vs the police forces of NY, IL, CA, CO, VT, NJ, and any other states that want to start ending this fascist takeover of our country. He can’t win if he actually sends the army in vs the police forces of NY, IL, CA, CO, VT, NJ, and any other states that want to start ending the political cancer that is Trumpism. He loses that game of chicken and Trumpism dies by the dawn’s early light, imo.

And it’s going to get physical anyway, in time. This resistance will not be bloodless. If we are afraid to get hurt, they will find out and use force.

I know Donny. Neither he nor his sons will be there in any conflict zone,so its all good for the Trumps if others end up dead via his orders. And when people see that he is not moved, that becomes his Joey vs Johnny Friendly moment in On the Waterfront. Rachel said to think cinematically. Better now while the people are largely behind ending fascism and many have the summer off.

I would like to see this sort of thing happen this Labor Day weekend too. Filled with speakers and entertainers. At state capitols and online. 

Yes. Use the word Liberation. They always use the meme they want the people not to use against them. Citizens United, would be a great name for a new political party right now, but its taken by those who dont want citizens to unite. 

A CALL FOR STATE GOVERNORS TO UNITE TO DEFEAT AN AUTHORITARIAN TAKEOVER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | MAY 2025

The attack on American democracy, initiated in 2016 with foreign enemy assistance, has metastasized into a widespread, coordinated effort to undermine America’s 250-year-old constitutional order. Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party continue to push this agenda, and waiting until 2026 or 2028 is no longer a viable option.

The 14th Amendment, Section 3, explicitly bars insurrectionists—and those who aid or comfort them—from holding public office. Yet many current Republican officials in Congress have supported or defended the January 6 insurrection, violating this clause. If we truly value the rule of law, this must be acknowledged and acted upon.

Trump and the GOP have created a machine that cannot afford to lose power; doing so would expose them to legal accountability. Their current strategy involves gutting federal institutions, rigging elections, and ensuring permanent one-party control. This is not speculative—it is unfolding before our eyes.

A Blueprint for Peaceful Resistance

Blue state governors must act now. The path forward doesn’t require civil war, but it does require coordinated and assertive legal and financial resistance.

Step 1: Form a Governors’ Pact
States like California, New York, and Illinois should form a constitutional alliance—“States United”—to protect democratic governance, federal workers, and core public institutions.

Step 2: Redirect Taxation with Representation
Governors should allow their citizens to redirect financially justified portions of their federal tax contributions to fund state-controlled versions of federal agencies being dismantled or decimated by Trump. This is not tax evasion—it’s a constitutional stand against illegitimate federal authority. If they are concerned about the legality of such a move, they should be reminded that Trump routinely calls certain situations “emergencies” when they are not, and then uses his power to “protect” the people, to do things that harm and will harm US citizens. further, states are also sovereign seats of powers, like the federal government, and their governors swear oaths to protect state citizens.

Step 3: Rehire Fired Federal Agents
Create state-based equivalents of agencies like the FBI, DOJ, USAID, and the Department of Education. These agencies can be staffed by professionals purged by the Trump administration. States have the right to protect their citizens and enforce their laws.

Step 4: Limit Federal Overreach
Refuse cooperation with ICE and other federal forces acting without court orders or violating constitutional rights. If the federal government attempts to intervene, states must stand united, even if physically, and defend their citizens and sovereignty under the Constitution.

Why Now?

Trumpism thrives on fear and misinformation. Its leaders will not stop until all opposition is silenced. The GOP knows they cannot win fairly, so they are rewriting the rules. We must meet this moment with decisive action—not symbolic gestures and discussions. Waiting for midterms is not a game plan.

This is not about secession. It’s about using the state’s sovereign power to preserve constitutional governance and provide a legal, moral, and operational alternative to authoritarian rule. No one voted for fascism, but that’s what we are getting if we just wait and see. The elections of 2026 will either be rigged, Gerrymandered, or its results simply ignored by this power-crazed Republican party.

Precedent and Urgency

Just as the Boston Tea Party protested taxation without representation, Americans today must oppose being governed by those who have violated the Constitution. January 6 was not just a riot—it was a fascist assault on our republic. The Supreme Court’s refusal to act on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment further erodes its legitimacy. Supreme Court justices are also not exempt from the provisions of the 14th Amendment. Their anti-democratic rulings can be ignored by states on that basis.

Blue states have the people, the economy, and the moral authority. By forming a union of democratic governance, we can create a peaceful but powerful resistance that weakens Trumpism at its core.

Final Thoughts

Trump’s efforts have created a national emergency. It is the largest emergency we have faced since WW2. The longer we wait, the more power Trump’s anti-democratic armed assault gains power. Let red state politicians embrace Trump if they so choose—but blue state governors and congressmen should protect their citizens by respecting and enforcing the constitution as it is written.

The majority of citizens within red states are no longer supportive of Trump’s agenda. If we lead with courage and clarity, the people will demand that their interests, not the interests of billionaires and corporations, be supported with their tax dollars. That’s the populist movement that can turn this around so democracy prevails in America.

Joseph Aronesty is an ecom pioneer who shared a class with Donald Trump at Wharton in 1968 and worked in his orbit from 1986-99 in Atlantic City NJ. He has been writing about the danger Trump poses since 1996.

The Dictator Map. A dictator map was first posted at this blog in 2017, when Trump was in Helsinki. It was then I was 100% sure Trump was compromised and who did it. And this is why Trump will never cross Putin and never should have been given a chance to hold any office in the USA.

Trump’s Firing of Mark Esper is Part of a Plan to Subvert Our Democracy

How To Save American Democracy

The violent attack on the Pelosi’s has made a declaration from our president an immediate necessity. Joe Biden must make a speech about the attack on Paul Pelosi and segway towards the voices that are instigating these attacks on politcians. He should make sure that Fox carries this “important speech” and hide his true intent ahead of the speech.

Biden can use his presidential war powers to declare war on hateful rhetoric and say these memes are radicalizing and harming Americans. Joe Biden is not only authorized to defend our democracy, he has a duty to do so. The legal precedent goes back to 1863, during the during the Civil War.  https://www.fcnl.org/warpowers

The Supreme Court confirmed this executive war power in the Prize Cases of 1863. The Court held that President Lincoln’s establishment of a blockade following the attack on Fort Sumter, without prior congressional authorization, was a lawful exercise of his Commander in Chief power.

According to Justice Grier, speaking for the majority: “If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative (Congressional ) authority. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war ….”

We are seeing our states organized in a rebellion every day now through the words and actions of the Republican representatives in Congress, the former president and his allies. They’ve even called for fake electors and it was quite an organized effort. A war on our elections must be declared as tantamount to a war on our founding institutions and those involved must have their words and actions arrested.

If those that spread these messages in government or media will not immediately cease using hate of Democrats as a meme, and also publicly reverse their statements as an attempt to undo the damage they have already done, then their bodies must be arrested as well. I believe house arrest and the monitoring of communciations is warranted at a time of war. We are in a war – a cyber war – and have been since 2016. Putin was the leader of this war vs democracy in 2016. He still is the man with the most power in the autocracy game, and that is the logical reason Trump never said a bad word about him.

Ads, posts, and words spoken must stop charaterizing people in government service as political enemies worthy of being attacked or as enemies of Americans. If politicians continue to incite such hate, they must be deemed as attempting to radicalize Americans. Such memes have consistently shown they result in people acting out violently.

Hateful and/or violent ads (like the above), posts or words spoken by elected official must result in the instant loss of their seats. If they continue after they are out of office, it must result in jailing or house arrest with communications monitored. It is the communications of these traitors to democracy that are most dangerous. If Tucker Carlson continues he too must be arrested.

People have freedom of speech, but during a war, those siding with enemy forces that want to end democracy can be silenced via statutes that say you cannot yell fire in a theater. The danger to the public overrules freedom of speech and the largeness of the microphone weighs in on the danger level of words and images. We are all in that theater now through our social media. So yes, media must be constrained so that hateful violent memes are considered terrorist propaganda. The violence will trend worse unless and until the voices and images that spark such violence are silenced. 

How to Save American Democracy

If we do want to reach the undecided, there is one last easy way. It works for people who don’t read and even those who might not like the sound of your voice. We must learn to use fear to motivate Fox’s viewers and respect that Fox uses fear because they know 100% how it works on their listeners. 

The only way to stop the hate speaking versus public servants – which includes poll workers – is for our president to loudly declare: that such hateful words, images and posts are hateful propaganda that have been shown time and time again to be harmful to the good people of these United States. 

STEP 1. Joe Biden needs to declare war on anyone in government or media that posts threats to members of Congress, their staff and family members. The attack on the Pelosi’s makes this an immediate necessity. 

We all know about freedom of speech, but we can’t allow people to yell fire in a theater knowing it is not true because of the danger it poses to people. The entire idea of government is to protect people from danger and make life better for them. Right now, the we are not doing neither of those two things very well.

The airwaves and internet highway belong to the commonwealth of the United States.  They are leased to corporations but they cannot use their structures to harm the citizens of the United States. We should not tolerate one more threat to congressmembers, judges, poll workers, government executives and their staff and family members.  A hot line for such threats needs to be announced stat and all media instructed to post said hot line or lose their licenses to broadcast.

We would do this if it were Bin Laden. When the words of hate come from the GOP it is much worse because 70 million people are listening. And like a cancer, it won’t stop by itself, even if Dems win both houses, which is a long shot. It must be forcibly stopped. Such memes must be defined as a crime versus the common good with fast penalties enforced as if at war. That is why Biden needs to declare war on this sort of thing right away.

This will not work if Biden is scared and waits until after midterms. It will look too obvious and weak.  It needs to be said loudly and right away or people will think it is still okay.

The New York Times , Chicago Tribune, LA Times , all major stations need to show this map, or one like it, for the next few days and up until election day.

Do you remember the first time you saw a RISK board? You got the idea of a global struggle without reading about history. You just got it. We need people who can’t or don’t read to get this right now. Fear of our true enemies, those that have a stake in ending democracy, is the motivator that will work best in these last days to reach undecided voters.

No one here wants what is coming. GOP voters don’t want it either, but I’ve heard the joke many MAGA people think autocracy means cars rule. They will get the above image which can be made into an interactive map like Steve Kornacki does. Truth is, if we lose democracy here, democracy is done for the planet. That is easy to conclude by obserbing this map. One does not need words to get it. And if that happens, climate change will take care of humanity soon enough. The earth has patience.

In a world with social media, dictators and democracies are like cats and dogs.  Because dictators can no longer hide all the truth from their citizens with social media so readilt available, dictators cannot just coexist with free states so easily any more. This war was destined just as it was eighty years ago. But the autocrats know it is their destiny and are being pro-active. Democracies must be pro-active too or we are doomed to be reactive. It’s that simple.

And never forget, above and beyond all else, Putin and Trump are simply financial criminals – gangsters that have ascended to the top of the chain in their governments.  And they can’t get caught because of their past crimes. So they cannot quit and must be forcibly stopped.

They must be stopped, which is what arrested means. The 14th amendment allows us to deny to seat insurrection supporters to any government post. Use it or lose it. Joe Biden – arrest Trump please. Think of arrest in its classical meaning: to stop the progress of something. You know. Like ” The doctor arrested the metastasis by using chemotherapy. “

Thank you for doing something today, before it is too late.

The US Democracy Must Prevail at Midterms

The US Democracy Must Prevail at Midterms

What We Can Do in the Closing Days Before Midterms to Save Democracy

Every 80 years since 1776, the United States has experienced a severe crisis. We are in such a crisis now. Midterm voting has begun. Our votes and the words we speak now will decide our country’s fate.

The GOP have already said if they regain power, they intend to end Social Security, make abortion nationally illegal and use the House’s power of the purse to roll back public perks like lower drug prices. They are trying to harm the middle class because fascist rule cannot survive with a strong middle class. Why do you think so many Russian businessmen mysteriously jumped out of windows this year? They stood up to Putin vs his war on Ukraine. No Americans want to get to that point. But we are dangerously close now.

Democracy Must Prevail

The entire concept of this party or that party winning and losing is not appropriate for the 2022 midterms. If pushed to amplify a victorious meme, “Democracy must prevail” is the proper meme, not “party D or R must win”. It’s not about the parties winning. It’s about something we have shared in common since 1776 – democracy. My father fought in WW2 to defend democracy. It would be the supreme tragedy to turn our democracy over to the same spirits that started WW2 at the ballot box.

Democracy must prevail implies that democracy is under attack without saying it. It’s also the lesson of the Star-Spangled Banner: our flag was still there. America prevailed.

A sense of American community pride must be restored, subliminally. Don’t get involved in the “we win, you lose” meme. That’s for sports, not politics. Let the election deniers own that antagonistic meme. People know it’s wrong to be divided within a country, and that it’s hurting us all Americans on many levels.

Speak to Centrist Voters Last Two Weeks

There is still a large group of undecided voters, and they will decide if democracy prevails. This group includes people who may not vote during the midterms. Reach out to people in your circle of friends and family who are not politically motivated to vote in midterm elections. This is up to each and every one of us—not only the candidates. Tell them how important it is to you that democracy prevails. There’s not much sense preaching to the choir. If you have political differences, teell them they can be ironed out over time, but once autocracy sets in, there is no path back to democracy.

Nearly All Americans Have Relatives that Fought in WW II

My father was a PFC in World War II. My sister voted for Trump, probably owing to peer pressure in her social circle. After this article is published, I will call her and talk about what our father fought for. I’ll make a point to say, “What a shame it would be to give away what many fought and died for in WW2 at the ballot box.

Try and convince a few voters you know to vote for democracy to prevail, especially in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan – though they are all very important states this time.

Women and Young Voters Will Decide the Fate of Democracy

If you’ve got voting-age kids, make sure they are motivated to vote. Most young voters know that the world is stacked against them these days. But sadly, too many believe there is nothing they can do about it. When you convince a young voter to register his vote for democracy to prevail, they may also get some of their friends to join in that effort. They are natural-born experts in social media. Remind them to use social media to spread the meme “Democracy Must Prevail” for us to have a chance at the classic American Dream that their parents got as a birthright and their grandfathers fought and died for in WW2.

American women have no good reason for voting for GOP candidates. With Roe overturned, the GOP is running its own version of Muslim Sharia law here in the USA. Republican states have removed the freedom to plan a family as American women and men have seen fit since the 1970s. Sharia law is used to restrict women’s freedom in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is shameful to resort to such tactics here in the USA. Government does not belong in our bedrooms. Health issues are personal and should only be between a woman and their doctors. There is nothing in Christ’s teachings that refers to abortion.

Many are convinced that life comes down to gas prices and the cost of food. Fascists like their subjects living week to week so they have no time to focus on what’s really going on in their government. Google the cost of gas in Europe before you talk with the people you want to convince to get in this fight. Rising gas prices and supply chain issues are global issues and direct consequences of the pandemic and Putin’s war. It’s not Biden’s fault, nor was it Trump’s. Inflation in Europe is 25% higher than in the USA. In Argentina, the inflation rate is not 8%, it’s 80%. We can get through this together, not divided.

What Joe Biden and Democrats in Office Can Do

The messages outlined above will also be effective for congressional Democrats and our president to use during these last two weeks. I have asked myself why Joe Biden does not open up a channel or email address just for GOP and centrist voters and ask them what they want from their government and what they think it can do better. Amplify the best questions in posts and in media and remind them that these things can all be achieved but only in a democracy, never in an autocracy. Remind voters the refusal to accept the results of a proper election is what autocracies do-and ask how’s that working out for the people in Russia?

Thanks in advance to all US citizens for their service when they vote for democracy to prevail over autocracy in November, and for using their influence to remind those they know who have not quite made up their minds of the importance of this particular midterm election.

Joe Biden’s Autocracy vs Democracy Speech Sets the Tone for Midterms

(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 repetition – to be most effective.

democracy-map1

Fast-study this 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 than democracies. Autocratic rule by force has been the norm on planet Earth since the city-states of Babylon – 8000 years ago. Democracy is the newcomer in this struggle. If it were not for the USA’s nuclear arsenal and military superiority, the autocrats would have taken the entire planet by now. Taking the planet is the autocrats’ goal, more so now than ever before. The internet has something to do with that .

The map was more yellow (democratic) 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.  Sold out industrialists and corporate media are fueling this fire for profit. The trend is global.

Putin knew he could not beat the USA with bombs. No one can. 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 installed 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 insurrectionist can be in government, state, federal or judicial. The issue with the amendment is the last sentence says they can be removed by a 2/3 vote in Congress. They just did not anticipate that 50% of Congress would some day be insurrection supporters.

But the spirit of the 14th amendment, created after America’s Civil War, is clear, and we should beef up its wording to reflect what its writers had in mind.  Those in government who will not openly disavow the Big Lie and speak openly against insurectionists do not deserve a vote in their own trial by 2/3 Congress. Where else in law do we allow accused criminals who are inciting violence a chance to sit in their own juries?

The current United States administration, along with NATO countries, Australia and the other few remaining democratic countries should 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 global brotherhood of dictators. That station is always taken by the most powerful in the group, just as it is with wolves. Though Russia is not a super 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.

Financial Criminals 101

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 at this level know they can only totally escape eventual 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 so as to warrant risking his life or freedom. And he loves himself very much. It figures he is in a pinch, much the way Manafort was when he did his treasonous crimes that Trump pardoned him for.

It figures Donald Trump was and is still compromised. And he had classified documents. That 100% means whoever wanted them has them by now. If you don’t beleive me, ask Michael Cohen. Trumpism is a national security issue now. The Biden administration at least knows it now. Good. Much better late than never. But Joe, you’ve to to arrest the man to stop the plan. I’m not sure being afraid of being “poltical” should be a concern. Donald Trump was okay with “Hang Mike Pence: If Trumpism takes control they are not going to worry about being political.

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 wanted Obama to make 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 Americans don’t even 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. The classic meaning of arrest is to stop the process of something or someone. The threat to democracy will get more dangerous until the plans of these two men are arrested.

Top Secret Documents Confirmed Missing from Trump’s House Search

Today they announced that Top Secret documents are missing. And his passports were found mixed in with the secret documents. This day was predictable. Trump has no stop button – never did. And it’s certain that Putin expected payback for 2016 election help and that he would extort Trump once out of office. The only person Trump would trust with such incrimiating information is Jared Kushner – male close family. That’s how Trump rolls. If you don’t believe me ask Michael Cohen. Now that this is a national security issue, it should warrant secretly getting Kushner’s electronic communication data. I hope the DOJ has more going on that we know about.

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 or sooner. Time is not on our side. Midterms must be about democracy first. That’s all I wanted to say today.

Joseph Aronesty – creator of the autocracy vs democracy map meme – 2017 – Use it or lose it.

PS. Advice for Joe Biden’s administartion.

People’s memories work in certain predictable ways. Trump won the election in the last two weeks. MAGA people can switch sides just as quickly as they went for him. If he is a traitor, as I know and have known, expose it fully. People are loyal to their own families and no one likes a traitor.

Joe Biden should open a hot-line and online portal for Trump voters. Perhaps enable direct email at Twitter and hire staff to filter through, collect data and get back to the serious inquirers. Ask them what they want from their government but also what they can do to help make that happen.  In his speech, Biden called out MAGA voters. To win handily, he needs to now call them in. They are not all bad.

PowerPoint to Save Democracy

This is a letter I just sent to a four-star General with whom I have had communcations with over the last few years. If a coup could be outlined in a PowerPoint I think a plan to save democracy deserves a PowerPoint too.

We gave Biden 2021 to try and pass Build Back Better. I’m not sure that’s going to work due to Manchinema, as they are now calling those two.  So now, the survival of our 250-year-old democracy is coming down to voting rights. 

We can all see the GOP intends to fix the elections and even override the will of the people with party loyalists who will choose electors loyal to Trump. We will lose this democracy on paper in 2022 if we don’t pass voting right protections. Is that how you see it too?


Consider this a 4-pronged PowerPoint to save democracy on the planet.It has four parts because there is something to do for the Executive, the AG, the DOD and the public.

Biden means well, but is not doing enough. That’s really why his polls are down. People are getting the impression that Biden and particularly AG Garland are not up to the tasks at hand. 

WHAT JOE BIDEN CAN DO
Joe Biden has a few weeks in January to pass Build Back Better. If Manchinema are still blocking this, he needs to start campaigning in their states against them – without saying he is against them. How can he do that? This is how with a little help from email and phone lines staffed with real people.


First, he needs to make a speech in which he asks the voters in WV and AZ this: What do you want from your federal government? 

He should focus his words towards MAGA voters as any strength the GOP insurectionists have is backed up by their base support. He campaigns by asking the people in GOP states what he can do for them.


Biden then sets up a hotline for people to call in their ideas for what they want and expect from their government. Staff phone lines. Open an email specially for this. Advertise it. Ask voters what they can do to help Build Back Better. I’d rather it be called BUILD BACK TOGETHER btw. The email address should be together@us.gov – or close to that. He’s going to find out we all want pretty much the same things! 


Biden can speak a bit like a potential employer too. Asking them if they have any skills to lend to the new Build Back Together campaign. This will act like fireside chats worked for FDR in the WW2 era. But it will also act to expose Manchin and Sinema and Abbott as people who do not care what their constituents want. It will pressure them.

And a few weeks later he can report to America what his polls said. And then he can point out that Manchin and Cinema are blocking him from getting the people what they want.


In effect, Biden needs to go to war with the obstructionists within his own party, without saying it. So this is a way to do that by asking the constituents what they want from their federal government.

Here is a link to my previous post with more ideas to save the democracy and end the GOP stranglehold on Congress. I would not miss this. Outside the box thinking from constituents is part of what is missing from the Dem agenda.


WHAT THE DOD CAN DO 
A coup is an attempt to overthrow the government, is it not?  The DOD was created to protect us from exactly what we are seeing. Every member of the DOD, from private first class to general takes an oath to protect this government – not just the lands – but the functions of the government too. 


We get that the DOD has to stay apolitical. DOD can’t take weapons to congressmen and a former president. That’s banana republic stuff.  But know this. Trump tried to get control of the DOD and failed. That’s really why he is not in power still. I am thankful for that. But next time, if Trump or his GOP sycophants get back in power, they will remove every DOD member who does not go along with what they want. They learned that in their first attempted coup. They are removing election board members who are not corruptible now.


The GOP also know they will eventually need the cooperation of the DOD. So maybe they start a physical war right away in a new adminictration if they win, and then DOD can’t say no. They are clever that way. 


TRUMP’S GOP NEEDS TO KNOW THEY WILL NEVER HAVE THE DOD IN THEIR POCKET! They don’t know that in their bones yet. They have not given up.


Yesterday, there was a crack in the darkness that provided an opportunity to get DOD INTEL involved with the Jan6 investigations.The committtee spoke of adding people to go over social media posts to see if foreign governments were involved. ( They were. Putin started this whole cyber war thing. Trump was never smart or educated in worldly things. He does not even read to learn.  ) 


That’s your DOD’s wheelhouse – protecting us from foreign governments! It’s a potential entrance ramp. Ask to help in this effort only! You are going to find out it was all Russia coordinating with GOP and others and that it started in 2015. Mueller may even become relevant again. 


If you get DOD Intel involved in that specific effort, that alone may end Trumpism. Why do I say that? 

Right now, many GOP are shaking in their boots about what the Jan6 Committee will turn up against them. Many insurrectionists close to Trump are pleading the 5th. They are praying they get back in power so they can end all these investigations. You know that too. So, by them seeing the DOD is involved in getting to the truth – even tangentially – they will get the feeling that even getting back in power will not sway the DOD from their oath to protect democracy. Right now, they can hope. SHUT DOWN THAT HOPE!  


The effect may be that those who are pleading the 5th or hiding the truth decide they don’t want to fight the DOD – which is never popular with ANY Americans. DOD involvement in the Jan6 investigations – even if it’s just computer geeks – can end Trumpism stat.  A few key defectors from that “thick as thieves” brotherhood of insurrectionists – and they are done.   Democracy saved!  


That’s what you can do persoanlly. Help make that happen . Get authority from DOD Intel. Call Joe Biden or Bennie Thompson. Offer DOD help to protect democracy with respect to this attempt to cover social media posts. 

Don’t worry about “politics”. The GOP members who stand with insurrection are clearly not really well-intended Congressmen. Criminals and traitors to democracy do not deserve the cover of being Congressmen. And if that is not enough to sway you, defer to your oath to protect the democracy – or your private oath which I know you have made to yourself – to spend your time on earth doing good for others. What else is there really? 


WHAT OUR AG CAN DO
There was a coup attempt. The AG and FBI need to be visibily involved in the effort to prosecute those involved in the coup. Absent of that, the coup attempt will continue. It’s that simple.

If Garland is not up to the task, there are plenty of prosecuters who are. Biden needs to tell Garland to start proscuting the insurrectionists in our government and restraining and monitoring their activities. If we don’t see this by January 15th by the AG – Biden should find a new AG stat.

Timing is important here. Democracy’s clock is running out. We need conclusions by April so the public can get onvolved inthe spring. That means we need to start proscuting higher-ups in January.


WHAT CITIZENS CAN DO
The citizens must eventually get street active again. That’s done easiest when the weather breaks. Covid is not our friend here. So for now, the citizens are relatively calm and trying to enjoy the season and busy surviving covid. By April, I hope we will see outrage in the streets on voting rights. 

A JOINT EFFORT TO SAVE DEMOCRACY IN THE USA (and on the planet)
This is the map of democracies and autocracies on the planet. You can see that if the USA waffles in the next few months, the autocrats can take the USA and then rest of the planet has no defense. 


Remember this too. Autocracy is 8000 years old. Democracy is about 250 years old. Historically, democracy is the underdog.

In this PowerPoint, there was something to do for the president, the AG, the DOD and the public. If everyone does their part, this will not fail. 


Notice that I have NOT mentioned a task for Congress. Congress is clearly infected. I expect Congressmembers to keep fighing with each other along party lines.  I don’t expect much out of Congress when 50% of it is in on the coup – either actively or by association with their party. ………

Thank you for your time in reading this and considering getting into the fight to save democracy and the planet. That’s what’s at stake and I think you know that down deep. 


Joseph Aronesty

73 years now – just a citizen of the USA trying to regain his pride in the nation.

Meme for the campaign to engage all Americans in rebuilding America.

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