Polls today, nearly all of them, show Trump's approval is sinking into Nixon territory, and nearly 60% of Americans disapprove of his top issues: immigration, affordability, and land grabs of foreign territories. He is already brushing off the loss of the House this November. Why does he seem not to care that voters feel the pain, and instead, just doubles down? He seems in a hurry to get revenge and punish his enemies and is engaged in stuffing his personal wealth with crypto converted to dollars and exchange fees while the getting is good. He is acting like a deranged fascist dictator gorging himself in a candy shop and satiating an appetite that craves for more and more power and control, domestic and abroad, and getting away with it before he is stopped in November: Why? He keeps issuing executive orders that he treats like they are the law, but that are blatantly unconstitutional. He counts on court delays and appeals to give him time and let him keep on violating the Constitution. He is hinting at calling off even the November 2026 and 2028 elections or confiscating ballot boxes, or declaring some national emergency or a cooked-up insurgency, as a pretext for military occupation. Observers fear he is hoping that the streets turn so ugly he can use ICE as a pretext to invoke the insurrection act, using military, and his ICE paramilitary, even Joe Rogan calls it a Gestapo, funded and in place and able to act as his personal army. Why?
Why has this happened?
(1). First and foremost, there is no one or no way to stop Trump's lust for power, and he knows it. He has whipped Congress into subservience as they cower in fear of crossing him. Court rulings? He just figures a way around them and keeps on enforcing and executing his orders while the courts delay, delay, delay decisions and hear appeals upon appeals. He may even ignore court rulings if there is an insurgency, he hinted to the New York Times recently. He believes he has the power to do it.
(2) He is a lame duck who will never have to face angry voters again, so he can ignore them, even those in his own party.
(3)"His" Supreme Court gave him immunity from criminal prosecution, so breaking the law is of no concern to him.
.(4) He is counting on his partisan loyalists of about 40% of all adults polled, to keep him going and have his back.
What to do; what to do, hand wringers? The only way to stop two more years of this is still an overwhelming vote and kicking out his political allies up and down the ballot in the midterms. In the meantime, angry voters have to deny Trump a fascist style pretext for such a military-like takeover of democracy by keeping their protests peaceful, large, and focusing on voter registration and turnout. FYI: an insurrection is not peaceful protestors nor even a handful of violent protestors...but Trump threatens to invoke the insurrection act, nonetheless. Those threats will go nowhere if the protests remain peaceful.
In the meantime, cool it, hot heads, you who want to vent anger with violence. As Minnesota officials say, "Don't take the bait". ICE hopes you do lose self-control and become violent. They will then have a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act and oppress you with overwhelming military-like force. As they escalate their violent behavior, they are provoking you to answer in kind. Don't. If you play this right, your day will come to oust these MAGA. The real power, the opinions of the majority of the people, is the force that is already with you. Don't mess it up.
These ICE are not patriots or just police. They are a masked paramilitary, claiming they are a law enforcement agency, while using excessive force techniques to take down their targets and use weapons of crowd control, inflaming, not de-escalating, being overtly racist, targeting those who are brown or looks like a migrant, in a way that would have gotten local policemen fired, suspended, prosecuted, and even imprisoned. The agents wear masks and display no badge numbers, so citizens cannot hold individual agents accountable. Their leader claims they have total immunity from prosecution and buries evidence leading to prosecution. Wearing masks makes them look fierce and threatening as well. No local police agency condones this.
This is the real value of organizations like Indivisible and 50501 to this cause. They give the opposition cover and safety in numbers,, and give them the guts, the techniques, and the discipline to stand up peacefully. They have the ability with vast lists of activists and their emails, leaders trained, ready, able, and willing to galvanize voters in November. This is not the MLK civil rights movement of 50 or so years ago, but it is similar in its spirit, and it has drawn on many of the same peaceful and effective techniques of protest. The Indivisible types of protestors know from their education what kind of democracy we have and why it is so valuable. They have also inspired other organizations, grassroots, and neighborhood groups to adopt their same techniques, so it is creating a movement that goes far beyond the influence of the Indivisible lists of participants.
As much as the Trump regime tries to say these are paid agitators and organizers, they are fooling themselves and MAGA. Without millions themselves realizing they are the only way to stop this wannabe dictator, since the guardrails against such have failed, Indivisible could never have succeeded in turning out so many, mostly white, educated middle-class people of all ages. The participants have been willing to risk Trump's threats and abuse of power, "screw their courage to a sticking post" (Shakespeare) all across America, and for many, for the first time in their lives, to get out and march in support of democracy. They know a wannabe King, tyrant, dictator when they see one because they are learned about the history of the 1930s in Europe, the 1950's to current times in South America, and how ordinary people suffered under such rule, causing many to flee their home countries to western democracies. (There is a reason the migrants are not hordes flowing to such dictatorships.) They see it happening here and now. Above all, they are a pro-democracy force that wants to preserve the kind of democracy we have had for 250 years, of, by, and for the people (not of, by, and for a one-man, small minority, or oligarchic ruler). They know about such dictatorships that, once in power, they only care enough to trickle down just enough to the masses to keep them from violently revolting. The rest is for their lifestyles and the causes that serve them. The goal of such autocrats is to stay in power by whatever means, including violence.
Are Trump's supporters getting what they want from his second term? Here's what a new poll shows.. g
A post from mid December which dives deeper into why and what of Trump's brand of fascism, or whatever you call how he is acting. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: My nagging question: why does fascism keep raising its ugly head
A post written in October: MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: What is MAGA? Whatever you call it, it is not conservative, but something else.
