The Second American Revolution

The House is on Fire

The house is on fire. The Trump administration has clogged all of the drains. Doge is unscrewing all of the lightbulbs. The plumbing pipes and the wiring are being sold as copper scrap. Trump is breaking all of the windows and they are making holes in the walls and removing the insulation. Let me repeat, the house is on fire. What are you going to do? Will you let your representatives in Congress know how you feel about clogged plumbing? Will you read a thousand accounts of how the loss of the lightbulbs is going to impact vulnerable populations and how without insulation we are all going to suffer? The house is on fire.

This is where we are. If the courts order the lightbulbs to be restored, the insulation replaced and the holes patched, windows repaired and the plumbing fixed, will Trump do it? Probably not. Will Congress step up and impeach him for his unlawful actions? Probably not. Enough of them are furnishing crowbars and fanning flames that there is probably never going to be enough willing to impeach and remove him.

And what if he was impeached and removed? How far down do you have to go in the chain of succession before you get to somebody that is not going to carry on in the same way? I got to seventeen and quit counting. So even if enough of us rise up and take the streets Congress is unlikely to act and impeachment is not a remedy. It will not save democracy as we wish it to. What then?

Here are the most likely scenarios that come to mind. In response to the large demonstrations Trump invokes the insurrection act and declares marshal law. Then the military must choose between their oath to defend the Constitution or to obey an unlawful and unconstitutional order of the commander in chief. This is completely uncharted territory in American history. Nobody can say if it is likely that the military will act in one way or another. Given Trumps attempt to purge the top ranks of the military and install loyalists I would not like to bet on the outcome.

So Congress is unlikely to save the burning house of democracy, the military is probably not going to put out the flames, and there will not be enough left to save by the midterm elections so that the elections, if they come, will not matter very much. I have not mentioned the courts because we already know that they are not in the business of saving democracy any more and they are not capable of acting until long after the fire has done its work.

So where does that leave us? We are left exactly where the American colonists were when they determined that a government that did not represent them was abusing them and that it would have to be resisted. Welcome to the second American revolution. If you always wanted to know what you would have done in those times, here is your chance.

In order to say more I would need to go underground. The times may soon come when this is necessary. We will have to figure out how revolution takes place in the brave new technological world we’ve created.