Time To Strike!

Before it is too late

It should be obvious to everybody that Trump is a dictator. We have already had four years of Trump acting lawlessly as president. After taking office for the second time, he has moved ruthlessly to seize power. The list of actions he has taken to accomplish this is too long to enumerate, but the key elements are that he has purged government agencies and put loyalists in positions of power. He has politicized the Justice Department and the military, and is building forces to suppress dissent and crush protests. He has attacked the press and academia to further suppress any possible opposition.

Yet most of the opposition seems to be in denial. Anyone who is still saying that we are *moving toward* totalitarianism, or that Trump is merely *trying* to become a dictator, needs to wake the “F” up! How is it that a nearly illiterate and imbecilic moron like Trump can understand better than all of the academic experts on history and politics where we are now? When he said, “I will be a dictator on day one,” he was 100% correct. One of the only things that has ever come out of his mouth that was not a lie. When he was elected and began signing unconstitutional executive orders that first day, he assumed the mantle of dictator. The corruption of our Congress and Supreme Court gave him all the power he needed to do so.

It has been maddening to see how feckless and feeble the opposition is. All the organizing to hold signs and shout slogans is nearly meaningless. We participate in the hopes of building an effective movement of opposition, but it never comes. We are engaging in exactly the same strategy that got Trump elected twice. The leadership seems to think that we just need to convince people that we are right by raising awareness. Please reflect on this: we did not, and cannot, convince MAGA that they are wrong and we are right. Convincing more people to come to demonstrations and hold signs is not going to end fascism. History has zero examples of this strategy working when a dictator has come to power through elections. If these protests were 100% effective, and every person who has tuned out politics were to pick up a sign tomorrow, we would still not remove the fascists from power.

The only effective way to oppose the power of a dictatorship is with power. In 1986, people power removed the Marcos regime after a fraudulent election. The nonviolent movement brought millions of people to the streets of the capital and had the support of the Catholic Church (very important in the Philippines) and a group of senior military leaders. Poland’s Solidarity movement, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and similar movements in Myanmar, Tunisia, and elsewhere have had success in bringing down regimes—but with varying results. All of these movements had the use of civil disobedience in common. They were confrontational, and the regimes they brought down had only one means of staying in power: violent suppression. The Tiananmen Square demonstrations are an example of people power being suppressed with force.

We need the resistance movements that are capable of organizing mass opposition to stop being obedient. We need them to use all the power they have built up to lead a massive general strike that shuts down the government and hurts all those supporting Trump in creating a fascist single-party state. We need to do this now, before every loyal member of the military leadership has been purged and before the new paramilitary police force loyal to Trump becomes fully operational. Every Democratic member of Congress and every senator needs to be out front supporting this, and those Republicans who put democracy above party politics should also be vocal supporters. We also need the support of leaders and people around the world.

Democracy in the United States of America will not survive the type of performative demonstrations that have been the sum total of our opposition thus far. The courts cannot depose the regime, and Trump has already demonstrated his willingness to ignore the courts. He has also shown us multiple examples of his willingness to pervert our elections to gain and maintain power. Anyone counting on a free and fair election to resolve the present crisis is willfully naïve. No other nation is going to send troops to help us oust the Trump regime and restore democracy. No great flood is coming to wash him away. Pray for a miracle all you want, but history tells us there is only one way to flush Trump and his co-conspirators—and that is by the people rising up and overthrowing him, peacefully, I hope.