On Wednesday you published the article “What should Democrats do as Trump runs amok?” in which your response to the massive changes to government Trump is making is to talk about 2028 like it will be just another election cycle. Trump is in the process of destroying every government agency he doesn’t care about through top down leadership destruction, deletion of websites, purging of government employees, and preventing government agencies from accessing the funds that Congress appropriated for them.
I’m struggling in writing this article in getting the correct tone because I really don’t want to piss you off. I don’t want to be confrontational in an obstructive way. But I do wish to be confrontational in a constructive way. So if in the following paragraphs I end up pissing you off anyway, please try to remember that I am writing this because I believe in your ability as a journalist and a leader. You have a gift with writing, an audience of highly educated and politically motivated individuals with some means, and have created a website that will be needed more than ever in the coming days.
Talking about political strategy in 2028 like it’s 2020 is like discussing the menu for the Titanic’s return trip as the iceberg slices the side of the ship flooding compartment after compartment. Trump’s putting the means by which agencies access money under his henchmen’s control is a direct coup. The power of congress is to control the purse strings and write the laws. Trump now controls the purse strings and laws are meaningless to him. Unless Republicans suddenly find a will to oppose him (and most of those were weeded out on the last go around) all of these lawsuits against his actions will either fail in court, via Supreme Court fiat if needed, or he will simply ignore the Supreme Court rulings when the random one goes against him.
Who will stop him? The FBI and Justice Department couldn’t summon that ability when they were run by a Democratic President. Are a few rogue agents going to attempt to remove him when their superiors are groveling in the Oval Office?
We know the corporate media will report nothing except that which their corporate owners wish. Now perhaps one of the (few) big companies will decide they don’t like the direction things are going and start to actually start reporting in the manner these events deserve. But I have seen no indication of such. They are as business as usual as you are in your article.
We are going to require our own Maidan Revolution in this country long before 2028. I don’t know how fast things will go down. I don’t know any specific events. I have no idea what it would take to mobilize the American population out of their brainwashed stupor. But I do know it will take powerful voices like your own leading the way, on sites like Daily Kos.
You don’t need to be preparing people for a 2028 general election. You should be preparing people to take to the streets. You should be getting a copy of this website mirrored in a foreign county (and not with a company like Amazon). Your staff writers are doing a fine job bringing the news, but many of your strong commentary writers are gone. You should be encouraging them to write stronger commentary and getting back to more of your own writing.
I have been critical of Democratic Leadership in much the same way I am being critical of you. But I actually don’t want to tear them, or you, down. I want all of you to find the inner fire to recognize the severity of our situation and take the bold actions required of the moment. I realize those actions are not always obvious. I certainly don’t know the best exact path forward. But I do know it begins with leadership firing people up to oppose these changes in whichever way we can.
Democrats no longer have any power in the Federal Government and they never will again unless they recognize that fact. Our power is no longer with formal means, but with protest, persuasion, and active resistance. We are not living in the 1970s when government was capable of working and partisanship was a minor nuisance compared to the division of today. We are living in the 1930s when desperate times required desperate measures. And no, I don’t see Trump as Hitler, but I do see him as his own particular version of fascist evil, and as banal as it gets. We won’t become NAZI Germany, but we have become Fascist America. And the sooner liberal leaders adjust to the new reality the better.
I hope to God I’m wrong. I wish every person lambasting me in the comments for being too hyperbolic or irrational or overly alarmist is absolutely correct. But just walk back in history (in any country) to try to find a time when an administration began the way this one has and I don’t think the comparisons will be encouraging.
I want to work with you and support you. I want your voice to ring out and change this world for the better. But before you can do that you need to recognize that the 2028 you are writing about is nothing but a fond daydream of a world which no longer exists.
