We [On] The People

 Everywhere you look in this country democracy is in peril. First of all, we no longer have a legitimate supreme court. What we have is Moscow Mitch's politicized abomination. And the only way you can believe that Chief Injustice Roberts is an institutionalist is if you believe that voter suppression and corporate acquisitiveness are regulative pillars rather than shameful, historical practices. Far from protecting the right to vote, Roberts and the other right wing injustices are defending voter suppression with decisions such as Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. Those two decisions completely gutted the voting rights act of 1965, leaving the states free to suppress the vote of any race or group at will, and making Chief Injustice Roberts the Roger B. Taney of our times. Furthermore the opinion Roberts wrote in Citizens United makes it much easier for the wealthy and the corporations to secretly buy our politicians. This corporate, Jim Crow court has obviously changed “we the people” to “wee on the people! 

Okay, so our courts are now even more dangerous than useless. As Injustice Roberts said in Shelby County, it is up to congress to defend the right to vote, and to save our democracy [from the feckless, fascist fools kissing Trump's vertical smile]. It sounds reasonable, but don't hold your breath! It is great that the Democratic Party is a big tent, but moderate no longer means a liberal or conservative without a backbone. What moderate now means is a politician who represents rich corporate donors. If those moderates really represented the people of their districts instead of the big donors to their campaigns, they would support the disclosure act provisions in the For The People Act rather than opposing those provisions! I know, money is the mother's milk of politics, and all politicians want to win the next election. But there comes a time when what is right becomes more important than what is political! Our system depends on an informed electorate making wise decisions, and they cannot make informed decisions if they are being kept in the dark. Furthermore, fair elections, free of voter suppression are the heart and soul of any democracy! Democracy for the select few is not a democracy; it is an oligarchy! And if the oligarchy surrenders its power to someone like Trump, it is an autocracy!

Trump Is Killing Democracy

It is well established law that you cannot shout fire in a crowded place, but Trump being Trump insists that you can shout “Reichstag fire!” Lets call Trump's law and order ploy what it actually is. It is the worst and most dangerous form of demagoguery – the kind that kills democracy. What Trump calls federal law enforcement personnel have been perverted; wittingly or unwittingly they are now his Brown Shirts, and they are trying to create a Reichstag fire situation in Portland, Oregon in order to help the most corrupt, incompetent, vicious and dangerous despot, Donald Trump, hang on to his power. This is a tactic right out of the NAZI play book, which is rather remarkable considering the fact that Trump is Putin's man ho. Ah, but one has to bear in mind that Putin has morphed from communist thug to kleptocrat just as Trump has morphed from tawdry conman to kleptocrat, and kleptocrats have no ideology other than avarice and a lust for power! It is impossible to overstate how dangerous Trump is to our constitution and our democracy.  Trump's has sent his brown shirts to intimidate the citizenry of Portland and to deprive those citizens of their right to free speech and their right to peacefully assemble. And now Trump is announcing his plan to send his brown shirts to other cities to deprive the citizens there of their rights. He has not said anything about how long he intends to terrorize those cities, or if he intends to keep expanding the scope of this terror.  The greatest fear expressed by several commentators, and it is not an unwarranted fear, is that Trump will use his brown shirts to intimidate voters or otherwise interfere with the 2020 election.


I have always recoiled in disgust when I have heard right wing idiots babble about the “second amendment remedy.” We have a system. The remedy is the vote, or so I thought. But what do you do when one of the major political parties is complicit in an attack on our constitution and our democracy? What do you do when members of that party will not respond to a grave threat to this country and instead they prevent anyone else from legally removing that grave threat? What do you do when the courts cannot or will not defend the people and the constitution of this country from a lawless president who is intent on usurping all power and robbing us blind? What do you do when the system fails, and because of voter suppression, intimidation and/or foreign interference you cannot count on the next election being a legitimate election? This, I am afraid, is what we are facing; this is the very real dilemma Trump poses to those of us who believe in the rule of law. Having to act outside of the law in order to preserve the law sounds like the illogical rationalizations of a despot. But what if there is no legal way to prevent Trump from becoming an autocrat? What if Trump and the Republican Party refuse to acknowledge and abide by the results of a legitimate election? What if the so called second amendment remedy is all that is left?  We have to stop Trump, his morally and intellectually bankrupt party, and his brown shirts before it is too late!