As human beings, we seem to innately want to push boundaries and to get what we want when we want. However, our parents, friends, bosses, and other people, help us learn there are expectations within our homes and within society in which we must live. This is often through trial and error, and positive and negative consequences.
Most of us learned we’ll get burned if we touch a hot pan—usually by touching one even after being told not to do so. Many of us learn friends don’t like to be hit—usually by them telling us and often times by getting hit back when the friend defends themselves. Some of us learn our bosses won’t tolerate us not doing our jobs or treating others unprofessionally—usually by getting reprimanded or fired. A few of us learn we can’t get away with breaking the law—usually due to being arrested and serving some time.
Unfortunately, there are a select few in which, for whatever reason, learn the opposite lessons. These people, usually the very richest of us, learn they can break the law, say hurtful things, and even lie through their teeth at every turn, and nothing happens.
At this time in U.S. history, we are being led by one of these people. From what has been reported, Trump in particular (but also similarly those around him), has been blessed with being able to do things 99% of us would get arrested if we did. At the very least, we would shunned and shamed into being looked at as someone not to be trusted or at a minimum keep on the fringe of everything.
Not Trump, as reported and written about, he has been able to do just about anything he wants without consequence or repercussion. He was able to mock a disabled person. He was able to hang around with Jeffrey Epstein. He was able to bankrupt at least one business. He was able to keep stolen top secret documents in his home. He was able to, for all practicable purposes, to incite an insurrection. He is able to spread rumors and lie constantly. All of this without it harming him, in fact it seems to have elevated him to God-like status among his cultist followers.
Just since he has taken office, he (through his administration) has been allowed to rule by Executive Order, which are not laws all must follow, but directives to federal departments. He has tanked the stock market, and the bond market, and is eroding the value of the U.S. dollar with tariffs (taxes that we actually will need to pay). He has manipulated the stock market by letting people know when it was a great time to buy, just before lifting tariffs.
The latest of these many things is he is disappearing people who are living in the U.S. legally, sending them to a prison in a foreign country. He is abducting people off the street who are just exercising their right to free speech. He is abducting people based on a tattoo or wearing of Chicago sports team’s clothing. And, he seems to be ignoring court orders telling him he can’t do this without legal court proceedings.
This last action is in many ways one of the most egregious of many acts of egregiousness. In seeming to ignore the courts, since he already has made Congress irrelevant, is making the third branch of government irrelevant. When the checks and balances of the Constitution are destroyed, we have no democracy. We have a dictator.
A dictator who can, and has shown will, take people off the streets at will, put them on a plane, and ship humans off to another country’s worst prisons to live, or most likely die, with no recourse. This is exactly what the Nazi’s did. The Nazi’s moved citizens and legal residents they didn’t like out of the country—Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and many other of the concentration/death camps were not in Germany, most were in Poland. This is what the Trump administration is doing as well because he knows it would not be tolerated (yet) within the United States.
In sending humans to foreign countries, he can say he can’t bring them back because he can’t control other countries. If a court order is ignored it becomes a Catch-22. The people are gone, so sorry, but he can’t bring them back. Their abductors, ICE, with the full backing of the United States Government, are serving as their judge, jury, and executioner. All with no negative repercussions. We, my dear fellow citizens, have entered the dark times, and it will only continue to get darker until a larger force, whatever that may be, makes it stop.
This larger force could be us. Through peaceful, and I do mean peaceful following the lead of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., protest, we still have a chance. By joining with others with whom we may not agree on anything except saving the country, is powerful. The memes out there showing when a school of fish band together we become more powerful, or the one stating the billionaire class needs us, we don’t need them is true. When we band together, oddly Congress is more likely to realize they may not get reelected if things continue in this way. When we band together, we can help effectuate stopping some off the bad policies being put in place as has been shown with the backpedaling of some of Trump’s decisions. When we band together we show others they aren’t alone.
As of today, and I say that because who knows what tomorrow may hold with this administration, Congress, and the courts, we, the people of the United States still hold the ultimate power of the ballot. This power can still hold sway on elected officials, which is why they work so hard to take away our right to vote.
Our founding fathers, even with all of their flaws, provided us this final say. Through protest and through the ballot box.
Let’s not go quietly into the good night. Let’s get into some good trouble, necessary trouble. Together we can take our country back from the billionaire class.
I’ve often said we all need to be involved in saving democracy in the ways which fit our lives and our comfort levels. These can be blogging, reposting on social media, calling your elected officials, letters to the editor, donating to organizations, and/or marching in the streets. Nothing is too little or too much. Here are some ways to get involved whether from the comfort of your own homes, or on the streets, over the next few weeks:
- Call your U.S. Senator to demand they vote NO on the SAVE Act, a law that is designed to keep millions of women from voting. The switchboard number is 202-224-3121. They will connect you with the correct senators. If you get their voicemail, which I do often, make sure to leave your name and address for your call to be registered as received.
- Participate in the National Day of Protest: Hands Off our Democracy on Saturday, April 19. Start time is noon local time at the statehouse in all states. There are also pop-up protests in other cities as well for those that aren’t able to travel to a state capital. No group is too small to stand up for our rights.
- Call your congressional members and let them know as one of the people they represent, it is past time for Musk to be fired and DOGE dismantled. Call this number and the switchboard will connect you to your representative or senator: 202-224-3121. Even if you don’t know who your members are, they will find them for you based on your address, which they will ask you to provide.
- Call the White House switchboard to express your disappointment in what is happening and that Musk must go: 202-456-1414 (switchboard) or 202-456-1111 (comments). I recommend the switchboard myself.
- Sign up for General Strike and commit to participating.
- Download the app Five Calls to help let your elected officials know you are paying attention and don’t approve. Website: https://5calls.org/
- Join a local group of Indivisible.
- Participate in the action items of50501: 50 Protests, 50 States, 1 Movement.
- Continue to boycott companies who have bent the knee or no longer believe in equality. Don’t buy from national chains or companies, such as Target, Amazon, Tesla, and Walmart.
- Plan to make no purchases for the second full economic blackout on April 18.
- Write letters to your local papers expressing your disappointment and tell your stories of how the Republican administration is harming your families.
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 