A friend of mine recently coined the phrase “necrotic toddler” to refer to the Felon. I must admit, I like it.
Said toddler’s policies are massively unpopular. Despite his sniveling about how everyone loves him, how “America was dead a year ago” and how everything he does is perfect (while it’s hardly his worst crime, his endless whinging is insufferable), his policies don’t work and they’re increasingly becoming rejected. In a normal presidency that would be a sign to course-correct. The Toddler, however, can’t admit error and won’t back off, so Republicans are instead pushing to become even more tyrannical and authoritarian. The military deployed to American cities. Purging our foreign intelligence capability. Threats to withhold funding for anyone who doesn’t kiss his ass. Threats to punish the media for saying anything that hurts his snowflake fee-fees. His toadies calling for the Toddler to jail his enemies for defying him. “Acting as if he does own the White House, the Smithsonian, the District of Columbia and practically everything else under the flag” when he’s nothing but our appointed custodian.
Things are already bad. In many ways they’ll get worse. As someone put it on Lawyers, Guns and Money, “Even if we get out, and relatively soon, it won’t be unscathed. We’re already scathed.” The Toddler wants to be a dictator and thinks his executive orders are as binding as laws passed by Congress (declaring flag-burning a crime, for instance). Even though he’s got Congress and SCOTUS backing him up, he’s still issuing executive orders instead of working through the system.
As someone else put it in the same comments thread, “one aspect that will haunt me for the rest of my days is not just that this was self-inflicted but that it self-inflicted because of the cult of Donald Trump. I come back to it over and over. I can’t sleep because of it. THIS GUY? WE’RE DOING THIS OVER THIS GUY?”
All that vented — the fight goes on. We can’t save everything but we can still save many things. A recent issue of my ACLU newsletter reminded me that more’s going on than reaches the news. Lawsuits filed. Protests taking place. Many of them scheduled for today. And they draw far more attendance that the Felon’s birthday military parade did.
“A federal judge in Washington blocked the Trump administration from firing Michael Abramowitz as Voice of America’s director Thursday, weeks after Kari Lake first attempted to remove him from the post.”
Grand juries have repeatedly refused to indict the guy who threw a sandwich at the cops in DC.
Fascist propagandist Sean Hannity says he fled New York City because people were mean to him. Not that they did anything, they simply looked at him with loathing in their eyes. My hats off to New Yorkers for driving him out without any violence or law-breaking.
Democrats running for state office keep flipping deep red seats.
“Those who have fought Trump’s autocratic power-grabs stand a good chance to win…but too many have just surrendered.” From the same post: “plenty of people and institutions have fought him and seem to have done just fine. Consider the law firms that refused to be bullied, or Wesleyan University and its president, Michael Roth. Or George Mason, of all places, and its president, Gregory Washington. Plenty of media outlets haven’t backed down. And while Trump’s attacks on his enemies, including some politicians, are threatening, most of those who oppose him, from Democratic state attorneys general to the millions who have joined public protests and demonstrations, are doing just fine so far.”
“Between his personal account and a press account, Newsom has been supplementing more serious messaging with both important political points and trolling.” There’s a lot I dislike about Gavin Newsom (anti-trans, anti-homeless) but it’s good to see someone prominent mock the shit out of Republicans.
Trump has fired Lisa Cook of the Federal Reserve, though he has no authority to do so. She’s refusing to go.
In Florida Ron DeStalinist is requiring cities paint over rainbow LGBTQ crosswalks. Some activists paint them back. In one town, seniors blocked efforts to remove the crosswalk.
Whether Melania gets the cover of Vanity Fair or not is not the most crucial issue of the day. But I applaud the magazine staffers who’ve threatened to walk out rather than profile a tyrant’s wife.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is providing a model of resistance for Democrats.
As James Fallows says (quoting Will Stancil) “Forcing them to fight for every inch – and escalating every conflict to the utmost – spends their time, their legal resources, and makes each subsequent battle RISKIER for them rather than SAFER, as you’re constantly testing public acquiescence and you never know when popular opposition might emerge.”
Stancil: “If you have the morally, logically correct position in a conflict – or are simply standing up for a popular institution or a stable status quo – you should WANT to fight, as long as possible, in as large a public forum as possible, because that’s how you persuade people.”
I’ll close with this list by Cheryl Rofer of things we should be fighting for, not just against (revive green energy, expand easy access to voting, eliminate ICE, Medicare for all). It’s not meant as the definitive list, but it’s important to start thinking about how we can build back better and stronger if we get the chance.
