Mar 20
TWO IN A WEEK OH MY GOD
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TWO IN A WEEK OH MY GOD
Drew Sheneman, Tribune Content Agency
* * * *
53 Days
In 1933, it took 53 days for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to destroy the Weimar Republic.
In 2025, on Day 53 of the attempted dictatorship of Donald J. Trump, the American Republic stands on the edge of falling after a life of 248 years.
Today, the leadership of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate gave in to the appeasement of a would-be dictator and his henchman that ranks with the failure of the Western Allies to confront Adolf Hitler when he took back the Rhineland in 1936, when he incorporated Austria into his Third Reich in 1938, when he forced the leaders of Great Britain and France to acknowledge his superiority at Munich87 years ago.
This was done despite the fact that 53% of Americans would have blamed the would-be dictator Trump for the shutdown. It was the action of nine senior Democrats and one Independent who determined that opposing him was worse than appeasing him. It was the action of Senators who are each cowards in the face of this bald-faced attempt to destroy the republic they took an oath to support and defend against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic.
While that happened...
The would-be dictator did something today that no other American president has done since 1872, the year that the United States Department of Justice was founded as an independent agency to defend justice, an agency created to oppose the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan. He went to Main Justice, where the Attorney General publicly named him the most important president ever, the man who would always “fight for our interests,” the president who those assembled must follow.
The would-be dictator then named all the leading media in the country - the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and CNN - his personal enemies and stated these organizations were committing “illegal acts” for opposing him. He then went on to personally name leading journalists and political leaders who have opposed him as “enemies” whose “illegal actions” should be investigated and formally charged as crimes. His words were cheered by the DOJ employees who were carefully chosen to be his audience. They now have their “marching orders,” and the orders are to destroy the democracy and rule of law on which the United States of America was founded.
While that happened...
Today, the Department of Defense announced that all information at Arlington National Cemetery related to the Civil War and to Civil War Medals of Honor, have been deleted from the Arlington records used to educate the public. In addition, the names and records of prominent minorities who served this country and are buried at Arlington in recognition of that service - Colin Powell and Thurgood Marshall most prominently - have been removed. There is now only brief mention of the connection of Arlington Cemetery - once the plantation of the great Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee - to the Civil War, the war that was fought to end the institution of human slavery.
The spokesman for Arlington said: “We remain committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation with transparency and professionalism, while continuing to engage with our community in a manner that reflects our core values.” How they will do that with any connection to actual truth is beyond me.
Some of the removed content is still accessible through active links to pages on “Prominent Military Figures” and “U.S. Supreme Court,” but the categories “African American History,” “Hispanic American History,” and “Women’s History” no longer appear prominently on the site. What is no longer available is information about influential individuals like Captain Joy Bright Hancock, one of the military’s first woman officers, and Major General Marcelite Jordan Harris, the Air Force’s first female, African-American general officer.
This is only the most recent act taken to destroy the history of the United States as the country founded on the belief that “all men are created equal.” The history of oppressed Americans to gain their place in the country, the history of opposition to rule by the rich minority, is being wiped from American education as the last act of a Department of Education that is in process of being destroyed by the would-be dictator and his minions.
All of this comes on top of 53 days of a dedicated attack on the Federal Government, wiping out the departments and other units that have provided the services and help that the majority of Americans depend on from their government. There is no longer a National Weather Service to report the weather!
It can get overwhelming to consider all of this. And it can get to the point where one can conclude there is nothing they can do against these forces that appear so much more powerful than any single individual.
After Trump named him a “radical subversive” in his insane speech today at the Department of Justice, attorney Mark Elias said “We have to become our own heroes” when he was asked if he was concerned about being so named in such a situation. “I’m going to continue to do what I do,” he responded.
That’s all any of us can do.
In the end, even Hitler’s Third Reich required the consent of the governed to succeed at its evil intention. Whether that consent was freely given by “Hitler’s willing executioners,” or whether it came from a coerced silence, everyone there made a choice.
Everyone here can make a choice.
For me, the choice is easy. This IS My Country. My ancestors were among those who founded it. I can look at buildings that have existed for centuries here, and know what my ancestors did as members of the communities that existed within and around those structures. When I want to think about facing difficult choices, I can think about the three Cleaver Brothers - Isaac, James and Ezekiel - and Ezekiel’s oldest son, Ezekiel Jr. - who didn’t run away after the defeats on Long Island, who didn’t slip off into the forest as others did, who stayed to cross the Delaware River and save the Revolution, who didn’t run away during the Winter at Valley Forge, who didn’t give up after all the other defeats they endured until 1782 when they won, who were friends and fellow believers with Icon of the Revolution Betsy Ross, and I know I don’t want to piss on their graves.
Making the choice that needs to be made doesn’t need something so In Your Face as my family history - though there are days when I definitely have to think about that in order to take another step - but each of us has something to hold onto, something that’s us that gives guidance. And in the days we now live in, we need to hold onto whatever those things are more strongly than ever.
Between now and Restoration Day, whenever that comes, we are each going to be faced with a choice as important as the choice that was presented to ten Senators today, and we will need to not whiff on that, as they did.
Right now, movie person that I am, I think of the words a great writer - Paddy Chayevsky - gave to his character Howard Beale in “Network.” “I want you to get out of your chairs now, and I want you to go over to the window and open it and stick your head out and yell as loud as you can,”I”m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!’ Go on, get out of your chairs, go over to the window and throw it open and yell, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” We have to do that because then they have to listen to us, much as they don’t want to.
We are living in the days when - after Restoration Day - we’ll be asked, “What did you do in those important times?” I don’t think “I ran up the white flag without even resisting” is what we want to be remembered for, as the Ten Cowards will be remembered now, forever.
Even just doing what Senator Mark Kelly did today, when he announced that he was getting rid of his Tesla because “I don’t want to be in a car designed and built by an asshole” is an important act of resistance.
We have to be like Liz Oyer, who agonized through a sleepless night about an order she was given to restore the gun rights of a man convicted of “domestic abuse” who she knew should not be given back that right, who knew she was likely going to be fired when she told her superiors her decision, who knew she would be removed from “having any say about this issue,” and went in and did it anyway because she knew she couldn’t do otherwise and live with herself.
Hollywood Ten “red” screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. was asked to name others he knew were or had been members of the Communist Party. He looked at the congressman who asked that of him and said “I could do as you say, congressman, but then I wouldn’t like myself very much the next morning.” It took 20 years of him continuing to resist The Blacklist after saying that, before he was able to write and see made the movie “M.A.S.H.”
We won’t all get a prize like that for Doing The Right Thing (Lardner always pointed out that “I wasn’t such a smart guy - I’m the one who then turned down the opportunity to create the TV series.”)
But we do get to like ourselves in the morning.
And one thing we all absolutely have to do is not give in to despair and weakness in front of our family and friends and people we know, and give them a reason to think there’s no good to come from fighting back by telling them there won’t be elections in 2026 and 2028, no matter what we might privately believe. There’s plenty of other cowards to say that to them. Don’t be that one. This is a time to Act As If - act as if there really is a reason to resist. Act as if you believe in this country.
Believe in ourselves. And then believe in each other. These are hard difficult days, and the really hard ones have yet to arrive. One foot in front of the other, to Restoration Day.
[TCinLA]
Only 53 MORE DAYS TILL WE GET BUDDIE BACK ON OUR TV SCREENS!
53 days until Halloween!
Progress 🤗
I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone that has supported me with my art work and my art shop.
Because of you guys I was able to save all my money I made and then book a valentine’s trip away to Amsterdam for my boyfriend and I; I am so super excited as it will have been 4 years since we were last there for Valentine’s Day!
So thank you for being awesome, I love you guys!
i wish i was in a stadium screaming the lyrics to reputation right now
