Rebecca Solnit
I don't know what they think they're doing, but I know what I think they're doing: turning a broader and broader, more moderate and mainstream swathe of the American public against them with each outrageous act of abuse of power, cruelty, malice, destruction, and corruption of office to seek personal gain (or personal vendetta).
As I've been saying for a year, their theory of power is stupid: it's that they have all of it, they can use it however they want, and the will of the people doesn't matter. Operating on that theory they have alienated, outraged, and repelled the majority. Going after high-profile figures like the just-arrested Don Lemon or terrorizing small children like Liam Ramos is something they can do; they can't make us accept it or normalize it or not be outraged and opposed. It's our job to make our opposition matter maximally.
It's striking how driven they are by hatred and the urge to destroy and how vengeful and greedy it all is, including Trump's new lawsuit to extort ten billion dollars from the IRS, aka the government he heads. I tend to think that with all that naming stuff after himself and grabbing billions upon billions in corrupt ways and those monuments, Trump is trying to shore up his sense of self and avoid coming to terms with the fact that mortality is staring him down pretty hard these days.
I told a friend yesterday that I think we're winning but it will be a long time before the verb tense turns to won, if it does, if we make it do so, and a lot of ugly brutality and destruction will happen in the meantime. Is happening now.
As is a lot of beautiful and heroic resistance. I find that a lot of well-known journalists/editorial writers have a gloomier view, but that might be due in part to the fact that they focus on the high-profile individual players, while I focus on civil society, grassroots movements, the power of nonviolent civil resistance, the sometimes transformative capacity of ideas and culture, and other forces that besides elected officials, high-profile figures, and the very wealthy (except when they're Bruce Springsteen, whose "Streets of Minneapolis" ballad is on the top of the charts in a lot of countries right now).
Speaking of Springsteen, we're seeing more and more religious figures, athletes, and other influential figures speaking up. The Minnesota National Guard is supporting the anti-ICE forces in Minneapolis; the new Democratic governor of New Jersey is encouraging her constituents to not just video ICE but upload the videos to a state database. From San Jose to Reno to Albuquerque to Traverse City, MI, and all across Phoenix and Minnesota, high-school students have been or are walking out in protest. Many businesses are participating in a general strike today. The attempt to demonize Alex Pretti, murdered only six days ago, for carrying a firearm (which he never brandished) is pissing off a lot of Second Amendment fans.
p.s. And the courts have thrown out a lot of their attempts to get criminal convictions against everyone from NY state attorney general Leticia James to the guy who threw the sandwich at ICE in D.C. some months back and overturned a lot of their attacks on immigrants. The IRS lawsuit, I saw someone say, which is for violating his privacy because someone leaked his tax records a while back, will probably be thrown out too, but to sue the government you head is pretty corrupt and preposterous.
The Epstein files are not going away. And the resistance in Minneapolis has been nominated for the Nobel Prize he never got.
p.p.s. My friend Tobias notes, "A note about terminology here: Mainstream media are picking up on the Regime's language saying that Don Lemon and Georgia Fort "attended" this protest. "Attend" implies they were participants. They were reporting on the event as journalists." So this is an assault on the first amendment. First, Second, Fourth, Fourteenth, what other amendments are under attack? Definitely the 14th with equal protection and birthright citizenship: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
And this part of the 14th is worth remembering: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
