Assault on America
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I wrote this on December 9, 2024, 42 days before Donald Trump began his assault on the American Republic:
The United States is going to be transformed by Trump’s presidency.
It will end the 80-year era that stretched uncontested from Roosevelt to Obama.
It will commence a new, deadlier age during which the furies will be let loose by wicked and arrogant people who think they have been picked by the hand of god to lead their people into a storm of their own making.
What comes next is either decay and collapse, or reform and renewal. In some sense, this has always been the cycle, and it will always be so until there is an event that alters forever the capacity for resilience.
The magnitude of the abuses and offenses against liberty, law and rights that are going to happen in America over the next six months are going to be shocking.
There is a real lack of imagination about them.
With each week, the abuses will deepen, and the American media will shine them up as something normal, which they won’t be.
The new standard is a simple one: be “nice” to Trump, and he will be nice to you.
This is the wrong path — and the most dangerous one.
Being “nice” isn’t the American thing to do when forces combine to take liberty away in this country. Trump’s opposition is a disaster right now. It needs to get healthy in a hurry. That starts by raising standards, not lowering them.
Knowing what we are fighting for is at least as important as knowing what we are fighting against.
Do you know what you are fighting for?
Do you think Chuck Schumer knows?
Is it the same thing that Lincoln, Roosevelt and King were fighting for?
The cost of losing to a man like Trump is going to be higher than most anyone imagines.
The Warning will not take one step back. I hope you won’t either.
Slightly over a year ago, I participated in an Oxford Union debate.
The proposition: “The House believes America is a failing democracy.”
As America stands at a crossroads in its democratic journey, questions arise about the nation’s future. Are the ideals of electoral integrity and civil liberties still upheld, or are they okay eroding under the weight of recent Supreme Court decisions, the persuasive influence of special interests, and other potential threats?
This debate examines whether the US is living up to its democratic promises or faltering under new pressures that challenge the foundations of its political system.
I spoke for the proposition.
I hope you will listen and understand how far we have come towards losing what it was I was talking about:
These words mark a permanent rupture. Things will never be the same again for the United States and the American people.
Steve, you were right 42 days before it started. I’m afraid that the world has stopped waiting for Americans to figure out what they’re fighting for.
You asked if Schumer knows what he’s fighting for, if it’s the same thing Lincoln, Roosevelt, and King fought for. The answer is no. But while Americans debate that question internally, allies are building what comes next without them.
The 80-year era didn’t just end domestically. It ended globally. When the American president confuses Greenland with Iceland at Davos, threatens allied territory, deploys federal agents like brownshirts, and discusses prosecuting political opponents, the rest of the democratic world stops waiting for American renewal and starts building alternatives.
You’re focused on whether Americans will fight back, whether they’ll raise standards, whether opposition gets healthy. Those are the right domestic questions. But the international second-order effect: Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea are decoupling from American reliability because they can’t make their security contingent on whether Americans save themselves.
The cost of losing to Trump is higher than most imagine. You’re right. But part of that cost is that even if Americans eventually win domestically, the trust is gone internationally. The post-American order is fracturing not because allies gave up on America, but because dependence on American democracy became a strategic vulnerability they can’t afford.
Your warning matters. But the world moved on while Americans debated what they’re fighting for.
— Johan
Former foreign service officer
Perhaps the expiration date is 250 years and that may be a good thing. Federal Government personnel in Minnesota have been entering homes without a warrant.