This American won’t bow, and neither should you
As I always do, I’ve been reading comments within our community since the election. I wanted to respond to the view offered that it isn’t particularly helpful to dwell on the implications of the election.
I disagree.
It is necessary.
The news of what is coming will be overwhelming, and that is by design. The American people will be flooded with information. Outrageous nominations, lawless actions, corruption and incompetence will wash over the country like flood waters.
The key difference between the two parties doesn’t just lie in the chasm between Trumpism and Americanism. It is also in the plain fact that MAGA has a plan. The defeated Washington, DC, Bidencrats/Schumercrats do not.
The incompetency of the Washington, DC, Democrats should offend, outrage and inspire you to action. I urge you to drop the disposition of fandom towards politicians whose powerful positions are supposed to come with an obligation of service towards you, not the other way around.
The first decision for Washington, DC, Democrats is a simple one. It is about facing reality, and letting Joe Biden go along with a raft full of octogenarian party leaders who have finished the race and lost.
They were called to defend the most important ideas in human history against a demagogic cancer pouring acid on them, and they failed. They could not find their way to the words left behind by FDR, Truman, JFK, MLK, Barbara Jordan, and the accumulated wisdom that is the beating heart of America’s great Democratic Party, the oldest in the world.
Understand this if nothing else: the Democratic Party didn’t lose. Joe Biden and cynicism did.
The cowardice that stifled truth-telling and fueled gaslighting lost. “Bidenomics” lost. Identity politics lost. Defunding the police lost, as well as a raft of other absurdities imposed on the party by the most extreme voices within it.
Donald Trump is the most prolific liar in American history. He was able to define Biden as the dishonest candidate in the race because of the delusions foisted on the country by the Biden White House and a small team of sycophants.
Their thirst for power burns as brightly as it does in the hearts of their MAGA brethren and resistance grifters who show their fidelity to the cause of liberty by pocketing 80 to 90 per cent of the donations that they frighten America’s social security recipients into writing.
The most significant delusion was that Biden was capable of serving as president until his late 80s. Shouting down every person who pointed this out and said disaster was coming worked out great. During a year of despicable moments captured on video for our posterity, none is more telling, petty or shameful than Jill Biden snubbing Kamala Harris at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day:
It was real. It was low. It was embarrassing, and it perfectly captured the culture that ignited the catastrophe at hand. There is a lesson to be learned. and something to be done.
The lesson is that nothing like what happened should ever happen again. MAGA will not be defeated until something better is offered. That is the greatest tragedy of all because the Democratic Party has fundamentally been the force in American life that has been able to light the lamp towards better over the last 100 years.
It is time to say goodbye. It is well past time to cue Andrea Bocelli at the next Democratic conference meeting. When the elders leave the room, something will become clearer than it is now. Those people came with heavy baggage.
It is time to face the storm.
Personally, I am grateful for this moment, and the fight ahead. There is joy in the struggle. There is happiness that comes from a good and worthy fight.
From this low moment will come political redemption for Democrats. A final repudiation of MAGA, an expulsion of scumbaggery from the public square, and a great awakening and renewal of the American spirit will come.
There are miles and miles to go before we get there.
Today, the situation is grim. Most of our fellow Americans, including those who voted for Trump, don’t see the forest for the trees yet. Soon, they will.
NBC News is reporting that the Pete Hegseth-led Defense Department will begin arbitrarily recalling retired officers to active duty to face court martial on trumped up charges in kangaroo courts. This will obliterate the military justice system, and shatter the culture of America’s apolitical armed forces.
Every American should appreciate that a US Senate that would confirm the ludicrously unqualified Fox News buffoon with white nationalist tattoos to be Defense Secretary would confirm any random retired Fox News Lt. Colonel to three- or four- star rank — with a full understanding that they would take command of America’s military.
There is no bottom, no precedent and no stopping any of this with votes for the foreseeable future. The consequences stage of this rotten era is upon us, and it has been chosen by the American people.
It is this fact that breaks my heart.
Depending on the moment, it also makes me incandescently angry. I try to let that pass as quickly as possible because it is not productive. Similarly, delusion is not productive.
Many Democrats have decided to direct their anger towards their fellow Americans who gave Donald Trump 49% of the vote. I get it. It is easy to fall into that. It is not productive, and it is also a cop out.
The tough thing to do — and what this moment requires — is to face an awful reality. The American people chose Donald Trump because the alternative was Joe Biden. All of the ass-covering bullshittery in the world will never change that.
Carrying the Biden ego has been a back-breaking load.
It’s okay to put it down now.
We must put it down now.
This is the first thing that must happen.
Next, it is time to freshen up and get ready.
What the fight ahead requires is a very specific type of nourishment. We must remember who we are, where we came from, how we got here, and in what direction we are headed.
The direction is up, towards the mountaintop that lies forward of this day and our current position, which could charitably be described as lost in the woods walking in a circle.
Don’t worry. Soon the path will emerge. It always does.
Until then, these tenets of Martin Luther King’s philosophy of nonviolence are important ones:
Nonviolence Is a Way of Life for Courageous People.
Nonviolence Seeks to Win Friendship and Understanding.
Nonviolence Seeks to Defeat Injustice, or Evil, Not People.
Nonviolence Holds That Unearned, Voluntary Suffering for a Just Cause Can Educate and Transform People and Societies.
Nonviolence Chooses Love Instead of Hate.
Nonviolence Believes That the Universe Is on the Side of Justice.
We have not escaped history. It can happen here, and is happening right now.
Every American will be measured in the months ahead. When regret overcomes millions, it is important that those people are welcomed with respect, not contempt.
During the next months, after winning a plurality election, with under 50% of the vote, but both houses of Congress, Donald Trump is going to try to take more things away from the American people. He will do it more quickly than any president in American history. The things that he will take are essential for liberty to thrive.
Dissent will be crushed around Donald Trump. He will never be told “no,” and he will rarely hear the word “no.”
His acolytes will stab each other in the back. They will compete for his affection with their extremism and commitment to showing that there are no lines, boundaries, limits or restraints when it comes to loyalty. The spiral this creates is a dangerous one that fuels deeply immoral, unethical and treacherous behavior by the intoxicated lieutenants of a movement that holds truth is what the leader believes, and reality is what the leader decrees.
When the leader is above the law and becomes the law, the men and women who stand with him cannot help but presume the immunities fall on them as well, and from that, a great entitlement grows. When that entitlement marries the philosophy that holds that one group of people stand above another in a social hierarchy, where might makes right and power gives license to dominate those without it, the gates of hell start opening.
We have lost an election, not our country. Surrendering the country to despotism —soft or otherwise — is not on the table.
The simple truth of this hour is that things in America are going to change, and not for the better. A casual cruelty, easy malice and epic nuttery are going to spill out over America on January 20, 2025, at high noon.
It is going to be overwhelming and frightening.
Chuck Schumer is as outmatched as the American media.
America’s newsrooms will get in line as mass layoffs consume them. A left-wing version of the 2009 Tea Party will start to rise that will cost Democrats easy victories in 2026, and help Trump stabilize when his extremism starts to sink him.
Many of the early fights against Trump will fail and prove embarrassing. The confirmation hearings are likely to be shambolic, incoherent and absolute failures at stopping the formation of the most powerful, dangerous, corrupt, incompetent, unstable, narcissistic cabinet in American history. All of this defeat may inspire you to tune out and turn away from what is happening. Don’t.
If you do, you will miss the moment when the spark ignites and a fire starts to burn.
The United States is a turbulent nation on the edge of a storm. Riding through it is the burden and gift of our shared citizenship.
Donald Trump’s victory, while tragic and disgusting, will not change our ultimate destiny. We will reach the mountaintop that King foresaw. Getting there should be seen for what it is: a great privilege.
Trump is president, not king.
This American won’t bow, and neither should you.
I have a better idea. Fight back. Organize. Read. Understand. Breathe. Learn. Share.
What a time it is to be an American. Soon, we will get to test what that means.
It is also not productive to direct criticism toward Joe or Jill Biden.
For years I've been saying that old white men should step down. Now we have yet another old, white man with despicable motives bringing in white racists and bigots and power-hungry mad men that are younger and hope to control the country for a long time. This gray-haired old lady will resist! For my children, grandchildren and my country, I will resist. Is there really any other choice?