Tags: #uspol #politics

Even when I wrote the title for this post, I could feel how much that the sentence failed to capture the feeling everyone who wasn't a fascist was feeling. The 2024 #election did not go the direction that a lot of people thought. I mean, look at how much the #gop was fighting to change laws, to purge voter rolls, and all the other nefarious plans to steal the election. They thought they were going to lose as much as the #Democrats thought they were going to win. Everyone was caught off guard.

Since then, I have watched the hastags on the #fediverse, followed some of the content of YouTubers that I trust and caught up on a lot of the talk on corpo social media. There is a few things I found that surprised me.

Everyone is Standing Together

I think the thing that surprised me the most is that across the internet among the communities I follow, there have been an outpouring of support for the vulnerable groups that are going to be targeted by thew new regime coming in. Support links, advice, mentions of communities they can hide in. I did not see anything like this in the 2016 election.

I'm confident it is because we know what we're getting into but instead of just fury, there is also the helping of one another. That brought me to tears more than the loss of the election.

In a country that I had thought had lost this, I was happy to see that I was wrong. I'm doing better today because of the kindness and camaraderie that I have seen.

All is Not Lost

I know I say this and it has been only three days since the election loss. But I think it is something that needs to be said. We all had a lot of hope that the healing that President Biden had been bringing to this country after the damage Trump inflicted would continue under Vice President Harris. No, she was not the best choice but she was the only choice we had in time and I think the best chance of trying to win. She ran a good campaign and I'm proud of have had a sign for her and voted for her.

The reason I say there is hope in these coming times is because of the following things:

• Even if the GOP have a trifecta (control of the House, Senate, and White House), the cowardly Republicans are going to still play it safe when it comes to their own seats. They are still at the whim of their voters and things like Project 2025 have been detested by Americans on both sides of the line. I'm thinking that they may start small to see how much they can get away with and we have the ACLU to fight them tooth and claw. (The ACLU is always looking for donations to help the good fight).
• We only have to wait two years before we can vote again to remove the assholes from power. The House of Representatives come up once every two years and if you remember, the Trump Economy and situation was so bad, that the GOP lost so many seats. Also in the 2026 mid terms, not only are the 435 House seats not back open, 35 Senate seats will also and more than half of them held by Republicans.
• You are still here. I don't want this to sound hokey but you are still here. We were beaten, we are angry and disgusted at what our fellow citizens chose. But we are still here to fight for the rights of people to be safe, to be themselves, and for women to have full autonomy of their bodies. Right now there is nothing we can do but the time is coming to fight back again.

It will be dark Before it Becomes light

I won't lie to you or ramp my optimism up to 1000%. What is coming is dark and we are about to go through some bad times again. Unlike 2016, we know how bad of a leader Trump and his sycophants are but this time, we're dealing with someone who looks as if they are in the throes of dementia, who cares nothing for anyone but himself, and ready to appoint Nazis to positions of power.

Don't give up! We have been lucky that many of the fascists in Trump's circle are stupid. I mean, they wrote their entire plan out in a manifesto and published it for the world to see. They gave us the blueprint on how to block them.

But even stupid fascists are dangerous. We will need to keep putting pressure on our representatives and senators to make sure they don't stray (or give into their worst impulses if you live in a red state) and continue to point out that we are up against actual Nazis and that we will not accept a Christo-fascist theocracy. I believe in separation of Church and State and it is our right to speak, believe, and live the way we want to.

Hang in there! We'll get through this together.

Tags: #politics #essay

As a writer, I have written a lot of things in my life, and honestly, the thing I hate to write about the most is #politics. I mean, I have always enjoyed the concept of how government works and the application of good faith discussions on what is best for the American people among their elected officials.

I hate to say it, but that time is gone. It died in 2016 when The #republican party decided to sell what was left of its soul to the proverbial devil to maintain what little power they had left over the American psyche.

In this article, I'm going to explain why that is and how we are aiming to become a country where we are a #republic in name.

Cultural Shift & Falling Behind

It started in the 1960s and has been going steadily since then. The American public has been shifting away from the old-style conservatism that is white people being in charge of things. Anyone who takes an honest look at history can see that the United States has always tried to oppress the minority even with high-sounding morals.

Since then, the citizens of the United States have become more inclusive, respectful, and open to new ideas and thoughts that were once considered taboo and evil.

LGBTQIA+ recognition, the inclusion of Black and people of color in voting, the idea that maybe we should help each other rather than being selfish.

This all came to a head with the election of President Obama and the passage of the Affordable Care Act. We were on our way to becoming a country where people of all races, creeds, and colors had a chance at pursuing their happiness.

That came to an end with the election of Donald Trump and the desperate screams of the theocrats whose power had almost dwindled to nothing.

Conservatism in the USA Is Dying

This is a bold statement to make, but there is evidence to prove it. Every election cycle, voters are choosing more progressive candidates to represent them in government. The old white conservative platforms are losing their voters through death or attrition, and the GOP cannot find good arguments to convince the next generation to join them.

There are now more independents in the United States than in a long time. More people are choosing not to be aligned with a specific denomination or religion and are expecting more from their candidates.

These are things that the GOP cannot comprehend or combat against. The basic conservative ideals of male and white superiority no longer hold purchase with the majority of the next generations.

Instead of trying to change their ideals and win voters back to their side, the Republicans and their theocratic leaders have decided it is better to start cheating and stacking things in their favor. They believe it is now time to do everything in their power to remain in positions of authority and force their minority-supported beliefs on the rest of the country.

Do not be fooled: the majority of conservatives' beliefs are not supported by the general public in the United States.

Why do they do this? Why do they think that taking away the people's power and calling for the end of democracy is the correct choice? It's simple in their minds: moral superiority.

The Insidious Disease of Moral Superiority

The Republican leaders and those who support them have come to the conclusion that their beliefs on the Bible and their take on Christianity are the correct choice, and that it is their job to spread that belief to the country, even if their actions are morally questionable or downright illegal. Because they believe that their belief is right, it excuses any and all actions that they take.

It was summed up perfectly by Jack Posobiec at #CPAC in his opening speech: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here (Makes fist like a half-hearted Nazi salute).”

They have lost the public vote, confidence, and support, so they have decided that because they are right and the rest of the country is wrong, the only way to ensure that we behave the way they want is for democracy to end and autocratic rule to take over.

They are simply saying: “You all are wrong, so you shouldn't have a say. Just do what we tell you to do.”

There is no way to fight against an insidious belief like this, as logic and reason do not work. They are in a cult and are fanatics who believe they are right and that their will must be established in this country at all costs.

Is It Over for the USA?

Not yet, but we are getting close. The blame cannot be laid just at the feet of the religious fanatics like Jack Posobiec, Mike Johnson, and others.

Their actions are supported by politicians who will do and say whatever it takes just to stay in power. No, they don't believe what the #MAGA right is saying, but it's what they feel they need to do to stay in power or to stay relevant.

All the actions of these people are funded by millionaires and billionaires for one simple reason: greed. If inclusivity continued the way it was going, the writing was on the wall that they would, at minimum, be made to pay a fair tax, or at maximum, find their ill-gotten gains taken from them and used to help the people of this country improve.

To invoke Godwin's Law, look at Hitler's rise to power. He was fully backed by the religious and the industrialists. They only turned on him when the war was lost, but by then, it was too late.

We Are in a Precarious Time

We are now at a time where people who are open Nazis are mingling with members of the GOP, where foreign intelligence agents are helping members of the US government subvert the upcoming election and sow enough discord and mistrust that they can declare the election rigged.

January 6th failed because they didn't have popular support. They're not going to make that mistake a second time.

So, I call upon any #republican, #democrat, and #independent to look at the state of things and vote to stop it. I'm not asking anyone to give up on specific beliefs, but to unite and understand that we're facing a time where people who are supposed to be our elected leaders are trying their best to stay in power and make us do what they want us to do.

Let's vote together to get every single Nazi and sympathizer, every religious zealot who thinks what they believe God told them is more important than their fellow man.

Let's get rid of them and return to a time where we worked together in good faith and helped our country grow strong.

The only other option is the loss of our fundamental freedoms and the rollback of our rights, just as we saw happen in Russia, Hungary, and Poland.

We are the only ones who can stop it. If we don't, then when everyone inevitably wakes up, it'll be too late.

The dictators are here, and we're holding the door wide open for them. ```

Tags: #politics #essay

Fury. It's that ice cold feeling in the pit of your stomach that elicits no emotion and just simmers there? Yeah, that's how I have been for the last few days and the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has made it even worse. Spoiler warning, I have nothing hopeful to say in this post. This authoritarian roller coaster is just getting started and there's no getting off. So, what has the response been since the courts decided to set us up for a dictator and a king?

Since the United States Supreme Court has declared Presidents are immune to official acts (and only lower courts can decide what is or is not an official act. They provided zero criteria), there have been steps to try to fix this but it is only theater and desk pounding that's going on.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) says he's going to introduce a Constitutional amendment¹. It's dead on arrival. You need 75% of the states to ratify an amendment which means you can't lose more than 13 states. There are 21 solid red states per 2022 election³. Even if they do pass it, who says the Supreme Court can't just declare the amendment unconstitutional? Rules? They're not following them now. Why would they later?

AOC says she's going to submit Articles of Impeachment² on the justices. That's also dead on arrival because the Dems don't have the stomach to do it cause “it'll look political” and with the tenuous hold on the Senate with a chance of losing it, it ain't going to go anywhere. They want to pretend it's still the 90s where everyone was still pretending to have integrity.

I have had friends ask me when I think that it all truly began to go down hill (as we have flirted with authoritarianism and fascism for years. Think back to McCarthyism and the backlash to the 60s Civil Rights movement).

It really started to go down hill with 9/11 and when the Patriot Act was passed. It was the first glimpse of the direction we were going. The Patriot Act was sold as a temporary thing that was supposed to help us stop terrorists from striking at us again but has continually been renewed for twenty-three years. It was sold as a patriotic law but had stripped freedoms from Americans⁵. For example:

1. Roving Wiretaps: Allows surveillance on individuals without specifying the device or location being tapped, meaning a single warrant can cover multiple devices and locations.

2. Sneak & Peek Warrants: The Act allows law enforcement to conduct searches without immediately informing the target of the search. These “sneak and peek” warrants mean individuals may not know their property has been searched until much later, potentially compromising their ability to contest the search.

3. Mandatory Detention: Non-citizens can be detained without charge for extended periods if they are deemed a threat to national security.

From there, we have slowly descended into a government that goes behind our backs to get information and uses mega-corps to do their bidding.

It was 2016 when the facade fell off and the christo-fascist regime attacked our capital and attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power believing that their lie that the 2020 election was stolen would cover them.

Many of them were found guilty of crimes around January 6th insurrection and even their leader Donald Trump was found guilty for Campaign Finance violations.

But they already had a plan for that. They had the scum bag McConnel block the appointment of an Obama supreme court judge by saying: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”⁶ and even Lindsey Graham went and said: “I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”⁶

What happened when there were two seats come open in Donald Trump's term. Both senators pushed through two extremely conservative (and questionable) candidates in the last year of Trump's presidency. Building a conservative court to do their bidding. When challenged on it McConnel's response was “In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term, We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”⁷

In short...it's important to have the public choose when you're not the party in power but if you're the party in power, it's okay to continue and appoint someone without the public having a say.

Since the court has swung hard right they have.

• Raised the bar so that the Justice Department can't use Obstruction charges against the insurrectionists ⁸

• Declare Presidential immunity for President official acts which now throw his conviction in state court into contention⁴

And I'm not even getting into Justice Thomas' wife being an insurrectionist who helped plan out some parts of the insurrection.

I have heard many say that we are at a crossroads this election but they are wrong. That crossroad was 2016 and we are now well along our way towards a faux democracy run by christian fascists who think their beliefs in God outweigh any other sort of consideration and we need to bow to them for guidance.

I have no hope to share right now. I've studied history long enough to see where this is going and like a train wreck, there's no stopping it. Even if Biden is elected president, each and every election cycle will be Christian fascists trying to take win so that they can force their beliefs down our throat.

If anything, I think Justice Jackson phrased it the best in her dissent to the majority opinion. She said: “The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm. I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right.”³

References

1 Nazzaro, M. (2024, July 2). New York DEM will introduce amendment to reverse Supreme Court immunity ruling. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750735-joe-morelle-amendment-supreme-court-immunity-ruling/mlite/?nxs-test=mlite

2 Lillis, M. (2024, July 2). Ocasio-Cortez vows to file impeachment articles against Supreme Court justices. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750034-ocasio-cortez-impeachment-articles-supreme-court-justices-trump-immunity/?nxs-test=mobile

3 Wikimedia Foundation. (2004, November 4). Red States and Blue States. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states Last edit was 18 June 2024

4 Trump v. United States, 23-939, slip op. at 118-119 (Supreme Court of the United States). Retrieved from https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

5 Johnson, C. (2011, October 26). As it turns 10, patriot act remains controversial. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2011/10/26/141699537/as-it-turns-10-patriot-act-remains-controversial

6 Silverstein, J. (2020, September 19). Here’s what Mitch McConnell said about not filing a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-supreme-court-vacancy-election-year-senate/

7 Louis Jacobson, K. S., & Jacobson, L. (2020, September 22). Flip-O-meter: McConnell’s reversal on Supreme Court nominees. @politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/22/mitch-mcconnell/mitch-mcconnell-flip-flops-considering-supreme-cou/

8 Kruzel, J. (2024, June 29). US Supreme Court raises bar for obstruction charge against Trump, Jan. 6 rioters | reuters. Reueters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-boosts-jan-6-rioters-bid-challenge-obstruction-charge-2024-06-28/

9 Davies, D. (2022, January 27). How Ginni Thomas, wife of justice Clarence Thomas, influences the Supreme Court. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1076097533/how-ginni-thomas-wife-of-justice-clarence-thomas-influences-the-supreme-court

Tags: #politics #essay

Fury. It's that ice cold feeling in the pit of your stomach that elicits no emotion and just simmers there? Yeah, that's how I have been for the last few days and the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has made it even worse. Spoiler warning, I have nothing hopeful to say in this post. This authoritarian roller coaster is just getting started and there's no getting off. So, what has the response been since the courts decided to set us up for a dictator and a king?

Since the United States Supreme Court has declared Presidents are immune to official acts (and only lower courts can decide what is or is not an official act. They provided zero criteria), there have been steps to try to fix this but it is only theater and desk pounding that's going on.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) says he's going to introduce a Constitutional amendment¹. It's dead on arrival. You need 75% of the states to ratify an amendment which means you can't lose more than 13 states. There are 21 solid red states per 2022 election³. Even if they do pass it, who says the Supreme Court can't just declare the amendment unconstitutional? Rules? They're not following them now. Why would they later?

AOC says she's going to submit Articles of Impeachment² on the justices. That's also dead on arrival because the Dems don't have the stomach to do it cause “it'll look political” and with the tenuous hold on the Senate with a chance of losing it, it ain't going to go anywhere. They want to pretend it's still the 90s where everyone was still pretending to have integrity.

I have had friends ask me when I think that it all truly began to go down hill (as we have flirted with authoritarianism and fascism for years. Think back to McCarthyism and the backlash to the 60s Civil Rights movement).

It really started to go down hill with 9/11 and when the Patriot Act was passed. It was the first glimpse of the direction we were going. The Patriot Act was sold as a temporary thing that was supposed to help us stop terrorists from striking at us again but has continually been renewed for twenty-three years. It was sold as a patriotic law but had stripped freedoms from Americans⁵. For example:

1. Roving Wiretaps: Allows surveillance on individuals without specifying the device or location being tapped, meaning a single warrant can cover multiple devices and locations.

2. Sneak & Peek Warrants: The Act allows law enforcement to conduct searches without immediately informing the target of the search. These “sneak and peek” warrants mean individuals may not know their property has been searched until much later, potentially compromising their ability to contest the search.

3. Mandatory Detention: Non-citizens can be detained without charge for extended periods if they are deemed a threat to national security.

From there, we have slowly descended into a government that goes behind our backs to get information and uses mega-corps to do their bidding.

It was 2016 when the facade fell off and the christo-fascist regime attacked our capital and attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power believing that their lie that the 2020 election was stolen would cover them.

Many of them were found guilty of crimes around January 6th insurrection and even their leader Donald Trump was found guilty for Campaign Finance violations.

But they already had a plan for that. They had the scum bag McConnel block the appointment of an Obama supreme court judge by saying: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”⁶ and even Lindsey Graham went and said: “I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”⁶

What happened when there were two seats come open in Donald Trump's term. Both senators pushed through two extremely conservative (and questionable) candidates in the last year of Trump's presidency. Building a conservative court to do their bidding. When challenged on it McConnel's response was “In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term, We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”⁷

In short...it's important to have the public choose when you're not the party in power but if you're the party in power, it's okay to continue and appoint someone without the public having a say.

Since the court has swung hard right they have.

• Raised the bar so that the Justice Department can't use Obstruction charges against the insurrectionists ⁸

• Declare Presidential immunity for President official acts which now throw his conviction in state court into contention⁴

And I'm not even getting into Justice Thomas' wife being an insurrectionist who helped plan out some parts of the insurrection.

I have heard many say that we are at a crossroads this election but they are wrong. That crossroad was 2016 and we are now well along our way towards a faux democracy run by christian fascists who think their beliefs in God outweigh any other sort of consideration and we need to bow to them for guidance.

I have no hope to share right now. I've studied history long enough to see where this is going and like a train wreck, there's no stopping it. Even if Biden is elected president, each and every election cycle will be Christian fascists trying to take win so that they can force their beliefs down our throat.

If anything, I think Justice Jackson phrased it the best in her dissent to the majority opinion. She said: “The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm. I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right.”³

References

1 Nazzaro, M. (2024, July 2). New York DEM will introduce amendment to reverse Supreme Court immunity ruling. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750735-joe-morelle-amendment-supreme-court-immunity-ruling/mlite/?nxs-test=mlite

2 Lillis, M. (2024, July 2). Ocasio-Cortez vows to file impeachment articles against Supreme Court justices. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750034-ocasio-cortez-impeachment-articles-supreme-court-justices-trump-immunity/?nxs-test=mobile

3 Wikimedia Foundation. (2004, November 4). Red States and Blue States. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states Last edit was 18 June 2024

4 Trump v. United States, 23-939, slip op. at 118-119 (Supreme Court of the United States). Retrieved from https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

5 Johnson, C. (2011, October 26). As it turns 10, patriot act remains controversial. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2011/10/26/141699537/as-it-turns-10-patriot-act-remains-controversial

6 Silverstein, J. (2020, September 19). Here’s what Mitch McConnell said about not filing a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-supreme-court-vacancy-election-year-senate/

7 Louis Jacobson, K. S., & Jacobson, L. (2020, September 22). Flip-O-meter: McConnell’s reversal on Supreme Court nominees. @politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/22/mitch-mcconnell/mitch-mcconnell-flip-flops-considering-supreme-cou/

8 Kruzel, J. (2024, June 29). US Supreme Court raises bar for obstruction charge against Trump, Jan. 6 rioters | reuters. Reueters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-boosts-jan-6-rioters-bid-challenge-obstruction-charge-2024-06-28/

9 Davies, D. (2022, January 27). How Ginni Thomas, wife of justice Clarence Thomas, influences the Supreme Court. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1076097533/how-ginni-thomas-wife-of-justice-clarence-thomas-influences-the-supreme-court

Tags: #politics #essay

As a writer, I have written a lot of things in my life, and honestly, the thing I hate to write about the most is #politics. I mean, I have always enjoyed the concept of how government works and the application of good faith discussions on what is best for the American people among their elected officials.

I hate to say it, but that time is gone. It died in 2016 when The #republican party decided to sell what was left of its soul to the proverbial devil to maintain what little power they had left over the American psyche.

In this article, I'm going to explain why that is and how we are aiming to become a country where we are a #republic in name.

Cultural Shift & Falling Behind

It started in the 1960s and has been going steadily since then. The American public has been shifting away from the old-style conservatism that is white people being in charge of things. Anyone who takes an honest look at history can see that the United States has always tried to oppress the minority even with high-sounding morals.

Since then, the citizens of the United States have become more inclusive, respectful, and open to new ideas and thoughts that were once considered taboo and evil.

LGBTQIA+ recognition, the inclusion of Black and people of color in voting, the idea that maybe we should help each other rather than being selfish.

This all came to a head with the election of President Obama and the passage of the Affordable Care Act. We were on our way to becoming a country where people of all races, creeds, and colors had a chance at pursuing their happiness.

That came to an end with the election of Donald Trump and the desperate screams of the theocrats whose power had almost dwindled to nothing.

Conservatism in the USA Is Dying

This is a bold statement to make, but there is evidence to prove it. Every election cycle, voters are choosing more progressive candidates to represent them in government. The old white conservative platforms are losing their voters through death or attrition, and the GOP cannot find good arguments to convince the next generation to join them.

There are now more independents in the United States than in a long time. More people are choosing not to be aligned with a specific denomination or religion and are expecting more from their candidates.

These are things that the GOP cannot comprehend or combat against. The basic conservative ideals of male and white superiority no longer hold purchase with the majority of the next generations.

Instead of trying to change their ideals and win voters back to their side, the Republicans and their theocratic leaders have decided it is better to start cheating and stacking things in their favor. They believe it is now time to do everything in their power to remain in positions of authority and force their minority-supported beliefs on the rest of the country.

Do not be fooled: the majority of conservatives' beliefs are not supported by the general public in the United States.

Why do they do this? Why do they think that taking away the people's power and calling for the end of democracy is the correct choice? It's simple in their minds: moral superiority.

The Insidious Disease of Moral Superiority

The Republican leaders and those who support them have come to the conclusion that their beliefs on the Bible and their take on Christianity are the correct choice, and that it is their job to spread that belief to the country, even if their actions are morally questionable or downright illegal. Because they believe that their belief is right, it excuses any and all actions that they take.

It was summed up perfectly by Jack Posobiec at #CPAC in his opening speech: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here (Makes fist like a half-hearted Nazi salute).”

They have lost the public vote, confidence, and support, so they have decided that because they are right and the rest of the country is wrong, the only way to ensure that we behave the way they want is for democracy to end and autocratic rule to take over.

They are simply saying: “You all are wrong, so you shouldn't have a say. Just do what we tell you to do.”

There is no way to fight against an insidious belief like this, as logic and reason do not work. They are in a cult and are fanatics who believe they are right and that their will must be established in this country at all costs.

Is It Over for the USA?

Not yet, but we are getting close. The blame cannot be laid just at the feet of the religious fanatics like Jack Posobiec, Mike Johnson, and others.

Their actions are supported by politicians who will do and say whatever it takes just to stay in power. No, they don't believe what the #MAGA right is saying, but it's what they feel they need to do to stay in power or to stay relevant.

All the actions of these people are funded by millionaires and billionaires for one simple reason: greed. If inclusivity continued the way it was going, the writing was on the wall that they would, at minimum, be made to pay a fair tax, or at maximum, find their ill-gotten gains taken from them and used to help the people of this country improve.

To invoke Godwin's Law, look at Hitler's rise to power. He was fully backed by the religious and the industrialists. They only turned on him when the war was lost, but by then, it was too late.

We Are in a Precarious Time

We are now at a time where people who are open Nazis are mingling with members of the GOP, where foreign intelligence agents are helping members of the US government subvert the upcoming election and sow enough discord and mistrust that they can declare the election rigged.

January 6th failed because they didn't have popular support. They're not going to make that mistake a second time.

So, I call upon any #republican, #democrat, and #independent to look at the state of things and vote to stop it. I'm not asking anyone to give up on specific beliefs, but to unite and understand that we're facing a time where people who are supposed to be our elected leaders are trying their best to stay in power and make us do what they want us to do.

Let's vote together to get every single Nazi and sympathizer, every religious zealot who thinks what they believe God told them is more important than their fellow man.

Let's get rid of them and return to a time where we worked together in good faith and helped our country grow strong.

The only other option is the loss of our fundamental freedoms and the rollback of our rights, just as we saw happen in Russia, Hungary, and Poland.

We are the only ones who can stop it. If we don't, then when everyone inevitably wakes up, it'll be too late.

The dictators are here, and we're holding the door wide open for them. ```

Tags: #uspol #politics

Even when I wrote the title for this post, I could feel how much that the sentence failed to capture the feeling everyone who wasn't a fascist was feeling. The 2024 #election did not go the direction that a lot of people thought. I mean, look at how much the #gop was fighting to change laws, to purge voter rolls, and all the other nefarious plans to steal the election. They thought they were going to lose as much as the #Democrats thought they were going to win. Everyone was caught off guard.

Since then, I have watched the hastags on the #fediverse, followed some of the content of YouTubers that I trust and caught up on a lot of the talk on corpo social media. There is a few things I found that surprised me.

Everyone is Standing Together

I think the thing that surprised me the most is that across the internet among the communities I follow, there have been an outpouring of support for the vulnerable groups that are going to be targeted by thew new regime coming in. Support links, advice, mentions of communities they can hide in. I did not see anything like this in the 2016 election.

I'm confident it is because we know what we're getting into but instead of just fury, there is also the helping of one another. That brought me to tears more than the loss of the election.

In a country that I had thought had lost this, I was happy to see that I was wrong. I'm doing better today because of the kindness and camaraderie that I have seen.

All is Not Lost

I know I say this and it has been only three days since the election loss. But I think it is something that needs to be said. We all had a lot of hope that the healing that President Biden had been bringing to this country after the damage Trump inflicted would continue under Vice President Harris. No, she was not the best choice but she was the only choice we had in time and I think the best chance of trying to win. She ran a good campaign and I'm proud of have had a sign for her and voted for her.

The reason I say there is hope in these coming times is because of the following things:

• Even if the GOP have a trifecta (control of the House, Senate, and White House), the cowardly Republicans are going to still play it safe when it comes to their own seats. They are still at the whim of their voters and things like Project 2025 have been detested by Americans on both sides of the line. I'm thinking that they may start small to see how much they can get away with and we have the ACLU to fight them tooth and claw. (The ACLU is always looking for donations to help the good fight).
• We only have to wait two years before we can vote again to remove the assholes from power. The House of Representatives come up once every two years and if you remember, the Trump Economy and situation was so bad, that the GOP lost so many seats. Also in the 2026 mid terms, not only are the 435 House seats not back open, 35 Senate seats will also and more than half of them held by Republicans.
• You are still here. I don't want this to sound hokey but you are still here. We were beaten, we are angry and disgusted at what our fellow citizens chose. But we are still here to fight for the rights of people to be safe, to be themselves, and for women to have full autonomy of their bodies. Right now there is nothing we can do but the time is coming to fight back again.

It will be dark Before it Becomes light

I won't lie to you or ramp my optimism up to 1000%. What is coming is dark and we are about to go through some bad times again. Unlike 2016, we know how bad of a leader Trump and his sycophants are but this time, we're dealing with someone who looks as if they are in the throes of dementia, who cares nothing for anyone but himself, and ready to appoint Nazis to positions of power.

Don't give up! We have been lucky that many of the fascists in Trump's circle are stupid. I mean, they wrote their entire plan out in a manifesto and published it for the world to see. They gave us the blueprint on how to block them.

But even stupid fascists are dangerous. We will need to keep putting pressure on our representatives and senators to make sure they don't stray (or give into their worst impulses if you live in a red state) and continue to point out that we are up against actual Nazis and that we will not accept a Christo-fascist theocracy. I believe in separation of Church and State and it is our right to speak, believe, and live the way we want to.

Hang in there! We'll get through this together.

Discuss...

##### Tags: #politics #essay

Fury. It's that ice cold feeling in the pit of your stomach that elicits no emotion and just simmers there? Yeah, that's how I have been for the last few days and the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has made it even worse. Spoiler warning, I have nothing hopeful to say in this post. This authoritarian roller coaster is just getting started and there's no getting off. So, what has the response been since the courts decided to set us up for a dictator and a king?

Since the United States Supreme Court has declared Presidents are immune to official acts (and only lower courts can decide what is or is not an official act. They provided zero criteria), there have been steps to try to fix this but it is only theater and desk pounding that's going on.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) says he's going to introduce a Constitutional amendment¹. It's dead on arrival. You need 75% of the states to ratify an amendment which means you can't lose more than 13 states. There are 21 solid red states per 2022 election³. Even if they do pass it, who says the Supreme Court can't just declare the amendment unconstitutional? Rules? They're not following them now. Why would they later?

AOC says she's going to submit Articles of Impeachment² on the justices. That's also dead on arrival because the Dems don't have the stomach to do it cause “it'll look political” and with the tenuous hold on the Senate with a chance of losing it, it ain't going to go anywhere. They want to pretend it's still the 90s where everyone was still pretending to have integrity.

I have had friends ask me when I think that it all truly began to go down hill (as we have flirted with authoritarianism and fascism for years. Think back to McCarthyism and the backlash to the 60s Civil Rights movement).

It really started to go down hill with 9/11 and when the Patriot Act was passed. It was the first glimpse of the direction we were going. The Patriot Act was sold as a temporary thing that was supposed to help us stop terrorists from striking at us again but has continually been renewed for twenty-three years. It was sold as a patriotic law but had stripped freedoms from Americans⁵. For example:

1. **Roving Wiretaps**: Allows surveillance on individuals without specifying the device or location being tapped, meaning a single warrant can cover multiple devices and locations.

2. **Sneak & Peek Warrants**: The Act allows law enforcement to conduct searches without immediately informing the target of the search. These “sneak and peek” warrants mean individuals may not know their property has been searched until much later, potentially compromising their ability to contest the search.

3. **Mandatory Detention:** Non-citizens can be detained without charge for extended periods if they are deemed a threat to national security.

From there, we have slowly descended into a government that goes behind our backs to get information and uses mega-corps to do their bidding.

It was 2016 when the facade fell off and the christo-fascist regime attacked our capital and attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power believing that their lie that the 2020 election was stolen would cover them.

Many of them were found guilty of crimes around January 6th insurrection and even their leader Donald Trump was found guilty for Campaign Finance violations.

But they already had a plan for that. They had the scum bag McConnel block the appointment of an Obama supreme court judge by saying: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”⁶ and even Lindsey Graham went and said: “I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”⁶

What happened when there were two seats come open in Donald Trump's term. Both senators pushed through two extremely conservative (and questionable) candidates in the last year of Trump's presidency. Building a conservative court to do their bidding. When challenged on it McConnel's response was “In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term, We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”⁷

In short...it's important to have the public choose when you're not the party in power but if you're the party in power, it's okay to continue and appoint someone without the public having a say.

Since the court has swung hard right they have.

* Raised the bar so that the Justice Department can't use Obstruction charges against the insurrectionists ⁸

* Declare Presidential immunity for President official acts which now throw his conviction in state court into contention⁴

And I'm not even getting into Justice Thomas' wife being an insurrectionist who helped plan out some parts of the insurrection.

I have heard many say that we are at a crossroads this election but they are wrong. That crossroad was 2016 and we are now well along our way towards a faux democracy run by christian fascists who think their beliefs in God outweigh any other sort of consideration and we need to bow to them for guidance.

I have no hope to share right now. I've studied history long enough to see where this is going and like a train wreck, there's no stopping it. Even if Biden is elected president, each and every election cycle will be Christian fascists trying to take win so that they can force their beliefs down our throat.

If anything, I think Justice Jackson phrased it the best in her dissent to the majority opinion. She said: “The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm. I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right.”³

### References

1 Nazzaro, M. (2024, July 2). *New York DEM will introduce amendment to reverse Supreme Court immunity ruling*. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750735-joe-morelle-amendment-supreme-court-immunity-ruling/mlite/?nxs-test=mlite

2 Lillis, M. (2024, July 2). *Ocasio-Cortez vows to file impeachment articles against Supreme Court justices. The Hill*. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750034-ocasio-cortez-impeachment-articles-supreme-court-justices-trump-immunity/?nxs-test=mobile

3 Wikimedia Foundation. (2004, November 4). Red States and Blue States. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states Last edit was 18 June 2024

4 *Trump v. United States, 23-939, slip op. at 118-119 (Supreme Court of the United States). Retrieved from [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf)*

5 Johnson, C. (2011, October 26). *As it turns 10, patriot act remains controversial.* NPR. https://www.npr.org/2011/10/26/141699537/as-it-turns-10-patriot-act-remains-controversial

6 Silverstein, J. (2020, September 19). Here’s what Mitch McConnell said about not filing a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-supreme-court-vacancy-election-year-senate/

7 Louis Jacobson, K. S., & Jacobson, L. (2020, September 22). Flip-O-meter: McConnell’s reversal on Supreme Court nominees. @politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/22/mitch-mcconnell/mitch-mcconnell-flip-flops-considering-supreme-cou/

8 Kruzel, J. (2024, June 29). *US Supreme Court raises bar for obstruction charge against Trump, Jan. 6 rioters | reuters.* Reueters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-boosts-jan-6-rioters-bid-challenge-obstruction-charge-2024-06-28/

9 Davies, D. (2022, January 27). *How Ginni Thomas, wife of justice Clarence Thomas, influences the Supreme Court.* NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1076097533/how-ginni-thomas-wife-of-justice-clarence-thomas-influences-the-supreme-court