Only Monday -- Joyce Vance [View all]

[erronis]

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/only-monday

Armed National Guardsmen have been deployed in the District of Columbia to keep American citizens in line. Trump is trying to normalize the militarization of our country. This is where it starts, not where it will end. Trump is dropping the pretense of abiding by the rule of law. Sure, he still drapes himself in it enough that anyone who wants to can turn a blind eye and pretend that he’s complying with his oath of office, which requires him to support and defend the Constitution. But everyone who is paying attention and being honest with themselves understands that we are in a dangerous moment where Trump’s path toward authoritarianism is accelerating, and Americans need to wake up.

Trump trumps up excuses to justify doing as he pleases, which mostly involves accumulating more of the power of government in his own hands. A national emergency here, an invasion there. No matter what the truth is, he makes it up as he goes along, shamelessly lying about crime going up, when it’s in fact going down, and accusing agencies that release the statistics that contradict him of fraud when he’s called on the lies.

. . .

Force and intimidation are not strategies we associate with American presidents. Those are not constitutional prerogatives the Founding Fathers assigned to the president. That is how dictators operate. That is how Trump operates. Let’s call it what it is. There is no reason to pretend that this isn’t happening.

This is the moment to stay dialed in to what’s happening around us. The effort to overwhelm us with so much—a week’s worth of news and trouble on a Monday—is a deliberate attempt to get us to give up because it’s too much. Instead of doing that, look for the common thread, the theme that runs through it all. On every front, Trump is trying to take hold of power that belongs to others—to Congress, to the courts, to independent agencies like the Fed, most importantly, the power that belongs to us, the American people, the power to vote. It’s time for all of us to stand up.

We’re in this together,