Are we being realistic about being able to restrain Trump? [View all]

[bigtree]

...Democrats have no legislative power right not that they can exercise with their own votes to hold the administration accountable.

The federal government isn't giving any heed to any entreaties from the public, the press, or even the courts to halt or limit their autocratic abuses.

Just arbitrarily deciding that the killing of Renee Good was 'self-defense' against a 'domestic terrorist' and refusing to even hold an investigation is effectively a signal to Americans that the Trump regime has no interest in democratic governance.

We are now under the thumb of a rogue regime that is operating with impunity behind a militarized force of mercenaries, and the republican party's refusal to stand up for basic democratic principles. It's basically a republican party coup of America.

We're all republican subjects now, just by virtue of their victory in a narrow election. That's not a traditional American condition; more akin to Russia or China who Trump openly reveres for their brutal dictatorships.

We can't even guarantee the next election; almost certain to feature intense interference from a president and administration that has already demonstrated they know no bounds; not the Constitution, not the courts, nor our nation's laws.

We're so fucked that we're basically just waiting to see what the deranged megalomaniac will focus his autocratic ire on next, as if some perfect accumulation of misdeeds by Trump will seal his fate.

In order to even begin to stand them down, we'll need to take to the streets in numbers which shut everything down. We're also waiting for that to happen in some organic fashion, but we're stifled by the reality that we only have ourselves now; little left of our collective effort to reconcile our differences through the exercise of our democratic form of government.

All of the tools of democracy, justice, and the public welfare we collected over generations and generations and put into practice have been bastardized by the man tasked with wielding them in our nation's defense.

Our democracy is in exile; a mere aspiration again; rather than the settled question that we've been defending with our lives and livelihoods. It resides in us; in our own spirit and aspirations fort the future of the country, not Trump's.

He's not in control of any of those. Trump's dominion is inow in total opposition to a democratic America. He has no purchase in freedom or liberty; he's a dangerous obstacle to those aspirations; not just an abstraction anymore, but a clear and present danger to Americans.

Our best defense is the energy and committment to liberty and freedom which our founders achieved through struggle and sacrifice. Americans won't waken to that reality easily because, we can always rationalize ourselves into some protected group, ostensibly immune from the consequences of tyranny.

But America has always been a collective enterprise. No man is an island, and we rise or fall together; united even as some are determined to stand against us. Regular order is dead, but we retain our own self-determination and initiative which will be vital as we navigate the reality of a self-interested government repressing us for their own edification.

I don't want to despair, I apologize for this, but we haven't even begun to resist in any manner which actually impacts the regime. We're operating on a wish and a prayer, with so many of our beliefs about our individual freedom already shattered along with the lives the Trump regime is threatening with the kit we provided them.

I can't look at any of this and be confident we can overcome it all - certainly not before the upcoming elections. And even then it's depressingly dicey, to say the least.