"Fired up! Ready to go! Fired up! Ready to go!"
Chant at Obama rallies, 2012
A populist autocrat claims a mandate from the people to legitimize his open disregard of rules of process.
He claims to be doing the people's will -- directly and immediately -- without the delays and complications of checks, balances, and alternative points of view.
Mass protests in opposition to the populist autocrat demonstrate that there is no mandate.
There is a second purpose of protest demonstrations. They energize the people who are protesting. People see others share their view. Enthusiasm inspires more enthusiasm. Hearts beat faster. They are part of something big. They are part of a crowd.
Peter Patch is a college classmate. He served as a marketing strategy consultant for Citibank and other clients for over three decades. He has taught business classes at New York colleges over the past two decades. Currently, he serves on national nonprofit boards supporting youth at risk at the I Have A Dream Foundation in New York, and community transition for returning offenders at Community Resources for Justice in Boston. |
| Patch |
Guest Post by Peter Patch
In 1970-71, I believed the Vietnam War was a mistake. I couldn’t make sense of it. Why would peasant rice farmers be better off because of the war?
The more personal question: What would I do about it? I got involved. I joined a sit-in at the Boston Army Base. We went to jail for three or four hours. The next morning, we went to court. We got a minor slap on the wrist. Even that record of "disorderly conduct" would disappear in a few months.
I went down to Washington to the White House, for the March Against Death. I needed to express what is true for me: too much death. No positive outcomes.
Now we face the biggest challenge to our American democracy in our lifetimes. This threat from President Trump is greater than the WWII threat from Hitler. Here’s the difference: Trump is attacking the pillars of our democracy directly. Trump undermines the rule of law. Trump doesn't attack our soldiers; he attacks our Constitution and our institutions of national security.
With the firing of 17 inspectors general, Trump undermined institutional accountability in the federal agencies the IGs covered. Trump has no intention of being "accountable" in any practical or legal sense.
But there are small signs of bipartisan push back. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Trump demanding to know the legal justification for firing the IGs.
Trump’s tariff war is the dumbest tariff war in history according to The Wall Street Journal.
With the pardoning and commutation of the convictions of 1,600 January 6 assailants -- including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers -- Trump undermined the rule of law. In my career as a management consultant I visited thirty-odd countries around the world -- "developed" and "developing" countries in about equal numbers. My observation: There is no single factor that more clearly distinguishes developed and developing countries than respect for the rule of law.
The assault on the FBI has begun with the threatened firing of six senior officials. Those assigned to work on the January 6 investigation are being "placed on a list," with the clear implication that their jobs are at risk. This is a giant chilling effect on the agency – a message that Trump and his allies and any crimes they commit are "off limits" to investigate.
Now Trump's team has given almost all of 2.3 million federal employees a brief window to resign, and receive severance payments through most of the year. With no clear plan to target specific agencies and positions, the only discernible purpose is to create chaos and undermine morale.
What is a citizen to do?
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the House minority leader, has stated we need to fight Trump's agenda "in the legislature" and "in the streets." I agree. We are the leaders we have been looking for. Are we just going to sit on the bleachers as we watch our democracy go down in flames?
So when I learned about the nationwide demonstrations yesterday, I decided I had to show up. Not because my showing up would change any outcome, but because I needed to take a stand.
So Wednesday I went to the demonstration at the office of our classmate Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate minority leader. I was there to support him, as a friend – and encourage him to do more and do it now. Today, I sent him a message: "I support you, 1000%" but added, "Chuck, Do More -- Now!"
Photos from The Journal News, a Lower Hudson Valley newspaper
I didn't change the world, but I did change myself. Taking action creates its own inertia. Today, I am even more committed to raising my voice and taking my stand. That demonstration – that one hour – changed how I felt about myself, and my engagement with the cause, the fight.
I’m in it with Chuck and I’m in it with you – however you choose to join the battle.
I'm "In It To Win It," no matter how long it takes.
Years? OK. The rest of our lives? OK.
All Good. Let's Go!!
10 comments:
I wonder. if Trump defies a Supreme Court ruling, then what? The SC itself said he's immune from anything while president. So, if he tells the SC to pound sand and does what he wants, who can stop him? Protests mean nothing and have no effect. His Cabinet will go along with whatever he wants. The Republican Congress will cower to his orders. I think the Age of Checks and Balances are over. That idea is dead. And Democracy as we knew it is close. And the World is watching.
"The threat from President Trump is greater than the WWII threat from Hitler".
One's reaction to that remarkable assertion may be a barometer of the state of our union.
One of the most important factors in Trump’s election was the economy, specifically inflation. Years of sharply rising prices had taken a toll on voters’ hard-earned pay and their livelihoods. During his campaign, Trump promised: “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.” He was lying, of course. If anything, his tariffs are likely to raise prices even higher. His only priorities are retribution and taking a wrecking ball to the system of checks and balances that are so crucial to the survival of our democratic republic.
Of course Trump will always have the support of his White nationalist MAGA cult, but those who voted their pocketbooks are likely to be disillusioned. Some jokers claim that pronouns and DEI are bigger issues, but if we can’t get more people interested in saving our republic, then maybe it just isn’t worth saving. Hopefully, protest and resistance will grow and turn this Trumplican Confederacy into another lost cause.
Dudgeon, I actually think Trump is the greater threat to the U.S. Hitler had no interest in fighting the U.S. Heck, he didn't even want to fight Britain. Stalin was perhaps the greater threat to Europe, and Hitler's war was mainly against his fellow rival for world's most evil person. Trump, in contrast, is here and threatens the very heart of our republic and the rule of law and of the post War international order, which has brought us, essentially, 75 years of peace and prosperity. Trump is the greater threat.
In a way, Hitler was hard to figure out; this is because important decisions he made just don't make sense in hindsight. For example, it was Germany that declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. This left the U.S. with no choice except to abandon "America first," which had hampered the Roosevelt Administration's efforts to back the U.K. and the U.S.S.R. I disagree with the argument that the Trump Administration is like the Third Reich; World War Two was awful, and the Holocaust is a singular atrocity. Granted, the Trump Administration and Donald Trump himself cynically play both ends against the middle in being antisemitic; but Hitler was single-minded in his hatred of Jews. Mr. Netanyahu says President Trump is the best friend Israel ever had among U.S. presidents. Mr. Netanyahu conveniently disregards what Harry Truman did for Israel, and the reasons why President Truman backed Israel. We could use Harry Truman in the White House now; he fought corruption the right way, after all, and integrated the armed forces. As for racism in general, President Trump is disgusting, but he is a very American character, not a German one.
At some point, Hitler took over the running of the War. The Allies discussed killing him, but his conduct of the war was so bad, they decided to let him live and continue to lead it. Most of his decisions were terrible and there are many examples of it. I won't go into that, but the bottom line is that a poor leader will lose every time. Will Trump go down in flames? I don't know, but he's trying. When MAGA abandons him, then he's done.
Agree with Peter C.
Most people I talk to know very little about basic civics. Their knowledge of US and world history comes from snippets referenced in social media and podcasts by alleged “experts”. The nonsense on Fox by “Senior Analysts” and their ilk is telling.
I’m convinced people voted for Trump solely in their self-interest because they had no idea of how his agenda would dismantle the safeguards to the institutions that benefit them. Now comes the reckoning.
It’s hard for me to see how peaceful protests will change the trajectory and velocity of Trumps operatives. Viet Nam was a long, expensive, festering and unpopular war. This is a frontal assault.
Trump obviously isn’t Hitler, but they resemble each other as political performance artists, particularly in their scapegoating, their extreme rhetoric and their ability to work a crowd and get it to swallow their malicious, grandiose lies. Hitler destroyed the Weimar Republic; Trump is working on doing the same to ours. As Mark Twain said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
I don’t think protests are going to matter one bit. At best, protests amount to preaching to the choir. At worst, as in the “mostly peaceful” violent demonstrations of 2020, they alienate regular people. Case in point: the recent and obnoxious freeway blocking protests in Los Angeles.
What might matter is waiting for some maladroit Trump policy to hurt actual Trump voters. Then you could have an issue capable of moving voters away from Trump. The question is, will the Democrats be strategic enough to wait for an opportunity like that? Or will they unable to contain themselves and “cry wolf“ about things that most voters don’t care about?
Nobody expects these early demonstrations to change things except, as Peter P. says, ourselves. For the many of us who loathe Trump and everything he stands for (violence, greed, racism, oligarchy, etc.) our worst enemy right now is despair. Being in a crowd of like-minded people lifts our spirits. We enjoy the wit of the signs, the passion of young people, the variety of issues that matter to all of us. We need this encouragement to be able to keep up what will be a long and grueling fight. Thank you to both these Peters.
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