group of police in the middle of the road
We are running out of time, folks, because as I am typing this, the groundwork is being laid by the most lawless, corrupt administration in United States history to come after our right to due process, and incinerate the most elemental piece of a democracy: freedom.
That all this is being spearheaded by an America-attacking, convicted felon is an incomprehensible and brutal paradox.
Before continuing, I ask you have a look at this image I chose to accompany today’s piece:
When the White House isn’t trolling us with pictures of the America-attacking Trump posing as the Pope, it is busy hanging on its taxpayer-funded website lethal Executive Orders (EO) that could have very easily been written by Adolph Hitler in 1939.
Strengthening and unleashing …
Of course, the use of the word “unleashing” is very intentional here because the literal definition of the word is “to suddenly release a violent force that cannot be controlled.”
I am ashamed I didn't make more out of this EO when it was released, because for some reason I thought our mess of a media would have properly sounded the hair-raising alarms that fascism had officially parked itself just off our coast and was ready to be unleashed to storm ashore at any moment.
Because when, not if, that moment arrives, it might already be too late.
I warned you just days before the inauguration the America-attacking Trump was coming for our military, and then US ... It was not matter of ifTrump would use our military and law enforcement officers against us, it was just a matter of when.
Well when looks to be in the next couple of months or so, because stuffed in this grotesque EO is this:
“Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General shall review all ongoing Federal consent decrees, out-of-court agreements, and post-judgment orders to which a State or local law enforcement agency is a party and modify, rescind, or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.”
Basically what this is saying through all the lawyered bulls--t is that the America-attacker is weaponizing the Justice Department — which by the way is supposed to work for US, not him — to infiltrate local law enforcement shops and give them all sorts of ungodly powers bestowed by King Crud to wreck the lives of whomever they want, whenever they want.
So the same party that falsely claims to believe in states’ rights where things like abortion and voting rights are concerned is now telling us loudly and clearly that when it comes to law and order the felon in the White House will make the first and final call.
In others words, you just can’t believe a word that comes out of their dirty mouths. They will do what they want when they want, and justify it as the king’s consent. If you don’t like it, you can either go to hell, or to jail.
As usual The Nation’s Elie Mystal lays out the ramifications of this better than just about anybody, so I am going to borrow from the tremendous piece he penned a week ago on this sinister EO to give you a graphic illustration of what we are literally staring down the barrel at in the coming days and weeks:
“I cannot help but understand this order through its potential impacts on my lived experience. Let’s say a cop pulls me over for driving-while-Black. After he hops out of his M1-Abrams tank, he uses a military grade stun-gun on me because I gave him the side-eye while searching for my vehicle registration. I “resist” by saying things such as “Ow!” or “What the hell!” and he proceeds to beat me to within an inch of my life.
“I’d want him to face criminal charges, but the prosecutor doesn’t want to take the risk. Even though I have a good case, they’re worried that if they press charges against the officer, they will face charges from the Department of Justice. Even if I can marshal considerable public pressure to get the prosecutor to file charges, the cop is now being defended, for free, by Brad Karp at Paul, Weiss or some other wealthy Biglaw attorney who has decided to be complicit with fascism. The trial proceeds, but let’s say I win (because corporate attorneys are not necessarily the best courtroom litigators). Even then, any damages I receive for being Tiananmen Square’d by the racist cop are covered by the government. The cop returns to the force soon after, because any accountability measure like a consent decree is also no longer available during the Trump administration.”
Go ahead, read that one again, because it is terrifying.
And if after reading that chilling, and all-too-realistic scenario again, you are thinking what I was: IF we are able to make it to 2028 and actually have something resembling a presidential election — something I am admittedly very dubious about — that a Democratic president will restore order. Well, Mystal very rightfully isn’t so sure:
“Like all of Trump’s executive orders, this one can be rescinded by the next president (if we are allowed to have one). But unlike some of the others, I don’t necessarily trust that a future Democratic president will go back and rescind this particular order. Democrats, at least in my lifetime, have been almost as deeply committed to brutal police practices as the Republicans. It would take a Democrat uniquely committed to criminal justice reform to go back in and take away the indemnification Trump has provided, and one can only imagine the stink the police unions will make if such a Democrat takes it away.”
And if you are saying, “not so fast our courts will have something to say about all this, I am saying I am very dubious on that front also, but more on that in a minute, because innocent people have been shipped away and/or locked up, and judges have already been arrested. There’s no reason we will not see an increase in tempo on both of these fronts, and very shortly.
On Wednesday, the great Thom Hartmann typed up a must-read titled “America’s Moral Collapse is Not Hypothetical — It’s on a Plane to Libya.”
Hartmann writes this:
“The news broke this week that the administration is preparing to send migrants to Libya on military flights as early as tomorrow. And this isn’t just another policy announcement from the daily outrage factory; it’s the latest escalation in a deliberate strategy of cruelty that began during Trump’s first term.”
I encourage you to read this piece in its entirety.
So …
… If you are rubbing your tired eyes and saying, “Hey, thanks for scaring the hell out of us, Earl, now what the hell can we do about it?” … I am saying, I’m not really sure, because I have been warning about this for years, but too many people were concerned about the price of eggs, and grousing about Joe Biden’s economy (which, by the way, was the strongest in the entire world) to pay much attention.
I will, however, offer this anecdote of hope. It’s a story I’ve told before and seems to resonate more than ever, even if I’m not sure it will make you (or me) feel any better.
In the moments after the polls closed here in Wisconsin in the 2022 midterms, I was at a gathering in Madison and our Democratic Party Chairman at the time, Ben Wikler, was hanging out, because the guy had the ability to be in 17 places at once.
I asked him what he thought were the most important races of the night.
He said without blinking, the governor races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The Blue Wall. At the time I took it to mean that if there was any Republican fuckery after the presidential election two years out, we'd have Democratic governors in place to stand as a bulwark against their crap.
Well, we all know how that went last November.
Democrat-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Judge Susan Crawford gestures to supporters after voters elected her in April. REUTERS/Vincent Alban
That epic disappointment doesn’t change the fact that all three states still have Democratic governors and liberal Supreme Courts in place to push back against what is most assuredly coming with this latest EO.
Count on Trump to continue to test these battleground states with his fascist venom, because he knows if he can topple us, the rest of America will fall.
So now we see if the courts will hold here, and if the politicians and citizens in these battleground states and elsewhere will do whatever is necessary to hold the line, and protect our country from the anti-Democratic fascists who have announced they are coming for us.
No matter what, we are smack in the middle of a war for our survival, and even if too many of us can’t bring ourselves to actually say it, we damn well better start acting like it.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)