Yearly recap: protests, pandemic, and impeachment

It's been a while since I've had time to write on this blog. So let's do a brief recap of some of the things that happened over the past year.

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Despite the ongoing lockdowns over Covid-19, protests have erupted world-wide after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020. Although Floyd begged for his life and pleaded that he couldn't breathe, police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly 9 minutes until he died. Three other officers assisted him. On May 29, Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. On June 3, his charges were raised to second-degree murder. It also took until June 3 for the other three officers (J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao) to face charges of aiding and abetting a murder.

Although Floyd's murder was the spark for these protests, a number of other incidents have occurred recently.

On March 13, 2020, emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor was murdered in her bed, having been shot 8 times. Louisville, Kentucky, police officers conducted a no-knock raid on her apartment (despite no-knock raids violating the clear language of the Fourth Amendment) based on shoddy evidence. Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker believed their apartment was being broken into by robbers and shot at the intruders in self-defense. The intruders blindly fired back into the apartment more than 20 times, killing Taylor in the process. Walker was immediately charged with attempted murder of a police officer, while the officers who murdered Taylor faced no charges. It was not until May 22 that charges against Walker were temporarily dismissed while the FBI investigates the incident (although the charges can still be brought back in the future). The police officers (Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove) still face no criminal charges.

Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker.

On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while jogging. Travis McMichael and his father Gregory were armed with a pistol and shotgun and pursued Arbery in their pickup truck. William Bryan accompanied in a second vehicle and recorded the incident. They attempted to block Arbery with their vehicles before getting out and confronting him with their weapons. Chillingly, this murder is nothing less than a 21st century lynching.

It was not until May 8 that the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder. Bryan was arrested on May 22.

On May 5, demonstrating his hubris and lack of empathy, Gregory had the video of the murder publicly released, thinking the public would somehow believe the lie he had acted in self-defense. Instead, it led to his arrest. Gregory McMichael is a former police officer and district attorney's office investigator, and he was probably aware of just how much brutality police are allowed to get away with.

Ahmaud Arbery.

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In what may be a string of literal Jim Crow-style lynchings, three "black" men have been found hanging in trees. Officially ruled as suicide, the families and friends of the victims remain suspicious.

* Malcolm Harsch, 31, Found Hanging From a Tree in Victorville, California, on May 31.
* Dominique Alexander, 27, Found Hanging From a Tree in NYC on June 9.
* Robert Fuller, 24, Found Hanging From a Tree Near City Hall in Palmdale, California, on June 10.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/four-black-men-hanging-deaths/

https://www.bet.com/news/national/2020/06/14/malcolm-harsch-hanging-death-victorville.html

There were also two other hanging cases that may actually have been suicides:
A "black" teenager in Spring, Texas on June 16, and an unidentified Latino man in Houston, Texas on June 15.

***

Considering how there was minimal justice after a wave of high profile racist killings from 2009-2014 (culminating in the Ferguson riots), I think these protests won't go away so easily this time. For example, protestors have been bold enough to burn down the Minneapolis 3rd precinct police station in retribution for George Floyd's murder. On-the-ground reports have uncovered many cases of agent provocateurs--from anarchists, alleged police officers, and white supremacist groups--attempting to cause chaos and derail the ideological core of the protests. However, the protests remain largely focused and ongoing over a month later.

Over 2,000 US cities have had protests and over 60 nations worldwide have had demonstrations in solidarity. What a shame it is that the US has gone from a leader in the divestment campaign against apartheid South Africa, to needing international pressure to get us to do something about the system of bigotry that continues to exist in our nation...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests_in_the_United_States

Map of worldwide protests for George Floyd.

Floyd's family even had to appeal to the UN Human Rights Council to demand other nations apply pressure to the US to achieve justice, since our own nation is too incapable of achieving liberty and justice for all. (Trump removed the US from the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, with his lapdog Nikki Haley saying the UN's "unending hostility towards Israel" was a primary reason. In reality, if the UN was actually hostile towards Israel, it would have led an invasion to dismantle its system of apartheid by now).

The media has tried to downplay the impact of these protests. So far, the protests have accomplished causing a few police agencies nation-wide to change their operating procedures and sparked a new wave of removing symbols of Western culture from American culture. Monuments of slaveowners have been toppled and even racist caricatures like Aunt Jemima have been removed from advertisements.

Of course, we will not be pacified by different-looking syrup. We will keep up the pressure until there is finally liberty and justice in this land and lasting police reform is achieved.

***
***

Trump's impeachment failed, but the Republican self-coup has succeeded

Trump's impeachment began on December 18, 2019 in the House of Representatives. Quite frankly, it should have began immediately after the redacted version of the Mueller report was released on April 18, 2019. Ideally impeachment could have begun the day a non-treasonous majority retook the House on January 3, 2019 (as courageous Representative Rashida Tlaib advocated for), since there was already bountiful evidence to proceed. (By the way, over a year later Congress still does not have access to the full unredacted Mueller report and its evidence).

Let us not forget that it was only due to unrelenting public pressure on Nancy Pelosi and other Democrat Party leaders that impeachment proceeded as "rapidly" as it did. Recall that many feared Pelosi wanted to be more "strategic" and begin impeachment closer to election season to provide negative press for Trump. Reflecting on the passage of time, it seems that impeachment would have fallen even flatter than it did if Democrats had decided to make it a game and delay it any longer, and, with Trump's abysmal handling of the corona virus pandemic, he managed to provide plenty of negative press and sink his approval rating completely on his own!

On February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted Trump. Not a single Republican except Mitt Romney voted to hold Trump accountable, brazenly signalling to the American public and the world that the entire party gladly endorsed the coup that had been in the making for the past 4 years. (And a dishonorable mention to Romney for only voting guilty on one of the articles of impeachment, when Trump was clearly guilty of, and deserved to be removed for, both.)

Self-fulfilling prophecy or not, everyone long suspected impeachment would fail and merely be a symbolic act to get on record the individuals who completely rejected American values.

What we didn't expect was for lawmakers to openly spit on the law and our system of justice, by openly declaring they would not be impartial jurors, would not see any witnesses in the Senate trial, and acquit Trump no matter what the evidence against him was (even if they personally believed he was guilty!!) While it seems justice will not occur during this present administration, we must demand that whoever is president after Trump holds every single person who aided and abetted the Trump administration's coup and other crimes accountable to the absolute fullest extent of the law. Every single Congressman who protected Trump (e.g. Nunes, McConnell). Every single executive branch official who has helped Trump cover up his crimes (e.g. Barr). Every single unqualified judge who never should have been appointed (e.g. Kavanaugh). Evey single Democrat Party politician who helped to delay impeachment and downplay the severity of the Republican Party's crimes.

Nothing less can be acceptable. No justice, no peace.

This will not be over when Trump is out of office. It will only be over once justice has been dealt. If Biden or some other Democrat Party president decides to pardon or turn a blind eye to the Trump administration's numerous crimes, then this effectively means the Democrat Party accepts the coup, and that our system of law and politics has utterly failed and cannot be saved from its corruption.

And, please, if you want to try to tell me this wasn't a self-coup, I'm sure Fox News has some job openings for you.

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***

The Corona Virus Pandemic

The Trump administration's defining scandal of 2020 has thus far been their criminally negligent handling of the corona virus pandemic.

To date, the US has had over 2.75 million cases and 130,000 reported deaths. That is more American deaths than from WWI... Thousands upon thousands of those deaths could have been prevented if the federal government had taken this seriously, rather than insanely turning the existence of a virus into a political issue.

The European Union has been able to get the virus largely under control and has begun reopening. The Trump administration has constantly pushed for the US to reopen dangerously early in order to keep stock prices high or god knows what other twisted reasons.

New daily cases, US vs the EU... After incessant pushes to "reopen," cases are spreading more rapidly now than they were at the beginning! Over 50,000 new cases per day and rising. We haven't merely been pushed back to square one, we are worse off.

Had we taken this issue seriously, the virus could have been under control and we could have reopened, just as the EU is doing. Instead, we now have more daily cases than during the previous peak in March. States such as Texas had to reimpose restrictions not long after "reopening" their states. Meanwhile some nations, such as New Zealand, have completely eradicated the virus.

Living in his world of alternative facts, Trump has continued to say, as recently as JULY, that the virus will just "disappear". He has also urged to stop testing so we report less numbers, which, of course, will only lead to the virus spreading more rapidly as we would have no way of tracking it.

Beyond mere incompetence, Trump's elite supporters have used the pandemic as a way to enrich themselves, pushing the administration into new levels of corruption. I will spare a lengthy analysis, but here are some articles on the issue. Preference for stimulus money and contracts goes to Trump supporters (even when they/their business has zero qualifications for the task), $500 billion is being given to businesses as bailout money yet the names of the companies receiving it are not public, and the US is hoarding remdesivir (a drug for treating the virus) and allowing a single company to profit off its production.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/03/trump-coronavirus-wealthy-friends-donors-backers
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-ppp-loan-businesses-secret_n_5ee26407c5b6fdbc0a8e59ac
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-checks-name-slush-fund-ventilators.html
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/10/21215578/trump-ventilators-coronavirus-cory-gardner-colorado-jared-polis-patronage
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/us-buys-up-world-stock-of-key-covid-19-drug
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/24/massive-scandal-trump-fda-grants-drug-company-exclusive-claim-promising-coronavirus

In older news, Trump seized 20 ventilators purchased by Barbados and 200,000 masks purchased by Germany. Trump told states they must be the ones to organize their own responses to the virus, yet he seized shipments of equipment and testing supplies ordered by the states. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan had to use the Maryland National Guard to protect testing supplies in an undisclosed location to prevent Trump from seizing them. 3 million masks ordered by the state of Massachusetts were seized, and the governor then had to turn to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to arrange transportation for over 1 million new masks. Trump's corruption and negligent mishandling goes on and on and on.

Unemployment is nearing Great Depression levels, the one-time $1,200 stimulus check reluctantly approved by Congress barely covers expenses for many Americans, thousands upon thousands of Americans have not even received their money yet, and countless more weren't even eligible (including college students graduating during record unemployment levels!). While other nations have arranged to give their citizens compensation for the duration of the pandemic, US landlords are demanding 3+ months of rent be paid at once now that the nation is reopening and Congress is reluctant to give any more money to average citizens. Corporations meanwhile receive millions more than average citizens and millions more that could have been given to average citizens have evaporated in vain attempts to keep stock market numbers high.

Had we taken this seriously from the beginning this all could have been under control by now.

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***

I'm sure there are a plenty of other things deserving to be covered, but to keep this post brief, I will wrap up here.

Although not without mentioning the tidbit that Trump personally committed voter fraud by registering his address at his Mar-a-Lago resort and is strongly against mail-in voting despite utilizing it himself. Attorney General William Barr has allowed charges against Michael Flynn to be dropped despite the fact that he plead guilty. Trump's personal friend and key figure in a global ring of child torturers, Jeffrey Epstein, was murdered in prison. (Epstein also had connections to Attorney General Barr and his father). Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was recently arrested. And the year is only halfway over.

***

It's amazing to think that each scandal and incident dwarfs the last. Who would have thought in just a year we could have completely forgotten and moved on from children being kept in concentration camps? Or just given up and accepted that there has been a successful coup in our nation, which has very publicly been in the making for over 4 years...

But the George Floyd protests occurring in every single state demonstrate to us that Americans still have the energy to fight for justice. And the global support for these protests show us we are not alone in yearning for justice and not insane for thinking something is terribly wrong in our nation.

When all this insanity is over, we will ensure America rises from the ashes and the bigotry of Western Civilization is erased from this land.

Although one question remains: who will be the next generation of leaders who emerge from this? As long as protests and social justice movements continue to reject strong centralized leadership, they will continue to fizzle out. A new era of Civil Rights and Counterculture will not begin until the political and cultural leaders step up to keep the momentum going and efficiently harness all the discontent that is brewing.

The Ongoing Ethnic Cleansing, part 2

As we celebrate the 4th of July, the Trump administration continues its reign of terror (safe from the threat of impeachment, thanks to Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi's utter ineptitude). If the signers of the Declaration of Independence were transported to 2019, they would hardly recognize our nation, and be even more befuddled that we can somehow celebrate while children languish in cages.

OK, many of the Founding Fathers did sort of turn a blind eye to 'black' children being kept in chains as slaves and the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. But if we wish to be intellectually honest, we must also acknowledge many held a supremely high standard for what America ideally should be. America--if it is to live up to its full potential of being a global beacon of liberty and freedom--should be a literal asylum for all victims of oppression, regardless of where they were born.

"I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong" - George Washington, Letter to Reverend Francis Adrian Vanderkemp (May 28, 1788).

"I, George Washington, President of the United States, do recommend to all religious societies and denominations, and to all persons whomsoever within the United States to set apart and observe Thursday, the 19th day of February next, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, and on that day to meet together and render their sincere and hearty thanks to the Great Ruler of Nations for the manifold and signal mercies which distinguish our lot as a nation...to imprint on our hearts a deep and solemn sense of our obligations to Him for them; to teach us rightly to estimate their immense value; to preserve us from the arrogance of prosperity, and from hazarding the advantages we enjoy by delusive pursuits;...to render this country more and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries; to extend among us true and useful knowledge; to diffuse and establish habits of sobriety, order, morality, and piety, and finally, to impart all the blessings we possess, or ask for ourselves, to the whole family of mankind." - George Washington, Proclamation of January 1, 1795

"[King George III] has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither" - grievance #7 of the Declaration of Independence (written by Thomas Jefferson).

In the words of the Declaration of Independence and George Washington, anyone who cheers Trump on as he keeps asylum-seeking children in cages is fundamentally un-American.

***

In case you haven't been following the news, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines by pointing out that immigrant detention centers are concentration camps.

These are the camps where children are separated from their parents, kept in cages, not given adequate food, clothing, medicine, or even soap and toothbrushes. And it's not just children who are held in these dehumanizing conditions--adults and elderly individuals are also held in facilities without running water and told to 'just drink from a toilet' if they're thirsty...

As usual, Zionists and rightists have attacked her over her word choice (conveniently moving the focus away from the actual conditions the victims are being subjected to). They of course made no similar fuss when Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio proudly called his tent city prison a concentration camp--nor when Arpaio was pardoned by Trump!

Rightists always accuse leftists of being unable to accept the truth unless it is sugar-coated. Yet when we plainly and accurately expose their barbarity, our vocabulary is too harsh for them...

For more information about what AOC saw in the concentration camps, refer to the following interview:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/the-whole-facilitys-culture-is-rotted-from-the-core-what-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-saw-inside-the-el-paso-camps/

"In early June, Ocasio-Cortez used her 3.7 million-follower Instagram feed to catapult attention onto the detention crisis. Echoing a small number of journalists and academics, she referred to the guarded facilities as concentration camps. ...

Her comments were met with a flurry of responses, both supportive and critical. But there was no denying that she had forced the country’s focus back onto what Trump and border officials had largely succeeded in turning into an invisible crisis. Formerly niche stories about squalid living conditions and immigrant deaths in detention got national notice. Workers at Wayfair walked out to protest their company’s profiting off the camps. Bank of America announced it would stop lending to private detention center companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group.

Congress, forced to address a spiraling national embarrassment, passed a $4.6 billion supplemental funding bill to fund the camps and the border force, including $145 million for the Pentagon and hundreds of millions for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and overtime for Customs and Border Protection employees. Proponents of the bill said it would improve conditions in the camps. Ocasio-Cortez and others objected, saying it will exacerbate the crisis.

On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez was part of a 16-member congressional delegation that got a rare glimpse inside three highly fortified facilities: “Casa Franklin,” a downtown facility housing children run by the nonprofit Southwest Key; the US Border Patrol Station at Hondo Pass; and the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas. Congressional staffers had privately worried that officials would sanitize and curtail their tour inside."

***

As planned, the media's focus on the debate over semantics also takes away focus from other recent immigration-related news.

• A Facebook group with 9,500 members, consisting of current and former customs and border patrol agents, routinely circulates calls for cruelty towards immigrants. To put this into perspective, the total number of currently-employed customs and border patrol agents is 20,000.

Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-border-patrol-facebook-group-agents-joke-about-migrant-deaths-post-sexist-memes

• Trump has declared that a wave of massive ICE raids will begin soon after July 4.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/29/politics/ice-raids-immigration-fourth-of-july-donald-trump/index.html

Again, George Washington waged a war in order to make this nation an asylum for all of mankind. By ethnically cleansing undocumented immigrants, Trump betrays the very spirit of America and the American Dream.

"I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong" - George Washington

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the grievance of the government's refusal to naturalize immigrants and refusal to encourage them to immigrate was listed 10 spots higher than the famous taxation without consent.

"[King George III] has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither" - grievance #7 of the Declaration of Independence

• In June 2018 Trump claimed he was ending the family separation policy. Regardless, 700 more families have been separated.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-family-separation-policy-never-really-ended-why-ncna1025376

• Republican strategist Thomas Hofeller, who specialized in gerrymandering electoral districts, died last year. On his hard drives, documents were recently found showing he was a strong proponent of adding a question about citizenship status on the 2020 Census. Although the question seems innocent on its surface, Hofeller made it quite clear the intent was to redraw electoral districts in order to make them more "advantageous to Republican and Non-Hispanic Whites." The logic being citizens and non-citizens of Latino heritage would be intimidated from answering the Census, thereby under-counting the population in Democrat-leaning districts. (Census counts of population are used to determine things such as number of Representatives per state and drawing electoral districts).

For more information, see these articles:
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/30/728232221/gop-redistricting-strategist-played-role-in-push-for-census-citizenship-question
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/730260511/redistricting-gurus-hard-drives-could-mean-legal-political-woes-for-gop
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/07/how-dead-mans-hard-drives-are-exposing-gop-attack-democracy/

Hofeller was highly active in gerrymandering North Carolina electoral districts. North Carolina was infamous for its 2013 voter ID law, where lawmakers obtained data on ID ownership and voting behaviors based on race, and then, according to a federal court, "deliberately target[ed] African-Americans with almost surgical precision … in an effort to depress black turnout at the polls." (To add insult to injury, the North Carolina law was passed immediately after the Supreme Court decided to loosen provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965--which was designed to prevent this exact type of racism). I don't know if Hofeller was involved with the voter ID law, but it wouldn't surprise me.

More information about the voter ID law can be found here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/29/487935700/u-s-appeals-court-strikes-down-north-carolinas-voter-id-law
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/us/federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-north-carolina-voter-id-provision.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/voter-id-laws-supreme-court-north-carolina.html

These add to the long list of cruelties that the Trump administration has been putting into policy since day 1.

***

And if you still don't think the term concentration camp is merited, well, even the Taliban and Somali pirates treat their captives better than Republicans are treating defenseless children...

And who else is backing AOC? Well, of course, the Americans who were imprisoned 75 years ago on US soil.

The last time the US had concentration camps (if you ignore Indian Reservations, where poverty rates are 5 times higher than the US average and where life expectancy is as much as 20 years lower than the US average, and sites such as Guantanamo Bay where those who are deemed enemies of the state are imprisoned and tortured without trial) was during WWII, where US citizens of Japanese heritage were imprisoned from 1942 to 1946. Now, in clear words, our politicians are telling us our government has them once more.

For the time being, the present-day concentration camps contain undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. We are not yet at the point where there is a wide-scale imprisonment of US citizens in these concentration camps. (Although thousands of US citizens have "accidentally" been deported over the past decade--a practice which no doubt has continued under the Trump administration).

As I covered in my previous article, Republicans have continuously been ramping up their ethnic cleansing to levels which would have seemed insane before Trump took office. How long will it be until it is conceivable that the administration starts stripping naturalized citizens of their citizenship and deporting them, or just continues to "accidentally" deport US citizens en masse?

***

The existence of concentration camps on US soil leads us to the question--why aren't citizens and our supposed leaders doing more to put a stop to them?

Of course, cardboard signs will not stop additional individuals from being placed in concentration camps, nor will they liberate those currently imprisoned. Rightists are, of course, well-aware that cardboard signs are meaningless. In recent news, Republican Party members in Oregon walked out of a legislative session to stall a vote on climate change legislation, and called for support from rightist militias to mobilize and remain on standby in case they desired to escalate the issue. Not only that, but far-right militias already patrol the border and terrorize migrants.

If tensions continue to rise and reach 1960s or 1850s levels--where racist acts of extreme violence occurred on a weekly basis--cardboard signs will not protect anti-racist protestors, nor immigrants, nor US citizens of the "wrong" skin color from being slaughtered by rightist mobs. Even if Trump loses the 2020 election, far-rightists will not just quietly accept defeat and go back into the shadows. And with no John Browns or Malcolm Xs of this generation, leftists and anti-racists will lose every time far-right thugs are called to mobilize (and, again, the Oregon Republican Party is already doing this--it's not just isolated fringe nutjobs!!!)

If you're already out of ideas, you haven't looked very far. As the far-right militias know (and as leftists once knew), holding cardboard signs is not a form of "resistance."

Ah, now that's more like it. Never forget that our nation was founded on systematic and ruthless resistance to the British colonizers on every front--economic, political, social, and cultural!

"In 2016 the Boston Globe’s op-ed section produced a “satirical” front page imagining what headlines would look like under Trump. They got a lot right: “DEPORTATIONS TO BEGIN,” a headline read, with a sidebar on a looming trade war. Friday’s Miami Herald headline opens, “Deportation crackdown expected to start.” But when the Globe’s editors envisioned a Trump presidency, they figured there would be heavy pushback. “Riots continue,” the subhed says, and the article features round-the-clock protests blocking transportation infrastructure and filling the nation’s cities with teargas. There have been no riots, hardly even any serious protest. We can all see the tyranny; where is the resistance?

Since Trump’s ascension “The Resistance” has become a brand name, a content category, a group identity for the older suburban liberals who have boosted MSNBC to record audience numbers. Together The Resistance pores over every detail of the president’s internal affairs investigation, waiting for the day the cops finally throw the cuffs on Trump and his whole wicked cabal. A sizable portion of the audience is fully in earnest and is probably responding to the only call that’s been addressed to them, but The Resistance is no resistance movement."

For further thoughts on the non-existent US resistance and what it would take to actually resist, refer to this article, from which the quotes in this section were taken:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/there-are-people-in-concentration-camps-why-arent-we-in-the-streets/

It took mainstream journalists two and a half years, but they have finally realized we have a duty to resist.

This is a small start, and a model that could be applied overnight in every city in America--if only leftists actually cared about resisting more than sharing memes on Facebook.

***

Every time we say "it can't possibly get any worse," it does get worse. Every time we say "it can't possibly happen here," it does happen here. How long will it be until the Trump administration moves forward to put US citizens of Latino heritage in concentration camps as well? ...Let's not wait to find out.

The Overton Window has been moved so far to the right that many on the left believe abolishing ICE is an insane goal. Yet the fact that there are CONCENTRATION CAMPS ON US SOIL barely raises an eyebrow anymore, because the ethnic cleansing policies that have been enacted over the past two and a half years have become the new normal.

Remember, every day Nancy Pelosi prevents impeachment proceedings from beginning is another day Trump is allowed to continue his unethical, illegal, and un-American policies uncontested. Every day Trump sets a new precedent as to how much bigoted behavior the far-right can get away with and how blatantly corrupt they can be in order to accomplish their goals.

America was founded as an asylum for Dreamers. To deny the American Dream to individuals based on their ethnic background is fundamentally anti-American.

It Can Happen Here - Trump's rhetoric is priming the stage to move beyond a "soft coup"

Note 12/4/2021: This article was originally published on June 5, 2019, and appears unchanged below. The "soft coup" this blog post is describing is the Republican self-coup, which is a distinct event from the coup attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. More information on the differences between these two events can be seen in the post below:
https://authenticamericandream.blogspot.com/2021/01/index-of-trump-republican-coup-news-articles-commentary.html

A year after this blog post was written, Trump and the Republican Party enacted the first stage of their coup attempt to rig 2020 election by sabotaging the Postal Service. This blog post shows that it was clear that by early-to-mid-2019, the idea of a coup was no longer beyond the pale for Republican strategists--foreshadowing their move from a self-coup to a "classic" coup attempt. It seems likely that the Republican strategists understood what they had done was a self-coup and were actively primining their base for the incipient 2020 election coup attempt.

Unfortunately, no one took it seriously until it was too late to stop. While the Postal Service was being blatantly sabotaged in plain sight (with Trump publicly stating that his entire goal was to ensure mail-in votes would "be lost"), the Democratic Party just sat and watched. Most of the media didn't even start calling the Republican plan to overthrow the election a coup attempt until the Insurrection happened... Even fewer understand the distinction between the self-coup which subverted our government throughout the entire duration of the Trump administration and the 2020 election coup attempt.

Had we taken the danger seriously back in 2019, we might have been able to stop what was to come. Even I underestimated the danger when writing the concluding thoughts on this post.

Insanely, the Democratic Party and Justice Department still don't seem to be taking the coup attempt seriously, meaning they are inviting the Republicans to continue their illegal activities... May God help us, because our entire government has abandoned us citizens.

---

Last year, an anonymous article by an individual in the Trump administration was published. In this article, the individual stated that many officials close to the president were doing all they could to keep his regime propped up despite his own incompetence (which included disregarding and disobeying the president's orders when administration officials deemed this to be the best course of action).

An idea which began circulating (including in one of the top comments on that article, as well as from interviews by Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon) was that this was an admission that a "soft coup" had taken place.* Unlike typical coups where the regime changes loudly and chaotically, things were proceeding in a slow, quiet, and orderly fashion.

* (Although commentators and propagandists had previously talked about a "soft coup" taking place, this article was the first piece of actual evidence which, no matter how tenuous, could fit with the soft coup narrative).

It is debatable whether a consistent pattern of administration officials disregarding unhinged orders by the president (not in order uphold their duty to laws, ethics, the Constitution, and America, but in order to keep the Trump administration from collapsing on itself so that it may continue to commit unlawful, unethical, unconstitutional, and un-American acts) is really enough to be called a "coup". However, things start to get more dire when we consider that the entire Republican Party, with almost no exceptions, has been going out of their way to aid Trump in his obstruction of justice (e.g. by individuals such as former House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes blatantly sabotaging investigations) and unhesitatingly parrot his propaganda lines (e.g. numerous Republicans repeating Trump's line that the new House Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam Schiff, should resign (or even be forcibly removed) for daring to believe in facts). This is in addition to the party completely disregarding the Constitution and our system of government in order to steal two seats on the Supreme Court (an act in line with a "classic" coup, and eerily similar to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's far-right hijacking of his nation's court system).

The situation becomes grave when we realize the Republican Party's allegiance to Trump has only deepened every time Trump has urged Russia to hack his opponents and interfere in our system of government, every time Trump sides with Putin and Russian intelligence agencies over US agencies, and every single time new information is released showing the extent to which Trump and his administration and his associates have shady ties with Russian individuals and the Russian government.

Every time individuals connected to the Republican Party--such as Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, national security advisor Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, and numerous others--as well as organizations which are closely associated with right-wing politics--such as the NRA, which was infiltrated by convicted Russian agent Maria Butina and has many shady monetary ties to Russian individuals--are found guilty in criminal activities and conspiring with our enemies, Republican politicians only double-down their support, rather than acting with disgust and renewing their commitment to American values and ridding our nation of un-American individuals who trample on our principles. (Which they would have done, if they ever actually indented on "draining the swamp").

Politicians who not only lived through the Cold War, but some of whom were serving in the US government at the time, are actively (not passively) propping up an administration which is cozy with a former KGB agent. (Although Putin famously declared there is no such thing as an ex-KGB agent, revealing he remains in the Cold War mindset). This is an administration which asked for aid from Russia to get elected and received it in an unprecedented campaign of interference. Politicians who once criticized Obama for not standing up to Russia and other nations with the same firmness which Ronald Reagan rebuked the Soviet Union have done a complete 180.

If this had happened during the Cold War, it would have been considered a coup.

If a presidential candidate, whose ties to the USSR were so suspicious that a counterintelligence investigation was opened to determine whether he was acting as a Soviet agent, won the presidency with the help of Soviet interference in the US elections (which the candidate himself asked the Soviets to do in a public speech!!!), it would have been called it a coup.

If a president who was not only accused of conspiring with the USSR in order to get elected, but also consistently sided with Soviet intelligence agencies and leaders over US agencies and those of our allies, called the investigation into Soviet interference in our elections a "witch hunt" and "hoax" and nonchalantly chatted with the leader of the USSR about this investigation, it would have been recognized for what it was--a coup.

If this president's entire party gave him unconditional support in spite of this obvious corruption, they would be considered participants in the coup.

If media outlets who shared a political orientation with both the president and the USSR gave the president and his party unconditional support in spite of this obvious corruption, they would be considered participants in the coup.

***

Now, the word "coup" has moved out of the blog-o-sphere and onto the lips of the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Even more shockingly, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has agreed with Trump that he faced a "coup" attempt. (While in the process of writing this article, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi voiced similar concerns to a few of the ones I raise, further validating all my fears.)

Trump has been going on rants and, in essence, claiming the Mueller investigation into potential criminal conspiracy with Russian hackers and obstruction of justice (which Trump is not exonerated from, but, in fact, guilty of), as well as the Democratic Party's feeble attempts to hold him accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors, is a "coup".

Starting on January 15, 2019, Trump retweeted a post suggesting he was facing a coup. After the redacted version of the Mueller report was released on April 18, Trump personally stated in a number of interviews and speeches that he was facing a coup. Here is a list of all the times Trump has attempted to push his narrative on the ongoing coup.

***

During his presidency, Trump has tweeted 12 times about a "coup", all of which happened in 2019.

• January 15, 2019: retweet from Tom Fitton (far-right activist and president of the organization Judicial Watch).

• February 18, 2019: tweet quoting Dan Bongino (right-wing commentator) who appeared on Fox and Friends (one of Trump's favorite TV shows).

• February 18, 2019: tweet quoting Sean Hannity.

• February 23, 2019: retweet from Tom Fitton.

• April 9, 2019: retweet from Tom Fitton.

• April 11, 2019: tweet quoting Maria Bartiromo (Fox News pundit), with a 7 minute Fox News video segment about the how Attorney General Barr alleged "spying" occurred against the Trump campaign. (The quoted part is the final statement in the video).

• April 22, 2019: retweet from Tom Fitton.

• April 22, 2019: retweet from Tom Fitton.

• April 22, 2019: retweet from Tom Fitton.

Source: http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive/coup/ttff

"Really, it's a coup, it's spying, it's everything that you could imagine, it's hard to believe in this country that we would have had that." -Donald Trump, April 25, 2019, call in to the Sean Hannity Show

Source: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1121585938499608576

"This was a coup. This was an attempted overthrow of the United States government...this was an overthrow, and it's a disgraceful thing, and I think it's far bigger than Watergate, I think it's possibly the biggest scandal in political history in this country, maybe beyond political." -Donald Trump, April 25, 2019, call in to the Sean Hannity Show

Source: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1121588816719032320

"Again, bigger than Watergate, because it means so much. This was a coup. This wasn't stealing information from an office in the Watergate apartments. This was an attempted coup. Like a third world country. Inconceivable." -Donald Trump, April 25, 2019, call in to the Sean Hannity Show

Source: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1121590484089094145

"They tried for a coup, it didn't work out so well. And I didn't need a gun for that one, did I? All was taking place at the highest levels in Washington, D.C. You've been watching, you've been seeing. You've been looking at things that you wouldn't have believed possible in our country. Corruption at the highest level, a disgrace. Spying, surveillance. Trying for an overthrow. And we caught them, we caught them." -Donald Trump, April 26, 2019, speech to annual NRA meeting in Indianapolis.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-refers-mueller-probe-attempted-coup-says-i-didn-t-n998986

• May 1, 2019: retweet from Judicial Watch Twitter account, with short video segment of Tom Fitton on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News.

• May 5, 2019: retweet from Judeo-Christian demagogue Jerry Falwell Jr.

• May 12, 2019: tweet quoting Tom Fitton.

On May 23 at a press conference Trump once again reiterated the coup narrative and continued his treason accusations. A journalist asked Trump who he believes committed treason, and reminds him that treason is punishable by death under US law. Trump then named James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page as among the individuals who he believes committed treason. Trump doesn't deny whether or not he believes death is an appropriate punishment, a fact which has not escaped the headlines.

Also on May 23, Trump authorized Attorney General Barr with "full and complete authority" to declassify information to use as propaganda to support the "investigate the investigation" witch hunt. (As a reminder, Barr will likely be held in contempt of Congress because he refuses to allow anyone to see the unredacted Mueller report and its evidence--yet Trump has given him the orders to declassify any information which may paint an unflattering picture of those who dared to investigate Trump for his crimes and corruption...).

On May 24, while talking to reporters, Trump said, "They will be able to see how this hoax, how the hoax or witch hunt started and why it started. It was an attempted coup or an attempted takedown of the president of the United States. It should never have to happen to anybody else. You are going to learn a lot. I hope it will be nice, but perhaps it won't be."

Trump supporters have tried to brush these comments off as just regular Trump-style exaggeration and not things meant to be taken seriously. However, when the President of the United States claims over a dozen times that there has been a coup attempt against him, when the President of the United States commits obstruction of justice while interfering in the investigation which he has labelled a coup attempt, and when the President of the United States continues to push this coup narrative month after month, it is not an innocent exaggeration or a whacky joke.

This is psychological warfare.

Source for these stats: https://www.axios.com/president-trump-tweets-engagement-4c6067a8-734d-4184-984a-d5c9151aa339.html

***

There are entire books analyzing the manner in which Trump exaggerates, lies, gaslights, deflects, and distorts words in his propaganda, so I won't exhaustively cover that here. If you've been paying attention at all over the past 3 years, it should be apparent that Trump is attempting to introduce new ideas into the discourse in order to normalize things which should not be considered normal, let alone acceptable. To distract from the ongoing Republican coup, Trump is priming his supporters to engage in the mental gymnastics necessary to believe Democrats and neutral investigators upholding the law tried to start a coup. And the public at large will be gaslighted until it either believes Trump or becomes too worn-down to continue combating his lies and allows the Overton Window to become pushed so far to the right that Trump's narrative becomes normalized.

Coming just weeks after Trump claimed the Mueller report completely exonerated him (despite Attorney General Barr's 3.5 page summary literally containing a quote from Mueller stating he wasn't exonerated), Trump's increasingly-unhinged and unprompted rhetoric about coups should be setting off every single alarm bell in existence. In typical Trump fashion, his rants about coups were interspersed with confusing and illogical acts and connections to Obama and Clinton (and in typical fashion, useful idiots and witting agents in the media will likely spend all their time talking about Trump's statements on the so-called coup by Democrats, just as he wanted, rather than directing their focus on the real issue at hand: TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S COUP ATTEMPT).

(By the way, the absolutely unhinged idea that Trump opponents and neutral investigators were the ones somehow engaged in a coup is an excellent example of the "Big Lie" technique National Socialists decried--a technique which Trump has constantly employed).

To give a realization of how severely we've been gaslighted and allowed the narrative to become twisted, remember that Republican leaders (and even Trump's own campaign team) are shocked that they managed to get this far.

Lindsey Graham: now licking Trump's boots and helping him obstruct justice as if this never happened. Graham has gone so far as to suggest Donald Trump Jr. should ignore a subpoena issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee (headed by Republican Richard Burr). Demonstrating an insane lack of integrity, Graham is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even worse, he stated he would declare Trump innocent in the case that impeachment makes its way to the Senate... Many have suggested his change of heart after Trump's election is the result of blackmail--either from Russia or Trump himself.

Democrats were overconfident that they would win in the largest landslide in history, and even Trump's campaign team doubted he would win. Instead, the most-disliked candidate in US history, the most mentally-unstable candidate in US history, and the most brazen liar in US politics wiped the floor with the Democrats. Now Democrats are quaking in their boots and too afraid to impeach him...

Nunes must be shocked that Pelosi and others are actively arguing against impeachment. It looks like there was no need for him to try so hard to obstruct and sabotage the investigations--the Democrats are in power in the House and aren't bothering to hold Trump accountable anyway!

Through years of outrage fatigue and gaslighting, we've allowed reality to become redefined.

Now let it sink in for a moment that right-wing propagandists news commentators and Congressmen have been attempting to paint the Mueller investigation as a coup as early as December 2017. And, of course, sane people noted that, if anything, Trump and Republicans were the ones gearing up for a coup. A year and a half later, Trump and Republicans have finally openly admitted it: we are in the midst of a coup.

***

To give another example of how Trump has been attempting to paint any opposition toward him as illegitimate, throughout the 2016 and 2018 elections, Trump constantly tried to push the hoax that there were millions of illegal votes being cast for the Democratic Party. Instead of being shaken to the core by this utter disregard for our nation's electoral process, these claims don't raise any eyebrows for people who have become used to Trump's lies (but, dangerously, Trump supporters are more than willing to believe these hoaxes the president is pushing!) Beyond this, he has labelled all media unsupportive of him as "the enemy of the American people" and advocated for 'locking up' his political opponents.

Generally, Trump's calls to "lock them up" are just empty rhetoric. However, Trump has recently moved forward to investigate the investigations into himself and suppress any further inquiries into his actions. He has even hinted at the idea that he may prosecute his enemies for treason, and has tweeted multiple times that he is the victim of a 'treasonous hoax'. (As a side note, now that we know where Trump sets the bar for treason, we should have no qualms about trying and executing him and his associates for committing treason with our enemies in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and elsewhere.)

In other words, Trump is setting the stage not just in terms of rhetoric, but in terms of actual legal proceedings, to ruin the lives of those who dare to uphold the law by investigating his administration's corruption--another action taken by tyrannical regimes in "typical" coups. And his supporters love it.

Developments such as these have caused Democratic Party leader Nanci Pelosi to express concerns that Trump won't step down if he loses the 2020 election. This is major news, considering Pelosi has gained a reputation for being hopelessly over-cautious and unwilling to begin impeachment proceedings and other bare-minimum methods of oversight.

Pelosi needs to get her head out of her ass, because Democrats are going to lose by record numbers if she keeps dissuading Democratic politicians from doing their Constitutional duty to impeach Trump...

Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, shared the same concerns. (Cohen began his prison sentence on May 6, 2019. With Cohen's guilty plea to campaign finance violations Trump became an unindicted co-conspirator. In other words, Cohen is going to jail for this but Pelosi and others are unwilling to even attempt to impeach Trump for it).

“My loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything: my family’s happiness, friendships, my law license, my company, my livelihood, my honor, my reputation and, soon, my freedom. And I will not sit back, say nothing, and allow him to do the same to the country,” Cohen said at the hearing’s closing. “Indeed, given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today.”

Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/27/18243686/michael-cohen-testimony-closing-statement

As much as I used to believe the idea that Trump may not step down as president was just alarmist nonsense, Trump himself made a tweet implying he would be completely justified if he chose to...

On May 4, Judeo-Christian demagogue Jerry Falwell Jr. posted the following tweet:

Which Donald Trump retweeted on May 5.

A few hours later Trump made a tweet reiterating the "stolen 2 year" sentiment, thereby planting the idea into his followers' minds that he would be justified if he were to take actions extending his term.

"Despite the tremendous success that I have had as President, including perhaps the greatest ECONOMY and most successful first two years of any President in history, they have stolen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back....."

".....The Witch Hunt is over but we will never forget. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" -Donald Trump, Tweet, May 5, 2019

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1125235131759960064

***

Equally worrying as the ongoing Republican coup is how the Democratic Party is willing to let it happen. Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic Party leaders have said multiple times before and after the Mueller report was released that it's "not worth" attempting to impeach Trump. Pelosi seems to believe that pursuing impeachment will incite more pro-Trump reactionaries to vote than the number of Democrat voters that such an action will inspire.

But in reality, no one is going to bother to show up to the polls to vote for Democrats if the party refuses to do its CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY to impeach a president who violates the Constitution and commits crimes while in office (not to mention, committed crimes in order to obtain that office in the first place!) I don't know why Pelosi thinks Democrat voters don't want to hold Trump accountable for his high crimes and violations of the Constitution...

Although, slightly reassuringly, some prominent Democratic candidates in the 2020 presidential election such as Elizabeth Warren have openly urged for impeachment and made justice an important talking point in their platforms, regardless of Pelosi's position.

The 2016 election was lost due to low voter turnout because individuals who would typically vote for the Democratic Party were too uninspired by one of the most disliked and low-energy candidates in US history, as well as from overconfidence that someone as unstable and incompetent as Trump wouldn't manage to gain any significant support. Yet, here we are again--'do nothings' like Pelosi are making voters apathetic while simultaneously banking everything on the hope that someone as unstable and incompetent as Trump can't possibly win two elections (yet someone as disliked as George Bush managed to win two terms just a decade and a half ago).

***

Getting back on topic, the fact that the Democratic Party leadership is willing to enable this coup is shocking, because their rhetoric shows that they view the situation to be very grave. They are not simply naively ignorant as to what is happening. They are well-aware, yet doing nothing in their power to stop it.

To summarize some recent events: the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Attorney General William Barr in order to obtain the unredacted version of the Mueller report. After general refusals and failures to comply with this and other requests by Congress, the Committee gave him a final deadline of 9 AM on May 6. If he did not comply by this date, the Committee would hold a vote on whether to recommend the full House of Representatives vote to hold him in contempt of Congress. (An individual found in contempt of Congress can be jailed or fined until they comply). On May 8, the Committee voted, and agreed that the entire House should now vote on whether to hold him in contempt. Going easy on Barr, the vote in the full House has been scheduled for June 11, over a full month after the line in the sand was drawn.

Immediately after the Committee voted, Committee chairman Jerry Nadler said, "We've talked for a long time about approaching a Constitutional crisis. We're now in it... Now is the time of testing whether we can keep a republic, or whether this republic is destined to change into a different, more tyrannical form of government. We must resist this." Surprisingly, Pelosi was quick to agree that we were indeed in a Constitutional Crisis.

So, in their own words, Democratic Party leadership has declared that a Constitutional crisis began on May 6, 2019. It will continue until action is taken to bring the Attorney General to justice and as well as the President of the United States for his obstruction of justice and other high crimes, misdemeanors, and violations of the Constitution. Every day that impeachment is not pursued is another day that Pelosi and other Democratic Party leaders are actively allowing this Constitutional crisis to be prolonged. They can no longer claim to be passive bystanders--if they allow this to continue, they are just as complicit as Republicans of aiding and abetting the crimes of the administration. If the 2020 election comes and goes without Trump or any of his administration ever finding justice, the most basic aspect of the coup will have succeeded--the president will be above the law and his administration may commit any unethical and illegal acts it wishes.

Instead of backpedaling, Pelosi has continued to amp up her rhetoric. After two years, she is now willing to state the obvious that the president is engaging in a coverup.

"We do believe that it is important to follow the facts, we believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up, in a cover-up." -Nancy Pelosi, May 22, 2019

(Every day Pelosi stalls impeachment she is aiding in this coverup.)

In response, Trump said he won't work with Democrats in Congress until they stop investigating him... And, with support from Republicans in Congress, the coup takes another step forward.

In an insult to the American people, Pelosi responded by saying that the White House is "crying out for impeachment" by its increasingly unhinged actions. So, why won't Pelosi uphold her Constitutional duty to impeach already, if the Trump administration is doing everything short of explicitly asking for it? Is a treasonous Senate refusing to indict Trump once impeachment proceedings begin really worse than losing the 2020 election by refusing to begin impeachment in the first place??? If the Senate refuses to convict Trump for obstructing justice, violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, and subverting our nation by giving aid and comfort to our enemies, then their actions will forever be on the record and impeachments and legal proceedings against them can move forward. By refusing to do anything, responsibility for Trump's continued tyranny rests squarely on House Majority Leader Pelosi's shoulders, as impeachment begins in the House...

Every day that Pelosi chooses to stonewall impeachment proceedings from starting, she is aiding and abetting the Trump administration's crimes. Every day that Pelosi stalls impeachment proceedings from beginning, she is aiding in the coverup. This is not the way to inspire Democratic voters for the 2020 election.

***

In spite of Pelosi's stonewalling, an increasing number of Democrats (and even Republicans) are beginning to call for impeachment. Nadler, head of the Judiciary Committee, has been privately urging Pelosi to move forward with impeachment, as he believes it is finally time, it was revealed on May 25. So far, 59 Representatives have publicly come out supporting an impeachment inquiry (a number which has nearly doubled since Mueller gave a press conference reiterating that "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.")

Among those Congressmen are long-serving member and chairman of the Financial Services Committee Maxine Waters, the exemplary Rashida Tlaib (who has been urging for impeachment since her very first day in Congress, in addition to being the only member of Congress brave enough to promote the one-state-solution as a bare minimum anti-Zionist policy), high-energy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar (the only member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who has undivided loyalty to America).

To hammer home Pelosi's ineptitude, these Congressmen are merely calling for an "impeachment inquiry". This means committees within the House of Representatives will begin investigating the grounds for impeachment, gathering evidence, and determining precisely which charges to bring against him. If the committee agrees that high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed, and therefore that impeachment is warranted, they will introduce the articles of impeachment to the full House to vote on (this vote is the actual impeachment).

By beginning the impeachment inquiry, Congress gains more leverage to obtain documents and other evidence they may desire to build a case against the president. Some excuses Trump has been using to sabotage investigations are that he has executive privilege and that the evidence being requested by Congress is not necessary for them to see in order to do their duties.

Impeachment is a Constitutional power of Congress and therefore Trump can't use the excuse that handing over evidence is not necessary for Congress to exercise oversight. As for the weak excuse of executive privilege (which Trump has already waived), the Supreme Court case United States v. Nixon already ruled that the president does not have unlimited ability to claim executive privilege to obstruct an investigation. Pelosi keeps talking about how she wants to have investigations and hearings to shape public opinion--well, an impeachment inquiry investigation is the only real tool Congress has left to gain the upper hand on Trump before the clock runs out.

With Mueller's press conference on May 29, Nadler stated the obvious that it is now up to Congress to move forward and that the president should not be above the law. Before Mueller gave this conference 70% of Democrat voters supported impeachment. In the wake of Mueller's conference, even countless mainstream media organizations are running massive headlines that it is time to impeach.

Pelosi continues to twiddle her thumbs and be unwilling to do her job as a LEADER and LEAD the House towards supporting impeachment. Worse, her weak and cynical position that Republicans in the Senate will clear the president of any charges arising from impeachment has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For example, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and professional bootlicker Lindsey Graham recently said "I think it would be disposed of very quickly." Senate Judiciary Committee member John Cornyn, taking full advantage of the House's wimpiness, said "It would be defeated. That’s why all they want to do is talk about it. They know what the outcome would be."

It is easy for these Senators to grandstand when they don't actually have to vote on whether to charge the president with his crimes. They might not be so cocky if they were actually faced with having to remain forever on the record as acquitting the most criminal president we have ever seen. But as long as Pelosi maintains a weak posture, these Senators will never be taken to task and forced to make good on their word. Instead, Pelosi will appear to be the one who has acquitted Trump via never beginning impeachment proceedings, "vindicating" Trump just the same in the eyes of Republicans...

And, with this Republican insistence that they will clear the president should impeachment move forward, the coup moves one step forward.

***

Al Green is absolutely correct, Democrats will lose in 2020 if they do not impeach. On the right, Trump will appear vindicated. On the left, no one is going to bother to show up to vote for a party who can't do their bare minimum duty to impeach the most corrupt and unethical president this nation has ever seen... Over 76% of Democrat voters support impeachment. 218 votes in the House are needed for impeachment and Democrats hold 235 seats. Thus far, 59 Representatives have publicly spoken in favor of impeachment--in other words, the House is nearly 30% of the way there in spite of Pelosi telling her party to stop talking about impeachment every chance she gets!!! And, of course, a majority of Democrats in the House would likely support it overnight if Pelosi just had the courage to approve of it.

As for anyone who thinks Pelosi is just publicly appearing to oppose impeachment while having a behind-the-scenes master plan to slowly order other politicians to come out in favor for it as public pressure mounts...well, on May 22 Pelosi had closed-door meetings where she, again, urged Democrats not to move forward with impeachment. Then, on May 23, repeated the defeatist talking point that they shouldn't even bother with impeachment since the Republican-majority Senate won't convict him for his crimes.

This isn't a superhero movie. There is no guarantee that someone is going to swoop in at the last moment and save the world and have us all live happily ever after. Anyone who urges us to keep waiting and unconditionally trust that Pelosi is a movie superhero with an infallible master plan is trying to lull you into complacency.

This is the same complacency that lost the 2016 election when we were so sure the supervillain couldn't win, and the same complacency that led to letdown and apathy when the Mueller report was released (as people had been saying for years that Mueller had a grand master plan and contingencies for every possible situation thrown at him) and yet Trump was not indicted for obstructing justice up to a dozen times.

In order to actually fix our country, we need to keep the pressure up on Pelosi, Trump, and all others who are trying to subvert our nation. We will not wait any longer for justice. We shouldn't have had to wait this long in the first place. Impeachment must begin NOW. Democrats took control of the House of Representatives on January, 3, 2019. The redacted version of the Mueller report was released on April 18. These were both prime opportunities to impeach, and by squandering these pivotal moments Pelosi is aiding and abetting Trump by denying the American people justice. Instead of being a leader and leading the American people towards justice, her actions have been suppressing grassroots support for impeachment among the public and she has tried to nip impeachment talk in the bud every time Congressmen bring it up!

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was 'well timed'... For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' ... This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'" -Martin Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail

But, in a rare glimmer of hope, members of the House of Representatives are moving forward. In the wake of Mueller's press conference, the House Judiciary Committee is beginning to hold hearings related to the Mueller report. But, these hearings will fall flat and all this momentum will be squandered if these 'regular' hearings do not turn into IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS. Will Democrats blow their third, and likely last, opportunity to begin impeachment?

***
***

If the Democratic Party and a Democratic president had even contemplated 1/100th of what Trump and the Republicans have already done and are currently doing, Republicans would have declared their actions tantamount to a coup attempt and pursued ruthless legal action to stop them.

Now, Trump himself has admitted it: we are in the midst of a coup. Republican Party leader in the House Kevin McCarthy has also admitted it. Democratic Party leadership has admitted it as well: the actions being taken by Trump and the Republican Party make it plausible they will not concede power if they lose the 2020 election, and we have entered into an ongoing Constitutional crisis.

Say it out loud to yourself: we are in the midst of a coup. This is no longer bloggers and news article commenters making tentative connections and editorialized claims. The president himself is using these words, completely unprompted, to control the narrative and normalize and justify his past, present, and--god-forbid--future actions; and reaction by the leadership of the Democratic Party has validated that a coup in the executive branch is a genuine threat.

Although we have a tendency to think things like this can't happen in the 21st century, recall that just a few years ago Turkey went through what many considered an engineered coup in order for the ruling party to consolidate control. It's not that unthinkable. Afterall, throughout the entire Obama presidency and most of the Bush presidency, millions of people found it believable enough that the US was on the verge of the president declaring martial law and entering into a dystopia. Such a doomsday prophecy never materialized (unless you consider the erosion of personal liberties in the wake of 9/11 as a manifestation of this), but neither of the past two presidents conspired with and were heavily compromised by our nation's most powerful adversary, nor did they casually talk about the US being in the midst of a coup...

Instead of the mysterious so-called "deep state" subverting the government, the very politicians peddling this conspiracy have been the ones subverting our nation in front of our eyes. (Although I suppose career-conniver William Barr's attempted coverup of the Mueller report and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's illegal refusal to allow Congress to examine the president's tax returns qualifies them as members of the corrupt "deep state".)

***

Now, before anyone accuses me of sensationalism, I believe it is unlikely that Trump will one day declare martial law and announce himself leader for life, or some worst-case apocalyptic scenario similar to that (I probably wouldn't have even used the word "coup" if Trump wasn't so insistent on injecting it into the discourse). Historically, this was never necessary for tyranny to entrench itself in the US (e.g. see: slavery, Jim Crow laws, tyranny by corrupt police forces, the "drug war," the post-9/11 'security state', and on-going attempts to "Make America Great Again" by reviving Jim Crow cultural attitudes). Nor has this been necessary in other present-day democracies which have had far-right parties ascend to the government. (I already mentioned Hungary, but the entire V4 in the EU has similar tendencies. This is not even mentioning what Trump's role model, Putin, has been doing or how Israel--"the only democracy in the Middle East"--has been a Western-approved apartheid state for its 70-year existence).

Besides, Trump did not need to give himself dictatorial powers to already do unspeakable damage to our nation, which started before he was even elected and continued from the very second when he took office. So far under his administration Republican policies and attitudes have caused a surge in Islamophobia, began an ethnic cleansing of Latino immigrants (and ruthless intimidation of US citizens of Latino heritage), increased police tyrannization of communities targeted by the "war on drugs", and normalized open white supremacy (recall Trump's remark calling Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists in Charlottesville "fine people"), just to scratch the surface. All of this is completely legal and ostensibly Constitutional (as was slavery, I will remind you). Such tribalism, however, is fundamentally anti-American.

Harboring fugitive slaves was not just illegal, but UNCONSTITUTIONAL. However, helping individuals escape from legal tyranny is very cool and very reflective of the American Spirit.

Further, the government itself is not the only source tyranny. Trump's rhetoric supporting division and praising white supremacy has emboldened individuals to take unlawful action to further white supremacist goals. For example, the far-right militia leader in New Mexico who detained migrants, the White Supremacist who murdered Heather Heyer with his car in Charlottesville (and wounded 35 more), and countless others too small to make headlines. Russians and Republicans don't need to conduct brazen regime change or change in form of government to further the culture war and "overthrow" American values and ethics (such as anti-tribalism, etc.) and replace them with un-American values (such as white supremacy, sexism, Islamophobia, Zionism, etc.). Indeed, domestic right-wing terrorists have been considered the greatest threat to the US for some time.

And when you consider the increasing organization of far-right ideological and paramilitary groups, as well as the ever-increasing popularity of obsessive, cult-like right-wing conspiracies like "Pizzagate" and QAnon, and the belief among White Supremacists that the point of no return for the demise of the "white race" is only years away, the "culture war" could very well turn in to something more than a mere metaphor. QAnon followers fantasize that what is essentially a Soviet-style purge of all liberal-leaning politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals is imminent. Trump is claiming, in essence, that the simple existence of opponents and individuals within his own party (Mueller, Rosenstein, Comey, and others are Republicans, mind you) who dare to run investigations and hold him accountable is a coup. How long before Trump directs a "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest" sentiment to his followers? Afterall, he already asked Russia to hack his opponents if they were listening.

This isn't just a few insane individuals who believe in this stuff, but millions of people, many of whom possess wealth and influential positions in business, police forces, and politics. On a more basic level, no social media or news website is able to escape from propagandists pushing these beliefs in comment sections. We have all seen them or even interacted with them in person, and it will be to our own peril if we continue to trivialize the danger brewing in our society.

***

Even in the event that Trump is impeached or loses the 2020 election and concedes without a fuss, Americans will have to deal with a Republican Party that is not merely "compromised" but actively acting in the interests of a hostile foreign nation without any reservations and willing to subvert our laws and government to further their party's political goals. In other words, if the Republican coup does not move into the next stage in the executive branch of our government, it is already in operation--and succeeding--in the legislative and judicial branches. (Not to mention succeeding on a cultural/societal level). At this point, it appears the leaders of the Democratic Party (such as Nancy Pelosi) are content to allow this to happen, so they are complicit in the coup as well.

And, as always, I would like to take time to remind everyone that tyranny of the majority is what has enabled all of this to occur. When a majority of individuals are willing to actively support or passively enable bigotry, tribalism, and tyranny, the Constitution can do nothing to stop it. When a majority of politicians and citizens are willing to actively support or passively enable disregarding all the hypothetical "checks and balances" written into the Constitution to stop bigotry, tribalism, and tyranny, democracy merely reaps what it sows.

May God help us.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -John F. Kennedy, address to the Canadian Parliament (1961).