We’ve lost our democracy as we’ve known it. That’s not hyperbole. It’s not an overreaction. While Donald Trump attacks our country on a daily basis with co-president Elon Musk’s DOGE insurrectionists, our Republican-controlled Congress politically fellates our Felon-in-Chief. Trump keeps saying this is what he campaigned on. He campaigned on bringing prices down on day one. He campaigned on closing the border and mass deportations. No, it was Democrats who campaigned warning about Project 2025, which Trump pretended he knew nothing about. Now, he’s implementing it.
Courts, with judges appointed by Reagan, Obama and Trump himself have smacked down Trump’s assault on our democracy. And there are those in the MAGA cult including his faux hillbilly veep who wants Trump to defy the courts, to utterly break our democracy and appoint himself dictator. There are elected officials, like the incredible shrinking boot-licking, fake Christian Speaker of the House Mike Johnson completely abandoning his Article 1 role to kowtow to Trump.
I get that they’re afraid of the Criminal-in-Chief. After all, they watched him sic a mob on Congress and then pardon the people who beat and injured police and destroyed the peaceful transfer of power. They’re physically afraid of the MAGA minions. But so what? You ran for office. Do the job people sent you there to do or resign.
This is a time where you can really see how the United States is paying the price for low information voters. I wrote long ago that the idiocracy we were living in would have long term consequences. There are people saying, “What’s wrong with what Elon is doing? He’s saving us billions in waste and fraud.” One would have to be a child, a cultist or a complete moron to believe that. Let’s start with the fact that nowhere in the Constitution or our laws does it say a civilian can go in and close down federal agencies that Congress created. The Executive Branch cannot shut down agencies it doesn’t like. Congress, through it’s Article l power, has the power to spend money in our government. It creates agencies. The President enforces the laws. If a president doesn’t like what Congress is spending money on, he can lobby Congress to change the laws and he can sign new laws. He doesn’t get to go in and cut off payments that Congress authorized. I’m sorry they didn’t cover this in Schoolhouse Rock, but the people who believe this is all legit probably wouldn’t have watched anyway.
What Elon Musk has done to USAID has and will kill people. Think about that. We’ve stopped medication for millions. Unwanted pregnancies will rise because they’ve stopped that aid. We’ve stopped distributing food for starving children. That aid, which only amounts to 1% of GDP saves lives around the globe and buys us enormous good will. That aid prevents conflicts. That aid helps encourage our allies to fight terrorism with us and for us.
Your representatives approved that money. Who is Elon Musk to stop it? Who is Donald Trump to halt payments that Congress authorized?
If you voted for Trump, how would you feel if Kamala Harris had won in 2024 and she let billionaire George Soros hire a bunch of youngsters to go over the federal government and shut down things they don’t like? Would you have supported that? No, you’d see how wrong it was and you’d be screaming bloody murder. It’s amazing how easy it is to see the truth when you appeal to peoples’ partisanship.
For those who cheered Trump signing an Executive Order repealing the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship, would you support a Democratic President assuming office and using an Executive Order to repeal the 2nd Amendment?
Joe Biden didn’t like Trump’s 2 trillion dollar 2017 tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the well to do. But what if he’d assumed office and sent a team to the IRS ordering them to put the tax rates back where they were. That would be illegal and unconstitutional. But Biden wouldn’t do that. No Democrat would do that because Democrats believe in government. Newsflash, the Republican Cult does not believe in government. It’s why they can stand by and hold Trump’s nuts…I mean, hat and coat, while he destroys it.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk has shown us no evidence of any waste, fraud or abuse. What they say is not evidence. They’re both known liars. And it wouldn’t matter if he found billions in fraud because it’s not legal to be doing what they’re doing. If I break into your home and find cocaine, you’re going to jail but I’m going to jail too.
Trump, like he did to E. Jean Carroll decades ago, is raping our country.
The Constitution matters. The law matters because if we let them shred part of the Constitution, what’s next? What will he do to voting rights? What if he decides there shouldn't be marriage equality? How much damage is he prepared to do to the environment in the name of profit? What will he do to undermine choice? What means will he and Pee Wee German Steven Miller stoop to in order to accomplish his goal of making America White Again?
Donald Trump undermined our democracy before he even took office by cutting a deal with the CEO of Tiktok. In 2020, Trump signed an Executive Order attacking Tiktok and tried to ban it. Then, in 2024, billionaire Jeffrey Yass who owns a 15% stake in TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, reached out to support Donald Trump’s election. Suddenly, Trump flipflopped on his position on TikTok. Meanwhile, Congress passed a ban on TikTok that would go into effect January 19, 2025 if Bytedance didn’t sell the company to a U.S. entity. A huge bipartisan vote with the House voting 365-65 and the Senate passing it 79-18 enabled President Biden to sign it into law. We all saw what happened when TikTok paused operations and then came back online beaming a message of praise for “President” Donald Trump on 170 million Americans’ phones. Newsflash. It’s not legal for Donald Trump to halt a U.S. law via Executive Order. The law only allows a President to pause the law if there’s an imminent sale. There’s no imminent sale so Trump doesn’t have the authority to keep it active. I know people love TikTok but the fact that the program is running on millions of phones after a U.S. law has been passed to ban it is evidence that our democracy has already been undermined.
And for us to cheer Trump on because we like TikTok plays into his hands. If you’re okay with Trump blocking one law via Executive Order, Trump will think why can’t I block more laws with Executive Orders?
Congress passes bills and the President signs them into law. Even the poorly educated must’ve picked that part up from Schoolhouse Rock. If a new President comes into office and doesn’t like a law the previous President signed, he can go to Congress and tell them to repeal that law. What he can’t do it just seize the money and not enact the law.
Remember that part about faithfully executing the laws during the inauguration? Well, Trump is not doing it. He’s not even a month into office and has already violated his oath.
I wouldn’t be shocked if he defied the courts. After all, the courts have no real enforcement mechanism other than their legitimacy. If Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress conspire to undermine the judiciary, our democracy is dead.
And a government where there is no accountability, no recourse and no justice only results in one thing: insurgency, coup and assassination.
We’re not immune.
Trump isn’t immune.
We’re in the maw of the beast.
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