Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Donald Trump and the Road to Resistance



If you put a toga on him he would look like an American Caesar.

Donald Trump basking in the warm glow of his inflamed supporters, as he continues his triumphal "Thank You Tour" of his conquered country.

Swaggering around one stage after the other, bragging about how great he is, soaking up the adulation like a sponge, and thunderously declaring that The Resistance has been CRUSHED!!!



But sadly for Trump, and his plan to turn the U.S. into a militarized kleptocracy, he couldn't be more wrong.



For while it's true that many progressives have gone from shock and disbelief, to anger and despair, at the thought of their country in the grip of that monstrous demagogue.

His plans, and the people he is appointing to enforce them, are so extreme and so dangerous, resistance is inevitable.

And it is as Charles Blow writes, the duty of all patriotic Americans. 

Nothing is safe or sacrosanct in Donald Trump’s developing governance team, and America had better start being alarmed about it and moving to actively oppose it.

The time for voting has elapsed, but the time for being vocal has emerged.

Trump's decision to appoint many cabinet members to head government departments they have vowed to destroy, is insane.

In a way, Trump seems to be trying to destroy these agencies from the inside out, the way a worm slowly devours an apple.

But while the mood may be grim, and for so many progressives this is so true.

I know that it can feel like we are all drowning in a deluge of compounding outrages, with every headline about this impending administration appearing to one-up the last... 

So is this:



You may have been on the losing side of this year’s election, but you are on the right side of history. In the final tally, courage will always defeat fear; love will always conquer hate; the beautiful diversity of America, and indeed all of humanity, will always outshine the darkness of racial enmity.

I don't know what form or forms that resistance will take, but what I do know that it will be formidable. And that as Canadians we must find ways to help our neighbours.

So I'm glad to see that some of us are already doing that by preparing to help American scientists safeguard the truth.  

Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference. 

The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data...


The truth that must be protected, like our precious planet, from the depraved demagogue who would torch them both. Because that's how low America has fallen.

And the good news?


As Charles Blow also points out, the American Caesar is not as popular as he think he is, even as he sniffs the sweaty scent of victory at one Thank You rally after the other...



Just 37 percent of the public views Trump as well-qualified; 32 percent of registered voters described Trump as well-qualified in October. Majorities continue to say Trump is reckless (65 percent) and has poor judgment (62 percent), while 68 percent describe him as ‘hard to like.’”

The Russian hacking scandal has shaken up even some of his most rabid supporters...



Like the right-wing radio show host Joe Walsh, who is now aiming his musket at Trump...



It won't be too hard to encourage those feelings of betrayal...



Or portray him as an illegitimate president, as the Republicans did to Obama as soon as he was inaugurated.

So the monster has feet of clay. 


It's still Never Trump.

And sooner or later, even in the ruins of America.

He will go down hard...



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are more optimistic than I am. Progressives seem to have gone to sleep, especially the white ones, who will not be affected by his hideous actions for awhile.

Simon said...

hi anon...I understand how you feel, I occasionally feel that way myself. But progressives in America have suffered a big shock, and it is the holiday season. So give them a little time to recover, and I'm pretty sure that starting on the 20th of January the real battle will begin. They really have no choice. The situation is so critical failure is not an option...

David said...

This is how ridiculous the Trump tech meeting was
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tech-meeting-ridiculous-2016-12

[snip]

Twenty-five people. 4 of them — FOUR — are the president-elect’s children. That is 16% of everybody in the room, or put differently, if I include Donald Trump, the meeting consists of 20% family members. This is the definition of nepotism that we would condemn from the least democratic nations in the world.

Donald Trump has not legally separated himself from his businesses, and to the extent that he has made statements, it has been that his children will run his business for him. His children that are sitting in the effing room with him while he meets the top technology leaders in the country. If that’s not a kleptocracy I don’t know what is.

David said...

http://forward.com/scribe/356927/the-era-of-jew-hating-politics-is-back/

The anti-Semitism from Trump’s followers during the campaign was vocal, explicit, and often condemned by society at large. Whether it’s the supporter chanting “Jew-S-A” at the media, the man who told a reporter to “go to f**king Auschwitz,” or the two Trump backers who shouted the Nazi slogan “lugenpresse,” each of these incidents received extensive press coverage.

What went more unnoticed was the barely-veiled anti-Semitism coming from Trump himself. Although Trump’s speech condemning the “international bankers” supporting Hillary Clinton received significant coverage, little of it was focused on unraveling the anti-Semitic connotations of the phrase. Even less robustly analyzed or critiqued were the anti-Semitic stereotypes associated with Trump’s declaration that the election was going to be “rigged” by the media and elites.

David said...

CNN Tonight
Aired December 13, 2016 - 23:00 ET
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1612/13/cnnt.02.html

[snip]

LEMON: Donald Trump is using ExxonMobil's CEO Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state. Tillerson's ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to be a big part of his confirmation hearings.

[snip]

JONATHAN SANDERS, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM: Well, first of all, we've elected a president in the United States who doesn't care about human rights, doesn't care about spreading freedom of speech, and doesn't care about rights for gay people, and in that he's with Vladimir Putin.

But let's not get this cold war anti-Russian hysteria ramped up in the man who's been nominated to be the secretary of state. If you think of the man who is most successful ever in the 20th Century in dealing with Russia and the kremlin, it was Averell Harraman (ph).

How did Harraman start out in Russia? He was a businessman. He had a manganese concession in the caucuses. Who did he deal with? Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky and Stalin, compared to those two, Vladimir Putin is a nice guy like Don Lemon or Derek Jeter. You know, the sad part is that --

LEMON: This is the first time I've ever been compared to either of these two, but go on.

SANDERS: Well, you deserve it. I mean, look, it's sad that we're having someone who's going to run the State Department, who's entire goal in life has been to pump oil and make money, who doesn't care for people who are suffering, who isn't going to support independent organizations, who's not going to come out and say women's rights are human rights, none of that stuff.
But just because he's friends with Putin and maybe he's not friends, maybe he's friends with Putin's best friend, Igor Sechin (ph), who's much more dangerous than Putin. That doesn't disqualify him.

*

Senate prepares nomination showdown over Trump's Secretary of State pick Rex Tillerson
http://wjla.com/news/nation-world/senate-prepares-nomination-showdown-over-trumps-secretary-of-state-pick-rex-tillerson

jrkrideau said...

It's amazing how fast a Republican can roll over on his back so Trump can scratch his belly when a Cabinet post or plum Agency appointment comes up.

It looks like we may be seeing one of the worst cabinets in history and I don't mean just in the USA. I think even those wild incompetents in England who ordered Sir John Churchill to abandon his allies at one point in the War of the Spanish Succession. Currently it looks to outdo the present Brazilian Cabinet who just appear to be ambitious but run-of-the-mill thieves---well with a possible murderer or two tossed in. The US is clearly heading into a period of kakistocracy (great word, Simon).

It's annoying to see the standard "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming" hysteria continuing down there. Why do almost all Americans seem to think that any and all Americans are ready to betray their country at the drop of a hat?


And as a side note Armand Hammer and the Koch brothers' father (Charles??) made their money in the Soviet Union. Ergo the Koch brothers must be KGB agents---as noted before most Americans seem to have missed the collapse of the USSR.