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Defend Your Rule [1]

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Date: 2025-02-23

Defend Your Rule

My fellow citizens, We the People are in a moment of peril. The danger we face now from the new fascist dictatorship is being described in many ways, but some mislead. Some underrepresent. Some deny. We must know the true danger to defend ourselves. And that danger is far greater and far more personal than many argue.

For sure, Musk, Trump, Vance, and their kakistocracy are wrecking our government, department by department, agency by agency, loyal employee by loyal employee. They are diminishing our government, weakening us, putting us at grave risk from enemies, natural disasters, diseases, and criminals like the fascist dictatorship, itself.

For sure, the fascist dictatorship is asserting itself as the top branch of government, no longer “co-equal” to the Legislative and Judicial branches. Trump and his cult of destruction have placed the White House above the other branches in words and deeds. They are ignoring the laws on federal spending and federal employment passed by the Congress and signed into law by previous presidents. They are ignoring court rulings and promising to ignore more. They are hellbent on doing what they want without regard to the laws or the Constitution, which, in fact, requires the President to see that the laws are “faithfully executed.” (Article II, Section 3)

Indeed, Trump is putting himself above the Constitution, a privilege only you and I, We the People, hold, a place where no president is permitted. This is the death of our Democracy.

Few things irritate me more than a smarmy, pedantic argument that “We are a Republic, not a Democracy.” The proponents point to Franklin’s mention after the Constitutional Convention and, if they are better read, Madison’s Federalist #10 as evidence. Their failure is in mistaking our government for our nation. This mistake must be corrected before we move forward…before we can restore our Democracy.

Each time I am presented this argument, I point out that the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a republic and challenge them to then explain the difference between the United States and Iran. They stumble, but we must not. While Iran also has a constitution that establishes legislative, executive, and judicial branches as do we, the supreme lawgiver in Iran—the authority in Iran ABOVE the constitution and holding ultimate sway is Allah or, more realistically, the “will of Allah” as interpreted by the clergy. Iran, then, is a theocracy. Few would argue with calling the cleric-led Iran a theocracy, and the nation is very much that while its government is a republic.

And here? Here, We the People are the supreme lawgiver. Our will, expressed by us provided and amends our Constitution that created and rules our republic. Only we have the authority to change it. No court can violate our Constitution. No Congress can sustain a law that violates our Constitution. Certainly, no president can change OUR Constitution by executive order.

And yet, that is what Trump and his fascist cult is attempting to do. They are trying to abridge birthright citizenship established in the Fourteenth Amendment. (And, fellow citizen, what is your claim to citizenship? For the vast majority of us it is exclusively that we were born here as recorded in our birth certificate.) They are pushing for a third Trump term in violation of the 22nd Amendment. Trump just referred to himself as a “king,” and his White House jumped to create a meme supporting that claim. None of this is permissible under our Constitution.

That, my fellow citizens, is the peak danger here. Trump and his fascist cult are trying to put the fascist dictator ABOVE our Constitution, to make Trump the supreme lawgiver—to usurp OUR exclusive role in leading OUR Democracy. They are trying to replace OUR Democracy with their dictatorship. This is not merely an attack on our government. This is an attack directly on our right to rule our nation.

Take this personally. Trump is not merely firing federal employees and destroying our government’s ability to work for us. He is directly competing against us. He is fighting to overthrow our rule. He is not prosecuting a coup against our government. He is prosecuting a coup against us. Against We the People. He is trying to overthrow We the People. Take this personally and recognize that WE must fight back.

All anti-fascist and all anti-coup actions are legitimate. Join in every one you can. If there is a march, march. If there is a demonstration, demonstrate. If there is a boycott, close your wallet. The Venn diagram of racists and Trump supporters is two concentric circles. When you are fighting racism, you are undermining Trump. So, make every bigot terrified. Do not cooperate. Do not silence yourself. The key to defeating fascism is not to hunker down and wait for it to expire. The key to defeating fascism is to take to the streets and fight back. Stand up. Gather together. Get yourself ready. Fight back.

Across the nation, people are organizing and effecting great resistance activities. Under a fascist dictatorship, we find collaborators, apathetics, and the resistance. Only the resistance is the right and moral place to be. Only being in the resistance can preserve our rule, our Democracy. Only with enough of us in the resistance can we defend ourselves.

Dictators and kings fall all the time throughout history. Unlike presidents who are removed under the supervision of the Constitution, autocrats like Trump tend to meet unsavory ends. Trump said days before the 2024 election that he made a mistake leaving the White House after the 2020 election. Take that to mean Trump is unwilling and unlikely to leave the White House as long as he is alive. He should fear the violent uprisings that are frequent responses to autocrats and review the ends of Mussolini and Saddam to learn more. He should know that popular, nonviolent uprisings also depose autocrats all the time. We should start with the latter.

While Trump has the power of the federal government almost in hand—pockets of resistance are confounding his efforts—that power is not limitless. Our government is not able, and likely unwilling, to confront two million people marching in the streets, calling for the end of Trump’s rule. When we put five million and then ten million in the streets, the government—our government—will recognize they are better off with us in opposition to the fascist dictator than they are trying to quash our rule. This is how Iranians ended the rule of the Shah. This is how Marcos met his end. This is how Europeans freed the nations of the Warsaw Pact. This works.

Trump has made his choice. He wants to usurp our rule and be like the dictators in Russia, China, North Korea, and elsewhere whom he admires. He wants our power and the power of life and death over us. The fascist dictator said he “needs the kind of generals that Hitler had,” and he has our military building a concentration camp in Guantanamo. We know this history, so we can see our future. We know where this is going, so we recognize the extreme danger it poses to all of us. Now is the time to fight back. Now is the time to save our Democracy. We know how this can end: We must show Trump his end. We must defend OUR rule of OUR Democracy. Welcome to the resistance.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/23/2305652/-Defend-Your-Rule?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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