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Tax Strike! Workers Strike! Until Trump, Vance Resign, New Elections Held [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-29
By Karen Rubin,
[email protected], news-photos-features.com
When through gerrymandering, voter suppression and election fraud Democrats don’t take back the House or Senate in 2026 or the White House in 2028 and Don Jr., JDVance or Marco Rubio are installed to perpetuate the White Christo Fascist kleptocracy and it becomes clear that the Imperial Supremes have had this plan all along and have no interest in protecting civil rights or liberties, and people are so fed up living like starving serfs in a police state that they want to rebel, how would you do it? The Trumpers expect that they have all the weapons of war – the lilly-livered liberal flower people eschew guns – but even if that weren’t true and people are mad enough, enraged enough, frustrated enough to arm themselves, who would you shoot? The last Civil War cost 620,000 lives, equivalent to 6 million in today’s population. Who’s up for that?
No, the answer is to turn Trump’s major weapon against him: money. Trump thinks the U.S. Treasury is his own personal piggy bank and political slush fund. He has withheld funding from states, localities, universities and institutions as well as governments (Impeachment #1 was over extorting Ukraine to damage Biden; latest threat: holding back aid to Israel unless the courts dismiss the cases against Netanyahu!); thrown people out of work, prosecuted with unlimited funds people who can’t afford to defend themselves, taken away healthcare and social services so that people are more insecure than ever, all using OUR money. It’s our money in the U.S. Treasury. It’s our work and production that made the U.S. the strongest economy and military in history (not to mention the Superpower on the global stage) that Trump is so cavalierly destroying. Trump is essentially invoking a sanctions strategy they use against tyrants and war criminals against anyone who is not directly benefitting him.
So here’s the plan: a tax strike combined with a general work strike.
Trump has actually withheld funding from Blue States (for COVID – remember how Jared Kushner said not to bother because only Democratic city people were dying? -wildfires, hurricanes), while lavishing Red States, funneled money to rural hospitals while withholding from urban (Democratic), canceled infrastructure projects and other programs in Blue States, who are the “donor states” – sending billions more in tax money to Washington than are returned, while sending more money to the Red “taker” States who are so proud of their low state tax rates, than they send to Washington. Now Trump is actually shutting down FEMA and consolidating disaster aid under his control – which means that Florida will get aid after a hurricane but Californians won’t get aid after wildfires – meanwhile, Trump is canceling any actions intended to reduce or mitigate against the impacts of climate change which already costs $6 billion in disasters each year.
So stop. Pull the plug. Take away the source of Trump’s power: Money. Our money.
Like a tenant-landlord fight, where tenants put their rent money into escrow, Blue State residents should put their federal income tax money into a state escrow account which their state can draw upon for the disaster relief and the services and programs that were appropriated but not allocated.
Indeed, Trump, a notorious tax cheat, has given his billionaire buddies free rein to cheat (shut down prosecutions and the IRS office) so why should the rest of us pay taxes? And his shitty “Big Beautiful Bill” gives them an excellent return on their investment in him – the top 10% will pay an $12,000 less in taxes, while the rest will get an average of $300 less. Also consider: the 10 richest Americans got $365 billion richer – that’s $1 billion richer A DAY – over the past year, while the minimum wage, $7.25, hasn’t been raised since 2009; moreover while the richest 1% own 30.9% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50%, that’s 150 million people, held 2.6%. Meanwhile, interest rates will have to rise because of the explosion in the debt and lowering of the credit rating; utility rates will rise under Trump’s anti-clean energy/pro coal policy; groceries and just about everything else will increase in price because of his mad-man tariffs.
As Senator Bernie Sanders has said, this single budget bill is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthiest ever.
If that isn’t a trigger for a French Revolution, what is?
But turning off the source of Trump’s power by redirecting tax revenue might not be enough.
So workers - perhaps rolling through industries to start but all workers at once should it be necessary – should just stay home (the states can draw from those funds to pay unemployment/relief) until Trump and Vance resign and new elections are held. (Then Trump should go back to finish his trials for election interference, inciting insurrection, and stealing classified documents that were shut down by running for president.)
Consider this: it wasn’t the March on Washington that won civil rights legislation, it was the Selma Bus Boycott that went on for a year.
Meanwhile, an audit of the seven swing states should be conducted which will likely show that Kamala Harris won at least three of them – Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – and would therefore be the rightful president.
Here are more ideas:
Governors should use their authority to call out the National Guard to PROTECT people who are being snatched off the street without probable cause, evidence, warrant; Mayors should call out their police forces to insure civil rights and human rights are being protected.
State Attorneys General need to start arresting and prosecuting the masked, heavily armed Trump stormtroopers who are snatching people without warrant or evidence, beating them up, shoving them into concentration camps where they are abused, not given due process, and in every way violating the Constitution and law. A judge would throw out a case against a mass murderer who has been snatched up in such a manner. Prosecute them for kidnapping, false arrest, human trafficking, assault. They have to start suing the private prisons and shutting them down.
State Secretaries of State need to audit the 2024 election against manipulation of the voting machines that may have been used to commit election fraud, and to make sure the machines are not vulnerable to hacking in the 2026 and 2028 elections.
Those whose rights have been violated should sue for damages, false arrest, kidnapping (have you heard, the January 6 insurrectionists who assaulted Capitol police are suing for millions of dollars?).
The reason for these extreme measures is that we have no where else to go. The Imperial Supremes just took away the last lever to rein in Trump’s cruel, unconstitutional, illegal actions, by declaring that lower courts do not have the power to issue nationwide injunctions (interesting that decision didn’t come up during Biden’s effort to keep people safe with a mask mandate during a deadly pandemic, or allow Biden to reduce student debt, or terrorize women when Texas judge Matthew Kacsmaryk suspended the FDA approval of misfepristone, used in medication abortions.
Trump has shut down the free press, is shutting down free-and-fair elections (all those accusations of 2020 are actually what he has done since 2016, 2020 and 2024), has shut down the legal system, shut down the judiciary. Clearly protests don’t work – during Trump 1.0, Congress was unmoved by the massive Women’s March, Climate March, March 4 Our Lives, and Family Separation protests, and now, during Trump 2.0, while “Hands Off!” and “No Kings” have been a tad more successful because they are happening locally in all 50 states, still, the Congressional Republicans have proved with the budget bill they don’t give a crap if their constituents or even their voters are unhappy. As Senator Mitch McConnell who has been such a star even as Minority Leader defeating any social progress, put it so eloquently, “They’ll get over it.”
In fact, the Republicans have found a brilliant way to insulate themselves, taking a page from Trump: just steer all the federal money to their hospitals that otherwise would be shut down for lack of Medicaid funding, their infrastructure while the clean energy projects funded by Biden’s BIPARTISAN Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act are clawed back.
Trump’s partner in this project are the WhiteChristoFascist Imperial Supremes who are the majority on the Supreme Court, who have And on another note, since the Imperial Supremes have demonstrated that they do not really care about the Constitution, the Rule of Law or precedent, and that they change their rulings based on the desired outcome, and do things like manipulate the timetable (racing ahead to force Colorado to put Trump, found to be ineligible under 14th amendment, back on the ballot, while stretching out the case anointing him with immunity and impunity from accountability so he could steal the 2024 election, or delaying decision on the plain language of birthright citizenship until Trump’s unconstitutional executive order goes into effect in Republican jurisdictions) why adhere to their decisions at all? They depend on respect and trust for their rulings to have force, and they deserve none.
The so-called “conservative” (actually reactionary, fascist) Majority has long ago set aside any pretense at upholding “We the People,” in favor of corporate and monied interests, starting with the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision (violated Florida’s state constitution in shutting down the mandated hand recount that would have shown that Gore, not Bush, won Florida and therefore the presidency), followed by the 2010 Citizens United which opened the floodgates to Elon Musk buying the presidency and the government for $250 million (individuals limited to $3500 to a candidate), the 2013 decision largely neutering the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, rendering women less-than-full citizens of the state, last year’s overturn of Chevron decision which limited federal agencies’ ability to protect health and safety, and of course the prize-winner of them all, the decision anointing Donald Trump a king under no constraint of law. Worse is how they manage to ignore their own precedents (so don’t expect their Unitary Executive theory to apply to a Democrat, it only works when a Republican is in office.)
The Supreme Court has effectively cancelled themselves out.
Here’s the consequence of their extraordinary decision to take away the judiciary’s ability to protect constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties in allowing Trump’s executive orders to continue:
Requirements for proof of citizenship to vote
Freeze on $3 trillion in fed funding to states unless they comply with Trump’s political, ideological agenda.
Order forcing public schools to eliminate DEI programs or risk fed funding
Freeze on $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated federal aid
Eliminate of federal funding for legal representation for more than 25,000 children in immigration proceedings.
Trump can continue to deport people without due process, suppress voting, fire tens of thousands of federal workers (replacing them with ignoramuses who swear loyalty to Trump, like the 22-year old gardener who now runs the FBI’s Counter Terrorism unit without a scintilla of experience), extort universities, law firms, media companies and schools, and essentially weaponize the U.S. Treasury. He can raise/lower tariffs willy-nilly and launch a war though these are powers reserved to Congress. And he can take bribes (have you heard? He’s making taking bribes legal), payments from foreign governments and corporations.
Trump’s governing mantra has always been “whadyagonnadoboutit.”
It’s gotten to the point where states and localities instead of suing for injunction, should just ignore Trump’s patently unconstitutional, illegal Executive Orders – like his order overhauling elections (he doesn’t have the authority to do that), and the order ending Birthright Citizenship, then when the Department of Justice prosecutes, get the day in court. Executive Orders do not have the force of law. What will happen? The Department of Justice will sue, in which case, the Supreme Court will get its wish and the case will come to their chambers.
Such drastic action as a tax strike and general strike is necessary because the Congress – captive by the MAGA Republican Trump sycophants – has given up any power it had as a so-called “co-equal branch.” And now the Supreme Court has taken away the independent Judiciary’s ability to preserve the so-called “inalienable rights” we are supposed to possess as human beings.
Since the Supreme Court has basically said that women have rights in some states but not others, I’m going to suggest one more tool: MOVE. Why any female from the age of 12-50 lives in Texas, Florida, or Alabama, where they are treated as livestock with just about as many rights, is just beyond me. Move before it is too late and Texas passes a law barring women from leaving the state, obtaining health records so they can prosecute you for getting reproductive healthcare even years ago.
The power of the people in the form of protest is only moderately more effective during Trump 2.0 because, unlike the Women’s March, Climate March, March 4 Our Lives of Trump 1.0, they are happening in localities instead of Washington DC, so harder for the elected to ignore. But the truth is the elected don’t actually care about their constituents, not even voters, they only care about their donors and masters,
The White Christo Nationalist Republicans have been so much more successful at aggressively blocking or rolling back progressive programs; they don’t hesitate to force recounts that hold up the victor taking office for six months, launching recalls, impeachments the minute they don’t like an elected’s action, sending death threats and actually killing people like abortion doctors, Judge Esther Salas’ son, and the most recent tragedy of Minnesota State Speaker Melissa Hortman has demonstrated. How was Mitch McConnell so successful when he was Minority Leader in blocking Obama and then Biden’s legislation (for which Democrats blame Democrats when their wishlist isn’t fulfilled, and never blame the Republicans)? And how in hell do they get to co-opt terms like “patriot” and “populist”?
Those who want to preserve a liberal, progressive democracy and withstand the oligarchic kleptocracy that is upon us have to find their own offensive. I think it boils down to money.
Be prepared. Save up money and supplies.
Tax strike. Work strike. Force Trump/Vance from office.
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