Here Is How We Are Losing The War

 

It occurs to me that a majority of us who oppose the fascist "Christian White Nationalism" of the Trump GOP are obsessed with the idea that ensnaring Trump in a legal trap, which ends in a conviction, is central to defeating it. There is a belief that if he is finally brought to justice for his crimes that it would hurt his support among those in his base, and Trumpism will fade away. At least that is the vague hope of many.

I call this an obsession, and already some of you are reacting. "Why shouldn't he receive equal justice under the law, why should he continue to get away with a lifetime of criminal behavior"? Of course, the thought is that most of us normal people would be held accountable for lawbreaking, and that it is wholly unfair that he is not. 

I would argue that this form of moral outrage is desperation speaking, mixed with a little rage borne of the feeling of impotence and the all too common belief that our fate is ultimately in the hands of higher ups. This is ironic, given that presumably we are engaged in a battle to save democracy, which is rooted in our bedrock conviction that power resides with individual people generally. Unfortunately, democracy for most folks consists solely of voting, opinion polls, and clicking "like" on social media, and this is reflected in the spectator mentality we observe with respect to our relationship to these legal cases and investigations. We erect barriers for our own level of participation based on the self consoling delusion that there are others more qualified or informed than us, more capable of bringing about justice and change. 

There are a number of problems here which are worth consideration. 

First, is to look at the degree to which we stick with the arguably naive and false belief that Trump's downfall will occur in a courtroom. I believe this is largely shaped by the cumulative cultural and intellectual decline of Americans driven by decades of TV entertainment, in which we have immersed ourselves in Cop shows and Courtroom drama, among other things. 

TV "programming" (because that's what it is) from CSI, to Judge Judy, has conditioned us to think in a certain way, in which we follow the plot line to its inevitable conclusion. Someone unearths that critical piece of evidence, whether through forensics, old fashioned investigative legwork, or cross examination, and we arrive thusly at that thrilling moment where we all exhale as one, and shout "AHA"! Gotcha !! We live for that titillating moment of "gotcha" as a kind of reaffirmation that the bad guys don't always win, and we can for the moment find solace in our belief that "the system still works". Unfortunately, this is largely a product of White privilege and accommodation to a comfort zone, since African Americans and other victimized minorities have long ago divested themselves of this fantasy, realizing that it is up to them personally to make the system work, otherwise for them, it will not. So, that is one thing, although it's just one man's opinion.

Then there is self-induced amnesia. In our daily fervor to get to our news  notifications, hoping that our day will start off happily with new revelations from somewhere, (The House Select Committee) or someone (Rachel Maddow?) that will give us that "gotcha"! moment, we pray that today's the day we are closing the legal noose even tighter around the orange SOB's figurative neck. "Evidence"!! "We have evidence"! Just like the White House tapes with Nixon, or Perry Mason breaking down a witness to confess under cross examination, finally the truth, we hope. 

And we indulge in these fantasies in part because we have collectively wiped the previous four years from our memory banks out of desire to make it go away. 

Do we remember the first Impeachment by chance? The record shows that there was a mountain of evidence that Trump abused his power. He was on tape extorting the President of Ukraine with the threat of withholding military assistance in exchange for contrived dirt on his presidential opponent, using US foreign policy to rig the election. On. Tape. And he skated. And in the second Impeachment as well. Could we have evidence any more solid than his phone call, or his January 6th speech? 

And of course we have as hard evidence Trump on tape with the Secretary of State of Georgia demanding he fabricate 11,000 plus votes to steal that election. Which of the two taped phone calls was more destructive, a bigger crime, more solidly proof and evidence of such a crime? And what makes us believe that a Georgia State prosecutor will secure the downfall of Trump and his movement when the combined forces of the US Democratic House and Senate could not? 

One could argue that the Senate is more controlled than the State prosecutors office of Georgia and its Courtrooms which will decide. Really? Try to remind yourselves that this is Georgia, and brush up on the twisted history of that still Confederate State, which if it were possible to reincarnate Union General William Tecumseh Sherman would be deserving of another devastating "March to the Sea." (with the exception of our Black and Democratic Atlanta). Is obtaining justice in a Courtroom in Georgia really our plan? It's not mine, now that you are asking. 

And of course there is the Department of Justice. I'll quickly dispense with all of the fantasies and delusions here by stating categorically that Trump will never see a day in jail for Federal crimes. Nada. Why, you ask. Because political reality is that a Federal Indictment of Trump will be the trigger for a violent rebellion, leading to large scale civil conflict, and therefore the DOJ will instead prosecute the "doers", not the planners. I am as sure of this as I have been of anything. For that I am sorry, but the "powers that be" will make every legal contortion possible to avoid that. Again, in my opinion.

And that brings us to the good news. Trump and his movement can be brought down, but it will require a change in thinking. Remember that the movement he leads is not political, it is religious, in a fanatical and zealous sense of people being driven by their leaders to conduct a global "Crusades", a religious war against all those characterized as non-believers. Since Trump supporters pray to images of a Golden haired  blue-eyed very Caucasian Jesus, that category of non-believers would include the overwhelming majority of the world's population, with all of it's aspirations for growth and progress. The Trumpians are at war with most of the world, not just Democrats and Liberals. This has implications, among which is that our forces are far more powerful potentially then we realized, as we are locked inside of our American media defined "news bubble". 

Once you realize that this is what you are fighting, and that Trump is the lightning rod for it, you can then begin to effectively resist and overcome it, because you will be in the right universe. You will be engaged in conflict with the actual enemy, not their straw man.  We will have to wage a war of ideas with this adversary and we will need to dismantle the logistics of their institutional power. Instead of fighting a lightning rod, fight against the "storm". Which is to say, go after their organizational structure. 

I have written extensively of the anti-Christian evil of the Megachurches and the charismatic Catholics, and identified their Cable TV operations, how they are financed by fascist Billionaires through political money laundering from Churches to PACs. My wife Martha has exposed the apparatus known as ALEC, and how they violate the Constitution by fronting for religious organizations which intend to steal elections and ban books, ban abortion, ban thinking in point of fact. Religious groups have taken over an entire political party. The GOP should change their name to "The Monkey Trial Party".

The President should take actions to shut them down. He could study the history of Lincoln's use of Presidential power when he closed down Northern Newspapers which assisted the cause of the slavowners rebellion. He suspended Habeus Corpus. And yes, he prosecuted traitors. But fundamentally Lincoln's effective Wartime leadership came from the unavoidable recognition by him that we were in fact at war. The Biden Administration has not yet reached that conclusion, therefore most of what they do is fighting a rearguard action. They rarely take the offensive, just as Lincoln's Generals refused to take the offensive, the reason he fired them and found new ones. 

How might this change, you are asking. That is where People Power comes in. The Presidency has the power to disable the Christian White Nationalist rebellion, but it will not happen in a Courtroom. For example, the President could initiate packing the Supreme Court. He could unleash the SEC, FEC, FCC and other Federal regulators on the money laundering PACs, media giants and religious front groups for financial crimes. Don't try to win court cases, bury them in litigation, drain them until they fall apart. 

The President could impound Federal funds to States who either refused to use or misused money allocated for the Pandemic. (Even with post Watergate reforms, the President still has options for recision) There are Executive Orders waiting to be written, but his power to do so derives from our political will to make it happen. That might mean abandoning our playbooks and rulebooks, then starting from scratch. 

The battle to defeat Trumpism, as opposed to simply Trump the lightning rod will be fought and won by the decisions we make each day to stop avoiding conflict, and to stop trying to sound "credible". It will be won by starting the conversations which we haven't yet had with family, friends, employees and employers, co-workers and casual friends. The talks we have at the gym, the grocery store, the Union hall, the employee lounge, the VFW, and all of the places we go to just take care of our business and avoid entanglements, trying to keep our heads low. We need to blow these places up, metaphorically speaking.

Any day that goes by without an intervention, a confrontation, an appeal to reason, a scathing criticism, or a strong set of suggestions for positive alternatives without the fear of "losing people" is a wasted day. Don't worry about losing them, since if we fail they are already lost. 

The President has to see with his own eyes that Americans will back him in taking such actions, which will be radical and seemingly undemocratic. That is where wars lead, making such decisions. Remember that they started it. But it must come from a broad spectrum, not simply Black voting rights activists, climate activists or pro-choice women. 

Our biggest problem in this situation is not that "the wheels of justice turn too slowly." It is that too many of us are still on the sidelines, hoping someone else will do it, content to replay episodes of "LA Law" in our heads, praying for that"gotcha"! moment. 

We can do better, and there is still time. Start with giving that old TV a rest, it might help.