The Final Vestige of a Fascist Game Show Host President
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’
– President Ronald Reagan, Aug. 12, 1986
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
– Mario Savio Sproul Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Dec. 2, 1964
Donald Trump is doomed, and he knows it, and he is aiming to spend these last months of his repellent presidency to take us down with him. He has shredded the constitution, flouted the rule of law, lied about everything possible while surrounding himself with Russian operatives and criminals, lining his and his family’s pockets for nearly four years. He is impeached, humiliated, beaten, and now he is coming for your cities. He is coming for your right to protest. The secret police paramilitaries the goober militias have warned us about has come to pass. The president of the United States had waged war on us – not the press, not the liberals, not his political opponents, everyone. We are his enemies. Donald J. Trump is against foreign wars, so he has invented one here and right now as I write this there are armed forces in Portland, Oregon, and soon they will invade Chicago, Illinois and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not Bagdad. Not Berlin. Not Pyongyang. Not Khe Sanh. American cities.
Unmarked, fully armed agents tossing citizens into vans, macing and tear-gassing mayors and bystanders, arresting journalists and beating on middle-aged Navy vets is an excellent way of distracting the nation from the disease the president’s incompetence has let run amok, his inexplicable defense of the Confederacy, and thus, slavery, and his diving poll numbers, but while he can use his nickname attacks, damaging trade wars, his commuting of convicted felons, and his daddy-didn’t-love-me rages on Twitter to prop up his fragile, childlike ego, this end game – the final throes of a madman – shall not stand.
If I may be so bold to paraphrase; First they came for the media, but I’m not media, so I did not speak out, then they came for the progressives, but I’m not progressive, so I did not speak out, and then they came for the protestors, and I am not protesting, so I did not speak out, and then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. Memphis, Tennessee in 1968 days before the daylight slaughter of Martin Luther King, in 1970 at Kent State, which took the lives of four unarmed students, and in 1999 on the streets of Seattle. It is a craven, ham-handed political move. It is only happening in Democrat-run cities. Trump is not even trying to hide it. In fact, it is the logical offshoot of the president’s fascist, racist Fourth of July speech in which he called protestors terrorists, and keeps doing it every day in these deranged, rambling political rallies dressed up as press conferences or Covid-19 updates. Trump clearly does not care anymore, if he ever did. He is a lame duck and his days are numbered and he is taking it out on the majority of Americans who have deemed him an abject failure, a stain on the America esthetic. We who mourn decency and coherent, functional leadership from a president are under attack.
This is a president who cares more for statues than human life. He cancels his convention but demands you send your children back to school. He is apparently fine with four million Americans infected and over 140,000 dead. Its overrated, a hoax. He did a great job. This is our president.
Remember the caravan careening towards our borders before the 2018 mid-terms? There was no caravan. This was a tactic to scare people who clearly were disgusted and horrified by the first two years of this rancid, dysfunctional clusterfuck of an administration. And that was enough to wave into congress every leftist they could find to shove in Trump’s fat, orange face. The midterm landslide was the first repudiation. The final reckoning of the despotic state is coming. The only way to curtail it, to make one last gambit, is to use troops against us. Lincoln did it during the draft riots, Wilson used it to round up Germans during WWI, FDR used it to round-up Asian-Americans during WWII, Nixon used it to crush Vietnam protests. Each were during wartime, and it was unconstitutional then and it will always be, but this nightmare perpetuated by a bleating imbecile we handed the U.S Army over to, is an incredible new low.
In his monosyllabic, free-association word-diarrhea the other day Trump floated unleashing these thugs on New York City. Yes, please come. I live thirty-four miles from the island and it would be my pleasure to stand on the barricades and thwart the invading army, like Washington on the banks of the Hudson hunkered down against Mad King George’s forces that never came. The American Revolution would have been over in its first weeks had the British attacked, but they didn’t. They didn’t dare fuck with New York. Washington knew it. Trump? He doesn’t know anything. He may make his gravest mistake to come here.
I propose we start to build a human ring, if we have to be armed, we do it, around the southern tip of Manhattan island and wait for Trump’s fascist invasion from DC. Our flag? Not American. That has been stolen, co-opted and sold to the Russians with the Trump logo on it. The only flag that ever mattered – Don’t Tread on Me. I shall take mine down from its honored perch above my writing nook and stand tall in front of the hordes denying this authoritarian act of aggression, because I love my daughter and my wife and my friends and my country. Fuck this racist autocrat. He does not stand for me. He is the terrorist. His time is coming in November. Three more months of this shit. But he will not get is dog-wagging moment on our watch. This ain’t Portland or Albuquerque or even Chicago. We already kicked Trump’s sad carcass out of the big city and sent him to Florida where everyone goes to die, like his presidency.
Our government is now at war with us.
We will win this war.
