Thank you for supplying these, but these aren’t topics I think this thread is about. We are talking about being taken over by authoritarians, not about public land rights (I guess if I squint correctly, I can see a relationship). FYI, I might also live in a state that people think is Iowa and I have written my state rep about what Trump is doing. No response and I don’t expect one. I hope you write them about your concerns with Trump’s authoritarian streak as well.
I do appreciate you fighting to keep fed land fed land and not turned over to the states where it will be harvested, mined, and privatized in short order. Not sure about the wind power project though. That’s too far south and I technically live in a different state if you go by local parlance (North Idaho vs wherever you live).
With liberty for some and with our God on our side … that’s what Godbothers do.
“We can take care of our own laws, our own lands, and our own people.”
That’s incontrovertibly true. But can they insert the word “well” into that phrase?
Exactly, the only solution is dissolution. The sooner we start that process, the sooner it is over and the better off the rest of the world is. America needs to be stopped and that will take pressure from within the US and outside of the US.
Thinking of historical examples, maybe the closest is The Emergency (India, 25 June 1975 - 21 March 1977).
Trump declared multiple phony emergencies, while AFAIK Indira Gandhi just declared one big one. But there are similarities. Sanjay Gandhi was the Musk-like figure who many thought was the real decision maker.
As to what worked, the courts, a bit, but mainly the election Indira lost.
In my mind, the most memorable authoritarian actions were the forced sterilizations. But from my bit of googling, it seems that the big 1977 election issue, Gandhi’s party was defeated on, was the fact of ruling by emergency decree. Democracy per se may be too abstract an issue to make the main theme. And I fear a lot of what Trump is doing is, by itself, popular. But most American voters do not think the President declaring an emergency, and then doing whatever he wants, is acceptable. At least, I hope that.
Publicizing price rises from the China tariff may help, although ten percent will not enough to immediately harm Trump’s popularity much.
Yesterday, Trumpworld did something that might have taken away their favorability plus sign for good – shutting off shipments from Temu and Shein. But Trump’s people today got the Post Office to rescind it:
P.S. On September 2, I ordered a set of multicolored plastic measuring spoons from China via eBay for 99 cents plus 6 cents Pennsylvania tax, free shipping. Checking just now, cheapest seller for same item is US$1.65, or US$1.28 for all black (may not be selling due to recent anti-black-plastic panic). Could this already be a Trump effect? If so, that’s the kind of ridiculous-sounding working class stuff that may help the resistance. Does anyone know a way to get price history on cheap items like that? I do not see how to do it in the Wayback Machine. Someone needs to set up a Trumpflation web site.
He is dismantling the federal government in order to install a dictatorship and people around here are writing strongly worded emails. The only solution is dissolution.
Defeating MAGA requires a unified opposition. And attempted dissolution will divide the opposition. As a centrist, and without knowing a lot more about the disillusionists, I am uncertain that I would like them better than Trump.
It is important not to hand Trump wins, and I think he would win a battle with the disillusionists. Same is true with impeachment. While he deserves removal over his phony emergency declarations, unless and until the votes for removal are there in the Senate, impeachment would be another own goal.
I’ve given two examples of successful resistance in a democracy sliding into authoritarianism, India in 1977 and Poland 2023. Both occurred when a mainstream party won the national election.
I dunno what I think of dissolution as an end, but I do think it’d be easier to stop Trump through almost any other available means than work out the myriad hugely complex practical issues a remotely peaceful dissolution would require.
When half of the voters choose to be un-, or misinformed, and/or make no effort to think critically (eg the Muslim Trump supporters), or will actively and mentally twist themselves into knots to square every stupid circle, will anything legal or “normal” work?
With the exception of specific MAGAs who FAFOd, this seems to be what too many people want.
The votes aren’t there in the House, either. Not clear to me why everybody keeps talking about impeachment when the “Republicans” took the trifecta and it’s entirely clear that the current “Republicans” will do no such thing. Yes, impeachment is supposed to be the remedy; but it’s a remedy that only works if most of Congress is working in good faith for the good of the country as a whole. The only statutory remedy against both Congress and the POTUS trying to break the whole system is the courts; and whether the courts either will, or in practice can, come through is highly uncertain.
If there’s something resembling a fair election in 2026, then the thing to do is to do our damndest to take back Congress. Though even if we do there’s going to have been a hell of a lot of damage done by then. Some of it’s already been done; the chances that any of our allies will fully trust us again has got to be pretty much zero for most of the next century, no matter what we do next.
The reason it was sufficient threat was that the Republicans in Congress at that time had principles other than ‘back the POTUS if they’ve got an R attached to their name’. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
You mean, all the Dem states declare the Constitution null and void, declare independence unilaterally, withdraw all their Reps and Senators, regardless of Party, and then start running their states as independent countries?
We tried something similar once - had a big war over it. It didn’t work.
And that time, there was the advantage that most of the division was on geographical lines with the secceders being contiguous, for the most part.
This time, the population within each state is much more intermixed. Declaring independence would take a lengthy political process, whereby Republicans and conservative “independents” and status quoists would fight to block seccession. There are a lot of people invested in the idea of the USA, and they aren’t ready to surrender that without trying to save the country.
I fear you may be right, but it won’t be a peaceful event. It will be as disastrous as the first Civil War.
We still have a ways to go before that is required. But whatever happens from here, our government structure is going to be severely damaged.
This would suck up all the political air and energy to resist Trump and focus of on an act of opposition that would fail. And it wouldn’t occur in a vacuum. It would just invite Trump to declare insurrection and send in troops.
