Shut Up And Do Something!
“Shut up and do something!”
Night after night my wife and I yell -sort of - at the talking heads discussing the piece by piece destruction of our democratic republic. Our futility is expressed to news hosts and their guests in equal measure.
There are, of course, things being done. Lawsuits are popping up like dandelions. Judges are partially ruling in favor of sanity. Citizens are planning to join the February 28th shopping boycott and others thereafter. It is both amusing and apt that a society addicted to shopping would consider a day without shopping to be a grand sacrifice. Oh, the pain!
Such gestures will have little to no impact. Even the judicial rulings are flaccid. “Come back later,” several have offered, “when the whole building is in ashes.” In other cases, the Trump juggernaut shows no inclination to obey. Who will make them? Kash Patel? Even the Supreme Court is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump/Federalist Society’s cabal.
It all feels like a car careening toward a cliff with passengers holding umbrellas out the window to try to slow it down.
Most of us are too damn comfortable to feel the urgency of now.
Undocumented immigrants, unvaccinated children, unemployed federal workers, unnoticed victims of malaria, AIDS, ebola and other diseases, Gaza’s evictees, Ukraine’s abandoned people, NATO members in Putin’s path . . . not so comfortable.
Only recently have I fully felt the possibility that it might be too late. For a time I entertained the hope that Democrats would take one or both houses of Congress in time to mitigate the damage. Now I think there is a possibility that there will be no midterms. Martial law will be declared, we will protest and then what? Tell me, what member of Trump’s cabinet will speak out? Will Mike Johnson grow a spine? Will Clarence Thomas and his useless right wing colleagues suddenly see that confirming what Nixon said - if the president does it, it’s legal - was not such a great idea?
The writing is on the wall. Trump’s approval ratings are plummeting and he doesn’t care. His capitulation to Putin and destruction of USAID are deeply unpopular and he doesn’t care. He has repeatedly broken the law and avoided accountability. He is a delusional narcissist who, unlike most delusional narcissists, is seeing his delusions come true. Pathological liars don’t have the ethical compass that others have. All he cares about is screwing absolutely everyone who doesn’t admire him sufficiently.
I would hope for significantly more and larger protests but, sadly, even those will only accelerate the looming crackdown and make martial law seem justified.
This immoral monster was impeached twice but spared conviction by the cowardly lapdogs in the GOP. One might hope that a few of them have a tiny bit of private regret. Let’s give them an opportunity to demonstrate that regret.
We have lost all perspective, which happens when gaslighting is the national pastime, and conservative media have opened the propane valves wide.
But I offer, with no hyperbole intended, that Trump has committed more impeachable offenses in one month than committed by all other presidents in American history. What the hell is stopping Democrats? Are there just so many offenses that they don’t know what to choose? That’s like not charging a serial killer because there are too many victims to choose from.
I am not naive. I know that introducing an impeachment resolution is like pissing in the wind. But when you have to pee, a little breeze must be tolerated. Any House member can put such a resolution in the “hopper.” It will go nowhere, but they should keep stuffing the “hopper” every day. It’s not just a tactic. It is the only action that even approximates the severity of the threat.
Objecting to this and that, ad infinitum, is perhaps necessary, but glaringly insufficient. Donald Trump is unfit to be president. He is a tumor and must be removed. Managing the symptoms is a fool’s errand.
In written House resolutions and public outcry, Impeach Trump is the only real response. He should be in jail, but out of the White House will have to do.
Democratic representatives and senators should do nothing else. Walk out if need be and let the GOP cowards wreck the country by themselves.
Shut Up and Do Something!