Temperature today: 50F

Why is the temperature going down? Because I believe the resistance is growing, the chances of martial law and authoritarian takeover are declining, and Trump with every day gets closer to lame duck status. Fewer people care what he thinks and more people have reasons to say No to him. That does not mean we’re safe; only that the odds are getting a little better.

Removing Trump from the Presidency

It is time for an open national discussion about removing Donald Trump from the presidency.  His administration is causing extensive damage, far more than most people realize and in different ways from what most of us anticipated.  There is a serious possibility that we might not survive until the midterms, let alone as a functioning democracy with free and fair elections.

My original worry about Trump was the imposition of martial law and an unstoppable slide into authoritarian rule.  This is still possible, and we cannot let up on the resistance pressure.  But so far, it’s the other major possibility that is playing out:  his people may be evil but most of them are also completely incompetent and out of their depth.  As I write, the smart money on Pete Hegseth’s remaining time as DefSec is days rather than weeks.

That leaves two big worries:  the damage Trump has already done and the damage that he will do if he continues in office.

The damage he has already done is actually difficult to comprehend in its scope and depth, and I will be attempting to assess and summarize it in the near future.  He has dealt a significant blow to our economy, with swift recovery impossible even if everything is reversed tomorrow, and for no actual reason.  He has allowed private citizens to undermine the integrity of government and of governmental databases, with potential catastrophic results.  He has shut down the organizations that protect us from spies and terrorists, that help us respond to natural disasters, that help us to both anticipate and respond to outbreaks of disease (currently we are encouraging outbreaks of disease) and he is systematically attacking knowledge, education and research.  He is undermining civil liberties and has absolutely no compunctions about trying to use government to target perceived enemies.

The damage that he will do is limitless.  There is nothing important or valuable that he is unwilling to trash, sell or both.  All he does is destroy.  We have already won numerous victories, and those are important, but he can and will target anything that is useful or valued, meaning that there will be an unlimited number of battles, mostly carried out in the legal system, and every battle is in some sense a loss because of the time and effort expended, and the harm done before there can be any legal remedy.

That leaves one option:  he has to go.  That leaves us, like the Council of Elrond, with one clear obvious solution (destroy the Ring, in their case) but no clear idea of how to get there.  The one thing I am certain of is that it will require a few million of us to act together.  

I am not the only one to suggest this:  there are calls for general strikes, David Brooks of all people has called for a popular uprising, and many people have been showing up for protests and will continue to do so if those protests have actual impact. So there is no reason for the discussion to happen behind closed doors. It should be held on the front pages and in all forms of media. We need to get to the point where it is only a matter of time.