Defending Democracy
Last edited Sat Jun 7, 2025, 02:23 PM - Edit history (1)
This post does not advocate initiating violence, but it does advocate self-defense by whatever means is necessary against an autocratic coup.
"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" - Elizabeth Willing Powel, speaking to Benjamin Franklin in 1787.
The fate of the Democratic Party is tied to the fate of American democracy. The important current struggle is not a partisan debate of issues between Democrats and Republicans; it is a fight for power between the people, whose interests are defended by Democrats and their allies, and an international oligarchy led by multi-billionaires and autocrats from nation-states. The ongoing autocratic coup to replace participatory democracy is being abetted by Congressional Republicans closing their eyes and ears and sitting on their hands, self-described Christians pushing their “moral” agenda, and a complicit and cowardly Supreme Court.
While we watch and wait, the institutions of our government are being ransacked by Doge’s sabotage, Trump’s illegal executive orders, and Bondi’s hypocritical and shameless weaponization of the Department of Justice. The institutions that defend a representative democracy are being dismantled, perverted, and weakened daily as the administration wages war on the free press, universities, law firms, judges, and public officials. Concurrently, the administration is seeking to modify law enforcement and the military to serve their own agenda. They are replacing leadership, injecting more white supremacism into the ranks, and seeking to redefine missions to support executive direction without regard to long-established constitutional and statutory law. Meanwhile, ICE aggressively patrols our streets.
American democracy is never going to be restored to some mythical past paradise. Our actual democracy has failed to serve the interests of the majority of people for decades. Income inequality has metastasized. The Electoral College, gerrymandering, renewed voting restrictions, and Citizens United have made fair elections almost impossible. Billionaire ownership and control of traditional and social media has herded informed citizenship toward extinction. A captive Supreme Court has enabled gun violence, trashed women’s healthcare rights, and protected Trump’s criminal behavior. The government itself is being transformed into an enemy of science and our own survival as evidenced by the institutionalization of vaccine skepticism and climate change denial.
Our aim should not be to restore this recent version of American democracy. It brought us here. The constitution is not scripture nor should it be scrapped for parts. It is an ongoing project. This evolving and sometimes flawed document must reflect our lived experiences and be modified to better serve the people living in modern circumstances. The oligarchs and their Republican allies are pursuing one set of constitutional and statutory changes, and we should be pursuing our own, opposing set of changes. The oligarchs want an unaccountable executive branch that is responsive only to them. They want minimal environmental and financial oversight and an ever-shrinking tax burden even as they seek to claim an ever-expanding share of the nation’s income. To get what they want they are willing to sacrifice the rights of due process and habeas corpus. They would ignore or rescind birthright citizenship. They are quite willing to outlaw abortion and gay marriage. They will tolerate the establishment of religion if they think it reinforces their power. A reconfigured democracy that serves the interests of the people, on the other hand, would correct recent abuses foisted on the American people and directly diminish the wealth and power of a billionaire class which has demonstrated its incompatibility with a functional democracy. We need our own chainsaw. Our vision should be a better future in which past mistakes have been recognized and corrected- but first we must defend and expand the ability to make those changes.
The media space available for reasonable discussion shrank and has drowned in a bathtub of propaganda. Large, peaceful rallies feel good but are limited in what they can accomplish. Polls that show increased support for Democrats and hostility to Trump are a sugar high. Of late, many polls have promoted false hopes and complacency. The oligarchs will surely use their control of publishing and broadcasting “the news” in legacy media as far as needed to fix the electoral outcome in 2026. If the Republicans fall too far behind in the polls, they will find ways to cripple, suspend, delay, or cancel elections.
A critical truth facing those seeking to mount effective resistance is that the current contest is not being waged on a level playing field. The oligarchs have greater personal resources as well as privileged access to many governmental levers of power. One of the most corrosive attacks on the healthy function of our democracy is the relentless stream of obvious MAGA lies that have been tolerated and mainstreamed. The highlight reel features Obama’s birth certificate and the Big Lie (stolen election of 2020). Now, desperate families fleeing misery in a chaotic hemisphere destabilized by over-population, climate change, poverty, corrupt authoritarian regimes, and gang violence is misrepresented as an “invasion.” This manufactured crisis is being used as an excuse to claim emergency powers and suppress legitimate opposition.
The dark cloud hanging over us is the realization that we will not be rescued by the elections of 2026 if we do not stop the billionaires’ coup of 2025. The fight to save democracy from the autocratic coup is more consequential than any political campaign. Patriotism transcends politics. Democrats must form the core of resistance to the ongoing coup. The resistance must be larger than the party and include otherwise unrelated groups. The primary connection between these groups will be a shared enemy. We can no longer afford to see ourselves as “the loyal opposition.” Our loyalty is different from and irreconcilable with theirs. We are loyal to rule by the people, with the consent of the people, and for the benefit of the people. They are loyal to appointed leaders, rule by dictatorship, and the extraordinary benefits of looting for a chosen few.
Ukrainians are fighting an invading enemy. Americans are fighting a domestic enemy which has received substantial aid from international actors in support of a coup. That enemy currently occupies the most important positions of power in our government and seeks to remodel our society by copying the playbook of foreign autocrats.
Republican partisans, acting on behalf of the oligarchs, have demonstrated a willingness to engage in unethical and corrupt behavior and intimidate opposition with threats and violence. MAGA-inspired violence is deployed in at least three distinct ways: indirect, stochastic, and direct government force.
Indirect violence is accomplished through the bureaucratic delegation of functions which creates the illusion of disappearing responsibility. The lack of personal “fingerprints” does not dissolve accountability for the avoidable misery, disease, and death visited on others by those who initiate decisions to implement harmful policies. Cuts to food stamps, USAID, unreasonable work and paperwork requirements for Medicaid, and the long list of cruel Project 2025 changes are just another form of directed violence hiding behind a complicit media frame of “hard choices” for political actors and “accountability” for the vulnerable. The victims of weaponized bureaucratic neglect and incompetence are just as maimed and dead as the casualties of gun violence.
Stochastic violence is the violence incited by the incendiary rhetoric of the Fox News/Russian disinformation/MAGA hate machine. Their misguided proxies fire an assault weapon inside a pizza parlor, attack a congressional spouse with a hammer, or violently disrupt the functioning of Congress. The threats are greatly amplified by the expectation that Trump will pardon many offenders.
Direct government use of force against citizens is in dress rehearsal as police departments adopt 278(g) agreements with ICE and troops have been deployed to “the border.” Constitutional rights and court orders are being discarded in favor of executive orders. Recent ICE raids have escalated the use of violence and the suspension of basic rights.
America is becoming an occupied country. We are under attack and inherit both the right to self-defense and the obligation to defend democracy. The resistance needs to take a confrontational approach if the administration criminalizes peaceful opposition and uses police or military forces to enforce repressive laws. A corrupt government forfeits the right to make and enforce laws and should be opposed. Members of law enforcement and the military who follow illegal orders or enforce repressive “laws” should be viewed and treated as enemy troops. The ICE agents wearing masks already have that self-awareness.
We cannot bring only our rhetoric and knives to a gunfight and expect to prevail. An argument against meeting violence with violence is that it will provoke greater repression. Of course. If enough people are not willing to risk suffering or death for a free, democratic society, it will surely perish. Each of us should start thinking about, discussing, and preparing for possible hard choices now. Many people will not be willing to participate in or support some or any extraordinary forms of resistance. Few will join with John Brown or the Black Panthers, even as many agree they are on the right side of history. Our real-world choices are always a balance of benefit and harm to ourselves and others. Sometimes those choices are stark.
Consider the extent to which our current security and freedom rests on a foundation built by those willing to kill or be killed at Lexington, Gettysburg, or Normandy. Nobody is entitled to live or die with clean hands. The truth about our situation will not change just because some of the countermeasures and consequences are terrifying. We must recognize the truth and each individually do whatever we are able and collectively do whatever it takes to defeat the enemy. Love it or hate it, it’s our turn now. Future generations need us to save them from servitude and misery.
“A republic if you can keep it”- Ben Franklin