In America’s Defense
It’s a simple promise and it’s worth defending.
As an American, I am deeply embarrassed by what has become of my country. The population was deliberately manipulated by elites into electing one of the worst people on Earth to be our president. Our institutions are dismantled; we are being robbed of trillions; and on the world stage, we are a rogue predator-state.
Nevertheless, the United States still stands—for now. Will it continue?
Donald Trump is one of the least popular politicians to ever hold office. His “popularity” is in the low-30s. His base has been shrunk to a core group of people who mirror him reflexively. In short, his cult is shrinking and everyone else wants him gone.
The reason for this wholesale rejection is that America has never been, and will never be, a dictatorship or a monarchy. The entire purpose of the nation’s founding was to prevent a Donald Trump from attaining power. And while I am no American exceptionalist, this is the one thing built into America’s DNA which is fundamentally different from other nations suffering a dictator. It’s just not in us.
This regime and its elite backers have attacked every part of the Constitution. They control the Supreme Court which granted Trump king-like powers. The Congress is the American Duma, having abdicated its role completely. And the Executive Branch is represented in miniature by the White House itself—half-destroyed, and half gilded over.
DOJ, FBI and State are gutted. USAID and soft power are destroyed. The Defense Department is being led by a christofascist lunatic who doesn’t know the Bible from a movie script.
Trump’s wrecking ball has gone after nearly every Amendment in the Bill of Rights, and considers the other seventeen to be mere suggestions—including fundamental rights like birthright citizenship.
ICE, CBP, and other federal goon squads roam the streets, shooting citizens that speak up and warehousing immigrants like animals.
Nevertheless, the United States still stands. And so does the Constitution.
Donald Trump is a weapon of mass destruction. He is a narcissistic psychopath raised by his father to be a killer, a racist, a misogynist, and a conman. Donald has spent nearly 80 years developing a hatred of humanity, trying to fill a bottomless hole in his chest with malice and manipulation.
But America will be his final humiliation. The question remains: will it be ours? Will his attempt to commit murder-suicide with the rest of us mean the end of the American experiment?
In short, no.
America was founded on the genocide of Native Americans. It was founded on the slavery of African Americans. It was founded in a time where colonialism and war was the norm, and where exploration of the Earth was nowhere near complete. But within the American Revolution was the core idea of the Enlightenment, that justice should come from law, and that law should could from humans, not gods—or kings.
This core idea has been pushed back against historically, over and over again—by Southern slaveowners, robber barons, Wall Street oligarchs, fascist ideologues, and religious extremists. And each time the idea has withstood those tests, and grown more entrenched.
When the White House directed the Justice Department to indict the Southern Poverty Law Center for paying informants to infiltrate the KKK and other hate groups, it showed just how complete the destruction is within the government.
This was a performance designed to DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender. It was theater for Donald Trump to wreak vengeance for his humiliation over his “both sides” comment after Charlottesville. And it was projection of the GOP’s rampant sanctioning and amplifying of white supremacists onto the group that brought down the KKK. It was a racist mirror.
By now, the entire U.S. federal government is hollowed out and weaponized, including the military. The leadership at the Pentagon has been dismantled, weakened, and embarrassed. We are embarking on another horrific misadventure in the Middle East that will only strengthen our adversaries—and force our own economy into recession.
Trump wants people to think he‘s using “madman theory” when he’s just a madman.
Nevertheless, the republic carries on, absorbing every blow.
The core contract between “America” the idea, and the people who were either born into it—or sought it out—is that when you live here, you may not get what you want but you’re not going to be living in a dictatorship. That’s basically the only guarantee.
Donald Trump is not only breaking the contract, he’s ripping it up and throwing it at the feet of oligarchs who are trying to sell us dictatorship as a lifestyle brand. They promise to deliver a futuristic world of self-driving cars and colonies on Mars, of safe streets as long as you’re the right color—if we just give up our liberty, our empathy, and our right to objective reality.
But time after time, from Minneapolis, a city picked for militarized assault based on a racist meme about Somalis, to my home of Los Angeles, the first target of the Trump gestapo, to small towns and neighborhoods across the country, the reaction to the regime’s attempt to instill state terror has been justifiably, righteously hostile. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were avatars for something much deeper.
The United States must never be mythologized. It has been party to untold crimes. Its founders were imperfect men, and its leaders have been a very mixed bag. But underneath is a basic promise that cannot be erased by one man, or one regime: This is not a monarchy. We don’t do dictators here.
I’ve spent six years documenting everything going wrong in America. I’ve studied our predicament from every conceivable angle—from psychology, to science, to philosophy, to geopolitics, to metaphysics. It’s bad. And it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
But despite the damage that will result from this catastrophe, it will never eliminate that American promise from the minds of more than 300 million people. That is the fatal flaw in the plan of our would-be destroyers.
I’m angry at our government. And I’m disgusted with our political leadership—in both parties. But I’m not angry with America. It was a damn good idea, a remarkable project that two centuries after its establishment gave me the chance to raise three boys into men. It is my home and I will defend her, and demand that we keep her promise to my grandchildren.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
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Update to Trump-named list from Florida: Governor Rhonda Santis signed Florida bills renaming State Road 80 in south Florida the "President Donald J. Trump Highway", and renaming Palm Beach Imternational "President Donald J. Trump International Airport" (DJT). The Palm Beach County Commission has renamed a stretch of Southern Boulevard, near Mars-a-taco, "President Donald J. Trump Boulevard". There is currently a row over his proposed skyscraper library in downtown Miami to house his library, presumably for his collection of Epstein porn and MAGA swag, since he doesn't read books or keep records.
💙💯 You shared these hellish times so well. Thank you, Jim, for all your hard work in defense of our country and people and also for your priceless reminders of who We the People are and are meant to be. We must keep demanding the fulfillment of the American promise for all people here and all generations!