Fighting fire

^{Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel}

^{Narrated by Ted Miller}

It almost seems like quaint history that Donald Trump was impeached for his phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymir Zelenskyy when he demanded Zelenskyy start an investigation into Joe Biden in exchange for military support to Ukraine. Trump was trying to blackmail a foreign government to influence the 2020 presidential election. 

Not since Richard Nixon attempted to illegally influence an election by breaking into Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel had we heard about a U.S. president violating his oath of office in an attempt to remain in power. In Richard Nixon’s case, his own party convinced him to resign rather than face impeachment because what he had done was so antithetical to the principles of democracy.

Not so with Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party. With incontrovertible evidence of his attempt to coerce a foreign government to influence an election, and his subsequent attempt to block Congress from any investigation, he was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18, 2019. But the senate, led by Mitch McConnell, refused to convict and remove him from office.

Emboldened by a lifetime of not being held accountable for his actions, Trump continued to lie and put his own lust for absolute power above his oath to uphold the law and the Constitution. So much so that, on January 6, 2021, unable to accept that he had lost the 2020 election, Trump incited violent rioters to invade the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt Congress’ electoral vote count and overturn the election. 

The nation was shocked. I remember being glued to the news coverage as it unfolded on national television. A second impeachment by the House determined that Trump had incited an insurrection and the charges were referred to the Senate. Again, the Senate refused to convict him, which would have prevented Trump from eligibility for future office. But although Mitch McConnell’s speech after the acquittal made it very clear Trump’s actions were “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day," McConnell used a narrow, partisan-driven excuse to rationalize the Senate acquittal. 

And Donald Trump’s hold on power has only gotten stronger since then. 

Building on his relentless lies and snake oil promises that he would work to make things better for his MAGA supporters, he convinced enough voters to return him to the White House for a second term. 

And he is fulfilling some of his promises. 

Not his promise to reduce the price of eggs, or his promise to protect social security and Medicaid; not his promise to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza “on day one,” or his promise to release the Epstein files; not his promise to eliminate government waste, or his promise to deport only criminal immigrants; not even his promise that Project 2025 was not part of his plan — he disavowed any knowledge of Project 2025 on the campaign trail.

No, the promise Trump is fulfilling is his promise to become a dictator. Although he clarified during the campaign that he would only be a dictator “on day one,” clearly his intent is permanent, absolute power in violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

His drive for autocracy is so pervasive that it is impossible in this essay to list every way he has been following the fascist playbook in just the first few months of his second presidency, but here are a few of the more significant fascist actions he is currently taking or has already taken:

• Uses his power to reward his violent insurrectionists by pardoning every participant in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, including those convicted through a court of law for their criminal acts against the United States.
• Violates the rights of individuals, including citizens, without affording them the Constitutional guarantee of due process and habeas corpus. Thousands of individuals have been detained without a criminal warrant, violently removed from their homes, workplaces, courts, or off the streets by masked men without identification or proof that their actions against the people they are detaining are lawful. Many of these individuals have been held in deplorable conditions without access to a lawyer or communication with their families. In addition to targeting non-criminal immigrants (some legal residents, some undocumented, and even some citizens), Trump is specifically targeting those who speak out against him and his policies. 
• Suppresses protestors exercising their first amendment right of speech and assembly, often through violent actions by masked and unaccountable agents. Trump has called for the military to participate in domestic policing in a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. 
• Orders the bombing of Iranian facilities without concurrence from Congress, in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act. 
• Directs Texas to implement new hyper-gerrymandered Congressional district maps before the midterm elections to add five Republican seats in Congress. This attempt to tilt elections in his favor while delegitimizing the electoral process is an antidemocratic authoritarian maneuver to rig an election while giving the appearance of democracy. 
• Ignores court orders that attempt to hold the administration accountable to the law. Using his lifelong legal tactics of deny, delay, and deflect, Trump and his administration are attempting to override the authority of the judicial branch.
• Uses the federal government to attack his perceived enemies. Recent examples include investigations of those who have spoken out against him or were part of his impeachments based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence.

Trump has appointed unqualified sycophants throughout his administration whose only qualification is that they will support Trump’s autocratic takeover of the country, Constitution be damned. And with a Republican Congress that refuses to hold him accountable and a Supreme Court that has declared he cannot be prosecuted for anything he does while in office, the checks and balances of the Constitution are in serious jeopardy.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 51 that the checks and balances among the three branches of government would ensure no one individual or branch could become tyrannical. Indeed, the founders feared that the United States could become an autocracy or monarchy like the government they had just bitterly fought for independence from. They worried that the ambitions of corrupt leaders could lead to despotism. Madison wrote:

You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

We are now at a point in our 250 year history that the people must step up to control the government, or we will no longer be, as Abraham Lincoln called for in his Gettysburg Address, “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” 

We cannot just assume that the norms and guardrails of our democracy will hold. Especially when they are being deliberatively dismantled.

Democratic governors like Bob Ferguson, Gavin Newsom, and J.B. Pritzker are using the power of the States guaranteed by the Constitution to counteract Trump’s tactics. As long as the courts hold, challenges and lawsuits are holding the line against unlawful power grabs. And the people are speaking up, but they must continue to do so in more numbers and with more visibility. 

Organizations like Indivisible Tri-Cities offer opportunities to get involved.

For too long, too many of us have chosen the ‘high road’, believing that the norms and traditions of our political process would prevent a descent into autocracy. We can no longer be complacent. We must not comply with unconstitutional acts; and we must, as John Lewis said, get into some good trouble.

After Texas voted to gerrymander their congressional districts in response to Donald Trump’s demand for five more Republican seats, California’s legislature quickly asked California voters to authorize, temporarily, a gerrymandered map that would counteract Texas’ undemocratic power grab. Other states may follow. This sounds like a race to the bottom in gerrymandering, but it is intended to counteract Texas if court challenges to the gerrymandered districts are ineffective.

Fire fighters sometimes use a technique of controlled burns to manage the spread of a large, difficult to control fire. They use a controlled fire to defeat an otherwise uncontrollable one. In other words, fighting fire with fire.

In our polarized two-party system where the Republicans are racing toward autocracy, the Democrats, with support of independents and those of us who want to keep the American experiment of self-governance going for another 250 years, must fight fire with fire. 

It’s up to us, the people of the United States, to save our democracy.