If you’re angry about what Trump and Musk are doing to replace democracy with a Trumpian autocracy, you have every right to be.
If you’re angry about Trump pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists and is now trying to make them the victims and heroes on that day, you have every right to be.
If you’re angry that Trump is letting Musk get into your private data the government is holding, you have every right to be.
If you’re angry about Trump’s open corruption in paying off Musk for paying off his debts by having the State Department award Tesla a $400 million contract, you have every right to be.
Indeed, for more reasons that I can list here, every American ought to be angry.
Being angry is an affirmation of the Constitution, of the rule of law, of three co-equal branches of government, of having a president instead of a king, of having competent people in government instead a president’s stooges.
Being angry is the only sensible emotional response to Trump, Musk, cowardly Republicans in Congress, and voters who are okay with all that is going on.
I’d go so far as to say that if you’re not angry, you’re either trying to be too nice or you’re not paying attention. Either way, you’re among the kind of people history shows helps make tyranny possible. Silence is appeasement and complicity.
There are, of course, too many Americans who like what Trump is doing. They believe his lies about what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.
It’s pretty stunning when you think about it because Trump has done nothing to benefit his voters in the least. Not only that, he’s admitted he isn’t going to do anything for them. He’s too busy breaking things to do anything about the cost of living or preventing price gauging by major corporations, especially drug companies, or make housing more affordable.
What is more, apparently Trump supporters have a strange view of the world that makes them believe that any negative consequences of what he is doing will affect Democrats, but not them.
If prices rise because of inflation or tariffs, only Democrats will have to pay them. If children’s cancer research funds are cut, the potential long term damage it will have will only affect children of Democratic parents. If nursing homes residents are forced to leave because Trump and Musk cut Medicaid that pays for them to be be there, only elderly Democrats will be affected.
This mind set is one of the reason the spinelessness of House and Senate Republicans is such an enigma. Their support of Trumpian autocracy is at the same time support for the diminishment of their own role as the legislative branch of our democracy, but Republicans act as if only the power of congressional Democrats will be reduced to nothing.
Makes no sense, but, then, none of it does because Republican support for Trump has never made any sense, which is why sensible Republicans like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mitt Romney are no longer in the Party.
That’s why the rest of us not only have the right to be angry, but an obligation to be. Not blind anger, but righteous anger, anger that arises when good is under attack, when justice is being denied, when the virtues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are vilified and attacked, anger that leads us into what the great civil rights leader John Lewis called “good trouble.”
We are on the verge of the unthinkable, of Trump exerting the type of autocratic power over the entire government that our Founders explicitly tried to ensure would not happen when they wrote the Constitution.
It’s called a coup, say historians Timothy Snyder (Yale) and Ruth Ben-Ghiat (NYU). They both insist based on their vast knowledge of history that what we are seeing is “a coup.” As Snyder put it last week, “Of course, it’s a coup!”
Economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman calls it an autogolpe which he defines as literally a self-coup that takes place “when a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power.”
He then adds, “Are Musk and Trump trying to pull off an autogolpe here? Of course they are. And they are doing so with, as far as I can tell, the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.”
Legal scholar and professor of law Joyce Vance goes a step further in identifying Trump in particular as the primary reason our democracy is under threat:
“Presidents don’t ordinarily ignore court orders,” she writes. “That’s a hallmark of the balance of power between the three branches of government and a key part of the rule of law that forms the essential architecture for our democracy. Because of the possibility that Trump will push through that norm, there is reason for us to be deeply concerned about the state of our democracy.”
Of course, all these scholars could be wrong, warning us of something that is not actually happening, but what if they’re right? The evidence seems quite clearly to be on their side that a coup is underway in plain sight.
It seems to me that being a loyal patriot means being angry about that…and angry at everyone who is supporting him either directly and indirectly.
History tells us that we cannot afford to be naïve about this. Naivete is one of the things fascist leaders count on to work in their favor.
Most Germans didn’t take Hitler all that seriously early on, and even German leaders were as naïve as the people were. When President Paul Hindenburg and his Chancellor, Franz Von Papen, asked Hitler to become Vice-Chancellor in 1932 in order to gain the Nazi Party support in the Reichstag (Parliament), he refused. He wanted to be Chancellor
Hindenburg and Von Papen finally agreed to let Hitler take Von Papen’s position as Chancellor because – get this – they believed they could control him. We all know how that turned out.
Naivete makes the ascendency of authoritarian rule easier than it would be by making resistance to it less than it needs to be. Righteous anger is the anti-dote, anger that energizes us to make good trouble for Trump, Musk, congressional Republicans, and Trump supporters.
The courts are making good trouble for them at the moment, and we must speak out in support of them. It’s one branch of government left that is fighting back.
Democratic governors are as well, along with the Democratic minority in the House and Senate. They need to know we’re not only behind them, but are expecting them to resist.
What intensifies my anger at Trump supporters is the fact that they are feeding Trump’s hunger for adoration. Praise is not enough at this point in his life. He wants to be adored, worshipped even.
Trump lies the way he does because telling the truth would make him feel ordinary. He needs to be seen as royal, divinely blessed, a special instrument of God, whose words are true solely because he utters them.
In street language, Trump wants to be somebody, the greatest “somebody” in the history of the presidency.
He wanted to be somebody in his first term, but didn’t know how government worked well enough to gain sufficient power that made him feel like he was. This time around he has the Project 2025 playbook to show him how.
Donald Trump is all about Donald Trump. Nothing else. But his voters have never gotten that. They crave his shadow being cast upon them as much as he craves their worship.
That’s why in spite of reliable reports that his attempt at destroying USAID is killing babies, mothers, and the elderly in the poorest regions of the world, they are standing fast beside him.
If that doesn’t make you angry, check your pulse, you may be dead, but not know it.
This is not a fight any of us who believes in America and in American democracy wants to have. We want our political leaders to focus on laws and policies that are consistent with the Constitution and reflect the ideals on which the nation was founded.
On a personal level, we want to work, play, love, be a good neighbor, live life in a normal way without worrying about our democracy is being stolen from us.
But that is not a luxury we can afford at the moment. Instead, this is a fight we must wage in the ways available to us, such as:
- Voicing our anger to family and friends and in any appropriate circumstance about what Trump and Musk are doing.
- Expressing support for the court decisions that will prevent Trump from controlling everything.
- Emailing or calling our Senators or Members of Congress.
- Joining a demonstration where we live.
- Paying attention just enough to know what is going on every day.
- Sharing this blog and others like it on Facebook or emailing them to others.
The fight to save our country is going to be a long one. The damage Trump is doing will be considerable, and that will be discouraging. Friends, family members, and neighbors will justify what he’s doing.
Fatigue and weariness will tempt us to give up, to turn attention away from the avalanche of government busting orders and actions Trump is throwing at us.
But if we are genuinely angry about it all, I can promise you we will have all the energy we need to make good trouble for anyone and everyone who is supporting Trump’s coup.
And that is what we must do – defeat them. Let’s not fool ourselves. We cannot win them over to sensibleness, to reality, to facts, to truth. Instead, we have to defeat them with the same – sensibleness, reality, facts, truth, and ultimately, with votes.
Put simply, the fight we are in is between those of us who believe in Lincoln’s government of the people, by the people, for the people, and those who support a government of Trump, by Trump, and for Trump.
For the first time since the Civil War, remaining the United States of America is once again in the hands of its citizens, in your hands and mine.
We cannot shrink from the challenge, not only for our sake, but for our children and grandchildren and their children.
I have said this before, but it bears repeating. There are three kinds of people in the world: (1) those who make things happen; (2) those who let things happen; and (3) those who wonder what happened.
Trump and Musk are counting on most Americans being the second kind who will ignore what they’re doing only to wake up at some point in the future and wonder what happened to their country.
People like you and me must be the the first kind. We must make things happen by stopping the coup Trump and Musk are trying to pull off!
In the truest sense we must stop the steal, only this time the real one.
linnposts.com 
The problem that keeps bothering me is we voted the man into office. Even with his plan in plain sight.
Rollie, it proves Trumpers will never abandon Trump. They have no excuse for what they did to the rest of us.
The short time Trump has been in office several things are apparent. Joe Biden, from day one, completely opened our southern border to both millions of unvetted illegal immigrants and fentanyl. He had the power to stop both and chose to do the opposite.
The persecution of Trump during the four years of the Biden administration would not have happened without the direct consent and encouragement of Joe Biden himself. This is the first time in our nation’s history that a sitting president weaponized his DOJ to go after his main political rival. We can only hope this reprehensible precedent will not be repeated
Both federal spending and our national debt is growing at an unsustainable rate. We are 37 trillion dollars in debt and soon our budget will consist of entitlement spending and servicing our debt, nothing left over. As the Trump administration has just begun exposing the enormous waste in our federal spending, it is incomprehensible to us the reaction from these discoveries by the Democratic Party. Their outrage is not directed toward this wasteful spending, but toward whom has discovered it. For them, democracy works smoothly when this wasteful spending is directed toward supporting their various WOKE ideologies, but once exposed, it somehow becomes a autocracy.
Not one thing you said has any basis in fact. You are simply repeating the lies Trump is telling. Biden did not open the borders. No president has ever done that. Biden tried to get money for more border agents, but Republicans would not allocate it. Then when he negotiated a border deal that Republican Senators wanted, Trump killed it, something you conveniently did not mention. The idea that Trump was persecuted is laughable on its face. Trump is a lying crook and always has been. He set up a charity and then used the money for himself, for God’s sake. His so-called “university” defrauded student of their tuition. He was forced to shut down both the charity and the school. He would have been found guilty of all the charges against him had the Supreme Court not created immunity for him based on the categories of “official and unofficial duties” that are not in the Constitution. Now, just as you believed the Big Lie about the 2020 election being fraudulent without Trump ever showing one shred of evidence to support it, you’re falling for the same scam regarding DOGE, believing the lies Trump and Musk are telling without their producing any evidence to support their claims. Even then, some they have named have already been shown not to be factual. Musk even misunderstood Social Security coding on the one he claimed showed people 150 years old were receiving benefits. The truth about what is going on is that it’s about Trump/Musk laying the groundwork for the 4 trillion dollar tax cut Trump wants to give to the ultra rich and corporations, claiming waste in social programs so they won’t run up the deficit the way Trump did in his first term by some 3 trillion dollars. I wonder how you felt about that when it happened. You Republicans are always claiming wasteful spending is the problem, but you’ve never seen a tax cut or tax break for the rich you didn’t like. You know how much Trump paid in taxes in 2020? Zero. In the two years earlier he paid less than a thousand dollars each year. Same story with Musk and every billionaires in the country and most major corporations. Do something about that and the rest of us will listen to what you have to say about government waste. As for the rest of it, when you made wild claims about what Biden or the Democrats have done, show some evidence. Trump never tells the truth about anything. Believing what he says robs any claim you make of any credibility.
I won’t debate you because it’s useless
Regarding the southern border everything I said is verifiably the truth. Democrats lost in November because most Americans viewed the southern border as wide open, allowing millions of illegal & unvetted migrants into our country. It was republicans fault Biden couldn’t stop this? Well how could Trump stop it after just 2 weeks from Biden’s last day( it is debatable when his last day actually was). Border crossing are down 95%. Mexico has committed 10,000 troops to patrol their border. Biden chose not to do anything
Fact: U.S. Customs and Border Protection report – last two months of 2024, illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border were at their lowest since mid-2020… crossings were down 81 percent compared to December 2023’s height. Agreed most Americans “viewed the southern border as wide open,” a view shaped by Republican propaganda. I didn’t say it was Republicans’ fault Biden couldn’t stop this.” I said Trump got Republicans to refuse to pass a border security bill they negotiated because he wanted to use as a campaign issue because he knows if you tell a lie enough times people will begin to believe it. You seem determined to ignore this fact because it shows that for Trump the border is a political issue, not a problem to solve. Mexico committed those 10,000 troops when Biden was still in office and had already begun to use them to move people farther south. Trump lied and said he dropped the tariff on Mexico because President Sheinbaum made the agreement with him. No, she didn’t. She agreed to continue doing what she had already agreed with Biden to do. Until you and voters like you stop believing Trump tells the truth, that Fox News tells the truth, that Republicans in Congress tell the truth, nothing will change and you will help the nation lose its democracy and then swear you didn’t realize what was happening. You’re exactly right. Debate is useless whenever you’re debating someone to whom facts don’t matter. Cite an independent source when you’re making claims and I will take them seriously. That’s how reason and logic work.
Jan,
Excellent reply to delectably. Somehow, we must restore a world in which facts are necessary for informed debate in search of solutions.
Keep the faith.
Gene
Gene, we will know we have defeated Trump (and Trumpism) in his assault on American life when we once again accept the distinction between fact and opinion.
Jan,
There is nothing more to say about your excellent, right-on-the-spot analysis. Now, we, i.e. those of us who hold the Constitution as sacred and Democracy as the only way for civilized humans to live, must redouble our efforts to hold hard to stopping Trump’s vain, lying and harmful goal.
Gene
That’s the challenge, Gene.
Trump’s assault on the law and decency is despicable. I can’t wait to see him gone.
You’re not alone, Rollie.
His health is in my prayers, Rollie, but not in the way I usually pray for others.
Jan, what amazes all of us is the degree with which Trump’s supporters either “believe in” or totally support his lies and manipulation. Their only answer to your excellent reply, as Gene points out, is to declare that “it is useless to debate” with us on these issues. And they are right! We must stop “debating” and vote them out next November and in all following Novembers.
Any hope that we might have that Republicans are going to eventually “see some light” and put a clamp on Trump/Musk catastrophic actions of the last month, is clearly and simply a “pipe dream” on our part. It would only take 4 Republicans in the Senate to put a stop to much of this chaos and destruction of our Democracy, at least for the time being. And none of us see this happening now.
That is why it is time to ACT with a cause and a sense of purpose, not just debate. James Carville suggests that next November, fired government workers in the state of Virginia, will “rise up” and oust Gov. Glenn Youngkin, as you know, a Trump Supporter.
We need a movement, and we need it now!
Forgive me for taking so much time and space in your blog, but to repeat Rollie’s demand, here is just one person’s view of what this “movement” might look like:
RISE UP AMERICA!
“Americans for America”
MEANS:
“We are United in Our Cause.”
“We must Re-Commit to Our Constitution.”
“We Honor Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness.”
“We are Determined to Succeed.”
These 5 powerful mandates would transcend liberal vs. conservatism, Democrats vs. Republicans vs. Independents, and all cultures in America. They would provide the foundation of “Unity” of the majority to send all MAGA supporters to the far reaches of Siberia. Putin would welcome them.
This movement must consist of the following powerful groups:
CITIZENS for America, PRIVATE INDUSTRY for America, EFFICIENT GOVERNMENTS for America, WORKERS for America, EDUCATORS for America, THE MEDIA for America, BELIEVERS for America, and ENTERTAINERS for America.
These powerful groups must rally their supporters around this new movement to save and protect American Democracy.
And we need a “Leader of the Band”.
Your thoughts:
John
John, it is true that we need everyone and every group in this fight. That, I am afraid, will not happen because self-interests will prevent it. That means those who are willing to fight must fight harder. Trump and his minions have no concern for the five “mandates” you name. That means he will do a lot of damage because Republicans in Congress will not hold him or anyone else in accountable based on them. The fact that there is no leader yet in this fight makes it more difficult when the other side has one leader and one leader only.