GUNS – IN DEFENSE AGAINST OR OF TYRANNY

The main argument behind some Americans’ militant defense of their right to bear arms is that the Second Amendment of The Constitution guarantees it.

They insist that one intent of that amendment was to enable citizens to protect themselves in the event of a tyrannical government—a debatable interpretation.

At any rate, how ironic that these gun nuts' justification of this country's firearms glut (now easily outnumbering citizens, and including assault-style weapons designed for military use) has taken a U-turn.

The outrageous personal arsenal excused for so long by MAGA extremists and the NRA as a defense against a potential rogue government, has now become a military asset in their defense of a rogue government. 

We tolerate these zealots, this misguided crusade, at our great peril. Since appeals to their reason, emotion and even basic human decency fall on deaf ears, they must be beaten with our protests and at the polls.

Let’s get busy!

BACK TO THE FUTURE – Clear Signs of What's To Come

Can you imagine, given the 20/20 clarity of hindsight, the mindset of the fair-minded, charitable folks who comprised the tepid early opposition during the ascension to power of despots? Think the Soviet Union, Italy or Germany in the early 1920s, Spain in the early 30's, and later Russia, Egypt, Venezuela, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria...the list goes on. 

PHOTO COMPOSITE: Metro

All these places ended up as electoral autocracies,* brutal dictatorships of which few Americans were even aware.

Do you think those kind people who let such outrages happen were saying, "Hey, we can't let our political differences over Chavez divide us," or "We need to have a civil dialog with those on Abacha's side," or "Everyone's opinion is valid, even that of our Landsleute who support Hitler."

Did those troubled by political winds of change really believe they had to consider—or at least tolerate—their poor, aggrieved compatriots' claims? "He may be obnoxious, but we like his policies," or "This guy's going to rid us of 'vermin'."

And, once it became clear what their compatriots' righteous indignation had wrought, how much worse than simply "obnoxious" things had become, could anyone have admitted just how badly they'd been duped? 

That, folks, is where we are in 2025 in the United States of America. Our country, this exemplar of Democracy, this beacon of hope to the oppressed, has elected as its leader (for the second time) an aggressively insecure con man without a single redeeming quality. A man easily played by the flattery of present day dictators—and of our own country's shrewdest oligarchs—who has promised exactly how he intends to dismantle democratic institutions.

PHOTO: Vanity Fair

       We know this man...and we know history. 

WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE
Since the Trump catastrophe started playing out in his first term I've imagined a tactic which, at least on its surface, seems it should work when trying to communicate with someone who believes such a charlatan deserves a chance. It goes like this: I start by acknowledging the person's beliefs—and if I'm having a good day I might even concede a couple of style points.

But then I ask them exactly what words, deeds and results from the man they support might cause them to start questioning that support. I suspect they might have trouble imagining such developments, but I press. What about if he disparaged veterans? Like shaming US soldiers who "allowed themselves" to be captured as prisoners of war.

What if he declared Jesus Christ a loser for having gotten caught and crucified? What about the Epstein files finally coming to light and showing he was a steady client of Sweet-16-Girls-R-Us? 

What about someone finally defeating the Ft. Knox-like impregnability around his academic transcripts? Or the "bone spurs" diagnosis that helped him dodge military service five times? Or his tax returns? 

Oh, hell, those are all softball questions. How about these: What if sound evidence emerged that Trump is actually working for Vladimir Putin? Or if someone caught him on a hot mic ridiculing folks stupid enough to vote for him?

AFRAID AROUND THE EDGES
Okay, you get where I'm going with this. Not one of these gaffes—screw-ups that would prove career-ending for any American in any profession—seems to matter in the slightest to Donald Trump's hard-core MAGA base. They, with considerable coaching from their esteemed leader, have made themselves immune to any ideas, any facts, any information but that spoon-fed them by Trump and his de facto state media. 

I know, I should know better than to imagine the perfect squelch to make these folks suddenly realize the error of their ways. At least the most ardent of them.

PHOTO: Shutterstock

But how about those few tentative supporters who might be starting to wonder, even just a little, about their Supreme Leader's qualifications and judgement? Is there any chance at all that some of these troubling realities—the kind so skillfully eclipsed by the banner of fear and grievance authoritarians have always raised—might see the light of day?  

The challenges to such doubts grow more formidable every day: the Crimbecile has relentlessly cast doubt on the democratic institutions—including free and fair elections—that have traditionally protected Democracy. He's purged career professionals who choose integrity over blind allegiance. 

He's ensured that any Congressperson who questions him is summarily "primaried" out of the job. He's coerced his base to abandon legitimate news media. He's bought and paid for the Supreme Court...I could go on.

        I must use the modest tools I have 
        to defy this loathsome little man.
 
SHOVEL VERSUS PEN
Alas, if only my right-leaning countrymen and women were not so afraid of history, if they could see the devastation the enabling of despots like theirs has always, always wrought. We cannot let that happen again.  

PHOTO: The White House

So...what to do? Do we, like those magnanimous citizens who accommodated other dictators, wring our liberal-elite hands and keep choosing the high road, while this egomaniacal charlatan's busy dig-
ging a tunnel under us and everything we believe in? Or do we heed the lessons of history, take the gloves off and fight to take away the shovel?

Since he's figured out how to Krazy-Glue that shovel to his tiny hands, maybe I can at least try to block his digging. I know I have only slightly more influence than the average Joe Sixpack Trump's counting on to love his worst failings. But I must use the modest tools I do have to 
defy this loathsome little man.

So I write. I submit opinion pieces to the media. I put defiant posts on Facebook. I talk to friends and family members. I make signs and placards. I stand in public protest with my like-minded compatriots.

I beg you: please don't be patient with the first American dictator. Don't think Let's give him a chance. Don't assume the system will somehow rein him in. We know this man and we know history.

Please don't believe the promises of a pathological liar. Don't hope a man who's selfishness is legendary will somehow have the slightest concern for you. Don't buy the patriot pose from a man who dodged the draft and who's repeatedly disparaged and dishonored our veterans. Don't buy the Bible bit from a deeply immoral convicted felon. Don't expect a shyster who's never once achieved legitimate success to suddenly succeed at leading a nation.

Join me in defying this aggressively insecure little fool. Find a way to speak out, and then do it. And keep doing it! 
And join me as we hit the streets in the next nationwide NoKings! protest on Saturday, October 18.

Roughly 5,000,000 of us showed up back in April. We must aim for nothing less than doubling that turnout! 

* “Popular Dictatorships: Crises, Mass Opinion, and the Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism,” by Aleksandar Matovski – assistant professor in the Naval Post-Graduate School's Department of National Security Affairs

LETHAL LUNACY – The Death Toll of Donald Trump’s Madness

There are many ways one might measure Donald J. Trump’s performance as President of the United States of America: Campaign promises kept versus broken. Percentage of documented truths versus lies told. Health and growth of the economy. Standard of living for average Americans. Number of indictments and convictions. Number of staffers and cabinet members facing criminal charges. Billions added to the national debt. I could go on…

But there is another measure, one not yet cited by the media, but which the judgement of history will surely employ, of this beastly little man. 

The death toll.

With the threat of full-blown fascism looming on our own soil, we simply cannot afford to wait for that reckoning. 

ILLUSTRATION – Stable Diffusion

Trump has already inflicted a malignancy on our country and the world. One which, for want of early, aggressive treatment, is strangling freedom and relegating this once-noble nation quite rapidly to third-world status. 

The urgency, the gravity, of the threat facing our precious Democracy—and our essential humanity— demands our immediate attention. One can only pray it’s not too late.

The gravity of the threat facing our precious Democracy—and our essential humanity— demands our immediate attention. 

COVID? WHAT COVID?
Death tolls can be difficult to determine. Just ask any public official trying to assess the impact of a natural disaster or epidemic. Seldom is there a simple stack of bodies to count. Not everyone succumbs at the same time. Some suspected victims may have died from unrelated causes. Some are collateral damage, dying months or years later from complications of the original horror. Some victims are never found.

So for Trump’s reckoning let’s start with one of the easier tallies, that of deaths attributed to his regime’s utter failure to manage the original COVID pandemic. In the U.S. alone the estimates vary from around 100,000 “unnecessary deaths” to 400,000 and more.* One thing’s certain: it’s a big number.

Then there’s the wider, global impact of the Crimbecile’s ham-fisted stabs at public health crisis management. His denials of COVID 19’s very existence. His ridiculing of vaccines. His withdrawal from the WHO and cessation of funding for USAID. His purging—just yesterday—of CDC Director, Susan Monarez, who dared stand up for the truth about vaccines. 

These blunders will eventually kill millions of human beings—starting, as all such affronts seem to, with the poorest.

THE KILLING FIELDS
So, that’s just the count for one front in this moron’s deadly assaults on Democracy and decency. The Trump death toll is already mounting in nearly every sphere of the human condition. 

There are just so many failings that tracking them is exhausting (part of the guy’s M.O., by the way). But here’s my—this non-statistician’s—bullet-point outline of the killing, both current and projected.

~ THE ENVIRONMENT
Trump wasted no time abdicating the US’s already-timid environmental-science leadership, dropping out, in his first term, of the Paris Climate Agreement, the world’s best hope for progress in combatting climate change.

Meanwhile, of more than 600 reported extreme weather events in 2024, 148 were classified as “unprecedented,” displacing 824,000 people and killing about 1,700.

PHOTO – Jesse Winter, Reuters

His long-asserted denials of human-caused climate change, his scuttling of institutions charged with monitoring and regulating environmental impacts, and his alignment with corporations and the billionaire buddies who finance him are already killing people—thousands and thousands of them—through natural disasters, polluted air and water, and unsafe working conditions. 

According to Google’s AI overview of vast amounts of data, global deaths attributable to extreme weather events average 40,000 to 50,000 people per year. So, a rough estimate for the years since 2017, when Trump decided climate change wasn’t sexy enough for him, totals roughly 315,000 deaths.

I’ll leave it to you to approximate how many of those lives could have been spared if Trump had exerted any leadership whatsoever. Whatever the tally, it will surely climb precipitously, as global climate change surges past the tipping point long forewarned by climate scientists.

       His deep-seated appetite for flattery represents 
       a green light to our enemies’ ambitions. 

~ FOREIGN POLICY

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Trump’s fawning support of Russian and Israeli warmonger tyrants is nothing short of evil. Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine War death toll is nearing half a million—some 13,500 of those innocent civilians. In Gaza, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed to date. Countless more deaths from starvation and disease are on the horizon as Netanyahu, with Trump’s complicity, pursues his thinly-veiled genocidal goal.

What’s more, Trump’s defunding of the Agency for International Development (USAID) and disengagement from the World Health Organization (WHO) are invitations for further aggression around the world, amounting to a virtual death sentence for countless victims. 

~ NATIONAL SECURITY
Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, his politicization of intelligence and his purging of career officials he’s deemed disloyal have hobbled our national security endeavors. He’s methodically sabotaged time-honored alliances with even our closest friends and neighbors. 

His renouncement of America’s iconic generosity of spirit, his clumsy “America First” mantra, his embarrassing antics on the world stage, and his deep-seated appetite for flattery all represent green lights to our enemies’ ambitions. 

PHOTO: Getty Images

Debacles like this inevitably lead to wars…and countless more deaths.

~ DOMESTIC TERRORISM
Unconscionably, Trump has pardoned at least 1,500 members of his MAGA cult who'd been charged with deadly crimes during the January 6 insurrection. Projecting his persecution complex, the felon-in-chief has also pardoned at least five convicted murderers.**

PHOTO – Newsweek

He’s also granted clemency to many individual and corporate fraudsters, tax cheats, anti-abortion activists, corrupt politicians and elections officials—virtually anyone who’s committed crimes abetting his own personal and political crimes. 

By endorsing domestic terrorism perpetrated in his name, while at the same time clamping down on anyone—including peaceful demonstrators—who dare defy him, he sets the stage for more violence and death. 

     Trump’s assault on immigrants—many of them here 
     legally—has subjected families to unbelievable suffering.

~ AIRLINE SAFETY
Trump’s decimating of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) staffing and budgets, including DOGE’s dull-edge slashing of Air Traffic Control staffing, have already impacted the safety of flying, leading, some charge, to 67 fatalities in last January’s mid-air collision near Reagan National Airport. Many more deaths are inevitable.

~ IMMIGRATION

PHOTO - Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times

Trump’s outrageous assault on immigrants—many of them here legally—has subjected families to unbelievable suffering. And those arrested—often by unidentified ICE goons in unmarked vehicles with no probable cause nor legal recourse for suspects—face abhorrent conditions whose 2025 death toll (14 so far) has already surpassed that of 2024. ***

Internment of those arrested in a rapidly-growing number of ICE prisons (like the already infamous Alligator Alcatraz), and deportations to Gulags in countries like Uganda, where defendants have no family or cultural ties amount to virtual “disappearances.” 

The death toll from abuse, neglect, murder and, most certainly, suicide, will be, by design, obscure.

~ GUN VIOLENCE 

PHOTO - The Telegraph

Donald Trump staunchly rejects any limits on the possession and use of firearms. (Interesting, since because he’s a convicted felon, Trump currently cannot legally possess a gun.) Even though he claims to have been targeted in two assassination attempts, he boasts to his gun-toting, Billy-Bob groupies that he’s “done nothing” about the national glut of weapons. 

Every day, 125 people in the United States are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded. ****

That’s approximately 45,000 Americans shot to death annually, including hundreds who are victims of mass shootings (the latest just yesterday here in Minneapolis). Though hard to quantify, a significant percentage of these deaths must be called what they are: collateral damage from Trump’s acquiescence to the powerful gun lobby.

~ CIVIL RIGHTS
Donald Trump is expropriating state and local policing authority at an alarming pace. It’s all under the very thin guise of public safety, but what it really is is building his regime’s ability to quickly quell protest. He just recently declared the deployments—in Washington DC, Los Angeles and Chicago so far—are to quash “civil disturbances.” 

PHOTO – David Swanson - Reuters

No one doubts what that means. I and all freedom-loving Americans must now realize that, as we take to the streets, we’re putting our very lives on the line ! There will be casualties.

        His infantile, Monopoly-game take on war 
        and diplomacy puts our military at great risk.

~ CONSUMER PROTECTION
Trump’s removal of Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other consumer protection regulations, staffing and budgets will subject Americans once again to the very abuses those entities were established to rein in. 

The halfwit’s consistent siding with corporate interests—including his own—over those of consumers will cost lives, from both the public health and product safety effects.

~ VETERANS AFFAIRS
Veterans of the U.S. military are committing suicide at an alarming rate of over 1,600 annually—that’s 17 deaths per day in the United States.***** 

Trump—the confirmed draft-dodger—has consistently disparaged our county’s esteemed military veterans and their families. 

PHOTO - @GovCox / X

Adding to the insult, he continues to trivialize our national honor—not to mention putting our military at great risk—with his infantile, Monopoly-game take on war and diplomacy. Not to mention his obvious admiration of despots who are our country’s sworn enemies. 

The cost of such contempt, such weakness? Still more lives.

~ HEALTH
Starting with Trump’s foolhardy cuts at CDC, NIH, NSF and other public health programs and agencies, his regime appears determined to address America’s public health crises as it has other challenges: if not by denial, then by voodoo medicine.

As elsewhere in his administration, Trump has jettisoned all public health experience, competence and reason in favor of rank hacks whose only qualification is loyalty—like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his Secretary of Health Human Services, an avowed anti-vaxer and conspiracy-theorist wacko.

Discrediting proven, life-saving vaccines; scuttling health and wellness initiatives; promoting unproven folk remedies; wholesale cuts to HIV/AIDS research and prevention funding; systematic dismantling of the nation’s capacity for dealing with the inevitable next pandemic… 

While such reckless incompetence in confronting COVID alone killed hundreds of thousands, it’s no stretch to say the toll for the whole health-care calamity wrought by the Crimbecile on this and future generations could number in the millions.

          A kind assessment would call him an amoral 
          hyper-capitalist; a less charitable one, a fascist. 

~ POLITICS
Donald Trump is an insurrectionist, a traitor. He’s a bigot. A sexual predator. A pathological liar, manipulator and con man of the first order.

A kind assessment would rate him an amoral hyper-capitalist; a less charitable one, a fascist. 

It’s not just his own values and behavior that are deadly. His entire political identity rests on validating his MAGA base’s worst instincts. While they elected him to be their hit man on immigrants, minorities, women, GLBTQ folks and the poor, they’re emboldened to be his assassins too.

The victims: the Capitol Police officers who died from injuries and later suicides stemming from the Trump-instigated Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection; the peaceful protesters mowed down in Charlottesville by a white-supremacist neo-Nazi; the 22 innocents shot and killed by an aggrieved anti-immigration terrorist in El Paso; Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota legislator, and her husband assassinated by a pro-Trump, anti-abortion political extremist.

PHOTO - Ryan M. Kelly, The Daily Progress

Make no mistake, there will be more carnage from Trump’s implied consent of racist, anti-Democracy, neo-Nazi and religious-fanatic violence.

TIME WILL TELL
I’ll say it again. Calculating death tolls is hard, even for statisticians. So my wild reckonings here serve merely to account for general categories of causes and the rough scale of their effects. 

What is not difficult to assess is the extent of the responsibility Donald J. Trump must bear for whatever those effects. His willful ignorance, his emotional retardation, his megalomania, are killing people…lots of people. And only future historians—if any are still allowed to tell the truth—will quantify the carnage.

*  Michael Riordan – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - September 30, 2020 
    Lancet Commission on Public Policy - February 11, 2021

** Full List of Donald Trump Pardons During His Second Term - Newsweek - May 28, 2025

*** U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website

**** “Gun Violence In America” - Everytown Research - November 7, 2024

***** Rand - May 22, 2025

OUCH! – Reaching Folks On the Fence About ConDon

On Memorial Day morning I joined a small—maybe 120 people—“NoKings” protest along the Ford Bridge here in Minneapolis/St. Paul. 

It felt good to be among like-hearted folks, and I was taken by the range of regime-change themes expressed on their mostly-hand-made signs: education, immigration, labor, Nature, veterans…

Most interesting, though, was the response of those driving by our little gathering. I’d say about 70 percent either honked their horns, gave thumbs up or at least waved cheerfully. Fewer than ten percent gave thumbs down or middle fingers up.

As encouraging as those numbers were, it’s the remaining 20 percent or so that really got me thinking. Those, I realized in a bolt of clarity, are the reason we’re out here. 

     The chances of them falling on our side of the knife 
     are looking better. We must make sure it's a soft landing.

IMAGE: FreePik

THE KNIFE’S EDGE
All those hand gestures, whether pro or con, were by 
people who already know where they stand. The crystal 
clarity of the Crimbecile’s depravity is a knife’s edge; 
you’re either on the side of competence and decency or 
you’re not. None these expressive types is going to 
change their mind.

Those passersby who remained mute, well, we don’t know what they were thinking. Some, I’d like to think, are kind, generous, patriotic Democrats; others, kind, generous, patriotic Republicans. Either way, perhaps they’re just shy. 

Maybe, just maybe, a few of them are right on that knife’s edge. And I daresay, given ConDon’s increasingly unhinged behavior, the indisputable failure of his wild stabs at economic reform, and his slipping poll numbers, the chances of them falling on our side of the knife are looking better and better. We must make sure it's a soft landing.

That’s why we must keep showing our colors, speaking truth. 

      

YEARNING FOR RELIEF
Let’s understand: Feeling aggrieved, blaming the bleeding-heart liberals, hating and fearing what they’re being told they should hate and fear, realizing they’ve bet on a pitiful little con man as their champion…it’s all exhausting. I believe that these folks—the ones on the edge—are hurting and actually yearn for relief from having to be against everything. They’d prefer, once again, to be for something.

Our challenge is to craft the message, paint the image, of what that relief looks and feels like. 

Contact your elected representatives; write an opinion piece for your newspaper; share your views on social media. And, please, show up for one of the nationwide No Kings* protests near you—coming up on Saturday, June 14. See you there!

* For more information about the No Kings marches and main sponsor Indivisible, visit: INDIVISIBLE.ORG

OUTRAGE TO ACTION – Ten Acts of Resistance to the Dismantling of Democracy

Are you feeling as frustrated and powerless as I am over the absurdity, the absolute outrage, of another Donald Trump presidency? Below are ten simple acts of resistance you can use to turn that outrage to action against the soon-to be loose-cannon, megalomaniacal, reality-star-turned-president and his loyalist stooges.

Outrage, while understandable, will not be productive. In fact, it's exactly the response the MAGAts love to see: those liberal elites suffering the same grievance they've had to endure for the past four years without their God-given goon in White House giving voice to their worst instincts. Closing the borders, dismantling democratic institutions, encouraging our enemies, banning gays and transsexuals, and making fourteen-year-old rape victims have babies.

Don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of bullshit spewing from the mouths of this pathological liar and his toadies. It's all part of the M.O. his father and other mentors of ruthlessness taught him since about the time he could walk. 

                We must refuse the ruse.

It's like one of those amazing swarms of starlings, called murmurations. The birds, when threatened by a falcon or hawk, gather into huge, undulating clouds so the predator, seeing only that overwhelming shape, can't focus on any one individual.

PHOTO: Australian Geographic

This is exactly what Trump and other seasoned con men do with their lies and outrageous behavior. They inundate us with so much bullshit that we lose focus. There's even a name for it: the Gish Gallop.*

As my good friend Todd suggests, though, we must refuse the ruse. Hard as it is, we must choose one issue and concentrate our defiance—our volunteering, our marching, our calls and letter-writing, our creativity and our financial support—on that target. And leave the rest of it for another time.

So, with that discipline in mind, here, ranging from the purely symbolic to nuts and bolts, are some specific tactics for The Resistance:

1. Refuse to capitalize the title of president in front of the man’s name. A small gesture of defiance.

2. Write or call your congressional representatives—whichever side of the aisle they call home—and call out Trump’s self-serving, fear-mongering policies for the affront they are to the time-honored American Values you believe in, and for which so many of our countrymen have fought and died.

         The UnT takes the faux tycoon's precious brand
         and turns it on its head.

3. Get out and make a statement with your presence. Make a sign and stand on a busy street corner or overpass. (Recruit others to join you.) Attend one of the inauguration day (and next-day) marches—in Washington DC or one of many other cities throughout the U.S. and around the world.

4. Display the UnT (⊥), the new symbol of The Resistance—a design that takes the faux tycoon's precious brand and turns it on its head.
Enlarge the image below to print out your own simple signs. Take it to a printer for bumper stickers, lawn signs. protest placards or t-shirts, and then hand them out to friends. Or make your own simple flag or banner with paint, markers, appliques or even duct tape—with the big, bold, upside-down “T” on it.**
Don't forget to take photos of your displays and post them on social media!

5. Hold the media's feet to the fire. Follow daily news reports of Trump’s outrageous decisions, actions and comments. (Choose sources known for some degree of journalistic integrity.) Then call them out for any editorial decisions that fall for the man's well-documented lying and media manipulation. Or for well-intentioned efforts by some to normalize or "sane-wash" his irrational words and deeds.

Home Depot – big Trump donor

6. Put your money where your mouth is—by donating or volunteering with Planned Parenthood, an environmental protection group, a refugee aid program or any organization you believe in which Trump has threatened to gut.
Or don’t put your money where his mouth is, by boycotting Trump-backing businesses and sponsors of his media content. There’s even an App for that.

 Pray that this embarrassment to our great nation will soon be brought down—as have so many tyrants before him—by his own excesses.

7. Sound off through whatever means at your disposal—conversations, social media, blogs, etc. Keep in mind my admonition not to be distracted by the sheer volume of Trump's bullshit, and pick one or two especially egregious offenses—for example, his refusal to release his tax returns or school academic records—and go for depth and repetition rather than breadth.) Use the #UnT (see tip 4 above), or #UnTSymbolOfTheResistance hashtags.

8. Double down on kindness. Keep greeting folks you pass on the street. Keep looking for ways to lend a hand...or just a smile. Not just to those who look like you, but to everyone. Think of each smile, each cheerful word, each act of generosity as your personal declaration of defiance against the divisiveness that defines Trump's misguided empire.

9. Add a mention and link to this post or the QR code to the right as a Signature to appear automatically at the end of every email you send. Or a feature like “Latest Trump Embarrassment," with the previous day’s biggest presidential blunder or blather. Keep it brief and up to date.

10. Pray. Pray that this embarrassment to our great nation will soon come to ruin—as have so many tyrants before him—perhaps by his own excesses or a mutiny of appointees or congressional republicans he assumed were loyalists. 

* The Gish Gallop involves rapidly throwing out a large number of false claims or misleading arguments, making it nearly impossible for those opposed to address each one individually, often leaving others confused or doubting the opponents' ability to respond effectively.

** The up tack or falsum (⊥, \bot in LaTeX, U+22A5 in Unicode) is a symbol used in the field of logic to denote a proposition that is always false. (It's also called an "absurdum.")

 

KNOCKED TO MY SENSES – A Mugger, An Umbrella and Tough Love

Sharon Salzberg, author of Loving Kindness – The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, tells of having once been assaulted by a stranger while riding in a pedicab in Calcutta. As the man tried to wrestle her out, the driver intervened and they were able to escape unharmed. Later, when she told her venerable meditation teacher about the incident, he exclaimed, “Oh, Sharon, you should have hit the man over the head with your umbrella…with loving kindness.”

With the astounding results of the just-decided U.S. presidential election, I feel as though I'm the pedicab passenger. That modest little rickshaw has been my conveyance toward a simpler, more peaceful, loving and generous life, a future of hope and continuing intellectual and spiritual evolution. The assailant, a vulgar narcissist who's proven to be nothing but the con man of our lifetimes.

IMAGE: The Washington Post

I had believed, by 2016, that I lived in a nation that, after the decade and a half of profound national insecurity since 9/11, was at last on a course back to sanity—one that valued diplomacy over war, openness over isolationism, inclusion over paranoia, individual freedom over narrowly-defined “morality,” opportunity over prohibition, abundance and generosity over scarcity, vision over hindsight, and hope over fear. This had been a direction I felt was true not only to my own values, but to the time-honored values of my country.

But I, and all those standards I hold so dear, were suddenly assaulted, hijacked by a dimwitted, avaricious, kissy-lips reality TV star who, counting on the grievances and gullibility of Joe Sixpack, saw a chance to indulge his enormous appetite for attention.

And now, after just four years of a decent, sensible, well-grounded man working to restore honor and dignity to this country's persona, the dimwit is back. And this time he's promised to be a dictator and that we'll never have to vote again.

           Folks hang their heads and murmur,
           If only we’d known and done something.

A CITIZEN OF ALL CREATION
And thus my dilemma: Do I assume the mindset I believe derives from the core of my being, one of tranquility, kindness and emotional detachment from outcomes? Or do I allow myself to fully appreciate and be moved by the reality that, once again, my homeland is at the beck and call of a monumentally insecure, irrational, ill-prepared charlatan who has promised—and whose admirers expect—that he will dismantle the very framework of values I embrace, and that so many of our ancestors have fought and died for?

As if that weren’t enough, the president-elect’s aggressive denial of most climate scientists’ and world leaders’ calls for urgent action on human-abetted global climate change threatens not just my country, but our planet and every human being on it.

History tells us quite eloquently that despots do exactly what this man is doing. And that, once the true ravages of their misguided power see the light of day, it is most often too late. Decent folks hang their heads and murmur, If only we’d known and done something when we could. And those he's fooled—not once but twice—say What dictatorship? Give the poor man a chance.

Is it not my sacred duty to act on the moral outrage that drives heroes to say something, do something?

IMAGE: Wikipedia

        I aspire to being able to read the sad story
       that’s unfolding before our nation’s eyes,
       and yet...not let it define who I am. 

DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY
So back to the pedicab-and-umbrella metaphor. In the case of our current national crisis, how can I resolve my dilemma? What does smashing the mugger over the head with loving kindness even look like?

That, I’ve decided—after being unable to think about anything else at all since election day—is what I must reconcile. How can I honor both my responsibility as an intelligent, aware—and patriotic—citizen to defend the values upon which my country was founded and has prospered for two and a half centuries, and my duty to all of Creation to inhabit a place of peace and love?

The answer? All I can say right now is that I’m working on it. I aspire to being able to read the sad story that’s unfolding before our nation’s eyes, and yet not become the story, not let it define who I am. 

Still, as Salzberg’s guru suggested, it will serve no one if we fail to deter a thieving bully. So, while being as patient with myself and others as I can, I will be eagerly watching for doors of opportunity to appear.

Whether it's my venting here on Pop This Boil, bumper stickers, lawn signs or joining protest demonstrations, I trust I will find the certainty to take whatever action I am called to pursue. But I must do so only when I’ve also found the generosity of spirit not to act in fear or anger, but in hope and love.

And then I will swing away.

THE UN-T – New Symbol For the American Resistance

As a graphics designer and sloganeer by trade, I’ve been looking for ways to employ the power of symbols in my resistance against this ridiculous little man and his loyalists who're about to take their second shot at desecrating my country.

Political resistance needs a powerful symbol. Think the Don’t Tread On Me snake, the clenched black fist or that time-honored posterized likeness of Che Guevara.

Our Resistance to Donald Trump’s second anti-democracy regime deserves such an icon. And here it is: a big, bold, brown upside-down “T” (⊥). I'm calling it the Un-T.

        It’s logic's symbol for a proposition that is always false.

There’s more to this graphic than just turning the guy’s precious brand on its head. It’s actually the symbol used in the mathematical field of logic for a proposition that is always false (often called a "falsum" or "absurdum”).

False. Absurd. Isn't that just perfect? What better battle standard for the Resistance! Let’s make the Un-T (⊥) go viral! Will you help?

We must spread the word—or should I say letter. Share it on social media and in our correspondence. And display the graphic on signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts…whatever.

It’s simple—easy to do and not necessarily expensive. Above is a piece of reproducible artwork if you need it for print applications. But even just a couple of strips of duct tape or some bold swaths of paint or marker on a t-shirt or banner will do.

        Maybe we could get a few NBA or NFL stars to
        feature the Dump-T on their shoes.

OUTBRANDING THE BRANDER
After saturating the social media we get it on people’s shirts and caps, on banners draped from porches and freeway overpasses, on placards for protest marchers, then on billboards and transit. (Any litho or screen printers out there willing to help develop Un-T merch?)

One effective way to get the movement moving is simply to set an example. If I display a nice-looking lawn sign or bumper sticker we hope folks will ask or scan the QR code for how to get their own.

Thinking a bit bigger, why not go even further underground with graffiti strategically painted along the routes of the presidential limousine. (Banksy, you in?) And maybe crop symbols placed in sight of the flight path of Air Force One. Hell, maybe we could even get a few NBA or NFL stars to feature it on their shoes. 

ILLUSTRATION*

The Un-T is a simple, powerful, instantly recognizable statement. Imagine our little orange Putin wannabe assaulted with it every-
where he turns. And the best part? By out-branding that egomaniac with our bold stamp of disapproval, it’ll unify and empower us goody-goody liberal elites…and drive him (even more) nuts. You in?

        C'mon folks, let's do this!

I'd love to have your input! Do you know of ways to get a lot of exposure quickly for a subversive brand? Politicians or celebrities we might recruit as allies? Printers who might volunteer their services?

* Crybaby Trump illustration – I spent nearly an hour searching for the artist of this wonderful image, with no results. It's signed: GR '11. Anyone know who did it? I'd like to note proper credit.