SHIT IN MY POCKET – Trump's Defilement of My Passport

People’s likenesses are more than keepsakes or identifiers; they're symbols. Seeing them re-
minds us of everything we’ve experienced in those people’s presence. Their kindness, intel-
ligence, spirit… That’s why we frame their faces for our mantles and stuff them in our wallets. 
We do this as an act of love and respect.

This is why I’m appalled at the prospect, reported in yesterday’s Minnesota Star Tribune, of Donald Trump’s “stern visage” being smeared on the next edition of U.S. passports.  

IMAGE: The White House

                It's right out of the playbooks of Mussolini, 
                Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Kim.

The thought of having to carry an image of this monster on my person disgusts me. What it represents is neither love nor respect. It’s not kindness, intelligence or spirit. It’s conceit, purposeful ignorance, vengeance, dishonesty, corruption, ruthlessness, cowardice… and let’s not forget perversion. 

PHOTO: The Wall Street Journal

And I have to tote that in my back pocket as 
I travel? Present his image alongside mine 
to folks in other countries as proof of my citizenship in the country he’s made the laughing stock of the world?

SLEIGHT OF BRAND
The man’s already got his gaudy signature on our currency—so I can remember him when I fork over $80 for a tank of gas or $100 for a bag of groceries. His precious brand already defiles many other proud American institutions: The Kennedy Center, the U.S. Institute of Peace, a class of U.S. Navy battleships, highways and bridges, National Parks passes…

And this is just the beginning, folks. Mark my words. He’s already got his people working on the next step in this classic-fascist self-aggrandizement: ordering his portrait be displayed in every American home. Your home. And to enforce the demand: encouraging your friends and neighbors to inform on you if you dare refuse.

PHOTO: Getty Images

It's right out of the playbooks of Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Kim. 

So what’s one to do? With no chance of acting out my ultimate fantasy— meeting the guy all alone in a dark alley—at least I can stick it to his image. With nothing more than a little piece of that mirror-like foil tape often used in HVAC instead of duct tape. 

That way, when I open that first page of my passport I’ll see a likeness of who should be reflected in the cherished institutions of this great American Democracy: myself.

STARS, STRIPES AND BULLSHIT – Reclaiming Our Country’s Venerated Symbols

Fascist governments are about control, often brutal control. But one of their slightly subtler grabs is always that of their country’s venerated symbols. 

The wannabe dictator of the United States of America, Donald Trump, wasted no time in checking this theft off of his to-screw list.

BLEEDING COLORS
Our flag, the good ol’ Stars and Stripes, was already well on its way into the grubby hands of the folks on whose grievances Trump rode to the presidency. Think the Boogaloo Bois, the Christian Nationalist Crusade or just good ol’ Billy Bob freelancin’ in his flag-bedecked, gun-racked pickup. 

IMAGE: Eric Gay / AP

Everyone with a beef—or who feared others might steal their beef—wanted us all to think their hissy-fit “patriotism” was somehow sanctioned by their flag-waving.

Trump, their self-declared gift from God, has done nothing but solidify that hold on the flag. The image of Old Glory waving, alongside the Confederate flag, as a battle standard of the January 6 Insurrection will sicken truly patriotic Americans for generations.

IMAGE: Brent Stirton / Getty Images

        The draft-dodger president thinks he can suddenly grow 
        a pair by slapping his name all over U.S. military assets.

ROAR AND PEACE
Speaking of battle, this draft-dodger president thinks he can suddenly grow a pair by slapping his name all over U.S. military assets, many of them having long evincing our nation’s proud military supremacy.

In one of the most absurd ironies of Trump’s absurd reign, at the same time he’s been obsessed with begging, borrowing or stealing the Nobel Peace Prize, he’s also hijacked the Department of Defense and renamed it his very own “Department of War.” And now he's branded a whole class of U.S. Navy battleships as—you guessed it—the Trump Class.

HOLY CRAP
Then there’s the Bible—a book somewhere between ten and twenty percent of Americans truly abide by—and which holds no special place in our church/state-separated Democracy. Yet most of Trump’s MAGA base claim it as their license to hate. 

Trump has them believing he lives and breathes the Bible, that somewhere in those pages he’s actually discovered a mandate for his egomania, cruelty and rage. This even as he refuses to put his hand on the volume in his last inauguration; even as he hawks his own Trump-branded version of the Good Book at 60 bucks a pop.

PHOTO: Patrick Semansky / AP

             The Oval Office now sports an aesthetic better suited 
             to the tastes of the Real Housewives of Las Vegas.

A ROCOCO HELLSCAPE
Next, it was the White House—the People’s House—which this egomaniac has deemed less than representative of his grandeur. So he’s demolished the venerable East Wing to make room for his ghastly 90,000-square-foot, $400,000,000-plus ballroom, an eyesore that will dwarf what remains of the White House.

PHOTO: POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Trump has turned the Oval Office, long the epitome of elegance, exuding quiet confidence to visiting heads 
of state from every corner of the world, into a space better suited to the tastes of the Real Housewives of Las Vegas. As if afraid of blank wall space—or, God forbid, paintings of America’s true greats—Trump has slapped on gaudy gold flourishes some describe as “polyurethane onlays you could buy online” and a "gilded Rococo hellscape.”

And the Kenne…oops, did I almost mention that loser, John F. Kennedy?…Trump Center for the Performing Arts. He’s installed himself as board chair and foisted 
a multi-million-dollar re-make to his own insipid specs. It’s such a monumental affront to cultured Americans that the only acts likely to stoop that low will be Lee Greenwood and Kid Rock.

       We’re not just fighting against something; we’re fighting 
       for a vision of our country’s Post-Trump Renaissance.

A LUMINOUS VISION
As we witness the Trump shit show unraveling—and there are encouraging signs it’s happening—we must not let up on our defiance of this charlatan and his outlaw regime. Let’s be disciplined. Watch our language. Reject Dear Leader’s desperate distractions from his crimes—especially those whose exposure he fears most. Among them the ones laid bare in the unredacted Epstein files. 

We aim for nothing less than a blue tsunami come the midterm elections in November. 

As we work to turn the tide, we must also keep in mind that we’re not just fighting against something; we’re fighting for a vision of our country’s Post-Trump Renaissance. The return of decency, kindness, intelligence, honor, respect for truth, courageous leadership…and a renewed quest not for fools-gold illusions of greatness, but the true, gold-standard greatness that has defined the United States of America since our singular experiment in Democracy began 250 years ago.  

One vital aspect of that renewal must be to reclaim our once-revered national symbols from their debasement at the hands of this vulgar reality star. It will take at least a generation and billions of dollars—money that could have been invested in better lives for all Americans, not corporations and the filthy rich—to strip those icons’ of their spray-paint veneers and "Trump" epithets, and restore them to their accustomed roles representing both America’s celebrated history and our glorious, big-hearted, evolving future.

Let us all vow to nurture and to share that luminous vision.

PHOTO: Nigel Francis 

COOL IT WITH I.C.E.

Outrage over the sickening brutality of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and their ham-handed chain of command is certainly warranted. But we Democrats, more than ever, must be more aware, more strategic with our rhetoric. Let’s recall the ruinous effect of the Democrat left wing’s well-intentioned rallying cry after the police murder of George Floyd five years ago.

PHOTO: Chloe Jones | Arizona Mirror

“Defund the police!” was a gift to MAGA, who easily co-opted it and made it their own call to arms. Smoking-gun proof, they crowed, of Democrats’ radical agenda indulging crime. It proved a deciding factor in the electoral-college victory of the most disastrous president in our country’s history.

We must not repeat that blunder with our anti-ICE rhetoric. Specifically, with absolutist terms like “Abolish ICE.”

Remember, what most of us moderates object to is not ICE’s legitimate mission of enforcing U.S. immigration laws. We understand that those laws exist for a reason, and that folks who break those laws should be held accountable. That includes deporting them…some of them. 

PHOTO: Getty Images

If we want to reform that mission, democracies do that by advocating and enacting legislation, not by outright sabotage.

Where the Trump regime has gone off the tracks is in their weaponizing this agency of Homeland Security to exact vengeance just on Trump’s political enemies. Their indiscriminate, Gestapo-like tactics. Their pointed denial of due process—a guarantee clearly mandated in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. 

And the well-documented brutality of some ICE agents who've been attacking not just the targets of their search for illegal aliens, but folks merely witnessing and documenting their abuses.

PHOTO: Jose Luis Magana/AP

So, yes, let’s keep calling out ICE for these illegal, immoral excesses. But drop the strident “Abolish ICE!” demands. What we want is for them to do their jobs, but in a way befitting a civilized, self-assured country, indeed one founded and grown by immigrants. 

This time, let’s be smarter. Show some discipline. Make sure our language suits our complaint. How about “No ICE Gestapo!”, “Unmask ICE!”, or “Stop Weaponizing ICE!”? You get the idea.

This time, make MAGA write their own call to arms. 

IGNORANCE, JUDGEMENT AND THE MAGA BASE’S NUCLEAR OPTION

PHOTO: Change.org

Thoughtful Americans have been trying for a decade 
or more to understand the mindset of those of our compatriots responsible for bringing this noble nation—admired by the world for nearly two-and-a-half centuries for its vision, values and leadership—to its knees. 

I’m still baffled at how such betrayal is possible, but I’ve come up with new angle to consider.

VENGEANCE AT ANY PRICE
Oh I know, we’ve heard this song and dance about Donald Trump’s poor base feeling unheard and un-
appreciated by us conceited “liberal elites.” About their fear of immigrants’ and the poor’s snatching what they see as their entitlement to the American Dream. And about how their perceived suffering merits as much credibility as our own aspirations.

PHOTO: Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call

I don’t buy it. It gives way too much credit to people who somehow managed to turn off both 
their brains and hearts and hire the con man of our age to avenge their grievances for them. 
A charlatan who figures they won’t notice that he’s destroying their country in their name—while not just impoverishing them, but enriching himself and his family to the tune of more than $1,000,000,000—and that's in just the past year.* 

GRAPHIC: AmericanProgress.org

For me, a better answer—perhaps the easiest one—would be that these Trump groupies are simply thoughtless, self-obsessed, philistine, chest-beating assholes. Idiots who’ll pay any price to stick it to people not like them. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that that’s not the whole story either. 

     Trump literally tells them what they know and don’t know.

COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE
What makes more sense is that these Trump groupies are just so ashamed of their own ignorance that they're in denial, demonizing anyone honest enough to hold their noses to it. How dare you judge, they feel. Judge not just us, but anything at all! Beauty, kindness, sophistication, style, merit. It's all "woke," not because those attributes are invalid, but because they provide a reflection of their own soullessness. 

Judgment—the process of weighing and comparing the truth of stuff—lies at the very heart of intelligence. Along with curiosity and creativity, critical judgment is a key component of acquiring and applying knowledge. And that, to folks with little education and short attention spans, poses a huge threat, because all it does is remind them just how stupid they really are.

This is why their Dear Leader’s tack has been to systematically discredit judgement—and along with it truth. Because he knows his MAGAts not only can’t judge what’s true or not, but wouldn’t buy the truth anyway if it challenged their simplistic, fear- and anger-stoked beliefs.

Playing on those beliefs, their anger, their fears—and their latent shame in their ignorance—Trump literally tells them what they know and don’t know. (Listen for those slick little inter-
jections in his unhinged ravings: “Everyone’s saying…,” “Everybody agrees…,” “People know…” and “You know that, right?” )

ALTERNATE TRUTH
The response Trump has incited in his MAGA cult is the cultural equivalent of the nuclear option: I don’t get it…so I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to get it. Instead of elevating our own aspirations, we'll drag down yours. So, yes, let’s yank the U.S. government’s investment from any program, any institution, that stands, even remotely, for intelligence, refinement…or even basic human kindness. 

PHOTO: Dave Killen/the Oregonian

Add to the bogeymen hit list anyone purporting to honor the truth. Hey, after being forced to stomach these pompous educators,' researchers,’ scientists,’ doctors’ and journalists’ fancy-pants proclamations all these years, Dear Leader has finally given me permission to claim my own, “alternative” truth…about everything.

The blindness to reality is so complete that these suckers can look right at this master manipu-
lator, this draft-dodging sexual predator who espouses not one of Jesus Christ’s teachings, and believe he’s their model of patriotism, their personal gift from God. 

    A charismatic leader steps up and shows Americans…that 
    there’s a better, healthier vision for our country than Trump’s 
    deeply negative one.

A HEALTHIER VISION
So, that’s my half-assed theory. What of it? What’s to be done? Is there hope for our faltering “shining city upon a hill” Democracy?

I still believe a spark of love and kindness glows at the core of every human being. Like so many of our best qualities, though, it’s gotten buried under layer after layer of concerns and emotions that are very good at pretending to be important. Like fear, anger, conceit…and, yes, shame.

One answer might be for an extraordinarily charismatic leader to step up and show Americans—even those of us who’ve been exploited by Trump—that there’s a better, healthier vision for our country than his deeply negative one. (I think most folks yearn deeply to reclaim hope and joy from the hate fest Tiny Hands has promoted.)

And this figurehead must do more than out-Trump Trump with charisma; she/he must, with guidance from the Democratic National Committee, craft a message that’s more appealing to folks than the simple, disciplined—and highly effective—one of grievance and vengeance that’s driven the MAGA movement. 

SNEEZIN’ ON THE HOUSE OF CARDS
Another possibility is that Trump eventually miscalculates himself right off the precipice. Takes just one too many liberties with his power. Makes one too many assumptions about his supporters’ depravity. 

We’ve already seen a few Congressional Republicans dare risk their careers for integrity. With cause, more might join. Some editorial boards in the mainstream media will draw the line. The trickle builds to a tide, and then to a tsunami of love, generosity and hope that inundates even the most willful ignorance.

And Donald Trump's fools-gold empire, wobbling on its foundation of hubris, collapses, swept away by a smarter, nobler, more joyous vision.

IMAGE: Adobe Stock

But none of this will happen without ever-more-massive public displays of defiance. We must continue to assert our hopes, raise our voices and apply our talents to The Resistance. 

We must continue to live our truth, honor our values. Call and write our representatives in Congress. Write opinion pieces. Support thoughtful, principled candidates. Stick our necks out on social media. And, finally, we must display our sheer numbers, joining with other true patriots to take our resolve to the streets.

Don’t lose sight of the vision of a kinder, gentler, renewed America. Do not lose hope.

* Trumps Take-Counter, AmericanProgress.org

CRITICAL SASS – Resistance and the 3.5% Engagement Rule

Here we are at a critical juncture in the history of our Democracy, where the dire threat to our cherished way of life cannot be denied. And we know exactly what and who we’re up against. 

It’s an aggressively insecure, temperament-of-a-two-year-old, wannabe dictator, enabled by an ignorant, vengeful constituency and a cadre of suck-ups in Congress. Together, they’re throwing a tantrum that’s brought our country to its knees. 

ILLUSTRATION: Violet de Torres

How do we stand up to such outrage? Stop this monster from cheating and intimidating his way to total fascist control.

By now we know very well the Crimbecile’s M.O. Among 
his tactics—drilled into him by his ruthless father and other mentors in megalomania—is, whenever challenged, you “double down.” Accuse others of the crime you’re about to commit. Counter criticism with twice the criticism; one lawsuit with two; threats of justice with promises of ruin.

It’s easy and, I guess, entirely human for rational people to 
respond to such aggressiveness defensively. It’s like someone’s broken into our home and is headed for our kids’ bedroom. Not the time for a measured response; not the time for reason. 

So, folks, we take the offensive. Fight fire with fire. And here’s how we do it: we launch our own doubling-down assault. 

        What does “engaging” that many 
        people look like?

THREE-POINT-FIVE TO TURN THE TIDE
For those of us not savvy to the workings of political influence, lacking the resources to purchase the ear of our Congressperson, and not comfortable with door knocking, the best way to go after a tyrant is to simply show up with our voices and placards in a good old-fashioned street protest.

PHOTO: Madison Badger Herald – Lizzy Larson

But protests don’t even start worrying corrupt politicians until they reach a critical mass. And what is that threshold? Research by the Carr Center's Erica Chenoweth posits that “No government can withstand a challenge of 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or (in extreme cases) disintegrating.” *

So…three questions. First: what is 3.5% of the US population? A bit more than 12,000,000 of us.

Second: What does “engaging” that many people look like? I know of no better way than persuading them to take it to the streets.

Third: What will it take to reach that pivotal threshold? Every single one of us bearing witness to what our eyes and ears—and history—warn us is a full-on rush to fascism by the Trump regime. Each and every American who values freedom responding to the alarm. 

The good news is that we’re well on our way! 

  Imagine being part of the absolutely stupefying 
  crowds taking to the streets that day.

WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER VOTE
The nationwide No Kings protests on June 14, 2025 saw somewhere between 4,000,000 and 6,000,000 Americans taking to the streets in 2,100 cities and towns coast to coast.

As impressive as it was to be among the multitude of protesters in St. Paul that day, I recall my clear-as-day reaction when I turned around and got my first good look at the size of the crowd: We’re going to have to at least double this…and maybe double it again.

So that’s the vision I’m promoting. At least 8,000,000 Americans showing up Saturday, October 18 to defy the goose-stepping thugs gutting our democratic institutions. A loud, clear, unified rejection of Trump’s reckless push to consolidate power.

What can each of us do to make October 18, 2025 the date history will come to recognize as the turning point in America’s rejection of fascism? First of all, we must simply imagine it, imagine being part of the absolutely stupefying crowds taking to the streets that day.

The we must talk it up, promote it on social media, make signs, include appeals in our email signatures, bring friends and neighbors with us to the event…and anything else we can think of to make our vision real.

For my own part, I take inspiration from the courage of that iconic—yet still-unidentified—Chinese man who stood up to a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989. We can do this!

PHOTO: New York Times

* From a BBC.com article by David Robson – 13 May, 2019

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

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

Given the topic's surging presence in social media, I suppose by now you've heard of Project 2025.

That's the right-wing Heritage Foundation's vision for a second Donald Trump presidency. This vision is so out there, so frightening, that even the Trumpublican party's poster boy is claiming to know nothing about it. 

Right. 

The cretin is mentioned by name 240 times in the document. And CNN found nearly 140 former Trump aides and advisers who have contributed to Project 2025, including six former members of his Cabinet, four of his ambassadors, and Republican National Committee members appointed to their positions in coordination with the Trump campaign.

It's hard to think of an adequate way of responding to such a blatant anti-Democracy, fascist intention. Millions of our countrymen and women have fought and died to defend our country against such ambitions. And this one's taking place right here at home, right under our noses.

PHOTO: Mediadrum Images / NARA

Lacking a military option, we should be facing the threat with whatever weapons we do possess. Writing about it. Sharing it with friends. Flooding social media with it. Taking it to the streets...

...and calling to task major news media for what to date has been their paltry coverage of this existential threat to our democratic way of life.  To wit the letter to the editors I just submitted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

To Star Tribune editorial department:

Why is the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 once again not front page news today? Why is it not every day?

This 900-plus-page document is chilling in both scope and detail—nothing less than a manifesto for a fascist, Christian nationalist Trump regime.

From a wholesale dismantling of hard-won environmental and consumer-protection regulations, to blurring the separation of church and state, to undermining longstanding safeguards against abuses of executive power, to supplanting capable public servants with regime loyalists, to gutting our government’s vital checks-and-balances design, to suppressing dissent, Project 2025 is a blueprint for the destruction of Democracy.

How much more disturbing would this ultra-right-wing playbook have to be before
the Star Tribune gives it the urgent coverage it deserves?

I urge you to consider Project 2025’s newsworthiness in light of other events and issues which would surely capture front-page, banner-headline coverage in your paper. Like a nationwide power blackout, a major airplane crash, or the U.S. Capitol being overrun by an angry mob of the same kind of traitors who would find new empowerment in Project 2025.

Please, I urge you to pick up whatever weapon of expression you possess and use it to expose the shocking reality of Project 2025. Your voice, your feet, your wit, or, as I have, your pen.

Our precious Democracy—the peace and freedom most of us have enjoyed all our lives and that we so dearly wish for our children and grandchildren—is at stake.

ILLUSTRATION: Norman Rockwell

THE REAL ENEMY – Overcoming Apathy In the Defense of Democracy

Less than five months from now we, the people of the United States of America, will either have affirmed our country’s precious values…or we will have trashed them, dishonoring the brave vision of the nation’s founders and the sacrifices of the millions of our countrymen and women who have fought and died defending those ideals.

        I implore you to take stock,
        take heart, take action.

The term “existential threat” is losing its potency for overuse, but that’s exactly what we’re up against. A large minority of our fellow Americans have renounced our democratic institutions and lent their blind allegiance to a man who’s all but promised oligarchy and dictatorship, and who clearly admires our worst adversaries’ ruthless rulers.

Yet, if we think this deranged man, this misguided movement, is our worst enemy, we must think again. Our greatest concern should be not for things beyond our control, but for our own lack of focus, the possibility that, while we Democrats and Independents waste our time venting our outrage, the MAGAts are quietly, methodically working their strategy to win (or at least proclaim victory) in November.

We must recognize and solve the problem of indifference, especially among younger voters— one of the voting blocs most essential to Democrats’ success. This isn’t an abstract threat; polls repeatedly show that Trump devotees are far more motivated, far more likely to turn out at the polls than Democrats.* And that many young people feel voting is an exercise in futility.

But we—we Americans who still believe in Democracy and this country’s “shining light on the hill” mantle—are not powerless. There are things every single one of us can do, and do right away.

So I implore you to take stock, take heart and take action.

We know they have cheated, are cheating and will cheat.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Here’s what we must do:

First, we must know our adversary. Realize they’re unlike any political—and I’m inclined to say moral—affliction ever to infect this great country. 

Unswayed by proven facts, the glaring contradiction between their candidate’s pretentions of patriotism and Christian virtue and his actual behavior, or even the man’s unanimous felony convictions, they’ve fallen into lockstep with his march to destroy Democracy. In fact, the more proof of the man’s corruption, the stronger their support.

It’s not by accident that the new right in America has become a force. First, nothing brings and holds people together like fear. Like a common perceived insult. Like a common enemy.

Donald Trump and the brown-nose toadies who enable him have been very effective at stoking these emotions among a class of Americans who believe less in helping those not in their “tribe” than in controlling them. Immigrants, assertive women, non-straight folks, racial minorities, smart people...I could go on.

We know they stick together. We know they now control a significant pseudo-journalistic media network. More disturbingly, we know that they’re being helped by some of our nation’s sworn enemies—China, Russia, Iran and others—all of which desperately hope to turn their most feared adversary into their ally—something the Little Orange Man has all but promised them.

And we know they have cheated, are cheating and will cheat.

            More and more potential Democrat voters
            have simply given up.
 
OUTRAGE TO ACTION
So, knowing what we’re up against, what can we do to save our country from this dimwitted wannabe dictator and his groupies completing the butchering of democratic institutions they began in his first term?

First, I suggest, we need to turn our negative emotions—anger, frustration, discouragement—into a positive vision. Let us imagine how it will feel to restore our nation’s soul. To once again be respected by other nations. And then let us turn that vision into action.

Unlike our opponents’ fear-driven fervor, we progressives are motivated by hope. But let’s face it, hope isn’t quite the motivator that fear is. These people vote.

It’s no secret that, with the demoralizing impact of a polarized populace, a dysfunctional Congress, leaders no longer able to conceal their hypocrisy and corruption—not to mention a democratic candidate who, despite his undeniable policy successes, fails to inspire—more and more potential Democrat voters have simply given up, disappointed with both candidates, or unsure of whether their single votes could make any difference.

Our own personal resolve to vote is a good start, but it’s not enough. As our adversary continues to coalesce around its fears, how do we mobilize those progressive-minded, but disillusioned voters around hope and get them to the polls?

  They’ve persuaded somewhere between one and three
  percent of letter recipients to actually get out and vote.

A MORE EVOLVED AMERICA
For as long as I can remember, the go-to method for Jane or Joe average citizen to help get out the vote has been “door-knocking,” going house to house, talking with folks, asking them to step up on election day.

But for those of us too thin-skinned to face all the possible rejections—or even rancor—of face-to-face appeals, I’ve discovered the perfect alternative: Vote Forward.

VOTE FORWARD is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization empowering grassroots volunteers to send heartfelt, handwritten letters to unregistered and low-propensity voters in key districts around the country encouraging them to participate in our democracy.

The effort, which just before the last presidential election delivered some 6,000,000 such letters to potential progressive voters in key districts across the country, is evidence based. Analysis of Vote Forward mailing campaigns show they’ve succeeded in persuading somewhere between one and three percent of letter recipients to actually get out and vote. In direct mail that’s a remarkable success rate.

       I figure at least six of my letters proved to be
       the impetus some reluctant Biden/Harris voters
       needed to step up and vote.

10,000,000 LETTERS
Whenever a news story or a negative thought about the existential threat looming over our Democracy starts raising my blood pressure, I just reach for a pen and my stack of Vote Forward letter forms and start writing. More than good therapy, it’s a way to actually make a difference.

                            

And writing letters spares me the stress of having to face strangers on their own doorsteps. I can do it on my own time, day or night; I can do it while I’m traveling; and I know it’s effective.

Prior to the 2020 election I wrote and mailed 600 letters. Of those I figure at least six proved to be the impetus some reluctant Biden/Harris voters needed to step up and vote. That’s probably about six more than I could have convinced in months and months of preachin' to the choir on my blog and in social media rants.

This summer, I’m aiming for at least another 600 letters—so far, to people in Pennsylvania and Michigan. (If Biden’s chances take a big hit, I might just have to up that to 1,000.) And, overall, this year’s much anticipated Vote Forward Big Send (October 29, the day they instruct all of us letter writers to drop our boxes of letters at the post office) aims for a flood of 10,000,000 letters.

Please, won’t you join me? Check out the Vote Forward website. Start out with a list of just five or ten potential voters. If you like it, you can download 20 or 100 at a time. You create your own nonpartisan message describing why voting is important for you. You hand-write a salutation and that message onto the sheet, fold and insert it into an envelope which you then hand address, stamp, seal and store until the day of the Big Send.

C’mon folks, the stakes are literally life or death. But we are not powerless. We can do this!


* In much of the country, most experts agree that Trump is currently ahead. Even here in staunchly Democratic Minnesota, Biden currently holds just a five percentage point lead.

FOOL YOU ONCE…

I really thought Pop This Boil would be winding down by now, after the inept, chaotic first term of the worst president in U.S. history mercifully came to an end. That the guy would run out of obnoxious stunts, fade from the headlines and disappear into the trash can of irrelevance.

Alas, Donald Trump—the only person ever to ascend to the presidency of the United States of America with not one redeeming quality—is running again. Incredibly, even after deeply embarrassing intelligent Americans and even inciting insurrection, he continues to command the blind allegiance of a significant minority of my countrymen.

Whether from an intentional ignorance of history, a warped sense of entitlement, a need to vindicate some dystopian vision, or out of sheer spite, these fools somehow still see this utterly unimaginative little man as the answer to their prayers. As giving voice to the thoughts they so staunchly believe have been stifled by those fucking liberal elites—thoughts that reflect their worst instincts.

What these poor folks don’t realize is exactly how badly they’re being conned.

OUR BULLY
It’s like the old adage: What do you get when you marry a man who cheats on his wife? In this case, what do you get when you elect a man who’s spent every waking hour since he was ten cheating, lying and bullying?

But that’s okay, they must figure; at least he’s our cheating, lying bully.

But do they really think, after the Brat Man demolishes all the hard-won laws enacted to protect the rest of us from tyrants like him and the insatiable tycoons who fund and flatter him—and that restrain Joe Sixpack from four-wheeling through nature preserves and beating the missus—that he’ll stop there?

Do they believe this Putin groupy who’s touting the ruin of democratic institutions will keep acting that out on their behalf? That his aggressions will target just those they fear or hate? That’s where my  Shame on Trump turns to Shame on you, MAGAts!

     …he’ll turn on you like the self-
     obsessed, loyalty-or-death Kim Jong
     Un wannabe he is.

HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY
What he’ll really do—he’s as much as promised it—is establish himself as a virtual dictator. And then, as every such autocrat in history has done, he’ll turn from controlling those you fear to controlling you. Eventually, he’ll ask something of you you don’t want to give. And then he’ll turn on you like the self-obsessed, loyalty-or-death Kim Jong Un wannabe he is.

And there you are, knowing you threw our precious Democracy away, trashing the sacrifice, soiling the honor, of all our courageous countrymen and women who’ve fought and died defending it. And all for your little “pick me or I’ll steal the ball” tantrum. Hope you’re happy.

OUTRAGE TO ACTION
If you want, as I do, to turn your outrage with this traitor into action, please consider volunteering with VOTE FORWARD. Vote Forward is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit empowering grassroots volunteers to send handwritten letters encouraging fellow Americans to vote.

Vote Forward’s considerable, evidence-based success hinges on their brilliant mailing list, which targets people deemed unlikely to vote, but who, if they were to vote, might tend to vote blue.

It’s the perfect opportunity for introverts like me to avoid that ol’ reliable get-out-the-vote effort, the door-knocker, and still make a difference. It’s easy; there’s zero risk of face-to-face rejection; and we can do it where and when we like, even in pajamas.

For more information and to download your first list of recipients, visit VOTE FORWARD. And, if you like it, tell your friends.

        “Democracy means not ‘I am as good as you are,’
          but ‘You are as good as I am.’”
              REV. THEODORE PARKER