July 7, 2024

Our country is currently experiencing a right wing coup that is determined to rip up the Constitution and the founding principles of our democracy. The coup includes the six so called conservative (actually they are rightwing extremists) members of the Supreme Court, a Republican Party that requires obedience if not full throated alliance, wealthy corporate interests that plough millions into this campaign to take over America thanks to Citizen’s United, and an armed group of Trump supporters who are going to vote if they have to crawl over broken glass to do it and will claim they won whether or not they did. Trump is the leader and the head of the coup even though he tries to soft pedal his role.
The danger from Trump and the coup we are experiencing in our country is ratcheting up because of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions: The immunity decision (making presidents into kings with unlimited power), the overturning of Chevron (paving the way for the loss of the use of experts to protect Americans from corporate greed and deregulation), and the end of Roe v Wade (resulting in bad health care for women of childbearing age in red states and, if these guys win in 2024, the same will happen all across America).
6 Rightwing Justices Ripped Up Our Constitution
Our president is no longer the kind of president we had before the immunity decision came down. Because of the Roberts’ Court, the president suddenly has the powers of a king. This Court gave the president has the unreviewable ability to commit crimes and not be held accountable at all as long as he or she claims they are “official conduct”. That decision by the Supreme Court was anti-constitutional. Our founding fathers created a country where the president was definitely NOT a king, NOT above the law. That’s why so many legal experts did not predict what this Court just did to us. This Supreme Court broke with our constitution and remade the presidency with this shocking, unconstitutional decision.
That decision has created a raging dumpster fire of worry and concern among clear eyed, thoughtful Americans who understand that Trump as president for a second term could literally DO all of the horrible things he wanted to do but got stopped from doing by sane, law abiding aides and advisors in his first term. He could (as he promised to do) arrest Liz Cheney and have her tried before a military tribunal. He could arrest Dr. Fauci, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and other people he hates. He will end other voices that contradict his version of reality: MSNBC, CNN and alter the content of public radio to air only his administration’s propaganda just as Viktor Orban did in Hungary and Putin did in Russia.
In Trump’s next term in office IF he gets one, those sane, reasonable people who held him back would all be gone. Only loyalists and toadies, many of them currently in jail or convicted of breaking the law, would populate his next administration. Revenge and retribution would be the main goal of Trump 2.0. Corruption would abound. (That was another decision by the Supreme Court- bribes are fine as long as they are given AFTER the fact instead of beforehand.)
The deconstruction of our democracy will also result in chaos not only in our country but around the world. Certainty, rules and regulations have been foundational to the success of our country. They are relied on by the business world and one of the leading reasons our country’s economy is the envy of the rest of the world. All of that would be upended.
PROJECT 2025
On top of the immunity decision from the Supreme Court, we have Project 2025, a 900 plus page blueprint for turning our democracy into a dictatorship. Project 2025 is a rightwing manifesto to rapidly upend our democracy and install an autocracy. Forceful and determined people have been crafting this plan for about 40 years and they think that now is their moment to fulfill their goals. Whether or not Trump says he knows about Project 2025 is irrelevant. He will be forced to implement it to stay in power because that is HIS goal. Project 2025 will replace experts in our government with loyalists for Trump. We will lose the expertise that keeps us safe when we fly, for example, because the airlines would be able to get away with using scrap parts to make new airplanes or skimp on parts to save money using 3 bolts to hinge a door instead of 7 which would insure safety.

The goal of Project 2025 is also to force national conformity to Christian Nationalism across the country and in our schools, obliterate hard fought rights and freedoms: the right to vote, the right to bodily autonomy for women and LGBTQ people, to hear viewpoints that differ from those of the leader, institutionalize concentration camps and force the expulsions of Black and brown people who get caught up in the dragnet. The plan is not what a majority of Americans want. To implement it will require what has been termed a tyranny of the minority where the minority dominates the will of the majority.

One of the leaders of this rightwing effort is Kevin Roberts. He says: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Chilling words.
Project 2025 adds gasoline to an already raging dumpster fire of worry and concern among Americans who are aware of the real news, not the alternate version of reality in rightwing siloed media.
NO MATTER WHO THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE MAY BE THAT PERSON NEEDS TO WIN

The most important action we can take to get to the right resolution for our country is to support the Democratic presidential nominee whoever that may be. Remember that when we vote for a president we vote for the entire team that they bring in. Biden’s team has been remarkably effective at doing a lot of hard things: including ending Covid and helping us get past a recession that was much worse in Europe and could have been much worse for our country but was contained.
Our country is the envy of every other advanced country on the globe when it comes to our economic health, jobs created, and containment of the global recession. We have Biden and the team he chose to thank for that. And if anything were to happen to the president there is always a vice president ready to take charge and continue the same policies with the same team. The best outcome for our country would be a trifecta for the Democrats- House, Senate and White House so that the Democrats would be able to make the important changes we need for our country to remain a viable democracy and get past this rightwing coup we are experiencing (along with Europe).
The Supreme Court needs to be expanded and the justices need to conform to the same rules that apply to lower court judges. The Democrats could accomplish that with a strong trifecta in 2024 and the will to make these changes.
The rightwing MAGA movement needs to be rejected at the ballot box this November because without that rebuke they will not understand that our country doesn’t want what they are trying to force on us.
As Joyce Vance says in her blog, Civil Discourse:
So this week, make sure you register if you aren’t already. If you have registered, check online to make sure you stay registered, have a plan to vote in November, and make sure your ballot gets counted. Make it your business to encourage your friends and your family to do the same. It’s very simple: Good candidates can’t win if we don’t vote.
You can help Democrats to win up and down the ballot by helping to register voters, signing up to send postcards to voters reminding them to vote (google Progressive Turnout Project to do that), volunteering to help at the polling places, and working for candidates you believe in. This is how a participatory democracy works. We cannot be bystanders. This next election is too important.