I want to remind people that just because we are now officially a lawless nation, that does not mean that YOU get to break the law. That’s not how this stuff works. Just because the Republicans and Trump are breaking our laws left and right doesn’t mean that you get to as well. How it works, in their minds anyway, is they get to do whatever they want and you don’t. That’s what happens in authoritarian regimes and that’s where they’re trying to bring us.
So, as a result, we’re now caught in a bit of a catch-22. You see MAGA is breaking the law like there’s no tomorrow and those among us who are trying to stop them are continuing to follow our existing laws, and due process, as the Republicans go on their merry lawless way. The reason to follow the law is that as soon as we don’t, as soon as we take a measure that isn’t within our laws, then all bets are really off and we’ll basically be in a civil war. Yet at the same time, we’re going to eventually have to do something that is outside of our normal set of laws to remedy this situation. That is our dilemma and also the precipice that the Republicans have brought us to.
So, let’s dig into that because it’s kind of deep, but first just to prove that you’re not crazy let’s recap a couple of things.
It’s not legal for a President to create an agency out of whole cloth and then appoint whoever they want to dismantle existing government programs; or fire people without cause; or cut funding appropriated by Congress. No, it’s completely illegal and the only reason it’s continuing to happen is that the Republicans, who control the House and the Senate, are not using their legal authority to stop it. And this makes them active participants in the in-progress coup d’état. Or what we usually call accomplices.
It’s not legal for a President to defy the federal courts. Currently, the Trump administration is defying at least fifty federal court orders for illegally shutting down agencies, illegally entering government systems, illegally shutting off funding appropriated by Congress, illegally disappearing people to a gulag in South America, illegally intimidating law firms, and also for illegally defying court orders. Yeah that’s right they’re defying court orders and one of those that they are in defiance of is defying court orders. Imagine that. You know when Republicans say that you can’t expect criminals to follow the law and all that—they’re just speaking from experience. In any case, the only reason they can get away with all of this is that they are being aided and abetted by the entirety of the Republican party. Making the entirety of the Republican party both an accessory to a crime and also deeply invested in pulling off a coup d’état.
As it turns out, the more you involve yourself in criminal behavior the more invested you become in getting away with it.
So here we are. We’re officially a nation that doesn’t abide by the rule of law. Now I’m not naive, we’ve been lawless plenty of times, but we’ve never done anything quite like this.
So how do we remedy it? Well first we have to stop them and I don’t think anyone has a clear idea of what that even looks like. We’re already in lawless territory and the Republicans are defending this lawlessness and painting it as though it is perfectly normal. They even held a hearing last week calling into question the legitimacy of the federal courts and their ability to issue nationwide injunctions or do anything to reign in Trump’s illegal activity. This, once again, is making them culpable in a crime, because spoiler alert, yes federal courts are legally able to reign in a lawless President. But, very soon, we’re going to find out if the Supreme Court sides with the Republican coup d’état or sides with the rule of law. And depending on which way they vote we will either officially be an authoritarian regime, or we will be in something akin to a civil war.
It’s clear that the Republicans and Trump will not follow any rule of law if they think they can get away with it. So if the Supreme Court rules against them, then I’m going to assume that they’ll ignore it, even if they publically state that they are abiding by it. That’s what they’re doing now with the fifty or so federal cases they’re stalling on or flat-out disregarding. So then what happens? Do we all just accept it? Or do people take to the streets? Does Trump order the military to squash dissent like he’s already promised to do? Does the military follow orders? You know, like the ICE agents who are abducting green card holders without identifying themselves. Will our military follow those kind of orders? And what effect will that have? Could it lead to a splintering of our military, where some faction decides to take action against the Republicans and another tries to stop them? Will that draw out the militia groups that, by Trump’s orders, have been standing down and standing by? See the conundrum? Before we can restore any semblance of order we have to navigate through a scenario that has almost zero odds of not breaking down into violence. That’s where the Republicans have brought us. And that’s our dilemma to solve.
So, let’s yada yada yada past the civil war for a moment and entertain the idea that we somehow get past this moment without violence. Or that it was violent but we got past it nonetheless. Then what do we do? Do just let these people who have been trying to overthrow our Democracy off the hook? Let them stay in power? Assume we can solve it in the next election? That hasn’t been a winning strategy thus far. And that is our catch-22. They have only gotten this far by our side following the rule of law and their ability to fool, or win over, 80 million people who will apparently accept anything they do. In reality world our only way out of this is with at least dozens of Senators and House members on trial. Same with Trump’s whole cabinet. And we also have to lock up Elon Musk and probably ban the Republican party from American politics. And then there’s a whole slew of bad actors that most people have never heard of, like Leonard Leo, who has been spending billions on this project for decades. The only way this can be achieved is by using methods that don’t exist in our current system. Political parties are not in our constitution, and we have no remedy for what happens when something so ingrained in our elections becomes an anti-democratic wrecking ball. But figuring out a remedy for this situation is the dilemma that we need to solve.
It’d be one thing if these villains had been out of the shadows, arguing in good faith that America should abandon its Democratic project. That we should end human rights and due process. That we should give up on environmental protections and labor protections. And that we should willingly succumb to a Techno Fascist Authoritarian rule. But that’s not what they chose to do. They chose to break our laws, they chose to use a massive, and expensive, propaganda apparatus to hoodwink millions of people. They chose the path they took and that path only leads to a few places. One would be that they win and end Democracy in America for the foreseeable future. The other leads to them losing, and when they do, there needs to be consequences. Consequences we haven’t had to contemplate since our last civil war.
That’s our dilemma to solve and that’s where the Republicans have brought us.