SUMMARY: As the plot to replace American democracy with global oligarchy thickens and takes shape, many Americans are feeling helpless in the face of the speed and thoroughness with which we have given up our freedoms. In order to resist the fascist authoritarianism that has gripped our country, we must address its root cause: the racism and misogyny of white people. That means white people must confront their inner racist, which we have been reluctant to do no matter our political orientation.
KEY WORDS: Trump-Made Disaster, Democracy, the Resistance, Congressional Democrats, Social Media, Influencers, Illusory Explanation, Hot Takes, Racism, Misogyny
COMMENT: What have you done to confront your inner racist and misogynist? How can we keep equality as the corner stone of the resistance?
- Fallen Saviors of the Resistance
- The Illusory Explanation of Hot Takes and Memes
- The Appeal to Racism
- The Solution: Confronting Racism
- Image Attribution
As Felonious Reich’s agenda unfolds before us, it is beginning to dawn on more people that we’re in big fucking trouble in America. With each day’s new and improved Trump-made disaster, it becomes clearer that they mean to do away with our democracy… and it may just be too late to stop them. Too many of his supporters h
Fallen Saviors of the Resistance
Corporations
One-by-one the “saviors” of the resistance have fallen to the forces of evil. Back in the day, corporate America championed Dreamers and marriage equality. Corporations put pressure on states to recognize gay marriage, and we all thought corporate America would save us. That is until CBS-Paramount hid its bribe to the FTC to get its merger with Skydance recognized in the form of a $16 million settlement with Trump over its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.
Congressional Democrats
Democrats in Congress aren’t able to stop the bare majority of Republicans from passing all kinds of ruinous legislation, approving disastrous nominations, or turning a blind-eye to blatant government corruption. The best it seems that we’ll get is an impassioned speech from Jeffries, a sternly worded letter from Schumer, and a snarky sarcasticky biting remark from Crockett. It’s all illusory resistance. There’s not a damn thing Congressional Dems are going to do to stop or even slow down the creation of a pseudo-democratic, single-party, minority-rule autocracy in America.
The Courts
There was a broad belief that the courts had checked and balanced the bronzing bloated ego’s blundering reign of error the first time around. Now, though, the Roberts Court has committed itself to going full fascist and granted Trump et al. immunity and incredible power over the government and our rights.
Election 2026
Now, we look to the 2026 elections to be like the 2018 election and be the thunderous defeat of the rampaging orange moron, but with direct calls to gerrymandering, the DOGE harvesting of personal information from the electorate, and the DOJ collecting voter registration information from across America, it seems like the GOP is taking their voter suppression and nullification techniques national. They are gearing up to systematically select the voters they want in the numbers they need in order to hold on to their majorities.
Social Media Influencers
It seems wherever the resistance is found, there is a significant amount of hand wringing, clothes rending, and boil scraping. Election consultants announce their genius plans for appealing to Trump’s base just enough to win an election. Our social media feeds are swamped by hot-takes and pithy memes and lamentations of our impending loss.
The Illusory Explanation of Hot Takes and Memes
One of the hot takes is that We The People are going to have to save ourselves, but it also seems that no one really knows what that looks like. In short, no one knows what to do to stop the dismantling of our rights, laws, and democracy as the world is sold wholesale to oligarchs seemingly hell bent on squeezing the last farthing out of fossil fuels before the climate gives up the souls of eight billion people.
Our brain trust on social media keeps casting about for solutions and finds arguing amongst and smarting-off to ourselves much easier than actually doing the hard work of organizing 3.5 million people — another hot take posing as an actual solution — to resist — whatever that means — the Trump administration.
Shoq and the Message Delivery System
Here we get the venerable Shoq pointing out the old and tired — to the point of being cliche — “solution” of needing a counterweight to Fox News and rightwing conservative media verse. Notice he’s not trying to get us to rally to MSNBC, Meidas Touch, or any other possible media organization. But, he does twist the hopelessness knife in our salted wound by offering an insight from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Great quote. Sure to go viral. And, sure to get us all to experience illusory explanation — it calms the nerves with a false feeling of accomplishment but doesn’t actually achieve anything.
Reich and Free Speech
Education machine, Substacker, and tireless social media poster, Robert Reich, offers us the insight that billionaire ownership of media platforms is NOT furthering free speech, but robbing us of a free press holding the rich and powerful accountable. Insightful, yes, but is he pointing us towards a solution? If we aren’t reading the NYT, WP, WSJ or watching MSNBC, CNN, or NBC, where should we be looking for someone challenging the status quo?
While these two stalwarts of the resistance and other social media accounts both big and small are out there spewing their wisdom, insights, and ideas at us all in the hopes of garnering elusive likes, shares, and clicks, the Felonious Reich is digging in for the final putsch.
If you are a distraction from that necessary work of organizing a meaningful effective resistance, then you’re aiding and abetting the fascist oppressors. Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that I’m as guilty as the next social media entity of trying to bring attention to myself. And, I’m just as good or better than most at rationalizing what I do as somehow being magically different than what the other elebinty billion social media accounts are out there doing. However, I do think what I’m about to suggest will be effective, but I doubt many of us are capable of doing it.
The Appeal to Racism
In order to understand how Trump was able to create MAGA, take over the Republican Party, and effectively subvert our democracy, we have to answer the question of what his electorate valued more than democracy and our freedoms? What would be worth subjecting ourselves to the one-person disaster producing machine again — don’t believe the milquetoast protest of “this isn’t what I voted for” from Trump voters; everyone knew damn well what he would do if returned to office
The answer is unchanged from 2016. It isn’t economic insecurity or Trump’s incredible cognition, it is his racism and misogyny. It is his overt appeal to all who long for the halcyon days of yore when white men unchallenged rule of the land. How many elections in which Trump wins the majority of the white vote do we have to have before we believe that his appeal is based on the Inner Racist of White People responding to racist dog whistles and appeals to authoritarianism. And before you climb onto the “but he expanded his vote among Black and Hispanic voters” horse, everyone who was raised in our racist culture has internalized racism even if it is against them and misogyny carries a lot male votes and even a few female votes, too.
The Solution: Confronting Racism
We all knew this. I’m not breaking new ground here. The problem is — and this is the solution that we’re looking for — white people don’t want to do anything about it. Good liberal Trump-hating democracy-loving mostly Democratic-voting white people are unwilling to confront their own inner racist. At best they will censor it, hide it in the attic when guests are over, or otherwise whitewash it, but they won’t actually excise it.
Confronting our inner racist-misogynist selves means taking a risk. People abhor risk taking. What liberal wants to risk appearing racist? Can you imagine the embarrassment and loss of privilege if you were to talk openly explore the deeply held racist and misogynist beliefs that you didn’t even know you had? Who could you possibly bear your soul to? What forum is there in which we can do that kind of work?
I understand that it is a delicate matter. I understand that our current world is not a safe place to express these ideas. We feel foolish and awkward when we try to talk about things that we don’t have adequate words and expressions for. When the words that we grew up hearing and using betray the beliefs — not even fully articulated — that underpin them, we can sound much more racist and misogynist than we really are. But, it’s only when we drag that inner racist and misogynist out into the bright light of day that we can truly excise them and correct many of the assumptions that resonate with dog whistles and cat calls that Trump, the Republicans, and MAGA are using to keep a majority of white people voting for them.
As the resistance to erosion of our democracy and flourishing of fascism, we must keep racism, misogyny, and human rights front and center. We have to challenge reporting that focuses on reasons for Trump support other than race and misogyny. We have to object to racist and misogynist jokes and insensitive language, but not in ways that shame those who are using them but in ways that help us all to understand how the perpetuate the systemic injustice of our social systems. We have to confront ICE and office holders on the discrimination and abuse that their actions are embodying.
If we are to reverse the fascist putsch, we must keep racism and misogyny front and center of everything we do and object to.
Image Attribution
“L0030380 Advert for Pears’ Soap” by The Public Domain Review is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.
The Psy of Life 
Americans today are so preoccupied with the hectic exigencies of daily life that they don’t make time to ponder their inner racist tendencies. I think it boils down to slowing down and simplifying lifestyles as I do with you yog everyday.
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Howdy James!
I think you’re right. I think that’s one reason why one of the rules in Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook is never to let the public cool off and keep people stirred up. I think that’s one reason why we’ve had outrage du jour on the right for the past twenty odd years. That level of continual upset induces mass psychosis and people, literally, stop thinking. Trying to get folks to slow down and to examine themselves deeply, thoroughly, and honestly is one of the most difficult things to do. That’s why most religions have myriad ways of getting folks to slow down and do some inner contemplation.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I question whether those with religious motivations actually read the authentic tenets of their religion? They just follow the crowd!
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Howdy James!
Back in the day when I was being drug to church by various relatives, they at least were reading the Bible themselves, but relied upon their clergy to interpret it. People have an annoying tendency to confirmation bias, so any wild belief they have can be supported by whatever they think is in their holy texts. Listening to some of the rich and famous evangelical preachers, though, you gotta wonder whether they are following the same Bible as I was taught in Sunday School.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I’m remembering an old term, seldom heard in recent years, “Consciousness Raising”. Is is exactly about bringing to conscious awareness and examination the unconscious assumptions and biases framing our (and others’) thought and behavior. Nowadays, it is demonized in the attack on “Woke”. And, it is exactly what you are talking about. It is often painful, and doesn’t happen all at once. One expression of that process is embodied in Step 4 of the 12 Step program: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” The same type of process is found in the self assessment practices of several of our national founders based on the whitings of the Greek and Roman Stoics, as described in “The Pursuit Of Happiness” by Jeffery Rosen. It may be asking a lot of a great many people, but the easy paths are going the wrong way.
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Howdy Bob!
My apologies for the late reply. We just arrived in our new Canadian home. It’s been a wild busy week.
I remember consciousness raising. It is spot on and too bad it seems to be a concept that has fallen by the wayside. In fact, I can’t recall the last time I heard anyone use it. Woke hardly measures up. Woke seems to me to be more controlling than it is educational or helpful. I can learn to use they when I don’t know the gender of a person instead of he or she, but that doesn’t mean I get it. I just do it because that is the linguistic habit now. And the Gen Z’ers can assume that every time I awkwardly refer to gender identity I don’t really get it and need it explained to me AGAIN or worse get the Boomer treatment of being talked down to. I think that is because they didn’t get the consciousness raising that I got around race and gender, and that I put myself through around sexual orientation.
Unfortunately, it can be really difficult to get five or six adults to meet regularly for any purpose much less to do something really difficult like confront their internalized racial beliefs and assumptions. And, just because we meet together to discuss how our personal stories about racial beliefs are linked to larger systemic issues, politics, and awareness, doesn’t mean that we will be excising our inner racist and not reinforcing it.
I think you’re right that the easy paths are going the wrong way. My experience in education tells me that we don’t want our kids to experience the kind of discomfort it takes to say, “Gee, maybe when I called that Black kid ‘boy’ it was because I have some inner racist beliefs and I need to be more on guard against it.” Or assuming the white graduate student must be the professor and the older Black person the graduate student isn’t because of inner racism.
Without that resilience to endure the discomfort and embarrassment of having those all-too-human tendencies put on display and working on intercepting them BEFORE they make it out of our mouths, eliminating the white supremacy or systemic racism of our society can’t be done.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Howdy, Jack. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to this.
The hard core racists, the ones who, given permission, will easily spout the most vile of racist language, are a lost cause (and, followers of that dream), For them, their racist beliefs are not opinions, but facts, and facts that they cannot comprehend anyone could honestly deny, because they are so obvious.
I was thinking about the great desegregation experiment, with the bussing and all that. The primary mistake (besides underestimating the intensity of the resistance) was that it began too late in the children’s development. The time to start normalizing close association with people who look different is in Day Care and preschool and Kindergarten. Unfortunately, the only potentially viable path to that is residential desegregation, which also means economic/class desegregation as well. Even our historical levels of income and wealth inequality, let alone the current levels stand as a wall against that.
But, there are those who can be persuaded to examine their own deep cultural biases. I think that really takes conscious attention to the micro events, such as automatically noticing the black faces in a mostly white crowd, or that even slight twinge of fight-or-flight activation when encountering someone of color. It’s an onion of many layers.
Now, what we need more than anything is to get those who stoke the flames and give the permission out of power. The overt expressions need to be de-normalized.
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Howdy Bob!
I remember busing and school desegregation. I was spared any real direct effect because we were a military family and our neighborhoods were already desegregated. However, the angst and gnashing of teeth by my Tennessee relatives, especially, really stand out.
I guess the time to start normalizing the existence of different kinds of people is when children are young explains the incredible objection to Drag Queen Story Hour and the existence of books that portray marginalized communities as acceptable and human.
When I lived in Asia and Africa, it amazed me how quickly and unconsciously a white face would attract my attention in a crowd. You’d look without even realizing that’s what you were doing. I’d just turn my head and there they’d be. I think that is a normal thing to do when a norm is violated. That it isn’t the norm to encounter a Black person in America is the troubling thing because it means there really are white spaces where Black people don’t normally appear. So, you can question why there aren’t more Black people showing up more frequently in this space.
However, the fear of Black people, Black men, especially, is the thing we can work on. You can make yourself look for other markers of intent and threat.
But, it all shows you the roll of government in all of this. I remember PSAs — do they still make PSAs? — that showed people of color doing normal things in the furtherance of something else like littering or seat belts. It went a long way to broadening my perspective as I grew up. Now government has made racism and racial violence cool again. Go figure.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The brain, especially the visual system is evolved to notice two things above all. The first, and earliest, is motion, because in nature anything that moves against the background can be something to eat or that might eat you. That’s why all the gender markers of naked humans are parts that move (hair, butts, tits, and male parts too), which we can’t not see, no matter how “impolite” that noticing may be deemed. Other species tend to find potential mates by scent, but we, with our comparatively pathetic noses, use our eyes. The other is difference. Just as we can’t not notice a black face in a white crowd, we will also pick our a colorful, flowing sari in a crowd of t-shirts and jeans. So, the earlier children get used to variety, the less it will alarm them. The bigots want the children to be alarmed when they encounter difference, so they try to “protect” them from knowing about it.
The American fear of Black men is so ingrained, and, I think it is reinforced by the unavoidable, even if only in micro expressions reactions of fear by Black men to that surveillance. As in all relationships with a dominance-submission structure, that complimentary schizmogenisis will be there.
Authoritarian systems need people to be afraid of each other, so they foster distrust and violent expression at the interpersonal level to prevent the trust necessary for organized or spontaneous rebellion.
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Howdy Bob!
What was the phrase, “United we stand, divided we fall.” Or “either we all hang together or surely we’ll all hang together.” The first task of any autocrat is divide the populace. First into their supporters and everyone else, but then so that no one trusts anyone else. If you’re afraid your neighbor will turn you in, then you don’t go foment revolution with your neighbor. If you’re fearful that your neighbor is a radical violent extremist supporter of the autocrat, then you don’t do anything that might draw their attention.
Fear is what controls and limits our behavior.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Yes, and the Stasi in East Germany really had it down, with practically everybody spying on everybody else, or, at least convinced that that was true.
At the root of the fear is our bias in assessing risk and reward to give the risks more weight.
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Howdy Bob!
The other interesting thing that the Stasi example brings up is how temporary authoritarian rule is. When the East German government fell, the Stasi buildings were ransacked and the records of citizen informants exposed. Those names were suddenly known.
It is a good lesson for all of us, authoritarianism, by definition is temporary. It is dependent on the authoritarian. There will be a post-Trump America. Whether or not we revert to democracy is up to We the People.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Much the same happened recently in Syria, with the prisons being emptied, the files and mass graves exposed, and more. The exceptions come when one authoritarian replaces another, as in the Russian Revolution. Then there are the “backsliders”, such as the descent into “The Terror” shortly after the fall of the French monarchy, and later the emergence of an “Emperor”.
I think there is a strong connection between the intensity of the authoritarian E. German regime and the persistence of the Far Right would be authoritarians in that region. There was a long term normalization of authoritarian rule and methods, and some people miss it.
If a democracy is to thrive long term after the fall of an authoritarian regime, eternal vigilance and real practice of the values, ethics, and methods of democracy are needed.
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Howdy Bob!
Peter Turchin in his data crunching for his cliodynamics approach to history believes that when a country changes its type of government it is often temporary and reverts back to the previous type. He cites the countries of the failed Arab Spring as examples. They all shifted to democracy only to revert back to authoritarian regimes shortly after. It is likely that we will revert back to our democratic roots once this is all over.
The United States was fortunate in that we’ve only really ever known democracy. We don’t have another form of government to revert back to.
Huzzah!
Jack
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That is a hope. I’m thinking of comments by some past national security and diplomacy type about how long it took Putin to build his system, step by step over ten years. And I think of Victor Orban, not taking quite so long, but still step by step. Trump, on the other hand, is trying to do it all immediately and all at once, impatient child that he is. That may be a vulnerability. After all, conservatives are change avers, and most people get uncomfortable with too much change too fast, even when they support its goals. And with Trump, even the groups that have been playing the long game for decades, like The Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society have been seduced by the prospect of getting their revolution suddenly with Trump. You don’t boil the frog by turning the stove up to 10. Biden got elected largely as a return to normality, a relief from the too much too fast.
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Howdy Bob!
That’s always been Trump’s saving grace, give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself because feculent touch. I was hoping that Biden’s incredible success as president would bury Trump forever, but it just made us comfortable enough to take a chance on Trump, again. It is just crazy.
We may realize that we’ve dug ourselves such a deep hole that we have to jettison both parties. Someone somewhere may screw up their courage and strike out with a third party that eclipses both kind of like the Republican Party did with the Whigs. Or we may just continue to twist in the wind dangling from the end of the oligarchs’ rope.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I agree with Shoq…..social media has made racism ‘popular’ (for lack of a better term)…..I live in Mississippi and the racism of today has always been in my state just under wraps until the explosion with Donny and his magical mouth.
Great post and thanx for heads up on Shoq…..peace my friend. chuq
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Howdy Chuq!
Shoq is a good person. Very insightful and articulate.
I realized a long time ago that the racists never really went away, they just hid their racism better. Now that it is safe to be openly racist again, they are. LBJ knew the Southern racist well. They really will sell you their soul for the ability to be as racist as they wanna be. I don’t know that there are enough white people willing to do the hard work to actually solve our racism problem before the end of the world comes. We have that deadly combination of racist politicians willing to cynically manipulate the racism of the electorate for their own personal financial gain, and a racist electorate more than ready, willing, and eager to be cynically used in order to punish Communities of Color. How do you break that nasty symbiotic relationship?
Huzzah!
Jack
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Now that is a damn good question. I was fortunate living in Mississippi my mother taught me to judge people by their actions not the color of their skin…..but to answer I think it will take awhile and it should start with the family….but that is a problem with racist parents….so it is a conundrum. Welcome to NA and good to see you as always. chuq
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Howdy Chuq!
The people who are “proudly” racist like many of my Tennessee and Mississippi relations are are beyond reach and not willing to change. In the 70’s and 80’s TV and movies had a lot of influence by dramatizing racial equality and the injuries that racism causes. “All in the Family” and the “Mod Squad” both come to mind. One of the key developments since Reagan’s Southern Strategy success has been to inoculate their supporters from such incursions by vilifying “Hollywood” as being liberal and evil and creating a media bubble for MAGA.
The people that concern me more are the “good” suburban white people who would never do anything to hurt someone else not recognizing the harm NIMBY does and the subtle devastation of systemic racism and their own responses to racist dog whistles. They didn’t know Trump was going to enact indiscriminate ICE roundups of Black Brown and unfortunately place white folks. They voted their pocketbook, not for corrupt rigging of elections and the roll-back of civil rights. A pox on all who would think that they did!
Those people are the ones who need to do the hard work of examining why they’d vote for Trump a second or third time, but won’t.
Huzzah!
Jack
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There lies the problem….laziness and the idea that they are right as long as some moron fans their racist embers…..chuq
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Howdy Chuq!
I’m amazed by the damage that hate does. You’re seeing the ultimate goal of all racist hate playing out in Gaza: it’s easier to kill them than put up with them. That’s the goal of every racist: genocide of the targeted group.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I wish I could disagree…but I cannot….Gaza is living proof that Israel is nothing but a barbarous bunch of thugs that has the full support of America….sad, disgusting and pathetic. chuq
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