From Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From an American”
Substack, January 4, 2026:
“But officials in the administration no longer appear to
care what the American people want, instead simply gathering power into their
own hands for the benefit of themselves and their cronies, trusting that
Republican politicians will go along and the American people will not object
enough to force the issue.”
And why should the Administration care? The American
people, for all the self-congratulatory bellringing about refusing fascism and
no kings and protests in fifty states have done very little to lend credence to
polls that show the Sociopath-in-Chief’s waning popularity are accurate.
The United States violated the sovereignty of a foreign
nation on Saturday and is currently extorting copious amounts of oil from
Venezuela with no assurance of restitution or willingness to acknowledge, let
alone obey, American or international law. Some people gathered at the White
House on Saturday. I was away and couldn’t get down, so I went on Sunday,
arriving around 12:45.
I was the only protester I could find.
The Women’s March has been held on the third Saturday of
January since Trump’s first inaugural in 2017; The Beloved Spouse™ and I were
there. I went again last year, resigned to the idea I’d have to go every year
until Trump was gone.
I’m not going this year, though. There’s no march.
This year several groups are committed to a mass “walk
out” on January 20 at 2:00 local time. Unless it’s more convenient to go later.
Or earlier. What this is supposed to accomplish is unclear, except maybe to unemploy
people who can’t afford it.
Another group wants to ring the White House with crime
scene tape. I went to the first effort. They only had enough people to go less than
a quarter of the way around. That’s a problem, but nearly as much of one than the
idea wasn’t worth doing in the first place.
TBS and I went to a meeting a while ago where the best
idea they came up with was to picket Peter Thiele’s house and, I guess, say
mean things about him among themselves.
Also from Heather Cox Richardson:
“As tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel wrote in 2009: ‘I no
longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.’ He continued: ‘The
1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be
genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare
beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies
that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of “capitalist
democracy” into an oxymoron.
“Because there are no truly free places left in our
world,’ he wrote, Thiel called for escaping into cyberspace, outer space, or
seasteading.”
Yeah, picket this guy’s house. That’ll change his mind.
Groups are reluctant to advertise events far enough in
advance to gather a crowd, lest the administration…what? Arrest them? Use tear
gas? Those are the least of the risks we currently face.
Where are today’s Chicago 7? Who is there to write this
generation’s Port Huron Statement? (And not the compromised second draft.) All
we seem to have now is, “We’re afraid to go with you, Bluto. We might get in
trouble.”
Well kiss my ass from now on.
Can’t get a permit? Fuck the permit. Afraid the
Sociopath-in-Chief will use mass protests as a reason to invoke martial law?
Wake up kids. He doesn’t need a reason to do anything; all he needs is an
excuse.
Congress is not coming to our rescue for at least another
year, if they can be bothered to go out on a limb then. We can either make
things happen for us or watch them happen to us. It’s long past time to stop
doing things that make one feel good but accomplish nothing. Don’t post to
Facebook; call your representatives and senators.
A hundred thousand protests of ten people each won’t move
the dial. A million people clogging DC will show the congresspersons still
afraid to commit that we’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
And that’s what it’s going to take.
