Closing out 2025 and making 2026, the year we take back our Republic

Happy New Year to the true patriots in the trenches

TAT readers,

First and foremost, I wish to thank you for your patience last week while I celebrated the holidays with children and grandchildren. I also wish you a new year filled with happiness, security and American democracy. Honest Americans are deserving of all this and more. Today’s GOP is not included in those wishes, simply because they have firmly established themselves as cruel, autocrats doing all possible to dismantle what our founders established for all of us, a constitutional republic. Please be forewarned, I am way past mincing words about today’s Republican Party. Like many, I’ve spent well over a decade attempting to reason with Republicans who refuse to acknowledge truth. 2025, was the year that we have slowed their abuse and 2026 is when begin fully restoring American democracy.

Today’s essay is part recap of 2025’s most dangerous transgressions by the GOP in their aggressive and unconstitutional pursuit of what I call, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Political Violence. During today’s recap, there will be several embedded links to previous essays that I call “the essentials” or rather foundational understanding about our nation, legitimate patriotism, our founding values and a variety of other issues we must understand as we go on the offensive in 2026 to purge American politics of the traitors called Republicans. I embed these links in order to provide you with detailed background about what I’m discussing today without burdening readers with too much distraction during this last week of the holiday season.

Like all I write, there will be ample links to sources, because “truth is the first casualty in war” and make no mistake about it, we are at war to save our republic. In war or in national defense, intelligence is key to seeing the adversary and the threats clearly. I see today’s work as part of the required intelligence for those in the resistance, regardless of political party, political movements etc. The Republican war on our republic is like our civil war, 1861-1865, a mostly American conflict but also with outside adversaries like Russia, China and other nations in their sphere of influence. To date, this is not a civil war yet, but all the same, there is ample, intentional and illegal violence from the administration. That administration is enabled by a cowardly and greedy party of Republican congressmen, senators and yes, our family and fellow citizens who continue to vote them into power.

The point is, we must make 2026, the D-day of American democracy. On June 6^th, 1944, the allies took a massive step to not only stop Hitler and his Axis allies, but to forever remove all three fascist governments from power. We and our allies then had to rebuild an entire globe’s worth of death and destruction, caused by their insatiable and cruel quest for total global power. If you believe the Trump administration any different, you would be wrong. Having fought defensively since January 20^th, 2025, 2026 is the year that we begin taking back our republic. We won’t be storming Omaha beach, but rather the doorsteps of every GOP-led agency, every sitting elected Republican in congress and the people we know that voted for Trump-era republicans.

As I wrote almost exactly a year ago last week, the Republican Party is part of Putin’s concept of a Trump, Xi, Putin and Modi, New World Order. Trump, Putin, Xi and with a likely partial Indian role, have a strategy that follows Putin and Russia’s concept of sovereignty, where only a small handful of primary powers have full sovereign rights, while every other nation becomes somewhat a “tributary state,” owing commercial and other types of national resources tribute, to the primary powers noted.

“The concept of a multipolar oligarchy leads to the Russian concept that true sovereignty is possessed by only a few great powers; the sovereignty of states it views as dependent on great powers is limited. The territory of true sovereigns and those states under Russian protection is sacrosanct and can be defended by force; for the others, it is impermissible to regain territory that is “in dispute” by force. As an example of the former, consider the lengths to which Russia has gone to protect Syria’s use of armed force against its own population, whereas the sovereignty of former Soviet states such as Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine must be negotiated.”

- Russia at the United Nations: Law, Sovereignty, and Legitimacy

- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

- Philip Remier

- Published; January 22, 2020

This fully explains Trump’s obsession with Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, the Panama Canal, Argentina under Trump wannabe, Javier Milei, and so on. We do ourselves a significant disservice if we see our domestic troubles as only American. The threat is far greater for us and most of the world as well. This also explains why the guy salivating over a Nobel Peace Prize will never be worthy of it. It also makes clear the reason for the illegal name change from the Department of Defense to the laughable Department of War.

“Only Congress can amend or replace statutory titles. The Department of Defense currently remains the legal entity established by Congress in 1949. Trump’s order does not override existing law; instead, it authorizes a secondary title that may be used in non-statutory communications.”

- The Department of War? Not Legally – What Trump’s Executive Order Really Does

- Military.com

- Haley Fuller

- October 19^th, 2025

No matter what, we must be quite clear that we have a warmongering president and not one Republican administration official or the submissive Republican-led congress, have the moral spine to stand up for the rule of law. Ignoring the rule of law, is a defining trait of this Republican-led government. In fact, one out of every three court decisions have been ignored by the current administration, and this is only based on a partial assessment. The takeaway from this paragraph is, the courts alone cannot save our republic, especially with our current far-right, Supreme Court who gives Trump and the GOP maneuvering room, by twisting our constitution into a useless pretzel that enables the overt criminality of a convicted felon, civilly liable rapist and lifelong sexual predator, now protecting his pedophile friends by denying the American people full access to the Epstein Files.

None of the administration’s cruel and un-American actions would be possible if checks and balances were still functioning as designed by the brilliant “Father of our Constitution,” James Madison. This is precisely why Russell Vought and his band of treason-weasels at the Heritage Foundation created Project 2025. It reshapes the Federal government in a way that all real power lies within the Executive Branch, essentially making Trump a dictator, king, autocrat, despot or any of the other technically correct definitions for the Putin-like government the GOP continues to support. They now have a Project 2026, to continue robbing us of our constitutional rights and protections. To make matters worse, White Christian Nationalism is a primary pillar of today’s Republican ideology. Few things are more un-American, than promoting a single religion, especially one based on blasphemy. Allow me to make this point as clear as possible; the Christianity preached by today’s Republican leaders and voters, is not Christianity at all, but classic extreme right-wing ideology.

For those doubting the administration’s intent to subject all of us to fascist domination, look no further than the mobilization of troops into our city streets. Wielding a late 18^th century law, The Alien and Sedition Act, that significantly tarnished the legacy of administration of John Adams, the Republican-controlled congress abdicated their responsibilities and handed the administration “emergency powers” based exclusively on lies.

“In 1798, the United States stood on the brink of war with France. The Federalist Party, which advocated for a strong central government, believed that Democratic-Republican criticism of Federalist policies was disloyal and feared that “aliens,” or non-citizens, living in the United States would sympathize with the French during a war.

As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, authorized the president to deport “aliens,” and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime. The Sedition Act made it a crime for American citizens to “print, utter, or publish...any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the government.

The laws were directed against Democratic-Republicans, the party typically favored by new citizens. The only journalists prosecuted under the Sedition Act were editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers.

Sedition Act trials, along with the Senate’s use of its contempt powers to suppress dissent, set off a firestorm of criticism against the Federalists and contributed to their defeat in the election of 1800, after which the acts were repealed or allowed to expire. The controversies surrounding them, however, provided for some of the first tests of the limits of freedom of speech and press.”

- Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

- National Archives

If the language from 1798 sounds familiar, it should. This administration now has an “enemies list” of those critical of the unconstitutionality of the GOP administration’s actions to censor all forms of dissent. Like supporting a state promoted religion, censorship by the government is blatantly unconstitutional. To refine the point, the administration with support from the Republicans in Congress have nearly decimated our cherished and iconic First Amendment rights.

I have long asserted that there is a line that foes of democracy cannot cross without enraging true patriots to the point of rebellion. As we saw when the administration attempted to silence Jimmy Kimmel, the angry response was massive and immediate. Nexstar, Sinclair, Disney and ABC all suffered endless cancellations bad press and caved within days. This is a story of success that could be repeated by the roughly 70% of Americans who are not brainwashed by a combination of Russian, Republican and oligarchical propaganda. When oligarchs are the adversary, losing profits are their Achilles Heel. This is a lesson for the coming year as we begin voting with our wallets against the likes of Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, Meta, Palantir, Comcast, T-Mobil, etc. All of these and more are funding the shameful new ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand. Please see the graphic below for others fully deserving of being boycotted.

Speaking of tactics to be employed in our war with this lawless administration, no single one will do. As we can see from the Jimmy Kimmel event, oligarchs are financially vulnerable. When we discover such vulnerabilities, we must exploit them to weaken the administration’s efforts to convert America into an autocratic oligarchy like Putin’s Russia.

“Oligarchy is about the ability of an ultra-wealthy elite to shape political decision-making in ways that increase their wealth – and power. Oligarchic power is ultimately rooted in wealth, and the influence of oligarchs is enabled by huge concentrations of it.”

- Is the U.S. witnessing the rise of oligarchy?

- Oxfam America

- July 25, 2025

Another vulnerability for the administration and the Republican Party is to put them into the spotlight so that everyone can see who is paying for and benefitting from the destruction of our republic. One of the reasons for censorship is to keep those names out of the spotlight. News agencies with a few paltry exceptions tend to tiptoe around delicate topics due to the administration’s threats of censorship. Some media giants are also oligarchical monopolies complicit in the perpetual false narratives spewed from the halls of congress and the White House.

One of our prominent historical figures and the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, provided us with an apt quote that signals the vulnerability of criminals to public scrutiny. If media is even partially complicit in dishonesty, they are enabling the criminality of the administration.

Another prominent vulnerability for the administration is the current disgust honest Americans feel towards elected Republicans. Polling shows that America blamed the GOP more for the longest ever government shutdown and are especially feeling the heat over the loss of healthcare for millions of Americans due to the language of their Big Ugly Bill. Americans are struggling financially and even those who can keep their healthcare will not be able to pay the out-of-control cost increases in their monthly premiums. Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of a healthcare CEO last year, sadly resonated with millions of Americans fed up with our greedy for-profit healthcare system that does a very poor job of serving their customers.

The unpopularity of Republican senators and congressmen are another raw vulnerability for the administration, and this is exactly what our recent elections clearly demonstrated. In the past few weeks for example, my Facebook feed is full of these sycophants working hard to promote things they claim to have done. The responses to most of the posts that I see show roughly a 2 to 1 ratio of respondents beating them up verbally. The main reasons are healthcare, ICE brutality and dishonesty, inflation and the entire GOP circling the wagons to protect Trump on Epstein related issues. Only hardcore Republicans still believe Trump is innocent regarding the immense child sex-trafficking network run by Trump’s buddy the late Jeffery Epstein.

Depending on which poll you read over the past month or so, roughly half of Republicans would still vote for Trump even if there is evidence of his involvement in Epstein run, child sex trafficking. This splits the party which is already the minority of American voters. This terrifies sitting congressmen and it should. The GOP congressmen may have reluctantly voted to release the files but have been silent on the poor performance of DOJ’s handling, especially with AG Pam Bondi’s arrogant defiance in congressional hearings and the prodigious redactions and politically motivated and skewed release of some of those files.

Trump was elected with a little over 77 million votes. If roughly half of Republicans would still vote for him if he was found involved in child sexual abuse, this means that roughly 39 million Republican voters could care less about the systemic and horrific abuse of young women and children. Let that sink in. These people are our neighbors and family members. I find this repulsive on a level that I have no polite words for.

This brings me to the most difficult to attack GOP vulnerability. At some point, those in the resistance must address the Republican threat to the republic, with family and friends that voted for Trump. Sure, a few have finally seen the light about how they have been conned by MAGA and Trump but, the majority no longer have the free will to break their ties to more than a decade’s worth of seductive conspiracy theories and false narratives. The hard truth to accept is that these are the people that put these immoral and insurrectionists in office. There are those who quietly sit at home and no longer talk about their role in this national crisis, even though they may personally acknowledge their guilt. This is not enough. To make things right, they must get off of their couch, turn off FOX propaganda and do something to set things right.

The way I see things, there are required steps for them to make amends for their willful ignorance. Apologies are nice but useless acts during this crisis. They must also atone for their actions by working to rid America of this criminal party and administration. I don’t ask them to change parties, but I do expect them to invest time, money and energy to help us right the wrongs they voted for. We are not saving America for Democrats, but for all Americans.

As I close this summary of the year, I want to reinforce that the 2026 midterms are a must win, not as democrats but as Americans operating with our true founding principles. There are though, serious concerns. FOX News and their ilk must be painted as the traitors they are. It was they that were the primary cheerleader for the January 6^th insurrection and FOX is in my lay opinion, criminally negligent and complicit in the deaths of the majority of Americans from COVID 19. Their broadcasts of known conspiracy theories about everything from masks to vaccines, played a key role in their audience’s embrace of quack medicinal cures and treatments. To this day, they repeat the bizarre conspiracy theories of RFK Jr. resulting in the resurgence of diseases once thought eradicated such as measles.

FOX and other similar far-right media have spent decades redefining patriotism, conditioning their audiences to believe in nonsense and often false reporting about our founding principles. Today’s Republicans have in the past thirty years, conditioned their audience to believe in fake-patriotic rhetoric, demonstrably false from our true historical record. This is how they brainwashed their audiences to believe in our nation being founded as a Christian nation, that Russia is our friend, that the “prosperity gospel” is the true teaching of our religious texts, that anyone who doesn’t think like them, is an “enemy of the state” to be dealt with harshly by a fully compromised FBI and DHS. The list of far-right broadcasting conspiracy theories is in my professional opinion, far worse than our original bout with Yellow Journalism at the turn of the 20^th century. The bottom-line, is that today’s Republicans live in an alternative reality, incapable of seeing truth. This will not change for most of those with FOX, OAN, Newsmax etc. still their preferred source for news reporting.

The last thing I will say regarding 2026 is that, in my analysis, there are now serious cracks forming in the Republican Party. The Epstein issue is only one of them. Every day, Trump, the administration and the party itself are being dealt setbacks. This is fracturing the base and Republicans running for office are scared. With the Midterms as our target, we have only a few months to put the Republican party’s fascism to bed, once and for all. The thing about momentum in our near-civil war is that in order for it to continue, constant pressure must be applied. This means that the DNC needs to jump in the game with both feet and fund the efforts of all resistance fighters, regardless of party. After all, we’re all in this together.

Constant public pressure on all Republican candidates regarding their daily overt lies, failure to defend the healthcare of Americans, inflation, their support for a leader doing everything legal and otherwise, to protect himself from the fallout over the Epstein child sex-trafficking crimes, ICE brutality and illegalities etc. This GOP-led congress is one of the lowest producing congresses in American history and Speaker Mike Johnson, the corrupt and Christian Nationalist leader of the House of Representatives, has only had the house in session for 87 days since returning from their summer break. We have zero assurance that we will have free and fair elections and we must be willing to take to the streets when the administration rigs our election. We’ve been through such challenges before, such as during our civil war. America was born fighting for its independence, we’ve weathered Trump’s first insurrection on January 6^th, 2021, the Civil Rights Era, Vietnam and the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are living through the second GOP insurrection now. We can do this, but I warn you now, it will not be easy. I consider democracy a team sport and if we remain a constitutional republic, it will depend on how many of us show up, willing to see this through.

I’m a true believer in our founders’ hard work, and the dedication of countless patriotic citizens ever since. Men and women have laid down their lives to maintain the republic and we must not fail their sacrifices.

Last but not least, I wish all of you the very best for your new year. Let’s work together to ensure that the villains in this story come out on the losing side and we can wave our flag proudly again in the coming year.

Happy New Year

Paul