Resistance, isn't Partisan, it is what real Patriots do in the face of fascism
Tips for April 19th's next protests
TAT readers,
Here we go, plunging headlong into the next week of the Trump/ Putin, Musk and Republican Coup attempt. In fact, it is their second, counting January 6th, 2021, as the first. Their point is to dismantle our constitutional republic and convert our nation into what I term, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Violence. It is our citizen’s responsibility, to stop them. Not as a member of a political party, but because freedom, as represented by our constitution, it is in our American DNA. Americans just don’t back down in the face of tyranny.
Despite the avalanche of, third-world, banana republic activity we are experiencing daily, Trump and the GOP have failed to land a knock-out punch on our resistance. They never will. April 5th’s Hands-Off protests were a clear sign to the GOP, that America and her real patriots, are not and will not be subjugated. This requires a bit of discussion and that is what today’s essay is about, digging in against the fascists and how to chart the way ahead. This essay is also grounded in last Wednesday and Friday’s, essays.
Wednesday: A threat advisory about April 19th and 20th, by Trump & the far-right GOP
Friday: A short, Must-do list before next Saturday's, Hands-Off protests
There are three primary obstacles to reclaiming our republic, in this ongoing, low-level civil war. None of these obstacles are insurmountable.
We and our resistance activities, are willfully ignored by the majority of major media
The Republican focus on suppressing our voices, individually and collectively
We are largely empty of the psychological triggers of resistance, that many of our allied nations have to fascism
Although I have partially addressed the first two obliquely in earlier essays, I will say a word about them, but largely focus on number three, which is critical to moving our fight for our republic forward.
First, a brief word about the first two items.
It is no secret that it was nearly impossible to find information about the first, April 5th, Hands-Off protests on major media sites. It is much the same with the upcoming, April 15th national protests. One of the first actions by the Trump/ GOP administration was to intimidate cowardly media into submission. Outside of the Associated Press, most major media has gone into a news version of the Witness Protection Program. Media sites caved in to the intimidation, preemptively, like ABC News, owned by Disney, USA Today, a part of the Gannett media empire and the list is nearly endless. Reuters even handles this administration with kid gloves. Freedom of the press, guaranteed in the First Amendment, is useless if not wielded. Heck, most media still call the GOP, “conservative” when they are quite clearly, a far-right extremist movement.
Few things are more un-American and unconstitutional, than ignoring the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights. The GOP is fully engaged in ignoring the entire Amendment and largely supported by the Trumpian majority, on the US Supreme Court. I can assure you that the historical legacy of this version of the GOP and this SCOTUS, will deservedly be, as the anti-patriots and insurrectionists.
To ensure that media giants comply, the Trump/ GOP’s forceful intimidation of the majority of them, has resulted in not only the capitulation most of media, but major law firms, like the now infamous Paul Weiss firm, among others. In this case, it’s more along the line of extortion because Trump and his Republican goons, demanded free legal services in return for compliance. This type of activity is straight out of Trump’s long history of associating with and worshiping Mafiosos, including Putin and his collection of Vory Oligarchs.
To Americans, who viewed a romanticized view of the New York Mafia via movies like The Godfather, don’t see the very dark side of their violence, extortion and painful profiteering, at the expense of the rest of us. As a long believer that people and organizations are, “what they do, not what they say,” this clearly points to the Trump/ GOP administration, as a Putin-styled oligarchy, which is deeply entangled with Russian organized crime or, The Vory.
In other words, mafia-like intimidation or the “rackets,” shouldn’t surprise anyone about Trump, Musk and the subservient and willfully complicit GOP agenda. Don’t get me wrong here, I despise all parties, but only today’s GOP is imposing unconstitutional laws and policies on all of us, no one else! The MAGA GOP’s only connection to “family values” is a mafia-styled family.
All across Congress and within state legislatures, voter suppression is taking on a whole new terrifying look. Limits on the voting rights of everyone, that are not a white Republican male, is the soup de jour for them. The Save Act is one such effort that would almost certainly impact, millions of voters, especially women. Like alleged Republican “voter fraud” legislation, dressed up in fanciful language to disguise the heinous voting restrictions in their text, could hardly be more, un-American. The Save Act is but one such legislative effort nationally. GOP Voter ID laws, are quite simply, a solution looking for a non-existent problem. Women’s voting rights run a significant risk, if the Save Act passes.
The bottom line to this short section, is that if the GOP is hellbent on denying us, our First Amendment rights and legislating away our voting rights. How in the hell are they anything but willfully complicit in this coup? All of the above are beyond a doubt, unconstitutional. This makes the GOP a party of Sedition and Coup, not a legitimate US political party. That alone should trigger a defiant response in real patriots, but the absence of this sentiment in many Americans, is a deeper issue that we must overcome before we can truly succeed in defeating the Republican coup. At the moment, most Americans are still in shock from something that we long said, “could not happen here.”
A deep part of my military experience within the US Special Operations Command, revolved around understanding coups, insurrections, terrorism, extremism and violent extremism etc. The indicators for such similar upheaval here at home, are written all over today’s GOP. The unconstitutional, un-American Project 2025 is a perfect example. Those elected Republican officials that blindly support Trump, Musk and Putin’s intended final design for our government, are complicit and I mean every, single one. They know better but are absent a backbone, let alone a moral, patriotic spine. Those who voted for Trump and other submissive GOP office holders, are also complicit, even though most of them, are brainwashed. More on this after the cartoon. This is not Trump’s first administration. We all know exactly what he and the GOP are, after round one, 2016-2020. They supported him and the party anyway.
Those GOP Voters support him because they no longer have control over their decision-making. In the influence world, especially for those of us with a long history in the profession, know Russian Active Measures, their influence operations dating back to Soviet times, was oriented towards what they call, “Reflexive Control.” This in lay language means that, they have taken majority control over the behavior of their targeted audiences. The narrators of their propaganda, like Trump, Musk, Republican officials and the party itself, along with the FOX, NewsMax and similar propaganda outlets, can predictably trigger their audiences to believe and act on that propaganda. While this explains why Republicans vote for him, it does not explain why, many Americans have that proverbial, “deer-in-the-headlights” look about them. They are in the simplest terms, shocked into inaction. This is dangerous to them, and our republic.
There are several reasons for this disbelief that this type of threat, “is happening here.” In my professional opinion, one of the most important reasons is that Americans over the centuries, don’t have in our unique identity, the markers that would trigger a more powerful response, as in other nations who have experienced occupation from overt fascist or authoritarian threats. In other words, we just are not naturally wary, as those who’ve lost their freedom in their history.
As most know, my most focused professional expertise, is in influence, influence operations and as the name of our think tank states, Narrative Strategies, influential narratives are a core specialty. All influence operations are at their heart, Narrative Warfare or, “the battle for control over the meaning of what is occurring around us, or our adversaries.”
Okay, I won’t go down the rabbit-hole on the science of influence but want everyone to understand that who we are or our identity, determines how we interpret things or see the world. No one has the exact same worldview although those who share multiple layers of identity, tend to see things similarly. When someone controls that identity, they become in lay terms, brainwashed. The GOP propaganda machine has for decades, slowly converted their audiences, to be brainwashed. They no longer can see, or even in severe cases, understand the concept of truth.
Their only “truth” comes from their powerful narrators, such as Trump, Musk, FOX News, NewsMax etc., Republican Party propagandists like Brad Parscale, and their army techbros. Like Pavlov’s dog, they have been conditioned to respond exactly as triggered by the propagandists. In the Republican case, they’ve been slowly conditioned over the past 30 plus years by FOX and similar, to believe in fake patriotic notions like the infamous, “God, guns and Trump” insanity. None of this represents our true national values, but it is the only way that the Republican Party see it. It is mostly unalterable.
Yes, this means that our family, friends and fellow citizens that voted Trump, succumbed to such propaganda and cannot be convinced to see things differently, no matter what! Less severe cases still have a chance of becoming free-thinking human beings again, with control of their decision-making, but for those with those little, Seditious red hats in public, there is little hope for them.
This is but one half of our obstacle. Those on the opposition side but still frozen in their willingness to spring to action in the face of an obvious threat, are also conditioned to disbelieve that this coup, constitutional crisis or otherwise, is actually occurring. They are so conditioned, because our history is mostly devoid of ever experiencing harsh, oppression here in our nation. Like an animal without human encounters, they will walk right up to a threat and not understand that they are in danger. This is what we must break through, in order to field double, the protesters for April 19th and all subsequent protests and resistance.
During conflict and make no bones about it, this Republican coup is in many ways, an ongoing, low-level civil war. The target audiences for and against, both require engagement. While we must honestly and effectively target the wannabe GOP fascists, we must also instill what the military calls, “the will to fight” in our own side. Both efforts matter. Step one at this stage of the resistance, is to help our honest and true American patriots, to see that yes, this threat is real, ongoing and increasing in severity, nearly by the hour. The second half of this step one is to relentlessly, honestly and aggressively target the opposition with the truth about their Seditious activities.
If we continue to help our fellow honest patriots see the threat as urgent, severe and un-American to its core, this will overcome that third, often overlooked obstacle of, the deer-in-the-headlights inaction they are currently frozen in. This is best done on a personal level, but reinforcing public narratives help to pave the way for more effective personal contact.
To summarize, those three obstacles are far from insurmountable. All they require is for organizers, to address them as a priority. In the simplest terms, this means.
Prioritize protests against Republican lawmakers at their home offices and at key events of theirs around your congressional district, even more than calling out the national GOP
Drag local media, kicking, dragging or screaming, to peaceful protests, the louder the better… every single time you protest and also in media, in between.
Prioritize outreach to the either uncommitted or those yet willing to resist publicly in media, in-person or collectively. Numbers matter. Most simply wish to tell themselves that this is just politics and will change in either 2 years or 4. This is absolutely not the case. Fascists play to win and don’t kid yourselves, the only way that today’s GOP will acknowledge another election cycle, is if they control the outcome. If this sounds like Putin’s Russia, it is because that is Putin’s Russia, and his playbook, are literally, the model for today’s GOP.
Finally, I want to remind everyone that April 5th, was a respectable victory in this civil war. If it wasn’t, Trump and his Republican sycophants, would not have doubled down on intimidation ever since. Yesterday’s announcement that Trump wishes to imprison American citizens in overseas prisons, is a direct result of April 5th’s protests. He is attempting to frighten true patriots from further protests. Well, as they say, “he can’t arrest us all.” This is not Argentina in the mid-1970s where tens of thousands of Argentine citizens were “disappeared.”
We are Americans and this means that we have no history of capitulation when faced with tyranny. In fact, our nation was born of defending our freedom. Today, even Trump buddy and fellow right-wing populist, President Milei of Argentina, knows full well that Argentines will never allow another despotic regime to oppress them. Americans historically, never have either. We are the majority, and we have the upper hand in numbers, and it is not even close. This is far from over and momentum is building for us, the real patriots. We don’t fight back as Democrats or any other political belief system. We fight back because we are Americans.
Bravo for your courage my fellow citizens and readers. We’ve got this, even though the road ahead has plenty of potholes. All we have to do is be ourselves and to encourage other honest Americans to join us.
Onward,
Paul
If only...there were still papers that had editorials such as this, to rain from the skies and be distributed far and wide. Good subject in schools to discuss and debate, starting in middle school ! Social studies!
I like that you mentioned that the orange turd is bringing up comments about jailing Americans and investigating them as a means of intimidation. He has used this tactic often especially with republicans but with them is using a primary as a threat.