This 2023 Fourth of July Assessment on the health of our republic has not aged well
Spoiler alert… Our democracy is healing and moving forward but…MAGA’s Right-Wing-Extremism remains our most serious national security threat.
TAT readers, this is a replay of last year’s assessment of the health of our republic. It has partially aged as expected and the part that hasn’t, is now far more dangerous, on the heels of the SCOTUS sellout, of our Constitution.
The only remedy for healing our republic, is for those like me, fully and irreversibly committed to our nation’s principles, to redouble our efforts to fight back against the fascist horde known as MAGA. We must triple our efforts to expose the culprits who enable this slow-motion Civil War against the republic. This means the oligarchs like Harlan Crowe who bought Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the architects of overthrowing the republic like Mitch McConnell who orchestrated treasonous Justices on the bench of SCOTUS, the war-monger idiots like that orange traitor and his hired thugs like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 3%ers, etc.
Every single GOP representative must go as it is they who’ve been spinelessly dishonest and refuse to honor their oath of office. I will say this as plainly as possible; MAGA is at war with our republic. The moment that we forget this, the republic is lost to fascist MAGA, the useful idiots of oligarchs and the power-mongers like Trump and the Republican Party.
This is the cold hard truth. There are more real patriots, of all political beliefs than there are MAGA bullies. If you are to ever take a stand for something priceless to yourselves, your family and your future generations, this year’s assessment… says that NOW, is the time.
My kindest and warmest regards for everyone’s Independence Day, may it not be our last.
Paul
Introduction
As we come up on the Fourth of July here in the US, my tradition is to read a bit more history of our nation, than usual. I particularly focus on our founding beliefs, in order to assess where we are in achieving our founder’s dreams for our republic. This year my assessment is; That our founder’s dreams are alive again, after nearly a decade of Trump, MAGA and a global, far-right, extremist threat. We’re not out of the woods quite yet, but… we’re finally moving forward again.
We must remain vigilant though, in marginalizing the MAGA crowd under the spell of RWE/ Right-Wing-Extremist, false patriotic narratives. The narratives of the MAGA crowd, for those who understand our history and our constitutional principles, a.k.a our founding principles, are precisely the opposite, or rather unpatriotic. Five prime examples:
The allowance of inciting violence by the narrators and lemmings of the MAGA movement
A SCOTUS that imposes their religious and far right values on a our nation
With MAGA still on the ballot prominently, we remain to be, more akin to a hostage with a knife at our throats, than a healthy warrior for democratic principles. All extremism is a threat, but only today’s, MAGA controlled Republican Party, holding power in one house of Congress, is our most serious threat to our national security. No, Russia, China and all of the other threats facing us are not our primary threat. We can, if we work with our true founding principles, find solutions for even the worst Xi, Putin, or even Climate Change can do. We can find zero solutions, if we continue to have RWEs employing alternate truth to achieve their immoral agenda.
I have written in-depth on multiple aspects of this threat, and have embedded links into today’s article for those who appreciate the sources I diligently strive to provide at TAT.
Throughout the long, mostly positive span of US History, we have had but two, nearly fatal threats to our democracy, the US Civil War and the Trump/ MAGA era. We failed to heal properly after the brutal chaos of our Civil War and in that failure, lay the seeds of Trump’s attempt to destroy all that our founders envisioned for American democracy. You will find extraordinary parallels to the influence practiced by the Confederacy to provoke the War between the States and today’s MAGA movement. Yes, there is also a persistent chorus of civil war, embedded in MAGA’s RWE ideology.
There is nothing about the MAGA movement that is what used to be called, “principled conservatism.” One of my top tier heroes, POTUS Eisenhower may have been the last of the truly principled conservatives. If anyone reads his 1956 GOP, presidential platform, you will see far more Joe Biden than any recognizable founding principles, coming from any elected GOP representatives in either the House of Representatives or the US Senate, once seen as the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” In modern terms, I see Eisenhower as a pragmatic progressive, considering the era he served in. Now, the MAGA GOP embraces nothing of his platform. Yes, I said NOTHING, and mean it.
Just today, rulings by SCOTUS show clearly that they are imposing their own religious beliefs on our entire nation and mostly without recourse. The dominance of right wing justices on the SCOTUS when ruling on abortion, allowed Justice Alito to write the majority opinion, which he based on a 17th Century English judge best known for validating marital rape and burning witches at the stake.
We have a sitting Justice (Clarence Thomas) who has persistently and consciously still deviates from any semblance of professional ethics. His alleged “originalist” interpretations of the constitution are best described as a smoke screen for rulings that support his big business, Dallas benefactor in a recent ProPublica report. Now it’s become apparent that he, Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts have similar, albeit lesser experiences during their tenure on the nation’s highest court. His support for the harshest of RWE cases appearing in front of the court, like supporting Christian Nationalist principles, could hardly be less constitutional.
I often use my home state of Texas, who under 30 years of exclusive GOP control now imposes their harsh Christian Nationalist values on all Texans. Their 2022 platform for the Midterms was and still is representative of a decidedly unconstitutional agenda, that puts the US constitution in a subservient role to their extremism. Texas though is not unlike any so-called red state and the TX agenda is also that of the Republican National Committee.
If we continue to allow one of only two major American political parties to sustain their assault on our constitutional rights, protections and guarantees, it’s our own damn fault. Democracy is a team sport. This means that if we want to continue to have rights to being a patriotic American, we need to all be involved at the ballot box. This means also being well and accurately informed.
This is another favorite topic for my pen. With my experience in extremism and influence, I know all too well, what the combination of foreign, RWE influence has on the US GOP. This pattern is not just a US problem either. During the height of our recent global populism and rabid, extremist Nationalism, global leaders and movements who did their “dirty work” all used the same narratives, talking points and tactics. Considering that the evidence clearly and unanimously shows that Russia backed Trump in 2016 and forward, the current GOP still echoes Putin talking points. The traitors at FOX wouldn’t even fire Tucker Carlson until he cost them nearly a billion dollars. Carlson, often repeated Putin’s talking points, sometimes verbatim.
America is better than what we are showing. I believe that true democratic values still live within the hearts of most Americans. The Trump/ MAGA crowd don’t even realize that they have been duped by professional influencers to become anti-patriots. One method employed by these US and foreign sellouts is to condition their audience over time to act and believe precisely what is said by their favorite media types.
In my line of work, these types are called narrators and they were the enablers of this conditioning. FOX, was the primary actor but then, Russia and unscrupulous GOP operators like Cambridge Analytical and Brad Parscale, including the hosts of all right wing media, soon adopted these tactics. This is how their followers have come to believe in conspiracy theories and extremist ideology. Once fully radicalized, there little hope for extremists to shed their extremist mindset completely. This is why, the seeds planted by the Civil War Confederacy, are still alive and thriving in Trump’s MAGA movement.
My primary profession is influence in support of national security. My core specialty that enabled success on the battlefield was to wage Narrative Warfare against a different type of violent extremists. Sadly, the US national security community refuses to listen to operators and still insists on engaging in influence in manner similar to “bring a knife to a gunfight.” If the US government refuses to modernize to better protect us from adversarial influencers, we must do it ourselves, just like the Minutemen on Lexington Commons at the beginning of our war for independence from Britain.
There are no quick fixes for improving and expanding our nation’s recovery from the peak of the Trump/ MAGA assault on our democracy. In fact, all of the most important contributions must come from citizens, not government. The top recommendations are:
Teach and demand proficiency in CIVICs and government classes, in all public schools
Demand mandatory media literacy courses in public education
Report and remain vigilant in pushing dishonest media out of the mainstream. This includes boycotting business that still writes big checks to the most egregious offenders like, FOX, NEWSMAX, BRIETBART, Truth Social, Parler, Rumble etc.
Demand proof from credible sources from all politicians, of their often bald-faced lies and conspiracy theories.
Speak up whenever un-American, extremist ideology rears its destructive head
Vote, vote, vote
Go to school board meetings or town hall meetings and raise your voice.
These items are all things that each American voter can get behind and in my opinion are part of the responsibility of citizenship. Apathy and ignorance have gotten us to the edge of the cliff. The new administration is pulling us away from that cliff but this is temporary, just like all politics. The strength of our nation is in it’s people and based on the unique American identity of our founding principles. Just like the Civil War, millions of American voters must be the foot-soldiers in saving our precious union.
Here at the beginning of many Fourth of July celebrations, it’s a good time to reflect on, just who we are as Americans, not liberal or conservative Americans. If we follow our founding principles, party really won’t matter to anyone but those profiting from pitting left vs right. If these folks are willing to sellout our nation, then we will all have to do our part to sustain the progress we’ve made since Trump was soundly booted out of office, despite Russian and immoral RWE assistance.
As with all things in a democracy, we must all do our part. It will take courage and commitment. Always remember though, that part of our American identity is the toughness to act in the face of a threat. I have faith that enough will show up in this endeavor. Please don’t prove me wrong… for all of our sake.
As always, my very best for your weekend and the upcoming celebration of our founding.
Paul