Be alarmed, be very alarmed, and do something about it

With democracy on the ballot, the media and public must come to their country’s rescue

What’s happening in this country is a failure of imagination.

Many of us take our freedoms for granted. We can’t envision a day when our rights would disappear, leaving us at the mercy of a dictatorship that’s accountable to no one.

Human beings are basically optimistic, and many of us haven’t considered the possibility that 248 years of democracy could end on a single election day. But they can, and they might.

Today I’m asking you to be alarmed – to be deeply afraid. But not crippled by that fear. I’m pleading with you to become motivated to avert a national disaster.

I recently ran across a quote by Elizabeth Bibesco, a British writer who married into Romanian royalty. In 1934, as the nightmares of Nazism were emerging, she observed: 

“The Nazi regime benefits from the fact that its atrocities overstep the limits of credibility.”

That’s right. The Nazi agenda was inconceivable to decent people – and that’s part of the reason it became a reality.

There was a failure of imagination.

But with today’s MAGA fascism, we don’t have to exercise our imagination very much. We just have to fight the temptation to downplay the dangers that Trump and his gang display in public, for all of us to see.

Trump says his opponents are “vermin” and immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

He and his supporters plan to weaponize the Justice Department to go after their political enemies.

They threaten to send federal troops into urban areas such as New York City uninvited, under the pretext of fighting crime, even though the homicide rate in NYC is only a third as high as it is in some red states. 

They’re drafting plans to pull national guardsmen from red states into a national force to round up millions of undocumented immigrants – and they want those red-state guardsmen to invade blue states that refuse to participate.

They’re plotting a national abortion ban and are targeting birth control too.

They intend to roll back civil rights for LGBTQ Americans.

They’re targeting the free press, threatening to make MSNBC ”pay for their illegal political activity.” 

Trump has called for the “termination” of the Constitution. He’s said he has “the right to do whatever I want as president.” He’s vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” 

What more evidence do we need? How many times does a fascist mob have to storm the Capitol before people realize their democracy is under attack?

Yet despite all the screaming sirens, some people tell themselves that our government is strong enough to withstand the MAGA assault. 

But given the Supreme Court’s decision last week to help Trump delay justice, it’s unwise to count on the court to protect us. A third of the justices were chosen by the nation’s most dangerous criminal – Trump. Two others, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, are right-wing zealots who have secretly taken high-dollar favors from rich benefactors. The court is compromised.

Many aspects of our political system, such as the makeup of the Senate and the Electoral College, give the right wing an unfair advantage and increase the chances that an anti-democratic minority will seize power. Will the guardrails hold? As Mark Thompson put it on X/Twitter: “Guardrails in a democracy work until you have one political party ramming them consistently every hour of every day.”

Which is why the election in November will be the most consequential of our lives. It’s not the time for negativity – it’s the time for activism. We’ve got eight months to make a difference. 

The media must:

• Tell the truth directly, dammit. No euphemisms.

• Refuse to do live interviews with proven liars like Trump, Elise Stefanik and Ron Johnson. Tape them and properly fact-check them. 

• Never repeat political lies without calling them lies.

• Write about issues that matter, not Trump’s $399 golden sneakers.

• Follow the lead of The Atlantic, which devoted a full issue to the threat of totalitarianism. Get very specific about what Trump has planned for 2025, as Politico did in a recent story.  

• Take a prominent editorial position in support of democracy and against fascism. Put an editorial on Page 1 and on the homepage of news websites, as I suggested a while back.

Patriotic Americans must:

• Speak out on social media. (But if that’s all you’re doing, it’s not enough.)

• Talk about what’s at stake with family and friends, not in a lecturing way but in a sincere way. Identify people you know who are persuadable and share the truth with them.

• Send money to pro-democracy candidates. Almost all of them will be Democrats, but that doesn’t mean the Democrats are always right. It does mean, however, that they are the main organization standing in the way of an American dictatorship.

• Campaign for pro-democracy candidates. There are lots of ways to do that, including knocking on doors, writing postcards, making phone calls, and working as a polling place observer. It’s easy to find campaigns online. They’re always looking for volunteers. 

• If there’s a key election in a neighboring state, drive there for a weekend or two of volunteer work.

• Stay hydrated. These are stressful times, and we need you to be healthy.

• When election time comes, remind like-minded people to vote. Be a pest. Get them to vote early. 

Whatever you do, don’t ignore what’s happening. Be part of the patriotic rescue of your country – something you can take pride in for the rest of your days. Consider it your gift to your children, your grandchildren, and future generations that you’ll never know.

Fight fascism now, while you can. Be a hero to your country.