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The Going Just Got Tough. Are the Tough Ready to Get Going? [1]

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Date: 2024-07-01  

The photo at the top of this page is one of many that I shot on December 5, 2016 when I visited the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture. It features a life-size bronze statue of Robert Smalls. Born into slavery in 1839, he commandeered and piloted a Confederate transport ship from Charleston, SC to a Union Army enclave near Beaufort, SC while still enslaved. The commandeered ship was rechristened as a Union warship. Later in his life, Mr. Smalls represented South Carolina as a US Congressman from 1874-1879 (before and after the dismantling of the first Reconstruction) and 1882-1887.

In many ways, Robert Smalls’ triumph over slavery paralleled that of Frederick Douglass, who was likewise born into slavery. Like Mr. Smalls, he escaped to freedom, in his case by “following the North Star” out of the slave-holding South. Mr. Douglass’s subsequent achievements included renowned abolitionist leader and spokesman, the first black DC US Marshall, and General Counsel to the Republic of Haiti (a position he resigned two years after his appointment in protest of the US government’s plans to seize control of Haitian territory against the will of the Haitian people).

I lift up these two African American ancestors to show how they were willing to defy all odds and gain their freedom and the freedom of enslaved and Jim-Crowed (“freed”) black people by any means necessary. Both men confronted fear during their lives. This was the fear of white slaveholders and supremacists who wanted black people to be placed under political and economic lock-down in place of the plantation slavery system that was destroyed during the Civil War. But they never allowed their fears to paralyze them or leave them “clutching their pearls,” so to speak. They stood up to their racist enemies and walked tall as free black men.

Rev. Jesse Jackson is well known for his call for we who believe in freedom to “Keep Hope Alive.” Neither he nor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called for us to be “optimistic.” The history of enslaved African people and their descendants in this country demonstrates the relevance of hope (knowing or figuring out what one can do to help bring about change) as opposed to optimism (expecting things to change for the better without necessarily doing anything to help manifest it).

Today, the rogue SCOTUS delivered a ruling regarding Mango Mussolini’s claim of absolute immunity. That ruling stated that actions committed by a sitting President as part of their official duties cannot result in prosecution, but didn’t state what those actions might be. This abominable decision places the President above the law despite nearly 250 years of US constitutional law and common law protections going back to the 1215 Magna Carta, which partially ended the concept of “divine right of kings.”

This SC ruling has caused a lot of Democrat/progressive folks to reach for their clutching pearls once again (after having eased their grip several days after Thursday’s CNN dumpster fire of a presidential debate). Rather than dive off of that cliff with a lot of other lemmings, I decided to develop some ideas for positive actions to help us save American democracy from the theofascists and the oligarchs. I present these suggested ideas below for your consideration:

Stage massive street demonstrations across the country demanding that the orange perpetraitor be arrested and prosecuted for his crimes If Mango Mussolini attempts to disrupt the inauguration of a reelected Joe Biden. Mango Mussolini was the sitting President when he staged his attempted coup on January 6, 2021. If he attempts a replay of that crime before January 20, 2025, he will be subject to prosecution for his seditious actions because Joe Biden will be the sitting President this time (and if something happens to Biden, Kamala Harris will be the sitting President).

Lobby President Biden and Congress, in cooperation with the DC Mayor and the governors of Maryland and Virginia, to declare a public safety emergency and stage whatever local/Capitol police and National Guard forces are necessary around the US Capitol, the White House, and along Pennsylvania avenue on the day that Congress certifies the electoral vote count and, if necessary, on Inauguration Day to deter potential organized violence by the MAGA mob (the optics won’t look like a democracy, but it’ll beat allowing the perpetraitor back in the White House by default).

Mount an all-out effort to reelect President Biden and give him a Congress where both Houses are under effective Democratic control and ready to impose real reform on the SCOTUS.

Organize massive campaigns to commit nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to federal or state laws that nullify or threaten our constitutional rights to bodily autonomy; free speech (no book bans or anti-CRT/DEI restrictions); the ability to vote and have our votes counted; the right to love and marry whomever we choose; the right to the protection of our health and environment from pollutants; and the right to practice the religion of our choice or no religion at all.

Sponsor kitchen table teach-ins across the country about the US Constitution and its Amendments, especially Amendments XIII, XIV, and XV (13 through 15) which were enacted during the first Reconstruction . That way, US voters will learn what their rights are (they will also learn that the words Christianity, Christ, and immunity don’t appear in the Constitution).

Stage massive demonstrations in every US state urging President Biden to issue executive orders directing federal agencies to observe and respect the basic constitutional rights that I’ve spelled out above regardless of SCOTUS’s authoritarian and racist/misogynistic decisions.

Finally, let’s squash the panicky trash talk about replacing President Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket. The record of American history shows that whenever an incumbent President leaves office before the end of his current term, his party loses control of the White House when the following presidential election is held. We can’t risk allowing Mango Mussolini back in the White by default (I admit to being repetitive here, but the gravity of our status as a constitutional democracy justifies it, IMHO).

Let me know what you think about this piece. Please vote in the User Poll below. Thanks for caring about our democracy, whether you like, hate, or are indifferent to my suggested actions.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/1/2250410/-The-Going-Just-Got-Tough-Are-the-Tough-Ready-to-Get-Going?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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