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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Too often in recent decades the winner of the popular vote is not the person promoted to the White House.
The antiquated primary and Electoral College systems are culpable of swinging the results against the will of the people.
Now, Trump’s newest executive order attempts to wrest control of the 2026 midterm elections away from the states who are empowered by the Constitution to administer all elections by directing the federal Department of Homeland Security and the federal Social Security Administration to compile a federal list of “verified” citizens, and obligating the federal United States Postal Service to refuse delivery of ballots to anyone not on that list.
In his ongoing fascist fear-mongering, Trump is again riling up the MAGA-sphere claiming Republicans will lose the midterms unless he gets his way – an open admission that he wants to be dictator-in-chief, eviscerating the concept that government in these here United States is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The Federalist Society and the Powell Memo, culminating in this elevation of an American Hitler, have caused the demise of American democracy.
Americans can acquiesce and sink into subjugation and a lethargic depression, or we can gird our loins to fight for our future.
This is war. And it will be a long one, and hard.
The opposition has been building behind-the-scenes power for several generations. Now their rot threatens not only to overthrow democracy but the perversion of the Constitution itself.
Our sacred rights. The ones for which our forebears fought.
The final flare-up started with Texas, where redistricting biased in favor of those in power has initiated a domino effect across the country.
Redistricting is a deliberate effort to dilute the ability of the people most affected to strike back, limiting the ability of some segments of society to elect a person responsive to their needs, and enhanced by more dastardly moves such as reducing the numbers and hours of polls, locating them further away from those with limited ability to travel, narrowing windows of early voting, and more.
Then, in ruling against affirming the Congressional map Virginians approved to counter Republican gerrymandering, that state’s Supreme Court slammed Democrats’ aspirations to balance the inequalities driven by the Trump’s objective to continue his absolutist reign unimpeded.
This decision underlined years of machinations by the Federalist Society to place advocates of their reactionary agenda in positions of power in the courts and Republican establishment, allowing the annulment of elections, or their termination when already in process as happened in the Louisiana primaries.
The long-term high-stakes strategies of the Federalist Society and its allies that have developed over decades are coming to fruition.
Augmented by its pairing with the Powell Memo which marshaled the resources of capitalist corporate interests to protect against the “socialist” leanings of FDR and MLK, principled Americans who fought against the rise of a new Gilded Age of profiteers.
A memo that drove the development of the modern conservative movement putting profit before people, elevating plutocrats, and enabling increased manipulation of the government through money.
Republicans, representing those wealthy plutocrats, have not only destroyed the Voting Rights Act for current and future Americans of color, but for EVERY American unless they pipe Trump’s tune.
And where capitalist money left off, the stacking of the courts has careened forward.
The Federalist Society purported to advocate for the United States Constitution as originally written but instead has used it as a political battering ram to stifle democracy and the evolution of fair treatment of all residents of the United States by pushing an uber-conservative theocratic redefinition of our freedoms, drawing on views far older and fundamentalist than the Constitution.
It built a system starting in law school to convert impressionable students to their beliefs and repaid them by networking their advancement into positions of power, both in the government and the courts, to curb the development of progressive change and inculcate reactionary points of view on everything from human rights and healthcare, from gun regulation to environmental protections.
Issues that dramatically affect Americans’ safety and quality of life.
In the wake of Trump’s 2020 loss, this has spread the seizure and recounting of the ballots by partisan hacks loyal to conservative ideologies and, more recently, the wresting of control of election management away from independent oversight.
Trump strategized during his interregnum and weaponized what he inherited on his return.
Taking advantage of increasing control of government decisions by billionaires, generations schooled to believe that self-interest pre-empts all, privatization of public goods and services, conversion of activist citizens into passive consumers…
A morass of the suffering and dissatisfied, all convinced that they were owed far more than they were receiving, a perfect coalition of the discontented. The perfect tinder for the match of a fascist dictator.
Who controls the news media and flood social media with conspiracy theories and outright lies, elevates artificial intelligence unable to judge truth from lies, right from wrong, builds outrage and appeals to emotional rather than logical considerations.
If Trump’s first term mucking with the 2020 census, which disallowed huge swathes of people who should have been included and reduced funding, leading to the loss and further impoverishment of districts in states like California and adding some to more manipulatable constituencies elsewhere, wasn’t enough, the courts moving full speed ahead on redistricting to further skew voting.
Survival of the United States as its founders envisioned and as great Americans have fought for since depends on those opposed to the current situation standing up and fighting, embracing the morality of a Martin Luther King and bending the arc of justice to benefit the very least among us.
Reaching deep into their consciences to find the moral fiber to fight the repression from the White House and the courts, the social order that made Trumpism possible.
Opposing forthrightly the ever-Trumpers who applaud cruelty toward others and accept corruption as normal, eager to queue up for their share.
To all of you: speak up, embrace morality no matter how uncomfortable, foment a mass movement with neighbors and co-workers, youth and retirees, educators, artists, mothers, especially mothers, and all those others denied dignity, and turn outrage into collective action on the streets, in classrooms and workplaces… or collapse into an unfathomable pit of despair.
If allowed to stand, Trump’s new executive order could suppress millions of legitimate votes.
Legitimizing that the will of the people no longer matters; that only the voices of the rich and powerful count in the Scary New America.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
