We must look up by Barry Rosenbaum

Sometimes events take place with such dizzying speed and in ways so foreign to our sense of order, that the brain just shuts down. This is such a time. We simply cannot process the unrelenting pace in which our governmental and societal fabric is being systematically destroyed. So, we keep our heads down and try to live our lives. We keep doing our jobs, raising our kids, pursuing our passions, and quietly sharing our fears with trusted friends and colleagues. Politicians keep raising campaign funds and plotting their reelection, thinking that maybe next mid-terms will save us — good strategy before, tragically inadequate now.

Like many, I am getting my news from alternative sources since I don’t want to support the mainstream press with its forced allegiance to the billionaire class. One of my sources is Substack. Many of my trusted chroniclers of current events have raised their voices as high as they can since they see our democracy literally on life support. The pieces I quote were posted there on March 17.

In Deportations: It’s Not Where It Starts It’s Where It Ends, Joyce Vance presents a detailed discourse on the federal government’s unlawful actions in the forced deportation of Venezuelans that occurred this weekend. Joyce is not one to speak in hyperbole and the pronouncement with which she concluded reverberated to my core:

“It is a bleak moment in history.”

In Where the Law Ends, Trump Begins, Harry Litman writes:

[T]his is an emergency-happy administration. Its broad aim is clearly to curtail or nullify constitutional protections under cover of unreviewable authority… We are on a knife’s edge of autocratic rule this very week, with the administration’s attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act.

In  We’re Well Past Alarm Bells, in the Bulwark, William Kristol writes:

One trusts that the United States isn’t going to go the way of Germany in the last century. But the slope toward lawlessness is a slippery one, and we have an administration that is eagerly leading us down it. There are still footholds we can grab onto in order to arrest the precipitous decline that lies ahead. But we are already partway down the hill, and the pace of decline is accelerating.

In today’s newsletter, Robert Hubbell writes:

The US Supreme Court will soon be presented with a case in which Trump claims that he is not required to obey court orders. We should hope for the best but plan for the worst.

The worst would be a decision by the Supreme Court that fails to unequivocally tell Trump he must comply with Court orders. Anything less will be viewed as a victory by Trump.

No matter what happens, the answer lies in the mass mobilization of the American people.

We are not at the point, at least today, where the administration kills its perceived enemies — it just makes them disappear. Grab them in the middle of the night — like the Gestapo or the KGB we always read about to distinguish our system from theirs — and send them to a foreign prison. These actions are designed to ensure we stay quiet in fear — just lower our heads and don’t look up. This atmosphere of fear is bound to be ratcheted up when the administration starts to detain prior leaders of this country who it characterizes as enemies of the state.

We are quickly growing short on time. If this authoritarian coup is going to be stopped, a massive showing by the citizens of this country, in coordination with attuned elected officials, needs to take place now. Indeed, we may find that it’s already too late. But we must engage in any event.

For those who have already been active in efforts to save our democracy, keep it up and expand the scope of your activities. For those who have not yet transmuted your rage, your fear, or your disbelief into action, now is the time to do so.

We are on the precipice of a future in this country that we previously considered unimaginable. It’s time for all of us to look up!