Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread #125
Clarity

1/ I write after the Mueller report has been submitted and given the Barr twist, amid considerable despondency both among the patriots and within my own heart. I’ve found that periods of desolation, at least for me, are always helped by clarity.

2/ So here is what is now clear to me: it’s up to us.

3/ Trump, the Kremlin, the corrupted GOP, Fox News, and corrupted parts of the White Evangelical church comprise a demonic force that our currently structured government is incapable of withstanding.

4/ There is no possibility of impeachment, and a likelihood that Trump may be re-elected. I am not repeating my mistake of 2015-16. So it is up to us to make sure that does not happen.

5/ Therefore, If our children and grandchildren are to have the rights of free citizens and if those rights are to be protected by the rule of law, three things must happen:

6/ 1. President Trump and the current Senate majority party must be removed from office in 2020; 2. Our country must then convince any nation waging psychological warfare against us to cease; 3. We need thoughtful reforms of both our elections and our agenda.

7/ None of that will happen if our current kleptocrats remain in power.

8/ Get clear. No institutional guard rails or Madisonian checks and balances will save the country from these demonic attacks. I use the word demonic here reluctantly, but it seems apt.

9/ In Scripture, “the Satan” is termed, “The accuser of the brothers,” (Rev. 12:10). Think of the deadly insults Trump and his party now smear any opponent with -- that is a demonic tactic...

10/..We’re up to 10,000 lies and counting in just the past two years. Jesus called certain officials of his day the sons of the Father of Lies. Satan is also known as “The deceiver of the world.” All Trump’s constant lies reveal his commitment to the master deceiver.

11/ The people who understand what a threat to our nation this administration represents need to summon the will to unite in opposition to it. The resistance cannot become a dispirited, disconnected group.

12/ Each of us needs enough discipline to become part of a movement to vote this villainous administration out. Here’s my plan to get myself ready. Maybe you’ll find it helpful:

13/ a. First is to get and stay healthy enough for the psychological and physical challenge of resisting this massive mimetic contagion of autocracy, fueled by transnational organized crime, that continues to spread mayhem around the globe....

14/.. (I’m in my mid-seventies, so this will be more challenging for me than for most of you. For those of you who are my age, it’s a bit like “getting clean for Gene,” back in the 60’s.)

15/ b. Refrain from feeding on constant repetition of the same stuff every day. We already know all we need to know about terrible Trump...

16/.. I realize that my information already far exceeds my obedience, in terms of serving our wounded nation. That said, I plan never to miss a Stephen Colbert opening monologue.

17/ c. Clear my calendar for the last six weeks of the 2020 campaign. This is no hour for prissy purists to say, “Oh the D’s are as bad as the R’s.” Work with whomever has the courage to organize to defeat the party of Trump.

18/ d. I’ll keep doing threads that folks tell me are helpful. I think one huge question is, “What do I say to the Trumpsters in my family and among my co-workers and friends?” It’s tough. I need to think a bit more about it, but maybe I can help a little with that.

19/ e. Later this year, I will choose a person to support to be the Democratic candidate. We have several promising choices. I will not speak ill of any of them...

20/ ..Whomever we nominate I will work on her or his campaign in whatever capacity they say I can help. I’ll give them more than I can afford, because the country is at stake.

21/ f. Always put Trump on mute. Listening to him try to speak is as embarrassing as watching me dance.

22/ g. We’ll need a vision, and I am waiting for that. The thunderous no to Trumpism and autocracy is the easy part. We need something that is a yes.

23/ In the great recent work of Nigel Hamilton on FDR, especially “The Mantle of Command,” we discover how difficult Winston Churchill was for FDR. Churchill admired and needed FDR, but he couldn’t persuade FDR into the war for the first two years...

24/.. For Churchill the war was about saving not just England but the British Empire. FDR said no, that the era of colonialism must end.

25/ But colonialism was all Europe had known for centuries....

26/..Under colonialism, the rapacious greed of Europeans and their delusion of white superiority used to justify subjugating “lesser” humanity, would bring about, in the first half of the 20th century alone, the slaughter of hundreds of millions of people.

27/ One night during a Churchill visit in the White House, FDR came barging down the hall in his wheelchair calling, “Winston, I’ve got it!” He rolled into Churchill’s room: “The United Nations! What do you think?”

28/ That was the vision that made it possible for FDR to ask Americans to fight and die. We needed to defeat Nazism, yes. But we also needed to build something that had the possibility of ending colonialism and therefore of making sense of the sacrifice...

29/.. They would create an international order where nations could be protected by international consent.

30/ Thinking deeply about that moment, I can see the agenda of Trump, the GOP, Putin, Brexit, Erdogan, -- the whole lot of cruel, greedy men who are seizing power. It’s not just to reverse the danger to their white superiority posed by the good and decent Barack Obama...

31/.. No, the deep agenda of the bad actors, the fools like Bannon and the punks like Murdoch, is to dismantle the vision of free nations cooperating for peace and prosperity for the common person, the vision that gripped FDR and the next three generations.

32/ Taking down Trump et al means sacrifice. What is the vision that will move enough of us to sacrifice? Part of it is the ancient & unfinished vision of liberty &equality. Part of it is a new vision of divinity that sees women as well as men as beings in the image of God.

33/ The hardest part in the near term will be changing our understanding of the good life from the celebration of endless, nihilistic acquisition to a life of modesty, generosity, compassion for others, and a cherishing of all the nonhuman life on the planet.

34/ So far as we know, this little blue dot circling a mid-sized star in a minor galaxy is the one place life exists. We are shoving into extinction thousands of species of life right now...

35/.. Do we have to destroy all the life we know about in the universe just so some dumbass jerk can brag about having a billion dollars? Hell no! How about a vision of humanity as the steward of all the life God has brought forth?