Dear Friends,

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL PROGRAM:

(00:58) Stopping the slide into dictatorship;
(19:44) The Donkey Man’s 1,800-mile journey around Ireland, with Kevin O’Hara;
(40:02) Maybe Iowa has decided to no longer take itself seriously;
(55:35) February garden Q & A, with Kathy Byrnes.

Let’s cut right to the chase. Some of my Republican and Independent friends (yes, I have a bunch of them) don’t want to hear this: Donald Trump is leading America into dictatorship!

If that wasn’t obvious before, it’s becoming more and more obvious with each passing day. With every new executive order and presidential tweet, we can see where things are headed.

As we (individually and collectively) decide how to respond, it’s helpful to understand how we got here.

First, I blame the endless growth economy. Dictatorship is the logical outcome of an economic system that denigrates people as mere “consumers.”
Dictatorship is where you land when “the economy” becomes, essentially, the state religion, when people, land, plants, and animals are trampled because they’re in the way of resources coveted by industry.

You know you’re on the precipice of dictatorship when leading political figures are millionaires and even billionaires — some of them unelected.

Dictatorship is what you get when, over time, the media is controlled by big corporations that no longer allow a balanced exchange of ideas and information.

So, yeah, I blame our economy, and all the peripheral factors associated with it, for our slide into dictatorship.

Second, I blame the Democratic Party. Democrats could have stopped the slide. Instead, they’ve enabled it. The Party used to be the voice of the people. The party of the New Deal. Civil rights. Social Security. Medicaid and Medicare. Earth Day.

Now it’s the Party of trade treaties that ship American jobs overseas. The Party of corporate welfare. The Patriot Act. Welfare “reform.” The drug war. Turning over the public airwaves to the radical right.

Sure, there’s still some progressive populism in the Party. But it’s in the wings, on the sidelines, maligned by the Party’s corporate rulers. I discovered this personally when I dared run for governor in 2006. More recently, and on a far larger scale, see Bernie Sanders or Marianne Williamson for details.

So don’t blame Trump voters for where America is headed. Sure, call out the corporate oligarchs, the blatant racists, the White nationalists, and the religious extremists within the Republican Party. But the rank-and-file voter who supported Trump did so for lots of reasons, often because the Democratic Party was no longer the champion of the working person. No longer the Party committed to peace and diplomacy. No longer the Party that fought to defend the First Amendment.

When I talk with Trump voters, as I’ve done on my talk show many times (CLICK HERE TO SEE A STRING OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS), we find lots of common ground. Getting big money out of politics. Supporting local businesses instead of big chains. Promoting healthy and organically-grown food. Ending corporate welfare. Protecting landowners from the abuse of eminent domain. The failure of our health care system. Conservation. Clean water.

When it comes to core concerns, a majority of Americans are on the same page.

Since most Trump voters are decent people, and since much of what Trump does is indecent, it’s just a matter of time before many of Trump’s supporters turn against him. They’ll see that Trump is not who they thought he was on foreign policy or on helping struggling working families. It’s already clear that he’s more interested in changing names and taking over other countries than he is in the price of eggs.

These two forces — Trump opponents and soon-to-be former Trump supporters — need to come together and stop the slide into dictatorship. Those of us who’ve known for some time where Trump intends to take us must speak out. We need to engage in Anticipatory DISobedience, as I’ve called it.

In the meantime, ask your friends, family members and neighbors how they feel about what Trump’s already done in his first three weeks. A good starting point is Trump’s response to the plane crash in Washington, DC.

Want talking points? I can’t say it any better than Doug Burns did in a recent column:

The rescue operation in the river had barely turned into recovery-investigation mode when President Trump desecrated decency from the world’s most influential platform with wild speculation about the cause of the disaster. He cast the villain roles before the first fact hit the national stage.

“We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas — and I think we’ll publicly state those opinions now,” Trump said in his news conference, a head-spinning articulation, out-loud (again, out loud!) that he was presenting “opinions,” not facts formed and backed by investigation.

He spray-gunned blame around with glee, like a Roman Emperor delighting at the sight of blood in the arena. The pained resolution of an FDR after Pearl Harbor or anguish of Obama, watery eyed, following Newtown or George W. Bush after 9/11? No, not for Trump. The press briefing room at the White House turned into political sporting ground featuring the president’s adolescent imagination.

He blamed the helicopter personnel. “You could have gone up, you could have gone down.”

Then, admitting he had no evidence, and was basing his assessment on “common sense,” Trump baselessly suggested that DEI policies — the hiring of anyone who is not white and male — was the cause of the disaster.

He suggested people with disabilities were the root of the disaster.

Then blamed Obama.

Then blamed Biden.

Then “dwarfism.” What?

The president used the moment to take political shots at Pete Buttigieg, the former U.S. secretary of transportation.

“He was a disaster as mayor” of South Bend, Indiana, Trump said during the moments of national mourning.

“He’s just got a good line of bullshit,” Trump continued on Buttigieg.

I’m sure this is what grieving families in Kansas, the origin state for the flight, want to hear hours after suddenly losing loved ones. How soothed they must have been to hear attacks on Buttigieg.

That’s from Doug Burns, a fourth-generation Iowa journalist I’ve known a long time, who has respect across the political spectrum.

Share Doug’s words about Trump’s response to the plane crash with Trump voters. Ask if they think it was an appropriate response. Ask if it makes a dent in their loyalty to him. Sow a seed of doubt. If they’re a decent person, they can’t help begin to question whether Trump is the president America needs. Don’t be preachy, and be sure to listen.

Over time, keep the dialogue going. Work your way through the list of bizarre Trump actions. The list is only going to get longer. At some point, reasonable Americans are going to see the threat this president poses to democracy, freedom, justice, and survival. They’re going to see the wizard hiding behind the curtain. They’re going to understand that America is stumbling down a slippery slope toward the death of our democracy, or worse.

Hopefully, the people you talk with are going to want to be part of the resistance. We need them. We need everyone. The sooner the better.

Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action. — Ed Fallon

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