Also by Lila Garrett, Bob Fitrakis, Suzanne Patzer, David Swanson, Ilene Proctor, Jan Goodman, Jerry Manpearl, Myla Reson, Alan Minsky, Linda Seeley, and many more
The unthinkable is upon us.
A president of the United States poses a clear and present danger to our global survival. He is mentally unstable, dangerously incompetent, throughly dishonest and can’t be trusted with the safety of our children or our planet.
It’s become our duty to remove him soon, beyond the electoral system, and strictly without violence.
At primary issue are Trump’s imminent threat of nuclear war; his assault on the global ecosystems and green infrastructure on which our ecological and economic future depends; the outrageous culture of theft permeating his regime; its on-going attacks on women, and more.
Trump embodies a classic corporatist reaction against a powerful social democratic uprising. The volcanic energy generated by the Sanders, Green, Libertarian. Occupy and other campaigns for social justice and ecological sanity are at the core of American life.
The current electoral system does not provide for the timely removal of this dangerously unbalanced chief executive. A focused non-violent movement might.
It requires the use of "satyagraha"—focussed peaceful action. It's been pioneered by the American independence, abolitionist, suffragette and labor movements, by Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India campaign, Dr. Martin Luther King’s work for civil rights, the non-violent resistance that helped bring down the Soviet Union, Nelson Mandala’s victory against South African apartheid, the Otpor campaign against Serbia’s Milosevic dictatorship, the American feminist, No Nukes, LGBTQ+, Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Sandenista campaigns, and many more.
There are no easy answers, no predictable routes to success.
But the 2016 election was illegitimate. Donald Trump lost by at least 2.8 million popular votes. He lost the exit polls in the five states that swung the Electoral College. GOP secretaries of state used Crosscheck and other computer programs to disenfranchise countless citizens of color. They could easily hack the electronic voting machines on which 80% of the nation's ballots were cast or counted.
Neither Trump nor his son-in-law display any grasp of the complexities of global diplomacy on which our survival may depend. Chief Aide Steve Bannon has explicitly called for a war in Asia. His reckless rhetoric about atomic weapons could easily provoke the inbred kleptocracy of North Korea, among others.
Trump's attack on the Environmental Protection Agency, our public lands and our planetary support systems threaten our ecological survival. His corrupt commitments to fossil fuels, atomic energy and other obsolete technologies undermine America's ability to join the Solartopian revolution in renewables, efficiency and sustainable agriculture on which our prospects for future competitiveness and prosperity depend.
Trump and his family DO display a deep commitment to personally profiting from the presidency. Their outrageous breaches of faith, trust and the law are costly and without precedent and demand prosecution.
Trump's cruel attacks on women, and the administration's lethal assault on Planned Parenthood and other vital services, present a clear and present danger to the health and dignity of our nation.
As opposition erupts, a cynical, crisis-loving regime might well "burn the Reichstag" to solidify authoritarian rule. Trump seems so void of common sense that he might well cross the line into atomic war with no real comprehension of the consequences.
As citizens, we must protect ourselves, our loved ones, our fellow beings, and the planet on which we all depend. We cannot wait.
Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached by the US House but were not removed by the Senate. Richard Nixon was facing impeachment when he resigned.
Even though Trump, his family and cronies may have repeatedly broken the law, a corrupt GOP Congress is unlikely to remove him.
Mid-term elections might conceivably replace them with Democrats.
But our electoral system is a hollow sham. And the corporate Democrat establishment lives in fear of precisely the kind of grassroots movement it will take to remove this regime.
But in recent decades tens of millions of Americans crossed class, racial, religious, geographic, ethnic, generational and other lines to demand social change through a wide range of non-violent campaigns, local, regional, national and otherwise. Trump's dangerous incompetence has energized them even further.
Richard Nixon once touted a "secret plan" to drop nuke weapons on Vietnam. But fear of a grassroots eruption stopped him, then forced him to quit.
Another such campaign could remove this president. It'll demand multiple strategies and tactics, including mass rallies, marches, boycotts, strikes, non-cooperation, tax resistance, guerrilla theater, door-to-door conversation, and much more we may not yet envision.
The great non-violent strategist Gene Sharp lists some 200 such tactics at his legendary (http://www.aeinstein.org ) Einstein Institute. Mark and Paul Engler beautifully explore non-violent activism in their THIS IS AN UPRISING (www.nationbooks.org).
There are no simple answers, except to be civil in our disobedience. Any violence must be assumed to come from those who want us to fail.
But preventing nuclear suicide; preserving the global ecology and a competitive green future; prosecuting corruption; protecting the rights of women comprise the ultimate incentive to RESTORE SANITY.
Our diverse upheaval is focused, planned, spontaneous, non-partisan, democratic, relentless, tolerant, just, loving, good-natured, humor-driven, musical, fearless, optimistic, joyous, kind.
It means looking beyond removing this crazy kleptocrat toward an electoral system based on un-hackable hand-counted paper-ballots, free from Jim Crow disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, corporate money and all the other autocratic cancers that have left our government in shambles.
Our country was born of grassroots action that overthrew a delusional tyrant. Today we are a mighty stream of angry millions, riding the continuity of America’s democratic birthright. RESTORING SANITY means we get out and win with the full activist force of a great social democratic tradition.
And we had damn well better do it fast, before this madman kills us all.
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To join in go to www.freepress.org and www.solartopia.org.
