Coping with the Trump threat

In an earlier post I wondered how serious a threat Dear Leader's hostility to dissent and contempt for social and political norms posed to the country.

Now the question is: if he's as big a threat as I (we) fear, what the hell do we do?

As I mentioned in that earlier post, it's possible the fate of the nation will rest in the individual consciences of the thousands of rank-and-file employees of the executive branch, including many peace officers. Will they resist illegal orders? Will they decide their duty to their country outweighs their duty to their current boss?

I don't know. And I'm not sure it's such a hot idea to leave our fate in so few hands anyway.

If the nation's future hangs by the fragile thread of the consciences of rank-and-file agents, lawyers, clerks, etc., in various federal bureaus and agencies, the nation's fabric will have been irretrievably compromised by Dear Leader and his cronies.

At that point, the citizenry as a whole will have to reassert the primacy of custom, comity and, above all, the rule of law in our national governance.

We will have to rediscover our values and our honor.

That will be a challenge none of us has ever faced. Meeting it may take drastic measures, the likes of which have never been needed in this country.

To be clear, I'm not talking about armed revolt. That's the kind of response Dear Leader is prepared for; he will rally the law enforcement machinery around him because law enforcement doesn't like armed insurrection no matter how bad the political situation is. (Knowing Dear Leader, he will try to rope in the armed services to help out, too.)

No, if Dear Leader presents the existential threat to our republic that I'm beginning to think he does, I'm talking about bringing the civic machinery of the country to a grinding halt. I'm talking about withholding federal taxes and refusing to cooperate with federal authorities. I'm talking about dropping tools and paralyzing the business of the nation.

I'm talking about a general strike and civil disobedience directed against the federal government, until such time as Dear Leader and his junta are removed from power.

I have a tiny, ineradicable sliver of hope that Dear Leader and Steve Bannon and DL's other hangers-on aren't the junta suggested by their behavior to date. Why do I have hope? Because our nation has never elected a tin-pot dictator before. However, "We haven't screwed up so far!" is a poor reason for optimism. So start wrapping your mind around the possible need to do the hitherto unthinkable.