Join the fight or be political roadkill
First: Get busy. Talk is cheap. Action is better (and empowering). Even if it’s just leaving a voice message with your representatives, filling out an online response form or sending an efax. To Republicans and Democrats. Regularly. Not one and done.
No, it’s not as sexy as going to a big rally with your tribe or launching that nonprofit you’ve been rolling around in your head. Neither is hunkering down with an M4 in a cold, wet foxhole. Deal with it. The unsexy stuff matters:
Back when we had a Democratic congressman here, I knew the staff and would call the office to gauge the temperature on hot issues. I’d ask how the calls were running on a bill progressives wanted passed. Ten to one against. “Where are the Democrats?” they asked, exasperated. They’d voted, reset their politics to cruise control and went back to complaining.
Do that now and Musk-Trump-MAGA will eat you for lunch. But just as Trump is a blustering fraud, so is their mob-speak. Their goal here is simple: Bark loudly enough that the other dog rolls over on its back and pees in the air in submission.
That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg
Musk-Trump-MAGA is barking loudly at Bill Kristol and Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark. They’re being attacked online, sometimes with threats. But they’re not submitting.
Longwell writes:
Bill isn’t alone in receiving these weird smears and creepy attacks. The New York Times, Politico, the BBC, the Associated Press, Ben Stiller, Orlando Bloom, Jean-Claude Van Damme—all have also been accused of receiving USAID money for various normal things they did that Elon and/or his online fanboys do not like.
I can’t possibly say this in simpler terms: They’re just making it all up.
I’D LIKE TO POINT OUT that this is a first for us as Americans. Never before has a presidential administration so openly wielded the power of the federal government as a blunt-force instrument to be used against fellow Americans, journalism outlets, and, yes, its political rivals. We’re in a new place now.
Their working theory seems to be that maybe they can cow their critics and the media itself into submission. Maybe they can more easily turn the government into a plaything for their own personal enrichment.
That’s the playbook. Here’s how it plays out in three steps:
First they threaten you. Then they create conspiracy theories about you. Then they hound you with an online mob to make sure you fall in line.
That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.
You can join the fight or be political roadkill.