Step-up time is now
I don’t know if it’s possible for sane Americans with souls to feel more dejected this morning after the ICE killing in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Like the scene below from Andor, it seems that the Empire is in firm control and isn’t even bothering to lie badly to us anymore. (Art imitates life.)
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Or even to hide what they are up to:
American forces have been training for extractions after amassing military aircraft in Britain, as President Trump threatens strikes and annexations across the globe.
Special operations soldiers were seen rappelling from CV-22B tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft in a fast-rope and rescue exercise at a British airbase on Tuesday.
The drill took place shortly after a fleet of at least 14 C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft and two heavily armed AC-130J Ghostrider gunships landed at three RAF bases in Suffolk and Gloucestershire since Saturday.
Or this either (they’ve boarded the ship):
That interdiction has me thinking of another movie scene:
So the creeping fear and despair needs addressing.
Over the weekend, I told a former NC state representative about my highway sign efforts. He was taken aback. I’m a behind-the-scenes activist he sees as “an intellectual” and not a street activist.
“Extraordinary times,” I replied.
Donald Trump is all about spectacle. He once was part owner of professional wrestling, FFS. He very memorably had Lafayette Park cleared with tear gas and rubber bullets so he could pose with a Bible. He’s moving our military around the globe like he’s playing with tin soldiers. He’s staging live-fire spectacles in Venezuela and threatening other countries in this hemisphere. He has his secret police killing Americans; they bring their own film crews! All the attention is on him, and right now it looks as if no one is going to stop him/them. Indivisible’s actions are laudable as are the people behind No Kings. But people outside the Beltway need a sense that leading Democrats are at least trying if we expect voters to turn the bastards out in the fall.
Three times this week I’ve written the Democratic minority leaders in the House and Senate on what I need them to do. Last night, it went:
The writer Anand Giridharadas said last Feb., “I feel so fucking undefended right now.” He meant by Democrats in Congress. I’m on street corners and overpasses with signs 4-5x/wk since Aug. Drivers and pedestrians are anxious and afraid. They want more than anything else to be *SEEN* and *DEFENDED*. We’re in an attention economy and I need your entire caucus to get some.
Create a headline-grabbing spectacle, howboutit? Not another tired floor speech to an empty chamber. Not prepared statements delivered to a press gaggle from behind a lectern. Your voters I hope to drag off their couches to vote this fall need a *spectacle* to convince them that their elected representatives give a shit about more than inside-the-Beltway infighting that feels a galaxy from the lives they lead.
Here’s an outside-the-box idea: March the entire Senate and House Dem caucuses down Pennsylvania Ave. to rally in Lafayette Pk. against aggression in Venezuela and the ICE murder in Minneapolis. I don’t expect you to lead the resistance. I expect you to inspire by example. Talk is cheap and Indys [independents] don’t trust politicians. They need to SEE what you got.
Extraordinary times, extraordinary measures. This is an attention economy. Get some or go home. There’s no MLK to lead a march on Washington today. Take some time out of calling committee hearings and issuing sternly worded letters to do something memorable enough and out-of-character enough to grab headlines and buck up your voters or they may stay home this fall.
So I’ve had a scene from Tin Cup (1996) on my mind. Golfer Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner) is in contention for winning the U.S. Open. He stubbornly throws it away to prove to himself and everyone watching that he can make an unmakeable shot. His caddie wants him to play it safe, but Roy refuses. He makes a spectacle of himself, and in losing wins the hearts of the crowd and steals the winner’s thunder. Watch.
The lesson is delivered by an excited Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo) afterwards. She calls his performance legendary.
“Five years from now nobody will remember who won or lost, but they’re gonna remember your 12!”
Five years from now, there could be nothing left of what was The United States of America or the post-war order. It’s a good time for Democrats to do something legendary.
Update: This from Garrett M. Graff’s Doomsday Scenario. You feel it. I feel it. He feels it.
That heaviness you feel, that drag on your mental health, that drain on your emotional energy and lethargy in the face of world events, like yesterday, is real. We are all carrying a lot of new weight in the era of Trumpism.