26/10/2024
This is worth your time to read!
Warning #1: Be not afraid
STEVE SCHMIDT
OCT 26
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“ Beginning today, I will publish 10 specific warnings about the existential threat at hand facing the American way of life. Make no mistake, it is under attack from within.
There are 10 days remaining until Election Day 2024. The outcome of the election will soon be in the hands of the American people, who will vote for the 60th time about who to elect president of the United States. Until 2020, executive power transferred peacefully in the United States for 223 years — 43 times — and then it didn’t.
The reason it didn’t is because Donald Trump refused to concede an election that he lost. He desecrated his oath of office when he concocted a monstrous lie that had the specific intent of inciting a conspiracy of lies, deception, manipulation and violence to overturn the legitimate results of a US presidential election.
What occurred was a coup d’état, and while it was decried in private by feckless Republicans, they chose appeasement in front of the cameras. The delusions and iron will of a single man to create his own reality shattered the pretenses of almost every single elected official in the Republican Party, from top to bottom. He destroyed their judgement, patriotism, integrity, values, decency and dignity because those virtues can’t be defended by hollow men and women who don’t have the courage required to meet the test of these “crowded hours.” Only the American people remain between Donald Trump and power.
There are three quotes that deserve reflection and contemplation in a moment when an American fascist is barnstorming the county spreading a venomous gospel of racial malice, delusions, threats, and division.
Dorothy Thompson was an eyewitness to the collapse of democracy at the edge of freedom’s supreme test. It stands far away in memory, at the outer edge of a long human lifetime. The lessons and their harshness have not abated with American amnesia towards them.
When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily, by default, it can never be recovered.
Peace has to be created in order to be maintained. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism.
There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, and the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of the happenings.
Dorothy Thompson was the first American journalist to both interview Adolf Hi**er, and be expelled from N**i Germany. She understood fear very well as she watched it disintegrate the sinews of a society like an acid-eating metal during the rise of fascism. She would have perfectly understood the decisions by LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos to intervene in their newspapers’ editorial process and stop the tradition of political endorsements. Simply, Bezos cares more about his boat and his business interests than he does about the First Amendment.
Both billionaires have made a business decision, and have decided to protect themselves and their interests by getting in line. They will be expected to stay in line, and the days ahead will mark a sudden and decisive change in American culture. Make no mistake, there will be a price for speaking up and out. The era of blacklists and reprisals stands right around the corner should Donald Trump prevail — and even if he doesn’t.
Ten days from tonight, before midnight, if he is losing, Donald Trump will appear before the cameras and declare he is winning an election that he knows he has lost. His accomplices will be the people standing next to him and behind him. Across the country, a well-rehearsed plan will begin to be executed in the key states with the premeditated and specific goal of seizing power from the will of the American people. Three things will happen immediately after his news conference:
Elon Musk will use the full weight of X to spread conspiracies, lies, misinformation, and seek to help Trump overturn the election.
Dozens of news organizations will follow Musk’s lead and refuse to acknowledge either the arithmetic or reality when it comes to reporting the facts of the election. The decision by FOX News on election night about whether to stoke a coup or report facts will have massive impact and consequences.
The United States will enter a period of national and constitutional emergency.
Every American must be prepared to defend their vote in the aftermath of the coming attempt to overthrow it by Donald Trump in an election where only one party is loyal to the Union, the Constitution and the American way of life. Defiance will be required, and fearlessness will be called for.
Some of the most powerful and wealthiest people in the world are afraid of Trump. Because they want more, they are willing to risk everything. The promise ahead is alluring. Quietude and acquiescece are the gateway to an America remade in the image of the richest, so long as they stay out of politics. Though they will be royalty and above the law and the rest of us, there will be but one leader, and he is to be worshipped with equal fervor from the top to the bottom.
During the next 10 days the air will chill, and so will the political climate. The impact of the threats and the very real fear they have induced will start to be felt. It will be a disorienting feeling for most Americans, but the unhappy truth is living with fear becomes habit, like living with hunger or pain after a while.
Fear is a cancer. It produces and nourishes venous political systems. One of them is fascism, and Trump is a fascist.
This is not the time to tremble. It is the time to rise and stand up for liberty, decency and justice. It is a time to speak up and out. It is time to be a good American. There are no good Americans who tremble in fear at their politicians — no matter how deranged they are.
Be not afraid.
