Tag: democracy

SoCS: alarm bells in the US

Vote for Democracy #48

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

I’ve been experiencing life here in the United States with increasing alarm.

The cruelty, lawlessness, and incompetence of the Trump administration continues to accelerate while the suffering here and abroad continues to mount.

I will spare you a stream-of-consciousness list of all the component parts of this catastrophe, but the destruction by Trump of the East Wing of the White House presents a decent metaphor – lie about what you are planning and rush in and wreck things.

Millions upon millions of people here are fighting back to save our democracy and have a chance to re-build it and slowly repair to the extent possible the global damage inflicted but we haven’t been able to turn the tide yet. I don’t know how long it will take but we won’t give up.

Joyce Vance published her first book this week, entitled Giving Up is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy. It’s what we need to do.

We won’t give up.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “alarm.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/10/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-25-2025/

October 18 No Kings rallies

Vote for Democracy #47

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Millions of people in the United States plan to attend peaceful protests, rallies, and marches tomorrow, Saturday, October 18, 2025. The theme is No Kings and it is in support of the democratic principles of the United States and against the current administration which has grown increasingly autocratic. There are thousands of events scheduled across the United States with more occurring internationally in solidarity. You can find locations here.

Tomorrow’s events follow on the April 19th No Kings! events which turned out several million people. It is expected that even more people will turn out on October 18 as the Trump administration has grown even more extreme and defied court orders on deploying troops, immigration, cutting government employees, and refusing to execute laws and spending authorizations passed by Congress.

These events are planned to be non-violent and are meant to uphold our democracy. Although the Republicans in Washington are saying the No Kings rallies are about “hating America,” that is totally untrue. It’s about loving our country and upholding our highest ideals of equal rights, equal protection, and equal opportunity for all.

Sadly, my health situation will keep me from attending my local No Kings event in person, but I will be supporting them through my thoughts, letters to my representatives, advocacy through organizations working to uphold democracy, and through my words here at Top of JC’s Mind and among my various circles of friends and family.

Are you involved with the No Kings event? Please share in the comments if you are so moved!

One-Liner Wednesday: Paper Clip Resistance

my paper clip bracelet

Following the example of Norwegians under Nazi occupation during World War II, some people in the United States have started wearing paper clips as a sign of our unity and our resistance to the erosion of our democracy.

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/09/24/one-liner-wednesday-why-2/

July 4th

Vote for Democracy #42

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Today is July 4th, observed in the United States as Independence Day, commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The Declaration of Independence is a fundamental document for the United States and a copy of it currently hangs in the president’s Oval Office.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump does not seem to know what it says.

In an interview with Terry Moran two months ago, he answered a question about what the Declaration of Independence means to him by saying, “Well it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot and it’s something very special to our country.”

While Trump is correct that the Declaration of Independence means a lot and is very special, he totally mischaracterizes its meaning and purpose.

The Continental Congress was declaring their freedom from Great Britain and its king, whose tyrannical actions they enumerate.

It is horrifying that the current president and administration are perpetrating tyrannical actions now, some of which reflect those in the Declaration and some additional ones.

It makes this 249th anniversary a somber one but also a challenge to all of us to speak up for our founding principles and the rule of law, for a government that “promote(s) the general welfare” as spelled out in the Preamble to our Constitution. This struggle needs to be carried out in justice and non-violence and progress may be slow, but, I hope, that our 250th anniversary next year will see us making progress toward realizing our democratic ideals rather than retreating further toward autocracy.

The Declaration declares that all are equal and endowed “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

May our 250th Independence Day be with a government that recognizes the civil and human rights of all people so that we can truly celebrate our democracy on July 4th, 2026.

One-Liner Wednesday: FDR on liberty and fascism

“…the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
~~~ US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/05/28/one-liner-wednesday-best-i-can-do/

One-Liner Wednesday: Thomas Paine on the people in a republic

When a people agree to form themselves into a republic … it is understood that they mutually resolve and pledge themselves to each other, rich and poor alike, to support this rule of equal justice among them … (and) they renounce as detestable, the power of exercising, at any future time any species of despotism over each other, or of doing a thing not right in itself, because a majority of them may have the strength of numbers sufficient to accomplish it.

Thomas Paine (1776), giving us a timely reminder on the eve of Law Day in the United States

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! More info here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/30/one-liner-wednesday-all-in/. My apologies to my email subscribers who probably received this post yesterday when I mistakenly published it on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Brain fog is a thing…

SoCS: No Kings!

Vote for Democracy #38

No Kings! is the theme for today’s rallies against the Trump administration’s actions. It is being coordinated by the group 50501, which early on started with organizing rallies in all 50 state capitals on one day.

April 19 is a fitting day for No Kings! rallies because this is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which was the first battle of what became the Revolutionary War in the United States, eventually winning our freedom from the British Empire and its king – or occasional queen regent.

For those who may not know, Lexington and Concord are near Boston, Massachusetts. (I grew up in Massachusetts, although in the far western section near the Vermont border; still we learned with pride our early history and visited historic sites in and around Boston as children.) Longfellow’s poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” was written about the night before the battle, when Revere and several others took off on horseback to warn the militias in those towns to be ready for a battle with the British army.

The Old North Church in Boston is central to the story. It let Revere and the other riders know how the British were approaching by using signal lanterns in its steeple, “one if by land and two if by sea.” There were two lanterns placed when the Bostonians realized that the British were coming in from the river, so the riders knew where they had to go and who they had to warn that night.

In preparation for today’s rallies, the Old North Church, which still stands in Boston, hosted a different kind of light show, with messages projected onto it during the night.

The rallies today will continue to proclaim that the American people value our democracy and protest against Donald Trump and his adminstration’s action. When DT says things like “I am the law,” he is proclaiming himself a king with the power to decide what the law is and who should be punished. We are seeing this play out in front of us in myriad ways, but, right now, most prominently in the arrest/kidnapping of people and imprisoning them in the United States or even another country without charges or trial.

Those are some of the grievances lodged against George III 250 years ago.

No!

No then and no now!

No Kings!
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to begin with an exclamation. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-19-2025/

One-Liner Wednesday: more from Thomas Paine in 1776

“There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice.”
~~~ Thomas Paine, closing lines of American Crisis, 1776

This sobering 1+ liner comes to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/03/05/one-liner-wednesday-bad-suggestions/

One-Liner Wednesday: Thomas Paine in 1776

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”
~~~ Thomas Paine, opening lines of American Crisis, 1776

This sobering 1+ liner comes to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/02/26/one-liner-wednesday-useless-superpowers/

one month in

Vote for Democracy #34

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Because of my health, I haven’t been up to doing major posts about the situation here in the United States.

Condensed version: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are leading an internal administrative coup, trying to end our Constitutional democracy and install an autocratic oligarchy. Despite court orders, they have fired vital staff in agencies, fired those in charge of oversight and investigations, tried to overturn birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 13th Amendment to our Constitution, cut aid to poverty-stricken people around the world, and abandoned our allies, including Ukraine, turning instead to supporting Russia and far-right European parties like Germany’s AfD. Congressional Republicans, who are in the majority in both houses, have mostly ignored this disaster, allowing their own constituents and the fate of our allies to suffer.

There are many organizations and prominent, principled individuals who are calling out these outrages and resisting, as well as ordinary folks who have been voicing opposition to their members of Congress, protesting in state capitals and other cities and towns, and organizing boycotts against oligarchic companies.

The level of public corruption is staggering. Trump is blatantly profiting from the presidency, including by cryptocurrency schemes. He has suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Elon Musk is cutting jobs and programs in multiple agencies while protecting his businesses’ extremely lucrative government contracts and eliminating those who were investigating him for violations.

Trump’s popularity has already fallen but there is no sign that he will change his ways, even with his shameful behavior in turning against Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal, immoral, and indefensible invasion of their country. It’s also helpful to note at this point that Trump and the Republicans do not have a mandate from the voters for any of this. Trump won less than half of the votes cast in November and an even larger number of eligible voters did not vote at all. There are also a number of things that Trump has done or threatened that were not part of his campaign rhetoric at all.

Anyone who was familiar with Project 2025 realized that some of these executive directions were coming and that the administration would push for all power to be concentrated in the presidency under the controversial “unitary executive” theory, which flies in the face of the systems of checks and balances established in our Constitution.

Still, the avalanche of executive actions and pronouncements by Trump, Musk, Vance, and other high-ranking officials has been staggering. Part of their plan was to overwhelm the courts and anyone in government or not who opposed their efforts.

I wish I could say those of us supporting democracy, the public good, and our traditional allies were bound to succeed but I don’t know what will happen. I’m afraid that some of the damage will be permanent. Actually, we know that some of the damage is irrevocable, as some recipients of USAID have already died because medical care and famine relief were abruptly ended.

I do want people to know that Donald Trump and his administration do not speak or act for me and for the majority of Americans. I am deeply sorry for the damage and harm that have befallen millions of people at home and abroad. Admittedly, my part in the resistance is tiny but I will continue to be part of it. Please, all defenders of democracy, do whatever you can within your own sphere of influence to help reverse the slide toward autocracy and oligarchy. We the People must assert our rights and rebuild a country that respects our freedom and liberty.