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Open thread: Wall of moms

Yesterday, the fascist occupying the West Wing announced that he was going to send his Gestapo to Chicago to bring "law & order" to an urban hellscape.

I would be lying if I said I didn't have a twinge of fear at this turn of events.

But, as I've written this week, this is not the hand being played by a man in a position of strength. This is a move by a pissant tyrant facing his terminal fate, trying anything to cling on to power. In his delusion, he thinks he'll motivate a "silent majority" to propel him to re-election, and keep him out of prison.

Instead, this is what he's engendered:
He has infuriated exactly the people he was hoping to co-opt: white mothers.

This is not 1968, as we on this space have repeated again and again. The Union has continued to perfect itself, and an action which would have been acceptable in the chaos of the 1960s is now backfiring spectacularly. What's next? Is he going to issue his Gestapo live ammunition and mow down mothers?

Personally, I think the governors of Oregon and Illinois should call in the National Guard and have them encircle the Trump Gestapo inside their federal buildings. And it may come to that.

The fact is that Trump has no cards to play. Yes, this is scary as hell. But it will only succeed if we allow it to. Vladimir Putin can use this gambit over and over because he has 1,000 years of autocratic history behind him. And even in Russia, the people are yearning to be "normal". But in this country, imperfect as it is? Well, the moms will have the final say. And this is a direct result of what those of us who have funny last names, or are melanin-rich, have been saying: This country has labored to live up to its promise, and now those who benefited from it, even tangentially, are discovering that they, too, will be thrown under the tank treads if an authoritarian regime comes to power and sees that power about to slip away. This is the inflection point at which "perfecting the Union" is not just a meaningless line. Insert Martin Niemöller poem here. When white moms get activated, you know that the shit has hit the fan. And if, heaven forbid, one is injured, or worse, then all of this regime may as well board a plane and seek asylum in Moscow. Otherwise, they will be hauled before tribunals, and with Federal executions taking place again, well, you know the outcome.

Stay frosty, stay alert, but above all, stay brave. Be like these moms forming human walls against tyranny. As I keep saying: This is our moment. We dare not fail.

This is your open thread.
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