Will Shonbrun: The Time Has Come

“We are living in a time when monsters roam the globe, and are destroying countless lives, fueling hate, and spreading fear,” states Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and professor at UC Berkeley. Into this den of miscreants, pathological liars, and authoritarian soulless bullies, Reich throws Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Xi, Modi and Erdogan as world samples. There are others, no doubt, but that should suffice for openers.

This is just a random sampling of this gang of right-wing would-be dictators, hell bound to end all democratic forms of governing and to rule by decree without any concern for human or civil rights. And nestled among them and proud to be so is Mr. Trump. They would impose unquestioned dictatorial rule a la Hitlerian design, while outlawing all manner of opposition, and scapegoating all who would object to or oppose their machinations. They will brook no questioning or disagreement by anyone, be they from the government, the judicial branch, the media, the academic world or the public arena. 

Witness Trump’s unlawful and despicable drive to do away with all due process of the law in rounding up young men and shipping them to gulags outside the country, along with arresting and in effect kidnapping people off the streets, citizens and non-citizens alike, for the crime of criticizing our government administration’s wildly blatant overreach and unlawful activities. 

But all this is not the point of Robert Reich’s online column. In it he asks, “What is our moral obligation in the face of [all] this?,” And that is the big question and the challenge which we face. Do we just hunker down and let Trump roll out whatever new schemes enter his chaotic head and just hope he runs out of juice? Do we meet his outrageous projects such as the deportation of eleven to twelve million non-citizens, his war on DEI, his bonkers and ever-changing imposition of tariffs and his flouting of Constitutional law and regulations?

Do we take to the streets and use the pulpit of public protests, boycotts, and general strikes and in so doing risk arrest and prosecution and possibly time in prison? After all, what is left for the public at large to do when the press and the democratic media have been disparaged and weakened? What can the ordinary person do when their rights are no longer protected by law and the quest for justice is no longer a viable one? 

Dr. Reich insists that we are “in a national emergency, as is much of the rest of the world.” We can retreat into denial or despair, or we can retaliate by any means that we can muster. I prefer and encourage the latter. There is a growing movement afoot on a national scale, in red and blue states alike, people are standing up and speaking out on the great questions and concerns of the day and it seems to be building like an epidemic and the spirit of it is contagious. I think this has to continue until it affects the kids in high schools, in colleges, and grows until it takes hold of all ages and all walks of life. It has to be ubiquitous and unrelenting until the powers that be see and get the message that what they are doing and espousing will not be tolerated or accepted by the body politic. 

If those in the branches of government have acquiesced and given over their power to the Trump administration as the U.S. Senate and far too many in the House have done, and will no longer speak up for the people, be it in the Congress or at the national level, then we must unite in resistance and refuse to be cowed or bullied into submission. If we have to take to the streets and keep coming back each day, then so be it. If we have to get arrested and indicted for obstruction or whatever gimmick is imposed, then so be it. Once again, we may be called upon to put our bodies on the wheels of the gears that may grind us down, and insist on our Constitutional freedoms. We cannot sit by and let the forces that would usurp our democracy and the rule of law prevail.

I believe we are in a time of Constitutional crisis, and we are all called in this fight to save and restore and preserve our threatened democratic way of life. Like it or not our time has come.