One Post Today— Something To Read Before We All Go Out And Celebrate No Kings Day With Our Neighbors

Yesterday, Bernie announced he’s taking the Fighting Oligarchy Tour back on the road, starting with events in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Greg Casar will be speaking at the events in McAllen (June 20— Performing Arts Center, 801 Convention Center Blvd, with Lunar Heart and El Dusty), Amarillo (June 22) and Fort Worth (June 22) and Beto O’Rourke will be joining them for the Amarillo and Fort Worth events, respectively at the Amarillo Civic Center (401 So. Buchanan St. at 2) and the Dickies Arena (1911 Montgomery Street at 4 with the MSB Choir and Old 97’s).

In between, on Saturday, June 21, there are two events, one  in MAGA Mike’s hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana at the Municipal Auditorium (705 Grand Ave. with Sweet Crude starting at noon) and one in Tulsa at the Arvest Convention Center (with Parker Milsap and The Get Up Kids starting at 4).

The video announcement is about how Bernie proposes we to “defeat oligarchy, authoritarianism and horrific attacks against low income and working class Americans throughout our country. Let is be clear: we are living under an oligarchic form of society which has created more income and wealth inequality than at any time in our history, and that oligarchic  form of society created a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to make unlimited amounts of campaign contributions. Trump won the election with $270 million in support from Elon Musk, the wealthiest guy on earth. The result of that enormous campaign contribution was that Musk was given the most important job in government and the opportunity to decimate government agency after government agency.” 

Because of Musk's chainsaw approach, we have seen massive layoffs in the national Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and many more.

USAID, which supports life and death support to the poorest people on earth, has been virtually eliminated. And as a result, millions will die. Further, Musk has proposed the elimination of 83,000 jobs at the Veterans Administration, which will result in deteriorating healthcare for the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us. He has also cut thousands of jobs at the Social Security Administration, an agency which is already understaffed. 

And now, as I hope all of you know, Trump and the Republicans are working on a massive budget reconciliation bill, or Trump's "big beautiful Bill." If you can believe it— and I know it is really hard to believe— that it a time of massive income in wealth and equality, this legislation provides a $645 billion tax break to the top one present, at a time when these guys already own more wealth than the bottom 93% of Americans. This bill would also provide a $420 billion tax break to large corporations that are stashing their profits in offshore tax haven like the Cayman Islands. And by the way, this particular bill makes it easier for these companies to invest in robots and artificial intelligence, and as a result for millions of workers out on the streets. 

And now, how do Trump and the Republicans pay for these huge tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations? Well at times when over 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when our current healthcare system is already broken, this bill slashes Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by more than $1 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this bill would eliminate healthcare for 16 million Americans, and a recent study for Yale University in the University of Pennsylvania concludes that when you throw 16 million low income and working class people off the healthcare they have, it will result in 50,000 unnecessary deaths every single year. 

Further, this bill makes massive cuts to nutrition, education, and other programs that working families depend upon for their survival. In other words, this unspeakable piece of legislation takes from the most vulnerable people in our country, people who are barely hanging on today, and gives it to the very richest people who have never, ever had to had it so good. And in many ways, the legislation epitomizes exactly what Trumpism is all about. If you are rich and powerful, and you can make large campaign contributions, you are entitled to massive tax breaks that will make you even richer. If you're working class or low income, you are entitled to nothing. 

But the struggle we are engaged in now is not just to defeat this terrible piece of legislation. We are also engaged in an unprecedented effort to defeat authoritarianism and maintain our democracy. Never before an American history has a president acted with such disdain for our constitution and for the rule of law, as Trump is doing right now. He has ussurped the power of Congress by putting a hold on appropriations that Congress authorized, firing thousands of employees and abolishing agencies that Congress established. All that is illegal. He and his supporters have usurped the power of the judiciary by threatening to impeach judges who rule against Trump’s policies.

… Defeating Trumpism and the oligarchs who support him will not be easy. That's clear these guys have enormous amount of wealth and enormous amount of power. But if there is anything that we learned from Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, successful effort to combat racist, officials and segregation, it is that disciplined resistance is the best way forward. Berning cars are throwing rocks at police officers is precisely with Donald Trump wants. If we are going to defeat Trump, it is going to require a multifaceted approach. So let me tell you a little bit about what we are doing. We have already held, as many of you know, 18 Fighting Oligarchy rallies in 12 states with over 250,000 people in attendance. Over a quarter of a million people came out, including many independence to Republicans. And we will soon be announcing a new series of rallies, which will be located in rural conservative areas. Exactly the area is that we have got to turn around. Further, we have higher organizes in congressional districts won with slim margins. We are also training thousands of people on how to run for Office from school board to Congress). And we have already announced our support for a number of strong progressive candidates with more to come. In other words, we are building the kind of grassroots, political infrastructure that is needed if we are going to defeat, Trumpism. Let me get a little bit more specific. Short term, we're mobilizing opposition around the country to Trump’s disastrous budget reconciliation bill. That bill has got to be defeated.

Medium term, with Republicans holding only a 4 vote majority in the House and a six vote majority in the Senate, we are working hard to end their control of Congress. If we are successful, that will go a long way to putting the brakes on Trump's reactionary agenda. Longer-term we are building a political movement which is taking on the billionaire class, taking on the right wing extremist Republican Party, and taking on a corporate dominated Democratic Party whose leadership is wedded to maintaining the status quo. 

We are fighting, to quote Abraham Lincoln in 1863, for "a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” If there was ever a time in American history when we need to come together, now is that time. If we continue to fight for the basic principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice, I am confident that we will not only get through this unprecedented crisis in modern history, but that we will lay the foundation for a better anymore just America in the future.

It’s easy enough for people who read DWT to oppose Trump and the GOP, but take seriously what Bernie mentioned, without naming any names, “taking on a corporate dominated Democratic Party whose leadership is wedded to maintaining the status quo.” He could easily have been referring to Kamala. And why is she asking for more money, after burning through $1.6 billion last year, listening to consultants and billionaire donors instead of real people? She may want to run for president again or governor of California but she’s the wrong person to run for anything. Retirement is beckoning. She’s a symptom of the careerist rot that dominates the Democratic establishment, emblematic of the problem Bernie was describing. The status quo he’s talking about— that parasitic arrangement between Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the military-industrial complex, and the consulting class— is exactly the system she’s chosen to identify with. While grassroots organizers were knocking doors in triple-digit heat, she was burning through a billion and a half dollars last cycle with almost nothing to show for it. And now she’s passing the hat around again? For what? Another listening tour with lobbyists? Another reboot of that robotic campaign persona that can’t decide if it wants to be a prosecutor or an Instagram influencer?

The Democratic Party isn’t going to defeat Trumpism by offering a slicker, more polished version of the same corporate consensus that got us into this mess. We won’t stop authoritarianism with timid half-measures, triangulation, or tone-policing the people doing the actual fighting. What Bernie didn’t say— perhaps out of tact— is that the Democratic leadership is so hopelessly captured by big donors and career consultants that they treat organized people as a nuisance and organized money as a partner. As we keep emphasizing, they’re comfortable managing decline, not reversing it. That’s why they never deliver transformative policy and why they keep losing ground in places they used to own. Today, Democrats only win when there’s an anti-red wave, only when it is clear they’re the lesser evil.

The fight against Trump is real. But so is the fight against the empty suits and C-suite enablers in the Democratic Party who keep promising incremental change while the house burns down around us. Trump’s not the only one who wants to gut the social contract— he just doesn’t bother hiding it. Kamala and the Democratic elite still pretend to be on your side while they cut deals that keep billionaires safe and working families desperate. That’s not resistance. That’s fucking complicity. 

So yeah, as Bernie said, we need to defeat MAGA, Trumpism and the Republican Party. But let’s not even think about stopping there. We also need to defeat the system that gave rise to it. We need to defeat the cowards and collaborators in our own ranks. We need to make room for a party that doesn’t just speak in the language of justice but acts on it— relentlessly, unapologetically, from the gut and... without checking with a pollster first.

Believe me, this could never be mistaken for a Trump inaurguration: