The Atlantic Monthly was founded as a publication to promote the Abolitionist movement. In other words, to help 4 million Americans participate in the democratic process who were denied this Constitutional privilege because their skin color happened to be Black.
This storied magazine has now become a vehicle for promoting the idea that more than half of America’s population will soon be denied the right to participate in a democratic system because, according to newsletter I received today from The Atlantic, we are facing “the death of American democracy,” thanks to the “soul-blighted Donald Trump and the satraps and lackeys who abet his nefarious behavior.”
This continued attempt by The Atlantic Monthly and other liberal journals to describe Trump as a latter-day Fascist and authoritarian who wants to “destroy the foundations of American democracy” is a load of crap. It’s as disgustingly stupid as the deep-state conspiracy theories thrown around by the promoters of MAGA like Michael Flynn, Lauren Boebert, the putz Matt Gaetz, and the idiot Marjorie Taylor Greene.
I’ll break the news to the editors of The Atlantic Monthly as gently as I can. You don’t ‘destroy’ democracy by trying to pass a law that makes it more difficult for inner-city or minority residents (same thing) to come out a vote. You don’t ‘destroy’ democracy by egging on a bunch of schmucks to run into the Capitol and try to steal Nancy Pelosi’s office chair. And you certainly don’t ‘destroy’ democracy by telling the former Prime Minister of Israel to go fu*k himself because he publicly congratulated the guy who beat you in the last national election by more than 7 million votes.
You destroy democracy the one and only way that it has ever been destroyed – by force of arms. It was the SA, the SS and the military which gave Hitler the power needed to destroy the Weimar Republic after 1933. It was the generals who abolished the Parliament in Greece in 1967. It was the Army with some help from the CIA that overthrew Salvador Allende’s elected government In Chile in 1973.
Let’s not forget the several hundred armed militant from the Civil Guard who swarmed into the Spanish Parliament on February 23, 1981, during a vote to elect a President. The vote was disrupted but the guys who attempted the coup made one simple mistake, namely, they knew how to get into the Parliament chamber but hadn’t figured out a way to get out. And when the King, Juan Carlos, went on TV, denounced the coup and ordered the building surrounded by troops under his command, the whole thing fizzled out.
The next day was spent negotiating a deal with the leaders of the so-called ‘revolution’ demanding an amnesty and free passage out of Spain. So, the leaders of the coup were going to be flown out of Spain to Portugal until it was announced that the leader of the rebels was afraid to fly.
What started as an armed attempt to subvert and destroy a legally-elected parliamentary government ended up as a farce. Was the whole episode made into a movie financed by Warner Bros? Of course.
What armed force does Trump now command? The Proud Boys? The Three-Percenters? I’ll go along with what Joe said when he announced a gun crime prevention effort back in June. He was asked about people who wanted to keep their guns handy in case the needed to overthrow what they thought was a tyrannical government. His response: “If you want to take over the U.S. government, bring your F-15.”
The closest Trump ever came to using military resources against civilians who were exercising their Constitutional right to peaceful assembly was when he ordered the Park Police to use tear gas against some demonstrators so that he could walk from the White House to the front of St. John’s Church, raise a Bible and then go back across the street.
That was some coup. That was some attack on democracy. That was some attempt to wreck our Constitutional system. That was what Grandpa would call ‘gurnisht helfen.’ (read: nothing at all.)
If The Atlantic Monthly wants to continue practicing ‘yellow journalism,’ that’s fine with me. But now I am beginning to see yellow’ political fundraising and that really pisses me off.
Yesterday, my sister sent me an email she received from Valerie Arkoosh, a physician and public health specialist who is running for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania next year. Her opponent, not yet chosen, will be one of three candidates who are all pushing the schmuckiest, MAGA- style politics because they want to be endorsed by Trump.
The email asks recipients to send Arkoosh some dough, but the message doesn’t say one word about why this woman is qualified to be a candidate in a Senate race or anything else. On the other hand, in less than 150 words, the fundraising appeal mentions Trump no less than seven times and asks for a contribution to keep the Senate seat from falling into the hands of a Trump ‘extremist.’ Both the GOP and the Democrats will probably have primary elections to see who ends up on the ballot in November 2022.
The more that Democrats run against Trump, the more they keep his name around and the more they make it easier for him to pretend that he will run again in 2024. It’s bad enough that click-sucking tabloids like The Atlantic Monthly continue to promote Trump to keep their publication alive. We really don’t need it from Democratic office-seekers as well.
If Democrats want money from me, they should shut the fu*k up about Donald Trump. As Grandpa would say, ‘genug shayn’ (read: enough is enough.)