Last week, somewhere around six million Americans took to the streets again, in organized "No Kings" protests that occurred in large cities, small cities, blue states and red states. Bernie Sanders and AOC are on the road again, drawing record crowds to political gatherings now aimed specifically at constituents of some of the more antagonistic right wing extremists in Congress. There have been town hall meetings in red districts conducted by Democratic members of Congress, some of them, anyway. It appears that this is a strategy that is having an effect, given the reaction of Republicans whose districts have been invaded by these Democratic-sponsored town hall meetings.
Trump, on the other hand, makes one of his more deceptive, incompetent foreign policy moves by leaving everyone in confusion. He makes it clear that the United States supports Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, then hints around like the US is going to participate in the attack on Iran, without congressional approval, mind you, then tells everyone his decision on what to do with Iran will be made in "a couple of weeks." Then, yesterday, we get the news that US B-52 bombers were lined up to participate in the Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear production facilities.
This is just one of many of Trump's actions since the convicted felon and indicted criminal got back into the White House. How that happened, in the United States, under our Constitution, is the result of mind-boggling corruption and unimaginable incompetence when it comes to the balance of power and the system of accountability built into the United States Constitution. It's a combination of things, really, across the culture, that have separated a majority of the American people from any real knowledge of how their government works, or any awareness of what it is actually doing. We have failed to provide the kind of educated electorate necessary to sustain a democracy. We have allowed money to become the driving force behind political power, undoing the principle of "We, the people."
Christianity has been the pervasive religious influence in American life, in spite of our separation of church and state, and religious liberty. And it was a stabilizing force as well, helping to sharpen the boundaries of our moral compass which, thirty years ago, would have made a morally bankrupt, worldly narcissist like Trump an outcast, not President of the United States. But Christian nationalism and religious fundamentalism has led the conservative Evangelical branch of American Christianity to abandon its patriotism, claiming that a free church in a free state leads people to abandon God. They are unable to see that it is their own apostasy, and departure from orthodox Christian theology has done the damage.
The Political Reality of the Spring of 2025
I'm not even sure where to start.
In spite of the lack of consistent and accurate polling data, and of a media that has any knowledge of where to focus, or how to tell the truth, we can still make some observations and draw some conclusions. And the first thing we need to look at carefully, and with serious resolve to prevent it, is the fact that the Republicans are going to cheat in the next election if they can get away with it. They have told us, for going on five years now, multiple conspiracy theories of how the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Well, that tells me they know where the weaknesses are, and how to change vote totals without being detected.
So who, among Democrats, is going to take responsibility to make sure laws are followed and the midterm elections represent the will of the people? Any hope we have for getting rid of Trump lies with the necessity that the midterm elections are accurate. So which of our leaders is looking out for the accuracy of the vote?
Can We Trust the Polls?
We have a plethora of polls, with a significant number of them underwritten by interests who benefit from skewing the results to attempt to affect public opinion, and what the media talks about. I listen to some of these reporters and commentators on the mainstream media networks and I wonder when the colleges and universities that produced these idiots dumbed down their curriculum, and abandoned journalistic principles which once made the media in this country a genuinely free press?
There's not much connection between the polling data. One day, someone reports that Congressional Democrats have a 26% job approval rating, while Republicans are at 37%. Then we see a poll that shows Trump's job approval rate at 45% and his disapproval at 55%, which is the worst performance of a President during his first 100 days in history. Or so a couple of news sources say. The spread, however, has dropped as low as 38% job approval, and there are two polls running now with that number. But Fox News and Newsmax stick with some older data, showing him at 49% job approval. They have to go back to polls taken in February and March to get those numbers.
And yet, since the 2020 election, Democrats have won some major elections in areas Trump allegedly carried in the 2024 election. In Wisconsin, where Trump allegedly eked out a tiny sliver of a win, Janet Crawford defeated a Trump sycophant for a seat on the state Supreme Court by a ten point margin in one of the highest turnouts for a judicial election in Wisconsin history. In two of Florida's deepest red, gerrymandered Congressional districts, Democratic candidates improved their vote totals by 20% in special elections with supremely high turnouts, without help from the Congressional re-election committee or the DNC.
Indivisible, and the Effect of Protests
We have seen the largest resistance and protest movement in American history form in opposition to Trump's policies and to his incompetence, along with the monumental ignorance and stupidity he appointed to the cabinet. For the record, I was opposed to Democrats behaving as the minority party status quo, approving some of his appointments because of their political standing while opposing others because they were just totally unqualified. I expected an all out effort to block every single appointment, or at least slow it all down deliberately, and if I answered a poll question as to whether I approved of the job Democrats are doing in Congress or not, I'd say no, I don't. And I think what the people wanted their representatives to do is reflected in the increasing numbers of them who are getting involved in protests and making their voice heard.
Bernie Sanders and AOC are deliberately targeting specific audiences with their anti-oligarchy message and it is clearly resonating with large numbers of people. Whether those who are paying attention to them will wind up putting pressure on Democrats to do something, or to work as a coalition with what is obviously a large number of independents who are part of the resistance to Trump, remains to be seen. But they are not going about this in the old line, old school, typical Democratic party status quo format, and whatever they are doing is working. So there may be some work that Democrats have to do to make themselves part of a movement of which they seem to be more on the fringes.
I have to wonder how many of those people now involved in protests actually voted in 2024? The rumor is that surveys show only about 75% of them did. Some of them are experiencing voter remorse over Trump, though in that protest group, I doubt there are enough to change election outcomes. The best outcome the protests can produce is a higher voter turnout. The rallies and town halls will be effective in communicating the message.
This is a People's Movement
Almost everything that is happening here is a people's movement. The protests are being organized by people who have come together in various regional chapters of Indivisible, and who are setting their own calendar. The town halls in red districts are being organized locally, as invitations are issued to the members of Congress they want to show up. So it is that someone like Eric Swalwell might get speaking engagements outside of California, because he's got the ability to articulate the message and stay on target, pointing to every bit of Trump's incompetence and corruption.
And that is the message here. I regret that our Democratic party, when it had the power from 2020 to 2022, did not take the steps it could have taken to pack the Supreme Court, overturn Citizens United, and cut through Trump's delays, getting him to trial for insurrection and document theft, with verdicts disqualifying him from running for office. We could have, and the fact that we didn't is a stain on our party's reputation and effectiveness. It is one of the reasons why our job approval rating in Congress is so low right now.
But that doesn't change the message, that Trump is an incompetent, corrupt President and his destruction of American democracy must be stopped at all costs. And if the momentum for doing that now is out there, among the people, and it will produce the kind of voter turnout necessary for Democrats to win Congress, both houses, back during the midterms, then so be it. The pundits and the status quo leadership is already saying, "we can't win the senate back this time."
Why not? Trump intends to cut the government's service to the people in order to give a few billionaries massive tax cuts that they don't need, and which only feeds their selfishness and greed. And that, along with his incompetence and corruption, are the best reasons to get him out.
And I don't want to elect people to office just to hold a spot for the party. We need those who are in Congress to be bold, take risks, and believe that Trump is too incompetent and corrupt to be President. They also need to believe that billionaries need to pay their fair share of taxes to support all of the good our government does for its people. I'll support any candidate who gets on board and convinces me they understand this clear, simple message.
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