I’m not sure why everyone is standing around breathing through their mouths while Trump runs riot over democracy and decency. Is it that feeling I imagine passengers on an airplane have as they plunge to their doom? That feeling of utter disbelief, “this can’t be happening, no, no way this is happening, I’m sure the pilot will pull it around”?

I mean, you’re right that any ONE example from the Trump playlist would doom anyone else. Wouldn’t it? The Trump Foundation used its charitable donations for his ELECTION CAMPAIGN, he was guilty of self-dealing and fraud. Isn’t that enough?

Progressives! Progressives are responsible for this mess. You know why? Because progressives are passive. Progressives are naive. We are even nice. We think everyone should just realize how right we are, so we just sit back, day after gobsmacked day, as conservatives seize the narrative and attack. This means progressives are always reacting to an already established narrative, and all the pushing back does is reinforce that narrative.

And what’s worse, the vicious and the fraudulent voices are the loudest right now. Those speaking up for justice are — or at least, feel like we are — a minority voice.

Seriously. The right is organized and focused in a way the left seems unable to match. The right creates campaigns.The right hammers home its agenda. The right gerrymanders, creates disinformation, calls you “traitor” if you don’t agree, stacks the deck. The right is a juggernaut, a machine. The right does not “play fair.”

The left is all apologetic suggestions, hoping not to be seen as “socialist.” God forbid! The left is a bland lecture; a conversation that seeks not to offend.

And maybe this is one reason for the lack of protest, because I wonder if you’ve noticed that protest is not considered legitimate anymore. Just kneeling during the national anthem is enough to get you denounced as un-American; kneeling! Just going against the grain that little (but it’s in fact an act of immense courage in context). Protest is not nice. And we so very much, I guess, want to be nice.

Does anyone remember the riots in 1968, in the U.S., in France? Does anyone remember rage against injustice? Has anyone else noticed the slow demonization of the act of protest and of protesters?

I’m the first 100 cheerleaders for Nancy Pelosi on any given day, but at this point maybe she needs to be less strategic, less waiting for the “right moment” for impeachment, and pick up a bit of the Squad’s outrage.

C’mon, Dems. C’mon, progressives everywhere. Outrage is the only legitimate, or even decent, response to the slow death of democracy we are witnessing, experiencing and enabling. When decency and justice are the norm, then we can fret about niceties of law and count angels on the heads of pins. Right now, in the most powerful nation on earth, there’s a authoritarian government erecting itself, “moving its slow thighs…” And it has to be stopped.