America’s Overseas Wars Have Come Home
America’s overseas wars, with all their capricious and vicious violence, have indeed come home. For decades, our leaders projected power abroad under the banner of fighting evil — whether Communism, terrorism, or tyranny. Yet in doing so, they helped cultivate an authoritarian mindset that has now turned inward. The “enemy” is no longer some distant foe in a foreign land; it is “the enemy within.” For Donald Trump, that means the mythical “radical left,” a variation of the 1950s fantasy that a Communist was hiding under every bed. The irony, of course, is that the real danger then, as now, comes not from a phantom leftist menace but from a radical right-wing movement willing to strip Americans of their rights in the false name of security, safety, and patriotism.
Today’s moment is more perilous than the McCarthy era. In the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy could destroy reputations and careers, but he was still just one senator. Today, we face a president who channels McCarthy’s demagoguery from the Oval Office, using the full power of the executive branch to punish dissent and reward loyalty. He is surrounded by a coterie of opportunists, lackeys, and lickspittles who feed his vanity, echo his grievances, and amplify his baseless conspiracy theories. The machinery of government — the same machinery once used to surveil and target foreign “enemies” — is now being aimed at our fellow citizens.
The global war on terror, it seems, has finally gone global in the truest sense — extending to America’s own streets, courthouses, and universities. Trump and his allies portray Democratic cities and progressive movements as breeding grounds of chaos and sedition. In his mind, anyone who resists his will — even through the most lawful and constitutional means — is an “insurrectionist.” He has long shown contempt for the Constitution he swore to uphold. Trump is often exactly what he appears to be: a dangerous blowhard with a vindictive streak, ignorant of the limits and responsibilities of his office. Yet others in his orbit, people like Stephen Miller, harbor more deliberate and insidious designs on American democracy.
What is to be done? Congress is paralyzed, fragmented, and largely disempowered. The Supreme Court is dominated by ideologues nursing grievances and eager to reshape the nation along reactionary lines. Who, then, will check a president determined to rule rather than govern?
The American experiment in self-government has endured many crises but rarely has it seemed so fragile. As journalist Nick Turse recently wrote in TomDispatch, the United States now stands on the precipice of authoritarian rule. Many Trump loyalists appear eager to leap — to wage an internal war against their fellow citizens under the guise of saving the nation.
Never has Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning, “Only Americans can hurt America,” been more prescient or more tragic. The enemy within is not a phantom of the left or right — it is the creeping authoritarianism that grows when fear conquers freedom.
As Master Po reminded us in Kung Fu, “fear is the only darkness.” My fellow Americans, we are in a very dark place.
Bracing Views 
Trump never speaks to the American people as a whole. Instead, he speaks with complete contempt to his fictitious “radical left” as “it” or “they”, doing all he can to divide the country. We all know the term anti-Christ. Trump is the anti-Lincoln. Hitler had the Jews, Trump has antifa. That antifa is imaginary is no problem because Trump is tapping the imagination of his supporters who have no trouble conjuring up the devil in their fellow Americans. Hatred is on a high horse.
This is not what a politician in a democracy does. When I hear his words, I think both that he is digging himself ever deeper into a political hole and that he has no intention of allowing elections to proceed so doesn’t care how he is received.
This is America’s darkest hour with an empty man in the White House, a war criminal in partnership with Zionist billionaires who are throwing American freedoms out in favor of an ethnic cleansing project treasured by a tiny minority. Zionism owns our government, our universities and our media. All would be lost were it not for the Internet.
The only good thing about the Biden and Trump years is that the “night flower” of the Israel lobby is now out in broad daylight, Americans abandoning their fond feeling for Israel. We are at the pinnacle of the takeover by the 1% and elections are the only hope for we the people. We have been rudely awakened from our dream that our laws mean anything, staring incredulous as the long effort to make the president more powerful has come to fruition in a dictatorship.
I believe a fair number of the angry multitude who, though not the majority who voted for Trump (27% of the electorate) have been dismayed if not shocked at what he is doing. Were a vote held today he would be out. That three years remain is both depressing and frightening.
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Trump never speaks to the American people as a whole. Instead, he speaks with complete contempt to his fictitious “radical left” as “it” or “they”, doing all he can to divide the country. We all know the term anti-Christ. Trump is the anti-Lincoln. Hitler had the Jews, Trump has antifa. That antifa is imaginary is no problem because Trump is tapping the imagination of his supporters who have no trouble conjuring up the devil in their fellow Americans. Hatred is on a high horse.
This is not what a politician in a democracy does. When I hear his words, I think both that he is digging himself ever deeper into a political hole and that he has no intention of allowing elections to proceed so doesn’t care how he is received.
This is America’s darkest hour with an empty man in the White House, a war criminal in partnership with Zionist billionaires who are throwing American freedoms out in favor of an ethnic cleansing project treasured by a tiny minority. Zionism owns our government, our universities and our media. All would be lost were it not for the Internet.
The only good thing about the Biden and Trump years is that the “night flower” of the Israel lobby is now out in broad daylight, Americans abandoning their fond feeling for Israel. We are at the pinnacle of the takeover by the 1% and elections are the only hope for we the people. We have been rudely awakened from our dream that our laws mean anything, staring incredulous as the long effort to make the president more powerful has come to fruition in a dictatorship.
I believe a fair number of the angry multitude who, though not the majority who voted for Trump (27% of the electorate) have been dismayed if not shocked at what he is doing. Were a vote held today he would be out. That three years remain is both depressing and frightening.
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Lately I keep thinking about Kipling’s Danny Dravot. So many parallels. I’m afraid only time will tell how closely our situation mirrors that plot…
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