What Would Nellis Say?

​

We Are The Resistance

By Rick Stiller

​

 

In 1958, billionaire fascist Fred Koch and his wealthy buddies, Robert Welch and Revilo Oliver, established the John Birch Society with the goal of dismantling the “administrative state” to eliminate Federal regulations and restrictions that hindered his oil company’s right to pillage natural resources and pollute air, water, and soil without penalty; limited his ability to fulfill his greed for massive profits unencumbered by taxation; and, to satisfy his intense racist beliefs, overturn every piece of legislation passed since the Civil War that granted rights, protections, or benefits to women and minorities.

 

This cult believes that wealthy white “Christian” men are the only citizens worthy of running the economy, dictating the scope and reach of the government’s power, or directing and limiting the future of our social norms. Over the past seven decades, this cabal has invested billions in a persistent and focused campaign through their propaganda machine at the Heritage Foundation, to produce tyrannical policies that shepherded the Republican Party’s march towards white-nationalism and intolerance in local, state, and federal governance. 

 

They also established the Federalist Society and provided their custodian, Leonard Leo, with $3 billion to bribe universities with obscene grants and scholarships in exchange for the right to name law school deans, who established “conservative” curriculums with the goal of placing carefully vetted extremist judges in life terms on every level of the Federal Judiciary. Mitch McConnell’s ascension to leadership in the Senate Republican Caucus in 2007 accelerated the campaign to transform the courts into dogmatic weapons of political warfare.

 

We are witnessing the ultimate success of their endeavors as their justices (excuse the poor pun) rule against one established and accepted statute after another. They started by removing restrictions or oversight of corporate contributions to political campaigns with (Citizens United vs FEC, 2010), which allowed wealthy donors to flood the media in support of fanatical candidates from your local school board to the presidency.

 

The current majority of the Supreme Court is comprised of six radical Republican justices who lied their way through Senate hearings (like many of unqualified judges sponsored by the Federalist Society, who are sworn to defend and protect the rights of their privileged white sponsors, and dispense with our social liberties). Each promised to respect established precedents including minority voting rights, abortion, and restrictions of Second Amendment rights to own and carry weapons of war…all of which were rescinded at their first opportunity. 

 

At least two of the justices (Thomas and Alito) have acknowledged accepting enormous bribes from patrons who have or had cases pending before the court…not once but repeatedly over years…and they refuse to recuse themselves from those decisions. Unlike every other judge in the nation, members of this elite clique are not subject to term limits or a binding and enforceable code of ethics and there is no way to remove them from office short of impeachment, which would require a sixty-vote majority in the Senate. The authors of Project 2025 suggest adding five more ultra-conservative judges to the court, should Trump regain the presidency.

 

Their Chevron ruling eliminated the ability of non-partisan scientists and experts in government agencies to interpret, oversee, and manage the implementation of laws, passed by Congress to protect every citizen, by substituting judicial oversight. No judge is required to have expertise in any of the complicated subjects they will be litigating – think clean air, water, or the daunting effects of global warming, food and drug safety, work safety, air and surface transportation, banking regulations, your investments, monopolies in business and commerce…to name just a few of the protections that will be discarded or overruled. The court has indicated that they will consider restricting access to in vitro fertilization, birth control, and the right to marry who you love in their next session.

 

Government agencies are no longer permitted to investigate, let alone restrict the dissemination of lies, misinformation, or disinformation on social media, which is free to publish hateful and disgusting propaganda spewed by Trump and his MAGA Republicans to voters in every district in the country.

 

While there is controversy over the recent debate, Donald Trump spent ninety minutes impersonating a human firehose - gushing lies, disinformation, bigotry, racism, and endless claims of victimhood. During the entire program, he failed to answer a single policy question directly. His petulant display proved to the world that he is not capable and certainly not worthy of being allowed to get anywhere near the levers of power in this country.

 

While Trump is a hateful, vile, and disgusting excuse for a human being, he has made no secret of his intention to become a dictator on day one of his next presidency and his first order of business will be directing his Department of Justice to take revenge on his enemies and commanding the National Guard to arrest anyone protesting his election as soon as he is inaugurated (ironically, under the insurrection act). 

 

His second dictate will be renewing and expanding the massive tax cut he granted to the wealthiest one-percent of our citizens, at the expense of all the other tax-payers and the national deficit, which increased by 25% during his four years in office - the largest increase in history. Third will be using the military to round up eleven-million “illegal” immigrants and banish them to concentration camps until they can be deported, which will decimate construction, agriculture, the travel and entertainment industries, and many other sectors of our economy.

 

His legions of followers support his bigotry and believe his version of reality on Earth 2, where a rapist and convicted felon is worshipped as the second coming of Christ, sent by God to save white society from the scourge of real inclusive democracy. These extremists are deeply embedded in all levels of governance and eager to continue executing the Heritage Foundation’s 925-page Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership”.

 

The directive is based on four principles: “restore the family as the center piece of American life and protect our children; dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people; defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats; and secure our God-given individual rights to live freely - what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty’.”

 

The “Mandate” expands those four “patriotic-sounding” doctrines into a detailed step-by-step plan to dismantle our government and ravage our republic by empowering the chief executive with tyrannical authority over all government agencies, expanding the radicalization of the courts, and, as we have witnessed in the current House of Representatives, eliminating legislating by replacing the powers and responsibilities of Congress with political theater. 

 

In a terrifying interview on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts spelled out their intention to lead a “Second American Revolution - to institutionalize Trumpism” that “will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Trump keeps warning of a “bloodbath” and his well-armed surrogates make threats of bloodshed and civil war. The violence and mayhem of January 6th was merely a rehearsal for what they are preparing to unleash after the next election, no matter who wins. Make time to become informed.

 

With the Supreme Court ruling granting blanket immunity for most of Trump’s many crimes, there can be no doubt that the MAGA fanatics have taken control of the courts to protect the elite, while punishing and denigrating their opponents, women, and minorities. Hundreds of bills passed by Republican extremists in nearly half the states demonstrate their total commitment to eradicating real democracy and the basic concepts of freedom, justice, and equality for all citizens, on which the founding fathers based the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

 

If the fascists are allowed to succeed, they will secure total control over all three branches of government. There is no posse of white hats waiting to charge over the horizon to save the day and there is only one solution to the crisis that our country is facing. We are the resistance. We are the only backstop to prevent the impending collapse of our experiment in democracy. Seize the day - step up, organize, and vote to demolish today’s fascist MAGA Republican Party for all time. 

 

I’ve been writing for years that only you can prevent American Fascism. The dark forces have been organizing and pouring billions of dollars into their totalitarian campaign of destruction for seventy years and we are witnessing their success in the headlines every morning. 

 

Today is the day to grasp and accept the reality of the threat. Today is the day to begin the fight to salvage everything we stand for before it becomes the stuff of fading memories and fantastic legends. Step up and make a difference while you still can. 

​

​