THE REDEMPTION SERIES
Dear Fellow Citizens of America,
I'm Rick Stiller and you’re reading this because something has been bothering me about what’s happening to our country, and I’d like to tell you about it.
That concern led me to write a series of novels (yes, a series) that not only describes the problem but acts as a realistic handbook on what must be done to stop the conspiracy before a cult of radical white nationalist MAGA Republicans manages to overturn the next election, install an autocratic dictator, and destroy our democracy.
I call it The Redemption Series.
The Forge
For All That's Right and True
(Click covers to buy now)
Full disclosure: The books are pure fiction and a reflection of the very real conspiracy to dismantle our government and destroy our democracy.
That said, they belong to a category called “Plausible Fiction,” which means they paint a vivid yet daunting picture of something that is happening in our society.
What I’m writing to you about is like the Apollo 13 message to NASA from astronaut Jim Lovell, “Houston, we have a problem.”
Actually, instead of repeating myself, let me tell you a story that might shine a light on what’s been going on under the surface – and trust me, it’s been going on for so long that even the current Republican leadership and their financial sponsors have twisted themselves into knots to avoid exposing the truth about their embrace of the hypocrisy, lies, bigotry, and hate that fueled the MAGA craze.
My father was a world-renowned biochemist. He spent the years between 1928-1932 working on his doctorate at St. Andrews in Scotland.
During that period, he made repeated trips to Germany, where he witnessed Hitler’s rise to power, the country's embrace of fascism, and the brutal suppression of every minority.
When I was twelve, I was fascinated by how Hitler had managed to convince millions of Germans to fall in line with his insanity.
To clear up my naivete, for lack of a better word, my father handed me copies of two very well-known books: Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto.
After I read them, my father asked me the difference. I responded that the messages were aimed at pretty much the same group of citizens:
Desperate unemployed "Aryan" workers were looking for hope and someone to blame for their misery, even though they came from opposite extremes along the political spectrum.
In my mind, Hitler’s motto was basically “I’ll put a chicken in every pot and restore your dignity - but we can’t succeed unless we agree that 'non-Aryan minorities’ are responsible for everything that’s wrong with our society.
When I shared my version of Hitler’s pitch to my father, he pulled out yet another famous history book: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and instructed me to read the speeches between 1928-1932, when Hitler and the Nazis corrupted the political system and seized power.
The reason I’m telling you this is that, as I recall the contents of those speeches, I’m amazed but not surprised at the similarity of methods perpetrated by the modern-day autocrats who attempted to destroy our democracy in our most recent elections and will do so again in the next.
These power-hungry anti-democratic billionaires harnessed white nationalism festering in our society to unite right-wing extremists into a massive violent grass-roots movement and hijacked the Republican Party in the process.
We see the conspiracy unfolding in the media every day. Today’s campaign is massive, well-financed, and highly structured. It makes organized crime look like child’s play and it’s been maturing for decades to consume and radicalize the “conservative” vote.
And it’s grounded in two issues:
Greed-driven hunger for power
Fake-Christian White-Supremacy
Today’s conspiracy has used these issues to corrupt the current MAGA Republican Party to create the worst, most destructive, widespread, and evil kind of threat for America. And they've published their intentions in a 900-page document called Project 2025, where they lay out in minute detail the plan to "institutionalize Trumpism" by replacing 50,000 non-partisan civil servants, experts who oversee the actual function of government, with Trump toadies who only have to answer one question of their job applications, "Was the 2020 election stolen."
They intend to eliminate the Department of Education, The Department of Commerce, NOAA, the EPA,the FDA, and the independence of the Department of Justice and the FBI (transforming them into Trump's personal vengeance department), ignore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and add five more ultra-conservative judges to the Supreme Court to ensure the future of MAGA extremism for generations.
The next Republican administration will do away with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and school lunches (and force public schools to include Christian doctrine in every lesson), outlaw abortion, birth control, interracial and gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, voting rights and employment protections for women and minorities, just to name a few of the rights and benefits that will disappear.
And that’s what The Redemption Series is all about.
My fiction is based on a real conspiracy. One that’s happening now, every day. We've watched it evolving on television and in the media, as they built this political machine over decades and unleashed their storm-troopers to attack our Capitol.
We’re in the midst of a campaign to install the tyranny of minority rule.
A conspiracy that intends to replace our democracy with an autocracy of plutocrats.
They are funded by right-wing billionaires and major corporate back-channel donations.
And they don't give a damn about governing.
What they really want is the power to rule over the rest of us in a two-class society, where the rich dominate everyone else.
The Klan-of-Twenty who control the Republican mini-majority in the House of Representatives is laying the foundations for the nightmarish dominance of this right-wing cabal:
Replacing the current tax code and defunding the IRS, which would end the threat of requiring the rich and their corporations to pay their share, with a national sales tax that would place the burden on middle and lower-income earners. If you think our current battle with inflation is a national problem, just wait.
Cutting environmental regulations. Especially fossil fuels, where corporate profits are the only incentive. Enjoy clean air, drinkable water, and our national parks? Doing away with NOAA, the department that monitors and predicts the weather which prevents massive death and damage from surprise storms? They don't care.
Exclusive long-term control (by any means necessary) of all three branches of government. The elimination of regulations imposed by federal authority would facilitate the zealous accumulation of vast wealth by this exclusive group of titans, who have invested billions over decades to wrest control of the nation by sponsoring white-nationalist candidates who are willing to dismantle the government and demolish our democracy.
The radical agenda of the current MAGA Republican majority in the House of Representatives pays homage to their billionaire sponsors who expect extravagant returns on their investments. The rough and tumble rivalries within the caucus suggest little chance of any meaningful legislation being passed before the next election offers an opportunity to replace the laggards with folks who actually want to work for the people.
Trump's previous administration installed hundreds of unqualified jurists to the federal bench and transformed the Supreme Court into a radical majority with the sole intention of Rescinding all rights and benefits passed over the last century to return our nation to pre-Civil War norms, where a white male could own and brutalize his women and his slaves with no fear of government interference.
Right-wing media is cheering their real, honest-to-God, greed-driven, power-hungry, White-Supremacy powered conspiracy to dismantle our democracy and rescind our most basic rights by claiming that their criminal candidate for president is the second coming of Christ!
Sounds like a great plot for a dystopian novel. Unfortunately, the facts that inspired my fiction are true and my new novel, For All That's Right and True, exposes the birth of the fascist campaign and what we might expect if they are allowed to continue.
Also, check my blog for my very plausible and factual thoughts on what’s really happening today in the USA…
And read the novels in The Redemption Series to discover how my characters suggest we stop it.
RICK STILLER
